He had anticipated impatient contempt for his artist's impedimenta,
but to his surprise the mountain boy climbed the rock, and halted
before the sketch with a face that slowly softened to an expression of
amazed admiration. Finally, he took up the square of academy board with
a tender care of which his rough hands would have seemed incapable, and
stood stock still, presenting an anomalous figure in his rough clothes
as his eyes grew almost idolatrous. Then, he brought the landscape over
to its creator, and, though no word was spoken, there flashed between
the eyes of the artist, whose signature gave to a canvas the value of a
precious stone and the jeans-clad boy whose destiny was that of the
vendetta, a subtle, wordless message. It was the countersign of
brothers-in-blood who recognize in each other the bond of a mutual
passion.
The boy and the girl, under Lescott's direction, packed the outfit,
and stored the canvas in the protecting top of the box. Then, while
Sally turned and strode down creek in search of Lescott's lost mount,
the two men rode up stream in silence. Finally. Samson spoke slowly and
diffidently.
"Stranger," he ventured, "ef hit hain't askin' too much, will ye let
me see ye paint one of them things?"
"Gladly," was the prompt reply.
Then, the boy added covertly: "Don't say nothin' erbout hit ter none of these folks. They'd devil me."
The dusk was falling now, and the hollows choking with murk. Over the
ridge, the evening star showed in a lonely point of pallor. The peaks,
which in a broader light had held their majestic distances, seemed with
the falling of night to draw in and huddle close in crowding herds of
black masses. The distant tinkling of a cow-bell came drifting down the
breeze with a weird and fanciful softness.
"We're nigh home now," said Samson at the end of some minutes' silent
plodding. "Hit's right beyond thet thar bend."
Then, they rounded a point of timber, and came upon a small party of
men whose attitudes even in the dimming light conveyed a subtle
suggestion of portent. Some sat their horses, with one leg thrown
across the pommel. Others stood in the road, and a bottle of white
liquor was passing in and out among them. At the distance they
recognized the gray mule, though even the fact that it carried a double
burden was not yet manifest.
"Thet you, Samson?" called an old man's voice, which was still very
deep and powerful.
"Hello, Unc' Spicer!" replied the boy.