"Go on," he growled. "Let's see what them damned curs hes ter say now."
Mounting, they kicked their mules into a jog. From the men inside the
fence came no note of derision; no hint of triumph. They stood looking
out with expressionless, mask-like faces until their enemies had passed
out of sight around the shoulder of the mountain. The Souths had met
and fronted an accusation made after the enemy's own choice and method.
A jury of two hounds had acquitted them. It was not only because the
dogs had refused to recognize in Samson a suspicious character that the
enemy rode on grudgingly convinced, but, also, because the family,
which had invariably met hostility with hostility, had so willingly
courted the acid test of guilt or innocence.
Samson, passing around the corner of the house, caught a flash of red
up among the green clumps of the mountainside, and, pausing to gaze at
it, saw it disappear into the thicket of brush. He knew then that Sally
had followed him, and why she had done it, and, framing a stern rebuke
for the foolhardiness of the venture, he plunged up the acclivity in
pursuit. But, as he made his way cautiously, he heard around the
shoulder of a mass of piled-up sandstone a shaken sobbing, and,
slipping toward it, found the girl bent over with her face in her
hands, her slander body convulsively heaving with the weeping of
reaction, and murmuring half-incoherent prayers of thanksgiving for his
deliverance.
"Sally!" he exclaimed, hurrying over and dropping to his knees beside
her. "Sally, thar hain't nothin' ter fret about, little gal. Hit's all
right."
She started up at the sound of his voice, and then, pillowing her head
on his shoulder, wept tears of happiness. He sought for words, but no
words came, and his lips and eyes, unused to soft expressions, drew
themselves once more into the hard mask with which he screened his
heart's moods.
Days passed uneventfully after that. The kinsmen dispersed to their
scattered coves and cabins. Now and again came a rumor that Jesse Purvy
was dying, but always hard on its heels came another to the effect that
the obdurate fighter had rallied, though the doctors held out small
encouragement of recovery.
One day Lescott, whose bandaged arm gave him much pain, but who was
able to get about, was strolling not far from the house with Samson.
They were following a narrow trail along the mountainside, and, at a
sound no louder than the falling of a walnut, the boy halted and laid a
silencing hand on the painter's shoulder. Then followed an unspoken
command in his companion's eyes. Lescott sank down behind a rock,
cloaked with glistening rhododendron leafage, where Samson had already
crouched, and become immovable and noiseless. They had been there only
a short time when they saw another figure slipping quietly from tree to
tree below them.