The Hills of Refuge Part 17

"Where is father?" Kenneth, the older, a tall, dark young man, asked, hurriedly.

"He is in the library, I think," his sister answered, "Kensy, what is the matter?"

"Oh, don't ask me!" he cried, impatiently, a wild look in his eyes.

"Keep the horse there ready, Martin. But never mind. What's the use? It is all in. We'll have to leave the main road, anyway. We must skip for the mountains."

"Oh, brother, brother Kensy, what is it?" Mary cried, in sheer terror, as she clutched his arm.

Drawing it from her impatiently, even roughly, he cried out to Zilla: "Call father! Hurry! No, I'll find him."

"Oh, Martin, Martin, what is it?" and Mary turned to her younger brother, who was short, rather frail-looking, and had blue eyes and reddish hair.

"Nothing, nothing," he said, his glance following Kenneth into the house. "Don't ask me, sis. It is all right."

"But I know something has gone wrong!" Mary cried. "You and Kensy look it; you can't hide it. What is it?"

He shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and then said, reluctantly: "Well, we got in a little sc.r.a.pe, that's all, and had to make a break to get away. The sheriff and a deputy are after us."

"After you! after you!" Mary gasped. "What have you done?"

Martin hesitated sullenly, his eyes on the gra.s.s.

"Tell yo' sister de trufe, boy," Aunt Zilla suddenly broke in. "Be ershamed er yo'se'f, keepin' 'er awake all night wid worry. Tell 'er what's de matter. Don't yer see she's half 'stracted over yo-all's doin's?"

"Oh, well," he responded, "it was a little shooting-sc.r.a.pe. Ken and Tobe Keith had a dispute in Gardener's pool-room about an hour ago. Tobe drew a knife. Some say he didn't, but I saw it; I'm sure I saw it. I grabbed him around the waist, and--well, Ken was a little full and had a gun, and while I and Tobe were wrestling he fired."

"And killed him!" Mary cried. "Oh G.o.d, have mercy!"

"No, no, don't be a fool, sis! Please don't! He was just wounded slightly, that's all."

"But why did you run away, then?" Mary's pale lips shook as the words dropped from them.

"Because," he frowned--"because some of the mountain boys advised us to, and Sheriff Frazier lived around the corner and had heard the shots.

This horse and buggy was loaned to us by Steve Pinkney. He'll be here after them. Zilla, feed and water the horse, please. We've got to get away in the mountains till--till we find out how Keith is."

Mary started to say something, but choked up. She put her arm about her brother's neck, but he gently took it down.

"Don't make it worse than it is, sis dear," he faltered. "We are in trouble, big trouble, this time, but we hardly knew what we were doing.

If the fellow lives, we will--"

"If he lives! My G.o.d! _if_ he lives!" Mary moaned.

Her father and her older brother were coming out on the veranda now. The old gentleman had a book and ma.n.u.script under his handless arm. Charles noted that he was not even pale, though a certain expression of irritation rested on his patrician features.

"Yes, leave the horse," he was saying. "Get into the mountains. As you say, you know a good hiding-place. I'll remember the directions to it, and we'll get food to you somehow or other. It may not be serious. The scoundrel was attacking you with a knife, you think?"

"Martin thought so," Kenneth answered, "but I'm not sure of it now.

Steve Pinkney says Martin was mistaken, and that is why he advised us to run. I was drinking. My nerves are all shattered. I got mad when I saw Keith and Martin struggling, and fired before I thought. I'm sorry, but if is too late now. We must get away."

"Yes, and before somebody sees you here," Rowland said. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes, but we can't wait," Kenneth answered. "Come on, Martin."

Mary had run to her older brother. She held out her arms; she was sobbing in her white fluttering throat. He took her into his embrace, drew her bare head to his shoulder, and stroked her hair.

"We are bad boys, sis dear," he said, tenderly. "We have not treated you right; no one knows that better than Martin and I, and we are getting paid for it. I hope Keith won't die. G.o.d knows I do! I really haven't anything against him. It was just a dispute over a game of poker. He was mad and so was I. Good-by. We must go. They will not find us where we are going."

"Hurry!" she gasped, as she slid from his arms. "Hurry!"

Side by side the two boys hastened toward the barn. The little group saw them pa.s.s through the stable-yard, climb over the fence, and vanish in the thicket which was the border of the vast forest that reached out, dank and trackless, into the mountains toward the west.

With a little sigh of despair, Mary sank down on the lowest step of the veranda. Her father looked at her for a moment with a childlike stare of perplexity, and then said:

"Come, come, don't act that way! It won't do any good."

"Come in de house, missie," Aunt Zilla said, gently, and as soothingly as a mother to an ill child. "Dem boys is gwine ter give de sheriff de slip en' dat man will pull thoo. Come on. Yo' breakfust is gittin' cold.

Mr. Brown wants ter git ter his wuk in de cotton."

To his surprise, Charles saw Mary sit more erect. It was as if by a superhuman effort she had shaken herself temporarily free from the overpowering disaster.

"Yes, you must have your breakfast," she said, smiling faintly at Charles. "Come, let's go to the dining-room."

At the table he found himself admiring the self-control of both Mary and her father. Charles noted that Mary ate but little, and that little she seemed to take without relish. Rowland had his ma.n.u.script at his side at the table, and once he consulted it, as if his mind had reverted to something he had been interested in before the arrival of his sons.

"I am sorry that I did not have the opportunity to present my boys to you," he remarked once. "I told Kenneth who you were and a.s.sured him that you had given us evidence of your friendly spirit. He is glad that you have come to help us out with the work. One might not think so from his present conduct, but he hates to see his sister do manual labor in the field."

CHAPTER VII

Mary, now a different creature from what she was the day before, accompanied Charles to the cotton-field after breakfast. "You have done an enormous amount for half a day," she said. "You must not drive yourself like that. I know why you are doing it, but you must not. It would be wrong for us to permit it. From your accent I take you to be a Northerner, but you are acting like a cavalier of the old South. I appreciate it--I appreciate it, but I can't let you do so much."

"What, that?" he began. "As if that were anything! Why, Miss Rowland--"

His emotions swept his power of utterance away from him, and he stood, hoe in hand, helpless under the spell of her storm-swept beauty and appealing womanhood. He wanted to aid her more materially. He wanted to offer his services in behalf of her brothers. He would have given his life--in his eyes it was a futile thing at best--for her cause; and yet he knew himself to be helpless. A woman's intuition is a marvelous thing, and when it permits itself to fathom a man's love it is as sure as the law of gravitation. She understood. Her dawning comprehension beamed faintly in her stricken face. He saw her breast rise tremulously and fall.

"I think I know what you started to say," she faltered. "And it is very, very sweet of you when you have known us such a short time. Isn't it strange that it should be like this? I know I can trust you--something makes me feel sure of it--and you have impressed my father the same way, and even critical Aunt Zilla."

He leaned on his hoe-handle. He now felt more sure of his utterance. "I want to help you," he cried. "I know how terribly you must feel over this matter. You are too young and gentle and frail for this dastardly thing to rest on you. I must do something to beat it off. I--"

"There really is nothing," she half sobbed. "As much as I love my brothers I'd rather see them dead than on trial for murder. Why, Mr.

Brown, the sheriff wants to put them in that dirty jail at Carlin! I saw it once. The cells are iron cages in the center of big rooms walled about with brick. Oh, oh, oh!"

He longed to comfort her, but there was nothing that he could say. The keenest pain of his entire life seemed to be wrenching his heart from his body. The still fields, the slanting sunlight on the long rows of cotton-plants, the cloud-draped mountains, grimly mocked him in their placid inactivity when it seemed to him that the very universe ought to be striving in her behalf.

"Oh, it will be only a question of time," she moaned. "They can't hide in the mountains long, and if Tobe Keith dies--oh, oh! if he dies--"