“Lordy!” she said, “but I do git lonesome over hyeh.”
“Wouldn't you like to go over to the Gap with me sometimes?”
Straightway her face was a ray of sunlight.
She stopped suddenly and pulled in her horse, but Hale had heard nothing.
“Hello!” shouted a voice from the bushes, and Devil Judd Tolliver issued from them with an axe on his shoulder. “I heerd you'd come back an' I'm glad to see ye.” He came down to the road and shook Hale's hand heartily.
“Whut you been cryin' about?” he added, turning his hawk-like eyes on the little girl.
“Did she git mad with ye 'bout somethin'?” said the old man to Hale. “She never cries 'cept when she's mad.” Hale laughed.
“You jes' hush up--both of ye,” said the girl with a sharp kick of her right foot.
“I reckon you can't stamp the ground that fer away from it,” said the old man dryly. “If you don't git the better of that all-fired temper o' yourn hit's goin' to git the better of you, an' then I'll have to spank you agin.”
“I reckon you ain't goin' to whoop me no more, pap. I'm a-gittin' too big.”
The old man opened eyes and mouth with an indulgent roar of laughter.
“Come on up to the house,” he said to Hale, turning to lead the way, the little girl following him. The old step-mother was again a-bed; small Bub, the brother, still unafraid, sat down beside Hale and the old man brought out a bottle of moonshine.
“I reckon I can still trust ye,” he said.
The liquor was as fiery as ever, but it was grateful, and again the old man took nearly a tumbler full plying Hale, meanwhile, about the happenings in town the day before--but Hale could tell him nothing that he seemed not already to know.
“It was quar,” the old mountaineer said. “I've seed two men with the drap on each other and both afeerd to shoot, but I never heerd of sech a ring-around-the-rosy as eight fellers with bead on one another and not a shoot shot. I'm glad I wasn't thar.”
He frowned when Hale spoke of the Red Fox.
“You can't never tell whether that ole devil is fer ye or agin ye, but I've been plum' sick o' these doin's a long time now and sometimes I think I'll just pull up stakes and go West and git out of hit--altogether.”
“How did you learn so much about yesterday--so soon?”
“Oh, we hears things purty quick in these mountains. Little Dave Tolliver come over here last night.”