"Your allies in the little war against Colonel Craigmiles," said Bigelow, and there was something like a touch of mild reproach in his low tone when he added: "Misery isn't the only thing that 'acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.'"
"Apparently not," said Ballard; and they went together into the kitchen half of the cabin which was built, in true Tennessee fashion, as "two pens and a passage."
The welcome accorded them by the sullen-faced man who was already frying rashers of bacon over the open fire on the hearth was not especially cordial. "Mek' ye an arm and re'ch for yerselves," was his sole phrase of hospitality, when the bacon and pan-bread were smoking on the huge hewn slab which served for a table; and he neither ate with his guests nor waited upon them, save to refill the tin coffee cups as they were emptied.
Neither of the two young men stayed longer than they were obliged to in the dirty, leather-smelling kitchen. There was freedom outside, with the morning world of fresh, zestful immensities for a smoking-room; and when they had eaten, they went to sit on a flat rock by the side of the little stream to fill and light their pipes, Ballard crumbling the cut-plug and stoppering the pipe for his crippled companion.
"How is the bullet-gouge by this time?" he questioned, when the tobacco was alight.
"It's pretty sore, and no mistake," Bigelow acknowledged frankly. Whereupon Ballard insisted upon taking the bandages off and re-dressing the wound, with the crystal-clear, icy water of the mountain stream for its cleansing.
"It was a sheer piece of idiocy on my part--letting you come on with me after you got this," was his verdict, when he had a daylight sight of the bullet score. "But I don't mean to be idiotic twice in the same day," he went on. "You're going to stay right here and keep quiet until we come along back and pick you up, late this afternoon."
"Nice, cheerful prospect," he commented. "The elder cattle thief isn't precisely one's ideal of the jovial host. By the way, what was the matter with him while we were eating breakfast? He looked and acted as if there were a sick child in some one of the dark corners which he was afraid we might disturb."
Ballard nodded. "I was wondering if you remarked it. Did you hear the sick baby?"