"Why, I do believe that's Ola Derf on Cindy!" she said heavily.390"Is it? No, I reckon not."
Since the day on which Ola had bidden her strange reproachful adieu to Lance's empty room, no one had seen her on Turkey Track, though it was reported that she was staying with kin no further away than Hepzibah.
"It is Ola," said Callista, as the rider of the black filly came nearer. "And she—she's got my baby! O Lord! What now?"
For a moment the astonishment of it dulled the agony of rebellion which once more surged in Callista's soul as she looked at that chimney through the trees and knew that there by its hearthstone were the sheriff and his men ready to take Lance from her.
"I come a-past the Gentry place and stopped to git the boy," Ola called, as soon as she could make them hear.
It occurred to Callista that this girl, too, supposed that Lance would try to escape, and that they would wish to take the baby with them.
"Sheriff Beason and his men are in yon," Lance told Ola, glancing in the direction of his father's house. "I'm going to my own place to give myself up—they're coming up there for me."
Ola nodded, without making any immediate reply. She looked with curious questioning from husband to wife, shifting the baby to her hip.
"My, but he's solid," she said enviously, the aboriginal391mother-woman showing strong in her ugly little brown face.
"I'll take him," Callista murmured, putting out her arms almost mechanically.
But Ola made no movement to hand over the baby. She yet sat her horse, glancing from one countenance to the other.
"I've been a-stayin' down in Hepzibah," she observed abruptly. "My man, he's about to be out of the pen, and him and Flent Hands had dealings that—well, that's what Charlie was sent up for."
"Your man?" echoed Callista; and Lance smiled as she had not seen him for long.
"Yes, Charlie Massengale, my man," Ola repeated. "Heap o' folks around here didn't know I had one. We was wedded in the Territory when I was fo'teen, and he got into trouble in the Settlement—this here trouble that Flent was mixed up in—and Pappy 'lowed that as long as 'yo' old man was in the pen you better not name anything about him.'"
She was smoothing the baby's garments, making ready, with evident reluctance, to surrender him to them. Ajax the Second shouted inarticulately at his mother, but kept a fairly apprehensive eye upon the man who rode beside her.
"Well, young feller," said Ola finally, lifting the baby and holding him toward his parents, "I reckon I've got to give you392up, jest like I had to give up yo' pappy afore ye."
She laughed a little hardily, and looked with a sort of dubious defiance at Callista, who paid no attention, but pushed her mule close in beside Cindy.
"They say that Flenton Hands is—is—Did you go to Flenton's funeral, Ola?" asked Callista fearfully, as the women negotiated the exchange of the baby.
Ola laughed again, and more loudly.
"I say funeral!" she exclaimed. "Flenton Hands has got a powerful lot more davilment to do in this world before they put him un'neath the ground. I—Pappy—they—well, you know I was down there when this all happened, and somehow, I thest got the notion in my head that Flent wasn't so mighty awful bad hurt; and when I heared how Beason was a-carryin' on, I went to their house to see Flent. I named to him that Charlie's time was 'bout to be up an' he'd be out, and that what Charlie had stood for him was a plenty. I axed him didn't he want to send a writin' up to Beason and stop this foolishness up here on Turkey Track, and after I'd talked to him for a little spell he 'lowed he did."
Callista, hearkening in silence, caught the child in so strained a grasp that he made a little outcry, half scared, half offended. Ola pulled from the bosom of her dress a letter which393she flung over to Lance with the uncouth yet generous gesture of a savage.
"'Course Flent could hang on and make you a little trouble—but he ain't a-goin' to," she said sturdily. "I reckon he's called off his dogs in that writin'. Hit's to Dan Beason."
With the words she wheeled her horse and would have gone, but Callista, at the imminent risk of dropping Ajax, caught at Cindy's bridle rein.
"I've got a heap to thank you for, Ola Derf," she said in a voice shaken with deep feeling.
"You ain't got a thing in the world to thank me for, Callista Gentry," declared the little brown girl, and drew her black brows at Lance's wife. But Callista's whole nature melted into grateful love.
"Where you goin' now?" she asked wistfully. "Looks like you and me ought to be better friends than we ever have been."
Ola considered the proposition, and shook her head.
"I reckon not," she said finally. "I'm a-goin' down to Nashville right soon. Charlie will want me to be right thar when he gits out. He's not the worst man in the world, ef he ain't—"
She turned a sudden swimming look on the pair with their child.
"Good-by," she ended abruptly, and signaling Cindy with her heel, loped off down the road.
The hounds at the Kimbro Cleaverage place were evidently away on394hunting enterprises of their own. Lance and his wife rode to the gate without challenge, dismounted, tethered the animals, and omitting the customary halloo, opened the door upon the family seated at a late breakfast.
For a moment nobody in the room stirred or spoke. The sheriff paused with a morsel checked on its way to his open mouth. Roxy Griever, coffee-pot in hand, stopped between fireplace and table. Sylvane, who had half risen at the sound of steps, remained as he was, staring, while old Kimbro's eyes reached the newcomer with pathetic entreaty in their depths. Ma'y-Ann-Marth' broke the spell by rushing at her Uncle Lance and butting into his knees, shouting welcome. Then Sylvane hastily leaped up and ran to his brother's side, as though to share as nearly as might be that which must now befall. The men on Beason's either hand nudged him and whispered.
"Do it quick," Roxy heard one mutter.
"Better get the handcuffs on him," admonished the other. "He's a slippery cuss."
Roxy cast a look of helpless fury at the officers of the law, and mechanically advanced to fill their cups once more—gladly would she have poured to them henbane, plague, the venom of adders. Beason jammed into his mouth the bite he had started to take, and speaking around it in a voice of somewhat impaired dignity, began his solemn recitative,
"Lance Cleaverage, I arrest you in the name of the law—"395
"Hold on a minute," suggested Lance, mildly, bending to pick up Ma'y-Ann-Marth' (both of the deputies ducked as his head went down); "I've got a letter for you, Daniel Beason." He tossed the envelope to the sheriff across the little girl's flaxen head. "Read it before you make your arrest. Read it out, or to yourself."
"Flent ain't dead!" cried Roxy, with a woman's instinctive piercing to the heart of the matter. They all remained gazing at Beason while he tore open and laboriously deciphered the communication. His face fell almost comically.
"No, he ain't dead—an' he ain't a-goin' to die," blustered the sheriff, trying to cover his own pre-knowledge of the fact. "Well, he's made a fool of me one time too many. When I go back to Hepzibah, I'll settle this here business with Mr. Flenton Hands, that thinks he can sick the law on people and call it off, same as you would a hound dog. Ouch! The good Lord, woman! you needn't scald a body."
For in her blissful relief, Roxy had swung the spout of the coffee-pot a wide circle, which sprayed the boiling fluid liberally over the sheriff's thumb. He regarded her frowningly,the member in his mouth, as she set the pot down ruthlessly on her cherished tablecloth of floursacks and ran to add herself to the group about her returned brother.
The deputies got to their feet and came over to shake hands,396muttering broken phrases concerning the law, and always having entertained the utmost good will toward their quarry. Even Beason, nursing his painful thumb, finally offered a surly paw. Only old Kimbro wheeled from the table and sat with bent head,his working face turned toward the hearthstone, tears running unchecked, unheeded, down the cheeks that had never been thus wet in the days of his most poignant sorrow.
"No, thank you kindly. Sis' Roxy," Lance refused his sister's invitation when she would have forced him and Callista into places at the table. "We'll be movin' along home." His tones dwelt fondly on the word. "Neither Callista nor me is rightly hungry yet; we'll take our first meal at our own place to-day."
It was bare branches they rode under going home to the cabin in the Gap; but the sap had started at the roots. Winter had done his worst; his bolt was sped; Spring was on the way.
Fire was kindled once more on the cold hearth, a splendid banner of flame wrapping the hickory logs, and Lance sat before it with his son on his knees, warming the small rosy feet chilled from the long ride. For a moment he caught and held both restless, dimpled little members in one sinewy brown hand, marveling at them, thrilling to the touch of their velvet softness.
Outside, a cardinal's note came persistently from the stream's397edge, a gallant call. High over the Cumberlands arched the blue, dappled with white cloud. It was a rarely beautiful day, such as nearly every February brings a few of in that region. On every rocky hillside farm of the mountain country harness and implements were being dragged forth and inspected against the beginning of the year's work. Winter's prisoners were everywhere rejoicing in the prospect of release. Doors were left open; girls called from outside announcing finds of early blossoms; the piping voices of children at play came shrill and keen on the cool, sunlit air.
Within Callista's dusk kitchen, the firelight set moving ruddy shine and shadow on the brown walls. Midway one of these she had hung up the banjo, having carried it home across her shoulders. Its sheepskin round showed a misty moon within the gleam of metal band where the blaze struck out a sparkling crescent to rim one side. It made no question now of "How many miles, how many years?" for the answer was come. Later Lance would take it down and string it afresh, and the little feet that kicked their pink heels against his knee, their fat toes curling ecstatically in the heat of the fire, would dance to its strumming. Even Callista would learn the delight of measuring her step by its music. But now it was mute. There was no need of its voice in the harmony that was here. And when Callista, in the pauses of398her homely task of dinner making, knelt beside the pair at the fire and encircled them both with her arms, Lance knew that he had at last brought home his own to his island. An island! It stretched away before the eye of his spirit, a continent, a world, a universe! The confines of that airy domain where he had dwelt alone and uncompanioned, were suddenly wide enough to take in all mankind, though they held just now only the trinity of home—father, mother, and child.