When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry Part 22

"I reckon ye knows what this means, Blossom. Why air ye willin' ter venture hit?"

Still leaning tremulously against the c.h.i.n.ked wall, she answered with the thrill of feeling and purpose in her voice.

"I hain't askin' what hit means. I hain't keerin' what hit means. All I knows it thet ye're in peril--an' thet's enough."

Jerry caught her in his arms, crushed her to him, felt her lips against his lips; her arms clinging softly about his neck, and at last he spoke--no longer with restraint.

"Until to-night I've always fought against love and I thought I was stronger than _it_ was, but I reckon that was just because I've never really come face-to-face with its full power, before. Now I'm going out again."

"No! No! I won't suffer hit," she protested with fervent vehemence.

"Ye're a-goin' ter stay right hyar. Ye b'longs ter me now an' I aims ter keep ye--unharmed!"

Abruptly they fell silent, warned by some premonitory sense and, as they stood listening, a clamor of knocking sounded at the door.

Thrusting him into her bedroom and screening him behind a ma.s.s of clothing that hung in a small corner closet unenclosed, but deeply shadowed, she braced herself once more into seeming tranquillity and went to the front of the house. Then she threw wide the door.

"We wants ter hev speech with Brother Fulkerson," came the unrecognized voice of a stranger whose hat brim shielded his face in the darkness.

"He hain't hyar an' he won't be back afore midday ter-morrow,"

responded the girl with ingenuous composure. "I kain't hardly invite ye in--because I'm hyar all alone," she added with a disarming gravity.

"Will ye leave any message?"

Out there among the shadows she heard the murmurs of a whispered consultation, and despite a palpitation of fear she bravely held the picture.

Then, partly because her manner carried conviction against suspicion, and partly because to enter would be to reveal ident.i.ties, the voice shouted back: "No, thank ye, ma'am. I reckon we'll fare on."

CHAPTER XIII

Before Henderson had come that night, Blossom had been trying to study, but the pages of her book had developed the trick of becoming blurred.

Two faces persisted in rising before her imagination; one, the reproachful countenance of Bear Cat, whom she ought to love whole-heartedly; the other, that of Henderson, whom she told herself she admired only as she might admire the President of the United States or the man who had written the dictionary--with distant and respectful appreciation.

"He says I'm all right," she mused, "but I reckon he _knows_ in his heart that I ain't good enough fer him--ner fer his folks."

Tears sprang into her eyes at the confession, and her reasoning went upon the rocks of illogic. "In the first place," she irrelevantly argued, "I'm in love with Bear Cat--an' in the second to think about Mr. Henderson would be right smart like crying for the moon."

Then Henderson had come; had come asking refuge from danger. He had declared his love with tumultuous force--and it seemed to Blossom that, after all, the moon was hers without crying for it.

When she had fed him in silence, because of the possibility of lurking spies outside, they sat, unmindful of pa.s.sing hours, before the roar of the stone hearth and as the man's arms held her close to him she let her long lashes droop over her eyes and surrendered her hair and lips to his kisses.

They had no great need of words, but sometimes she raised her lids and gazed steadfastly into his face, and as the carmine flecks of the blaze lighted her cheeks, the eyes were wide and unmasked, with a full, yet proud, surrender.

He thought that for this gift of flower-like beauty and love the abandonment of his stern opportunism was a cheap exchange. His eyes, too, were glowing with an ardent light and both were spared the irony of realization that afterward impulse must again yield to the censorship of colder considerations. There is nothing more real than an impossible dream--while it endures.

Once the girl's glance fell on a home-made doll, with a coa.r.s.e wig of horse-hair, propped on the mantel-shelf. It was one of those crude makeshifts which mountain children call poppets, as our great-grandfathers' great-grandmothers called them puppets.

A shadow of self-accusing pain crossed Blossom's face. "Turney whittled that poppet fer me outen hickory wood when I was a jest a leetle gal,"

she whispered remorsefully, then added: "Turney 'lowed ter wed me some day."

Henderson rea.s.sured her with irrefutable logic.

"Turner wouldn't have you disobey your heart, Blossom. Only you must be sure what your heart commands."

"I _am_ sure. I'm plumb dead-sartain sure!" she vehemently responded, though still in a suppressed voice.

They sat before the fire, alertly wakeful, in the shadow of impending danger until the first pale hint of dawn. Then Blossom went out with water pails, ostensibly busied about her early tasks but really on a journey of investigation.

Returning, satisfied of temporary safety, she said briefly and authoritatively: "Come on, hit won't do fer ye ter tarry hyar. They'll come back, sartain sure. Thar's a leetle cave back thar in ther rocks that's beknownst only to Turner an' me. Hit's dry an' clean an' thar's sweet water runnin' through hit. I'll fotch ye yore victuals every day--an' when the s'arch fer ye lets up a leetle, I'll guide ye acrost inter Virginny whar ye kin strike the railroad without goin' back to Marlin Town."

"If I were you, Blossom," suggested the man as they slipped out of the house before full daylight, "I wouldn't tell Brother Fulkerson anything about my hiding place. These men who seek my life are probably influential. If your father can truthfully deny any knowledge of my being near, it will save him embarra.s.sment. I don't want to make enemies for him--and you."

The girl pondered this phase of the situation judicially for a moment, then nodded gravely: "I reckon thet's ther wisest way," she agreed.

For three days Blossom carried food across the steeps to the hidden man, then late one cold night, when again her father was away on some mission of kindness which would keep him from home for twenty-four hours or more, she appeared at the mouth of the cave and signaled to the refugee.

She had decided that the moment had arrived for making the dash with him across the Virginia border, and since she knew every foot of the way, it would be better to travel in the cover of darkness.

It was a long and tedious journey, and the girl led the way tirelessly through frost-rimed thickets with a resilient endurance that seemed incompatible with her slenderness.

When the rising sun was a pale disk like platinum, they had arrived on the backbone of a high ridge and the time had come for parting.

Below them banks of white vapor obliterated the valleys. Above them, in the misty skies, began to appear opalescent patches of exquisite color and delicacy. About them swept and eddied clean and invigorating currents of frosted air.

For a little while reluctant of leave-taking, they stood silent, and the argent shield of the sun burst into fiery splendor. Then the heights stood out brilliant and unveiled.

"I reckon," said Blossom falteringly, "hit's come time to bid ye farewell."

The man took her hands in his and held them lingeringly; but with a sudden and pa.s.sionate gesture Blossom withdrew them and threw her arms about his neck.

"But ye hain't a-goin' fer always? Ye aims ter come back ter me ergin in good time, don't ye?"

For a little while he held her tightly clasped with his lips pressed to her soft hair, then he spoke impetuously:

"I aims ter come back ter ye right soon."

"Ye mustn't come twell hit's safe, though," she commanded, and after that she asked softly: "Now thet we're plighted I reckon ye don't forbid me ter tell my pappy, does ye?"

Henderson's muscles grew suddenly rigid and beads of sweat moistened his forehead in spite of the frosty tang of the morning air.

The words brought back a sudden and terrifying realization; the renewed conflict of a dilemma. He was going out into the other world, leaving the dead reckoning of the primal for the calculated standards of modernity. He was plighted to a semi-illiterate! Yet as her breath came fragrantly from upturned lips against his temples, all that went down under a wave of pa.s.sionate love.

"No, Blossom," he advised steadily, "don't tell him yet. There are things that must be arranged--things that are hard to explain to you just now. Wait until I come back. I've got to study out this attack from ambush so that I can know whom I'm fighting and how to fight. It may take time--and if I write to you, naming a place,--will you come to me?"

Gravely and with full trust she nodded her head. "I'll come anywhars--an' any time--to you," she told him, and the man kissed her good-bye.