“I don’t know,” replied another
in the same tone.
Another with a low snarl expressed in two words his
opinion of the methods of Fate: “Oh, hell!”
The three men started then as if simultaneously stung,
and gazed at the young girl who stood silently near
them. The man who had sworn began to make agitated
apology: “Pardon, miss! ’Pon
my soul, I clean forgot you was by. ’Deed,
and I wouldn’t swear like that if I had knowed.
’Deed, I wouldn’t.”
The girl did not seem to hear him. She was staring
at the barn. Suddenly she turned and whispered,
“Who is he?”
“He’s Cap’n Sawyer, m’m,”
they told her sorrowfully. “He’s our
own cap’n. He’s been in command of
us yere since a long time. He’s got folks
about yere. Raikon they cotch him while he was
a-visiting.”
She was still for a time, and then, awed, she said:
“Will they—will they hang him?”
“No, m’m. Oh no, m’m.
Don’t raikon no such thing. No, m’m.”
The group became absorbed in a contemplation of the
barn. For a time no one moved nor spoke.
At last the girl was aroused by slight sounds, and
turning, she perceived that the three men who had so
recently escaped from the barn were now advancing
toward it.
The girl, waiting in the darkness, expected to hear
the sudden crash and uproar of a fight as soon as
the three creeping men should reach the barn.
She reflected in an agony upon the swift disaster that
would befall any enterprise so desperate. She
had an impulse to beg them to come away. The
grass rustled in silken movements as she sped toward
the barn.
When she arrived, however, she gazed about her bewildered.
The men were gone. She searched with her eyes,
trying to detect some moving thing, but she could
see nothing.
Left alone again, she began to be afraid of the night.
The great stretches of darkness could hide crawling
dangers. From sheer desire to see a human, she
was obliged to peep again at the knot-hole. The
sentry had apparently wearied of talking. Instead,
he was reflecting. The prisoner still sat on
the feed-box, moodily staring at the floor. The
girl felt in one way that she was looking at a ghastly
group in wax. She started when the old horse
put down an echoing hoof. She wished the men
would speak; their silence re-enforced the strange
aspect. They might have been two dead men.
The girl felt impelled to look at the corner of the
interior where were the cow-stalls. There was
no light there save the appearance of peculiar grey
haze which marked the track of the dimming rays of
the lantern. All else was sombre shadow.
At last she saw something move there. It might
have been as small as a rat, or it might have been
a part of something as large as a man. At any
rate, it proclaimed that something in that spot was
alive. At one time she saw it plainly, and at
other times it vanished, because her fixture of gaze
caused her occasionally to greatly tangle and blur
those peculiar shadows and faint lights. At last,
however, she perceived a human head. It was monstrously
dishevelled and wild. It moved slowly forward
until its glance could fall upon the prisoner and
then upon the sentry. The wandering rays caused
the eyes to glitter like silver. The girl’s
heart pounded so that she put her hand over it.
