CHAPTER IX

For four miles they walked over very uneven, rocky ground. Deeper and deeper they went into the mountains. There were hills to climb in places where there was no sign of path or road; there were yawning gulches to cross; dank, stream-filled ca?ons filled with dead and leaning trees to pass through. He felt that she was leading him aright, for her step was firm and her progress rapid and sure. Now and then she would look at the western sky where the presence of the sun was indicated by a somewhat brighter spot than the rest of the dun expanse.

"We really must hurry," she kept saying, "for we'll be overtaken by night on our return if we don't get to them pretty soon."

"Have you a landmark to guide you?" he asked.

"Yes, there to the left. Do you see that mountain peak? Well, their hiding-place—it is a little cave they know about—is in the thick jungle at the foot of it, on this side. We can't go all the way in. It would be impossible. I shall get nearer and whistle for them to come out. They know my whistle. They taught me how to do it when I was little. It is like this," and she clasped her hands together tightly, leaving an orifice between the thumbs into which she blew her breath sharply. A keen whistle was produced. "There is no mistaking it," she continued. "They would know it anywhere. Every pair of hands makes a different sound."

Half an hour later they were on the edge of the dense jungle of which she had spoken. A veritable riot of dank undergrowth was massed beneath giant trees and around green, moss-grown boulders. The greater part of it was a miasmatic swamp, the boggy soil of which could not be walked upon with safety even in dry weather. Mary paused on a spot where the ground was firm and folded her hands. "Be still and listen," she said. "If they are there, they will answer. They will know that I'd not whistle if it were not safe."

The flutelike note rose on the still air; it was echoed from a near-by cliff and died down. No sound followed. Mary looked perplexed, worried. She whistled again. This time a distant whistle caught up the echo. It was a coarser tone than hers but produced in the same way.

"That's Kensy!" she cried, in relief. "Listen! Hear the twigs breaking? He is coming—maybe both. She whistled again, now more softly, and in her excitement tremulously. The sound of bending bushes and the cracking of dry branches was growing nearer.

"Hello, brother!" Mary suddenly cried out. "Here we are. Come on."

"Hello, sis! Who is with you—father?"

"No, Mr. Brown."

The sound of his movements ceased. "Who?" he asked, dubiously.

"Mr. Brown, you know. He is working for us. Come on. It is all right, Kensy."

"Oh!" Kenneth was heard ejaculating. "All right. Coast clear, sis?"

"Yes, yes, Kensy. We've got some food."

"Food, thank God! We are starving, sis. We haven't had a bite to eat since the night before we left home." With this he appeared from a clump of weeping willows, and stood before them. She introduced him to Charles. Kenneth simply nodded. He was coatless, without a hat, and besmeared with the dark mud of the morass from head to foot.

"I fell down back there," he said. "My foot slipped while I was on a log. I was wet, anyway. We were away from the cave, trying to kill some birds to eat, and got caught in the rain. Afraid to make a fire, anyway. No matches."

"I have some in a dry box," Charles said. "Won't you take them?"

"Never mind. I put plenty of them in the basket," Mary said. "Where is Martin?"

"In the cave. He had his clothes off, trying to dry them, and so I came out alone. He is all right, but acting like a baby. Oh God! what have you got, sis. He had the basket in his muddy hands and was removing the napkin which covered the contents. There he comes now. He couldn't wait."

The other boy now appeared, barefooted, his trousers rolled up to his knees. On being introduced he shook hands timidly. He ignored the basket of food. His glaring, dark-ringed eyes rested on his sister's face. He panted as he bent toward her. "How is Keith?" he asked.

"Yes, how is he?" Kenneth echoed, glancing up from the contents of the basket.

Charles thought it was significant that Mary hesitated for an instant before replying. "He is just the same as he was—no better, no worse," she answered.

"No better? My God!" Martin seemed to shrink together like a touched sensitive-plant. "Then—then he may die?"

Kenneth had his hands full of baked chicken, but he lowered them and, leaving the food in the basket, he stood up. "Is it as bad as that, sis?" he faltered, his lips betraying a tendency to shake.

"I hate to say so," Mary faltered, "but I must not deceive you and make you reckless. This is the only safe place now." She told them of Albert Frazier's aid in misleading his brother.

"He is a good one," Kenneth said, more at ease. "He is sharper any day than his blockhead of a brother. If he stays on our side we'll be all right, even—even if—"

"Don't say it, Ken!" Martin's young mouth was twisted awry. "I can't bear it. I can't—I simply can't!"

Kenneth uttered a forced laugh of defiance. "He is like that all the time," he said. "He didn't sleep a wink last night. He cried. He prayed to God and to mother's spirit: 'Save Tobe Keith—save Tobe Keith! Don't let 'im die!'"

"It is because I held him," Martin feebly explained. "You see, I had him so he couldn't move, and—and when Ken shot I felt his body sort of crumble up and hang limp in my arms. If he dies it will be my fault, for—for he could have dodged the shot but for me. If he dies, sis, it will be my fault and it will mean the rope and the scaffold."

Kenneth had bent to the basket again, but he refrained from taking up the food. He faced his sister. "We'll have to stay hid," he said, grimly. "Don't offend Albert Frazier, for all you do. He won't let his brother find us. Even if he found us, I'll bet Albert could keep him from making an arrest. He owes Albert money, I've heard. They always work into each other's hands. Albert had some trouble himself once that the sheriff squashed."

Charles was now looking at Mary. There was an expression about her face, and all but swaying body, that was akin to that of her fainting-spell in the field the preceding day. She had locked her hands together and he saw a flare of agony in her tortured eyes. There was a fallen tree near her and she sank down on its trunk and lowered her head. Finally she accomplished what he knew she was trying so hard to do; she mastered her weakness.

"Martin, sit here by me," she said, pleadingly, and the younger boy obeyed, the far-reaching terror still in his bland blue eyes. She stroked back his matted hair and picked the fragments of leaves and grass from it. "My sweet boy!" she faltered, "I don't know what to say to comfort you and quiet your fears about—Tobe's condition. I'm glad mother is not alive, Martin. She could not have borne this. You are so young—just a boy—and you are sensitive and imaginative. It looks worse to you than it really is. I feel down deep in me that Tobe will get well. We are sure to get good news before long. Now eat something."

"I was hungry this morning, but it is gone," Martin said. "The sight of the stuff almost sickens me."

Mary put both her arms around his neck and kissed him. "You are making yourself sick," she said. "Eat, won't you, for my sake?"

His brother was eating now, and Martin went to his side and took a piece of chicken and a biscuit. Mary watched them for a moment with wide-open glittering eyes—the sort of stare that sometimes seems to float on a rising tide of tears invisible. Then her head sank again.

"Look here," Kenneth said, suddenly, as he glanced toward the western sky. "You and Mr. Brown have a long walk before you to get back before night. You are doing no good here now. Hadn't you better start?"

Mary stood up. "Yes, we must be going. Are you comfortable in the cave?"

"Yes," Kenneth returned. "It is good enough. We have a big bed of dry leaves and grass, and if Martin would only sleep we'd be all right."

"I try, but I can't," the blue-eyed boy said, in an uncertain, half-abashed tone. "There was a night-owl near us last night, and it was hooting, and, my God! sis, the thing seemed to talk. I never had anything against Tobe Keith in my life. In fact, he and I used to fish and swim together when we'd run away from school, and to think that I actually—Turn around, and I'll show exactly how I clamped his arms and how he was bent down when Ken fired."

"No, not now," Charles protested. "Your sister is very nervous. She almost fainted just now."

"No, don't go into it," Kenneth mumbled, his mouth full. "I haven't anything against Tobe, either. We were both drinking, but they tell me the law doesn't excuse a fellow on that account. I didn't know what I was doing, but I couldn't prove it to a jury. I reckon they would call it deliberate. You see, Tobe and I had had words the day before over another matter, and I remember I made some threats about what I'd do to him. Oh, if he dies they will have a case against us. I know that well enough, and we must stay under cover till we can get West."

"I thought Tobe had a knife," Martin said, piteously. "I was sure I saw him draw it, and I held him to keep him from stabbing Ken. You know Tobe did rip a fellow open once in a fight. They say I was mistaken and that it was just a spoon he had been eating oysters with, and that he dropped it as soon as I grabbed him. Sis, will you let us know how he is as often as you can?"

"Yes, yes," the girl promised, "and if you don't hear it will be a sign of good news. Remember that, and, brother, do try to sleep to-night. You look sick."

She glanced at the sky again. She kissed them both and walked away. They had gone only a few paces when Charles suddenly turned back and joined them.

"Your sister may not be able to come every time," he said. "But I know the way now, for I took note of the landmarks, and I'll come by myself."

"That will be bully of you," Kenneth said. "By the way, we must have a signal, so that I'll know who it is. Suppose you whistle twice slowly and three times fast, and I'll answer and come out."

Mary was looking at Charles from sadly inquiring eyes when he caught her up a moment later. "What did you say to them?" she asked.

He told her and she forced a wan smile, while a warm glow of gratitude rose in her eyes.

"How sweet and kind of you!" she said. "You have proved yourself to be a friend, and we have known you such a short time."

"I'd give my life to help you out of this," he suddenly said, surprised at his boldness of speech and the raging storm of sympathy which had fairly forced the words from him.

"Your life?" She was close at his side, for he was holding the dripping bough of a mountain cedar aside for her to pass. "That is a strong expression. Your life? That is all one has, you know."

"My life is worthless to me and to every one else," he said, frankly, and as he uttered the words he was viewing his career in a flash-light of memory from its beginning to the present. "Yes, Miss Rowland, it is no good—absolutely no good. That's why I feel as I do for your brothers, and—I mean it—I'd give my life to-day to lift you out of this trouble and see you as I did that day in the store when you hired me."

"Hired you? Don't use that word," she suddenly cried out, and she put her hand on his arm in a gentle stroke of protest. "Mr. Brown, it seems to me—I don't know how to explain it, but it seems to me that I've known you for ages and ages. I can see that you are sad at times, and I know that you have suffered somehow, somewhere. That picture of the pretty child in your room—she is linked with your trouble, is she not?"

"Indirectly," he admitted, not seeing her drift. "Yes, it was partly on her account—for her own future—that I left home."

"I see, I see; and her mother?" Mary's voice had sunken almost to inaudibility; the cracking of the twigs under their feet all but drowned its sound. "Did you leave her with the child?"

"Oh yes! They are inseparable," he answered. He felt that he was admitting too much, and he turned the subject to that of the lessening sunlight on a cliff to their left. He thought the dense clouds massing behind them indicated a high wind and a heavy downpour of rain.

But his companion was not thinking of the state of the weather. "You will go back to them some day, of course," she persisted.

Charles shuddered; she was probing a subject that he felt honor bound not to touch upon. She repeated her words, steadily fixing his eyes with her own.

"No," he repeated, firmly, "I shall never go back, Miss Rowland—never in the world. My future home is here, anywhere, but never there again."

"And you do not like to speak of your family? Is that it?" Mary went on, softly, sympathetically.

"I can't—I haven't the moral right to speak of them now. That is all I can say. I'm dead to my past, Miss Rowland. I am blotting it out. Serving you in any capacity helps kill memories that ought to be dead. There are memories that reproach and torture one. I have my share of them."