CHAPTER XVI

A few days later Mary left on horseback immediately after breakfast. From Rowland, Charles learned that she was going to see certain persons who owned near-by farms, with the hope of borrowing money for the removal of the wounded man to Atlanta and for his treatment there by the famous surgeon, Doctor Elliot.

Charles was at work, hoeing corn, when from the thicket bordering the field Kenneth and Martin stealthily emerged and joined him, having crept around from the barn.

"It is all right," Kenneth said, with an assuring smile. "Nobody is in sight on the road for a mile either way. We can dodge back any minute at the slightest sound. It's hell, Brown, to stay there like a pig being fattened for the killing. This is monotonous, I tell you. I can't stand it very long. That man must get to Atlanta. Mary is off this morning to borrow cash for it. Our credit is gone. Nobody will indorse for the old man but Albert Frazier, and I think his name is none too good here lately."

"He will get the money for sister, see if he doesn't," Martin spoke up, plaintively. "She is trying to keep him from it, though; that's why she went off this morning. She doesn't care for him—she doesn't—she doesn't! She knows what he is. She couldn't love a man like that. I hate him. He claims to be helping us, and he is, I reckon, but he has an object in view, and I'd die rather than have him gain it."

"No, I don't want her to marry him, either." Kenneth's voice had a touch of genuine manliness in it which Charles noticed for the first time. Moreover, his face was very grave. He shrugged his shoulders and flushed slightly as he went on. "I've been watching you, Brown. Having nothing else to do all day long, I've watched you at your work and seen you come and go from the field to the house and back. I envy you. To tell you the God's truth, I'm sick and tired of the way I've been living. They say I am responsible for Martin being in this mess, too. I reckon I am, and I know I am the cause of sister's worry and the disgrace of all this on the family. They say an honest confession is good for the soul, and I say to you that if this damned thing passes over I'm going to take a different course. I see the pleasure you get out of working, and I am going to work. The other thing is not what it is cracked up to be."

Kenneth's voice had grown husky, and he cleared his throat and coughed; the light of shame still shone in his eyes.

"He means it," Martin said, throwing his arm about his brother and leaning on him affectionately. "Last night when he found me awake he came over to my corner and sat down and talked. He said he'd got so he couldn't sleep sound, either. It was wonderful the way he talked, Mr. Brown. I didn't know Ken was like that. He talked about mother and about sister's brave fight against so many odds—and, may I tell him, Ken? You know what I mean."

"I don't care what you say," Kenneth answered. He was seated on the ground, his eyes resting on the gray roof of the house which could be seen above the trees, outlined against the blue sky and drifting white clouds. "I'm not ashamed of anything I said."

"Why, he said," Martin went on, "that he admired you more than any man he had ever run across. He said what you told him about how you used to drink and gamble—when you could have kept it to yourself—and how you had quit it all and put it behind you because it was the sensible thing to do—Ken said that was the strongest argument he had ever heard, and that he liked you because you seemed to want him to do the same thing."

"I did appreciate that talk, Brown," Kenneth admitted. "You put it to me in a different light from any one else. You spoke like a man that had burnt himself at a fire, and was warning others to stay away from it. I don't care where you come from or what you were when you landed here, you are a gentleman. You have made me feel ashamed of myself, and I am man enough to say so. I've been bluffing in this thing. I have felt it as much as Martin, but wouldn't let on. I've not been asleep all the time when he thought I was. God only knows how I've lain awake and what I've been through in my mind."

Suddenly Kenneth rose; his face was full and dark with suppressed emotion, and he stalked away toward the barn.

"He is not like he used to be," Martin remarked, softly, his eyes on his brother. "All this has had a big effect on him. It is strange, but I often try to comfort him now. He is worried about Albert Frazier."

"About him?" Charles exclaimed, under his breath.

"Yes. He doesn't like to feel that we are in his power so completely. He is afraid sister will marry him, and she will, Mr. Brown, if she fails to get that money elsewhere. I don't think she really wants to marry him. She pretends to like him, but that is all put on to fool me and Ken. He is working for us. Every day he tells the sheriff something to throw him off our track. He actually forged a letter that he showed to his brother which he claimed was from a friend in Texas saying that me and Ken had been seen at Forth Worth, on our way West. When sister told Ken that it made him mad. A week ago he would have chuckled over it, but now he hates it because it sort o' binds sister to Frazier. A man that will fool his own brother like that is not the right sort for a sweet girl like my sister to live with all her life. Father wouldn't care much, but Ken and I would. We have been running with a tough crowd, but we know that we've got good blood in our veins."

Presently Martin left, went to keep his brother company, and Charles resumed his plodding work in the young corn. He gave himself up to gloomy meditation. What a strange thing his life had been! How queer it was that nothing prior to his arrival there in the mountains now claimed his interest. William, Celeste, Ruth, old Boston friends, college chums, business associates—all had retired from his consciousness, almost as if they had never existed. The fortunes of this particular family wholly absorbed him. He could have embraced Martin while the boy was talking, because of his resemblance in voice and features to Mary. He respected Kenneth for his fresh resolutions, and pitied him as he had once pitied himself. His hoe tinkled like a bell, at times, on the small round stones buried in the mellow soil. The mountain breeze fanned his hot brow. Accidentally he cut down a young plant of corn, and all but shuddered as he wondered if it, too, could feel, think, and suffer. He saw a busy cluster of red ants, and left them undisturbed. They were sinking a shaft, he knew not how deep, in the earth. One by one they brought to the surface tiny bits of clay or sand, rolled them down a little embankment, and hurried away for other burdens. That they thought, planned, and calculated he could not doubt. He himself was a monster too great in size for their comprehension. Had he stepped upon them their universe would have gone out of existence. He wondered if they loved one another, if their social system would have permitted one of their number to go into voluntary exile and in that exile to find a joy never before comprehended.