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The old man rode into camp on a razor-backed horse and professed great astonishment when he saw how nearly completed the work on the Wondership was. "But you kain't fool me," he said knowingly. "I may be old but I'm wise. That thing fly? Why, you might as well tell me the Nat'nul Hotel in Yuma could go kerflopping about in the air.
"Bas," she said, earnestly, "even ef Cal hadn't of come, I couldn't nuver hev wedded with ye. He did come, though, an' in thet way of carin' thar hain't no other man in the world fer me. I kain't never pay ye back fer all thet I'm beholden ter ye ... fer savin' him an' fotchin' him in when thet craven shot him ... fer stayin' a friend when most men would hev got ter be enemies.
I wants ye ter give me yore hand thet ye'll go on standin' by my leetle gal an' her fam'ly, Bas. Else I kain't die satisfied." Bas Rowlett stood rigidly and tensely straight, his eyes fixed to the front, his forehead drawn into furrows. Then he thrust out his hand. "Ye've done confidenced me until now," he said simply, "ye kin go on doin' hit. I gives ye my pledge."
He gave a quick twist at the coat collar that made Reade's head swim. It was some time before the young engineer's head recovered from that sudden confusion and blackness. "Am' yo' gwine beliebe dat yo' kain't wish no kind oh a trick ober on me?" demanded the black man in an injured tone. "Ah nebber seen no odder w'ite man dat had such a ha'd time beliebing w'at Ah done tole him!"
The old man struck a match and held it to his pipe and then as he turned to leave the room Maggard halted him. "I kain't suffer ye ter go away without I tells ye suthin'," he said, "an' I fears me sorely when ye hears hit ye're right like ter withhold yore blessin' atter all." The patriarch wheeled and stood listening, and Dorothy, too, caught her breath anxiously as the young man confessed.
"Hit's hell ter pay, when a law-abidin' man kain't travel ther highway withouten he's shot down like I was thet night," lamented Mallows virtuously. "I misdoubts ef I ever feels plum right inside me ergin. I wisht I knowed who thet feller war." "Mebby he mistook ye fer somebody else," suggested Jerry.
He began to hobble up and down, working himself into a white heat. "'S long as Ah live on this claim," he said, "Ah'll never go t' Brannon fer anythin', an' they'll be no trottin' back an' forth. Thet ornery trash over thar is th' same, most of it, thet fought th' South, jus' a few years ago. Ah kain't forget thet. An' not one of 'em'll ever set a foot in this house."
They were Niggertown dogs, and the sight of a white man always drove them to a frenzy. Presently in the hullabaloo, Peter heard Dawson Bobbs's voice shouting: "Aunt Mahaly, if you kain't call off this dawg, I'm shore goin' to kill him." Then an old woman's scolding broke in and complicated the mêlée.
So it's nateral fur Miss Prue. Now, Sairay, I'm goin' over to my cousin Lizy's a while, an' if baby why, he's gone to sleep, ain't he?" Sara nodded smilingly, and her mollified mother said, more gently, "Wall, my dear, lay him in the cradle, an' then you kin hev a good time a-readin' while I'm gone. I s'pose you kain't help takin' to books arter all, seein' as your ma was a school-ma'am."
The two visitors at the Big House gazed at it open-mouthed for a time, until all at once her former thought crossed the woman's mind. She turned upon her husband. "Thah it goes! Thah it goes!" she cried. "Right on straight to ouah house! It kain't miss it! An' little Sim, he's sho' to be playin' out thah on the track. Oh, he's daid right this minute, he sho'ly is!"
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