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But as Maggard thrust the note forward in compliance he took second thought and withdrew it. "No," he said, slowly. "I'm obleeged ter ye but ye mout lose this hyar paper an' like es not, I'll hev need of hit herea'tter." With evident disappointment Rowlett conceded the argument by a nod of his head. "Mebby ye're right," he said. "But anyhow we'd better s'arch round about.
Under the name of Cal Maggard he had fled from Virginia, where, with the juries packed against him, justice would have been a travesty. In self-defense his sister had killed her husband, and he had taken the guilt. He sought only a refuge. Returning from a friendly visit to his neighbor's where he met Dorothy, he found nailed to his door, a threat of death if he repeated the visit.
"I'll jest fill in these blank places," he announced, briskly, "with ther names of Dorothy Harper an' Cal Maggard an' then we'll be ready fer ther signatures." But at that Maggard raised an imperative hand in negation. "No," he said, shortly and categorically, "I aims ter be married by my rightful name put hit down thar like hit is Kenneth Parish Thornton all of hit!"
"Ye've done cautioned 'em not ter make no move afore they gits ther word, hain't ye an' ye've done persuaded 'em ye plum hates me, hain't ye?" Again Sim grinned. "Satan hisself would git rightfully insulted ef anybody cussed an' damned him like I've done you, Bas." "All right then. I reckon when ther time comes both ther Doanes and Harpers'll be right sick of Mr. Cal Maggard or Mr.
"Hed this man Maggard ever been over hyar afore? Did he know ther Harpers when he come?" Hump Doane still shot out his questions in an inquisitorial manner but Bas met its peremptory edginess with urbanity, though his face was haggard with a night of sleeplessness and fatigue. "He lowed ter me that his folks hed lived over hyar once a long time back.... Thet's all I knows."
There they lay for perhaps two minutes, with ears straining into the silence, neither exaggerating nor under-estimating the menace that might have caused that sound in the underbrush. After a while Rowlett whispered, "What did ye hear?" "'Peared like ter me," responded Maggard, guardedly, "a twig cracked back thar in ther la'rel." Rowlett nodded but after a space he rose, shaking his head.
When Cal Maggard closed and locked his cabin door late the next afternoon he stood regarding with sombre eyes his message of defiance which, it seemed, no one had come to read. Yet, as he turned his back a smile replaced the scowl, for he was going to see a girl.
He did not stop often to rest, and before noon he straightened and stood breathing deep but rhythmically to survey a levelled space where he had encountered an impenetrable thicket. Then Cal Maggard leaned his scythe and axe against a young hickory and went over to the corner of the yard where a spring poured with a crystal flow into a natural basin under the gnarled roots of a sycamore.
"Mighty few men would hev stood by me ... like he done.... Ef I'd been his own blood-brother...." there he gulped, choked, and drifted off again. Cal Maggard next awoke with a strangely refreshed sense of recovery and a blessed absence of pain. He seemed still unable to move, and he said nothing, for in that strange realization of a brain brought back to focus came a shock of new amazement.
That night, though, while Maggard sat alone, smoking his pipe by his hearth, two shadowy figures detached themselves, at separate times and points, from the sooty tangle of the mountain woods some mile and a half away, and met at the rendezvous of a deserted cabin whose roof was half collapsed.
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