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"I'm obleeged, Bas." Maggard's voice was faint but steady now. "Thar's a thing I've got ter tell ye afore my stren'th gives out." Beguiled by a seeming absence of suspicion into the belief that Maggard had just then awakened to consciousness, Rowlett ensconced himself on the bedside and nodded an unctuous sympathy. The other closed his eyes and spoke calmly and without raising his lids.
Will yore men agree ter hold matters es they stands twell this time termorrer?" Jim Rowlett glanced at Hump Doane and the cripple nodded an energetic affirmation. He was hard to convince but when convinced he was done with doubt. "I'd ruther heer Mr. Thornton talk thetaway," he declared, crisply, "then ter hev him answer up heedless an' over-hasty."
Then the hearer who had listened paled to the roots of his shaggy hair and his gargoyle face became a mask of tragic fury. At first Hump Doane did not trust himself to speak and when he did, there was a moment in which the other feared him almost more than he feared Bas Rowlett.
Rowlett nodded a reassured head and declared heartily: "I'm right glad ye hain't one of thet thar sorry brood. Nobody couldn't confidence them." Rowlett, as he rekindled the pipe that had died in the ardour of his narration, studied the other through eyes studiously narrowed against the flare of his match.
Then Maggard heard, so low that it seemed a joyous and musical whisper, the announcement from the foot of his bed: "I'm goin' ter fetch Uncle Jase Burrell now, ter tend yore hurts, Cal," she said, softly. "I jest couldn't endure ter start away twell I seed ye open yore eyes, though." Maggard glanced toward Bas Rowlett who stood looking solicitously down at him and licked his lips.
The judge who sat upon the bench made his rulings boldly only after consulting this overlord, but the matter which gave cause to the present meeting was the circumstance that Will Turk was a brother to John Turk, whom Parish Thornton was accused of killing. "I 'lowed hit mout profit us both ter talk tergether," explained Rowlett when they had opportunity for discussion in confidence.
I won hit an' ye're goin' ter die but my fingers don't ache no more fer a holt on yore throat they're satisfied." "What air ye goin' ter do, now?" Rowlett found words hard to form; and the victor responded promptly, "I've done concluded ter take ye down thar, afore ye dies, an' make ye crave Dorothy's pardon on yore bended knees. Ye owes hit ter her."
I knows right well ye're sore-hearted, boy, an' thar hain't many men thet could hev took a bitter dose like ye've done." Rowlett looked gloomily away. "I hain't complainin' none, Caleb," he said. "No. But I hain't got master long ter live an' when Jim an' me both passes on, I fears me thar'll be stressful times ahead.
"Ye didn't low I seed ye steal ther letter ... but I gives ye leave ter tek hit over thar an' and burn hit up, Rowlett same es them peanut hulls.... I hain't got no need of nuther them ... nur hit." Rowlett's hand, under the sting of accusation, had instinctively pressed itself against his pocket.
If ye air satisfied, all well an' good." Bas Rowlett picked up the diary of the revolutionary Dorothy Thornton and twisted it carelessly into a roll which he thrust out of sight between a plate-girder of the low cabin and its eaves.
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