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"Ther fords air all plum ragin' an' perilous atter a fresh like this.... I hain't a-goin' ter enjoy no ease in my mind ef somebody don't go in s'arch of her an' hit jedgmatically hain't possible fer me ter go myself." Slowly, unwillingly, and with smouldering fury Rowlett rose from his chair.
He paused, breathing in gasps, then rushed on again: "I trusted Bas Rowlett ... I believed in him ... some weeks back I l'arned some things erbout him thet shocked me sore, but still I held my hand ... waitin' ter counsel with you atter yore baby hed been borned." "What war hit ye l'arned, Hump?" The younger man's voice was almost inaudibly low, and the answer came like volley-firing with words.
Let him stand ter ther front." Three or four dark figures moved unhurriedly toward the centre of the circle, but one who had not been rehearsed in his part stepped with a more eager haste to the fore, and that one was Bas Rowlett.
Bas Rowlett bent above his pillow, but with a transformed face. The eyes that were for the moment turned toward the door burned with a baleful hatred and the lips were drawn into a vicious snarl. This, too, must be part of the light-headedness, thought Maggard, but instinctively he continued to simulate unconsciousness. This man had been his steadfast and self-forgetful friend.
"Howdy, Dorothy," he called, then recognizing that this was a leave-taking he added, "Cal, ef ye're startin' home, I'll go long with ye, fer comp'ny." The moon was westering when the two men reached the turn of the road and there Rowlett paused and began speaking in a cautious undertone. "I didn't come along accidental, Cal. I done hit a-purpose.
With cautious but willing footfall Rowlett approached, but before he reached the bedside a curt undertone warned him, "Stop right thar ... ef ye draws nigher I'll call out. Kin ye hear me?... I aims ter talk low." "I'm hearkenin'." "All right. Give me yore pledge, full-solemn an' in ther sight of God Almighty ... thet ye'll hold yore hand till I gits well ... or else dies."
All disclaimed, and honestly disclaimed, any knowledge of the infamy that had been aimed at old Jim Rowlett, but even in their frothy folly and yeasty clamour none was so bereft as to deny that the Harpers must face accountability. If war were inevitable, argued the hotheads, it were wisdom to strike the first blow.
"I hain't nuver sought ter fo'ce no woman's will," he said at last and his words fell with slow stress of earnestness. "But I'd always sort of seed in my own mind a fam'ly hyar with another man ter tek my place at hits head when I war dead an' gone. I'd always thought of Bas Rowlett in that guise. He's a man thet's done been, in a manner of speakin', like a son ter me."
Jim Rowlett, Hump Doane, and another came as representatives of the Doanes, and Parish Thornton, Aaron Capper, and Lincoln Thornton met them as plenipotentiaries of the Harpers. When commonplaces of greeting had ended, Jim Rowlett turned to Aaron Capper as the senior of his group: "Aaron," he said, "this land's hurtin' fer peace an' human charity. We craves hit, an' Mr.
Enmities were planted that day that carried the infection of bitterness toward Harpers and Doanes alike, and the resentful minority began taking thought of new organization; a thought secretly fanned and inflamed by emissaries of the resourceful Bas Rowlett. Back in the days following on the War of Secession the word Ku Klux had carried a meaning of both terror and authority.
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