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Very slowly and laboriously Piney told then what he knew, told it over and over until she had comprehended it, whether she believed it or not. When the boy had finished she was leaning back on the bench, dull and pale. "But it isn't true," she said, with white lips. "And Mr. Steering, Piney, has Uncle Bernique told Mr. Steering this fantastic tale?" "Yes'm." "And what did Mr.
"Yass, they do, sometimes, when I'm pestered not as I pester much," he laughed and broke off suddenly in his laughter, with a little sobbing shake in his breath, and passed on ahead of Steering, who looked away from him up the bridle road that cut into the Canaan Tigmores. "There comes Uncle Bernique!" cried Steering then, glad of a chance to divert Piney.
He saw that it would be dangerous for him to try to talk with his mind in that high tremulous whirl. The old man clung to him, silent, too, for a teeming moment. "Now God above, why not Crit Madeira tell you that tr-r-ue way of things?" shouted Bernique at last fiercely. "Why not?" The two men looked into each other's eyes, Steering bearing up the old man, who clutched him feverishly.
The most interesting is a man named Bernique, an old chap of education and refinement from St. Louis. He has a hunch about the Canaan Tigmores at least so far in my intercourse with him I have not found anything more tangible than a hunch.
That's something I have learned out here in Missouri, just to be happy when you get the chance, minute by minute, no matter what sort of hours are to come after. This, now, is so much more than I had hoped for. I hadn't really hoped to see you again before " "Before what?" "Well, a fellow can't go on like this forever, can he? I expect I am going to cut all this." "What! And leave Uncle Bernique?"
"At the pos'-office one say to me, 'Here is lettaire for you! I take the lettaire and read.... Now, I ask you, Mistaire Steering, to take it and read." Bernique drew forth a letter from his pocket and thrust it into Steering's hand with a finely dramatic gesture. He had the appreciation of his race for climax.
I fell in with him just before I reached Canaan, and though he then declared his intention of being absent for some days, he did not go away, sought me out in Canaan next day and has spent a good deal of time with me ever since. He is a splendid old character. Missouri is chuck full of character, for the matter of that. Besides old Bernique, I have made another friend, named Piney.
"F'm the woods," he said. "My name is Bruce Steering." "Mine's Piney." They fell then to talking of many things, as they rode toward Poetical, but inevitably they spoke chiefly of the great State of Missouri. On the subject of Missouri the boy talked, as old Bernique had talked, with expansive naïveté. In his roamings he had ridden the State up and down, and had found much to love in it.
Isn't that a pretty nice name? He is a sort of gipsy lad who roams the woods in company with old Bernique. I have seen him nearly every day since I have been here, because old Bernique and I ride about the Tigmores, and Piney is sure to fall in with us somewhere along the road. I have also met some others.
Bruce said the words over measuredly. "We can do it easily. Everything he has has gone into the company that is getting its chief encouragement out of the Tigmores. It will be easy to ruin him." "Yes, God above, it will be easy! We r-r-ruin him. We do that thing quick and glad." Bernique slid his lean hands up Steering's arms and held to him. "Wait! Wait!"
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