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But his head had begun to roll heavily from side to side, and they could not disguise from themselves that he looked at them with uncomprehending eyes, and, left to himself, sank immediately into stupor that simulated slumber. "Fellows," said old Clenk drearily, "I believe this leetle chap be agoin' ter make a die of it!"
Clenk had stepped into the boat and seated himself, the oars rattling smartly in the rowlocks, the sound sharp on the misty air, as he laid hold on them. "So far, so good," he exclaimed cheerily. "Won't they be fur trackin' of him?" One of the moonshiners, whom the child had not seen before, seemed disposed to rebuke this easy optimism. "What fur?
Jubal Clenk dropped on one knee in front of the little boy, and the two were inscrutably eyeing each other at close quarters. "Hello, Bubby! Whar's yer tongue? Cat got it?" he asked in a grandfatherly fashion, while the other men looked on, grim and anxious, at this effort to gauge the mentality of the child and their consequent danger from him.
"Ye leetle old toper," cried Clenk delightedly, waxing jocose in his relief, "ye been swindling me! Ye hev been playin' sick to trick me out 'n this fine milk punch!"
In the arms of the grandfatherly Clenk he was carried along the bridle-path in the dulling sunset, and presently dusk was descending on the austere mountain wilderness; the unmeasured darkness began to pervade it, and silence was its tenant.
Only one man, however, had the keen observation to catch that fleeting signal, and the enterprise to seek to interpret it. The next day, when Clenk did not reappear, this man quietly slipped to the shack where the three lived together. There was a padlock knocking in the wind on the flimsy door. This said as plain as speech that there was no one within.
There was the exchange of a sheepish grin as the tones were recognized, when suddenly Clenk arose, a light as of inspiration on his dull old face. "Soo, cow, soo!" he called softly; then listened intently for a responsive stir in the bushes. A muttered low and he pressed into the covert in the direction of the sound.
As the child made the perilous descent in the practised clasp of the grandfatherly Clenk, he could look up and see the jagged portal of the cave he had left, high above the river, though not so high as the great, tall deciduous trees waving their lofty boughs on the summit of the cliffs.
The docile animal lifted her head at an approach, then calmly fell a-grazing again. She let down her milk readily, though looking over her shoulder questioningly during the process, for Clenk was no practised hand.
Suddenly Clenk partially lifted himself and dived into one of the pockets of his loose coat. He brought up a little red shoe, all tarnished and tobacco-stained, and held it out to Lillian with a faint and flickering smile of bestowal, certain of gratitude as well as recognition. "Does you-uns know that leetle foot?" Lillian swayed for a moment as if she might fall.
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