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Carroll had thought of this conversation with von Rittenheim, and the statement that she had just made always had figured as the climax of her argument in the Doctor's behalf. Now she felt no pleasure in it. The man before her was too crushed for her to exult over. He made no comment, merely said, reflectively, "Yes, there was a fine.
"Howdy, Mr. Baron," he was saying. "Howdee," responded von Rittenheim, with an accent that made Bob throw back his head and laugh silently. "You had bad fortune with your horse this afternoon." "Correct. Damn pore horse. Some day Ah'll have a good horse o' mah own, not a ole borrowed plug. Ah'm goin' to be rich some day. You-all know how, eh?
I was in Asheville a few days ago, Monday, Tuesday, I don't know when," he went on, weakly, "and I met a man who said he thought he knew you. He's at the hotel, a German." "Did he tell you his name?" "I can't remember. Something long. He said if you were Friedrich von Rittenheim from the Black Forest that he knew you well, and would you look him up? You will, won't you?" "Yes, I will."
She assented by a motion of the head. "Even when I knew you " Sydney gazed down at the scintillant water. Von Rittenheim did not turn to her, and went on, steadily,
At eleven o'clock he went to bed, for he knew that no countryman, unless he were going for the doctor, would be abroad at that hour, with such mud under foot. The next day's noon brought no news of the recreant messenger, and von Rittenheim went to the Yarebroughs' cabin in search of him.
He nodded a recognition of Wilder and his men, and sent a look of surprise at Von Rittenheim, whose appearance was not what was usual in the prisoners brought before him, although his dress seemed to indicate the mountaineer. "What for?" he asked Wilder, gruffly, when he was at liberty to attend to them.
He glanced at his guest, who was buttoning his coat and tightening a spur preparatory to starting. "I think he will not tell," thought von Rittenheim, and he found an empty bottle and filled it from the jug. Then he helped the stranger with his horse, and after his departure returned to look ruefully into the fire. "Never before," he mused, "did one of my race commit so petty a wrong."
Three days later Bud brought to von Rittenheim the following note: "DEAR BARON, I say again that I haven't any idea what you are driving at, but I never yet went back on a fight, so if you still want one I'll meet you at twelve o'clock to-morrow on top of Buck Mountain. I think you went to a picnic there when the chestnuts were ripe last fall, so you know the place.
After he died I could not feel myself indebted for that to you when I had treated you so badly." She hung her head. Von Rittenheim made a gesture of polite dissent, and walked again to the window. "You always had enough money, I hope?" "No sum ever was large enough for Max." They both smiled. "But a piece of great good fortune came to me just after you went away."
He knew that the usual sentence for moonshining was "A hundred dollars or three months," and, since he had no money, he must submit to the degradation of imprisonment. May, June, July. That would bring him to August, and it would be time enough then to consider the future. A von Rittenheim in prison! A shudder went through him with the thought, and a wild desire to avert the evil.
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