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He rushed from the Dance of the Sun Feast of the Sioux Indians, through a passage of rag time into the tenderest of cradle songs that emerged in turn, by an intricate series of harmonic byways, into the trio from Faust and leaped, as a climax at a single bound, to the Rakoczy March the shrill war march of Hungary, the rhythm of which stirs the blood and made men fight up hill with forty clarionets in line in the days when the Magyar took all before him a march that brought the blood to Alice Thayor's cheeks and diffused a lazy brilliancy in her eyes eyes that looked at Sperry under their curved lashes.
"I knowed Sam's woman, and I knowed her mother 'fore she married Bill Eldridge over to Cedar Corners." "That's whar she was from I seen her many a time. My old shanty warn't more 'n forty rod from where Morrison's gang built the new one." Thayor's delighted ears drank in every word.
As he spoke the old dog sniffed at Thayor's knees, and with a satisfied air regained his resting place once more. "Well, it was about all I cared to do for one morning," answered Thayor between his breaths, "but you see we found the old trail impossible. And so you received our telegram in time," he said, glancing in delight at the freshly thatched roof of the shanty.
The old man had slouched closer and had settled himself beside his son, his hand on the outcast's knee. Thayor's voice broke the silence. "Where are these men you ran across, Dinsmore?" he asked abruptly, a ring of determination in his voice. "'Bout eight mile from here, I figger it in a holler southeast of Alder Swamp," answered the hide-out, returning to a sense of his surroundings.
Thayor's way, I suppose, just as it's your way, and your father's way, to be kind to everyone," he said tenderly. He saw the colour flush to her cheeks. "Mother has hurt you!" she cried indignantly. "I have seen it over and over again. Oh, why can't people be a little more considerate. It's not considered smart, I suppose.
Alice Thayor's first meeting with Holcomb since the time when he saved her husband's life, consisted of a slight nod of recognition and an annoyed "How do you do?" She wore a smart travelling gown of Scotch homespun and a becoming toque of gray straw enveloped in a filmy dragon-green veil.
'Sposin it had been your wife, or your leetle gal. You'd hev done the same's I done, wouldn't ye?" Thayor breathed heavily. "Wouldn't ye?" insisted Dinsmore. "He ruined her, body and soul he stole her, I tell ye; he warn't satisfied with that he got her to drinkin'. Wouldn't ye a-killed him, Mr. Thayor?" Thayor's eyes sought the shadows between the pines; for an instant he did not reply.
All that day Alice kept patiently on with the rest. Her husband's grit was a revelation to her; not once since they left the burned camp had he mentioned the catastrophe. Thayor's mind was also occupied. His loss had been a heavy one; the camp he loved had been criminally laid in ashes such had been his reward for generosity. The very men he had befriended had burned him out with murderous intent.
After his door was closed, Holcomb stood thinking for some moments, his eyes fastened on the candle flame. "That nigh horse seemed all right this fore-noon," he said to himself. "That's the second horse with colic." Thayor's first meeting with Bergstein occurred the next morning. It was brief and business-like, but it left a good impression on Thayor's mind.
He would gladly have sacrificed his month's salary to have been with him, and more than once during his absence had he gone to his room, finding a certain consolation even in looking for rust spots on his favourite gun. With the casting off of his heavy travelling coat and hat, Thayor's first words were of his daughter.
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