He waked before the sun was quite up the next morning. The pale light reflected from the eastern sky was creeping in at the windows when he opened his eyes. His mind was not clear, and at first he thought he was in his room at his old home. In a half-dreaming state he fancied Michael was at the door, telling him it was time to rise and catch a train. Next he thought he heard Ruth's voice calling to him, as she was wont to do at times before she was out of bed. Then the vague outlines of the old furniture took clearer shape and he sat up. In a flash his new life had reopened before him. He dressed hurriedly and went down-stairs. The front door was open, and the dewy lawn lay in the yellowing light. The peak of the nearest mountain pierced the fleecy clouds. He was turning around the house to go to the cotton-field when the blind of Mary's room was thrown open and she looked down and smiled.
"Good morning!" she cried. "I wonder if you are headed for that cotton-patch?"
He answered that he was, and she laughed.
"Not before you have your breakfast," she commanded. "That is against the rules. It will be ready soon. Wait for me. I'm coming right down."
He went to the veranda and saw her descending. When she came out into the full light from the shadowy house he remarked the lines of care in her face, and they threw a damper on his spirits.
"How did you rest?" she asked.
"Very well," he returned, "but I am afraid that you did not."
She was silent, her head downcast, and he wondered over the impulse that had emboldened him to make such a personal comment. He was about to beg her pardon, when she raised her face and looked at him confidingly.
"Oh, I know I show it, Mr. Brown," she exclaimed, "but I can't help it. I've been half crazy all night long. I slept only a few minutes at a time, and even in my sleep my fears clung to me. It is my brothers. I have worried over them before, but never like this. From what I heard yesterday the spree they are on is the worst they ever had. They were with their vilest associates, moonshiners and gamblers, over at Carlin, drinking harder than ever before."
Here Zilla came to the front door. Catching her mistress's eye, she cried out, excitedly: "Young miss, I see er hoss en' buggy 'way down de road. It got two mens in it. Looks ter me like de boys. Dey is whippin' de hoss powerful en' ercomin' fast."
Ascending the veranda steps, Mary looked down the main road toward Carlin. "Yes, it is my brothers," she said, frowning. "Why they are hurrying so I can't make out. The horse looks as if it is about to drop."
She said no more, but hastened to the front gate, where she stood, her tense hands on the latch, waiting for the vehicle to arrive. In a moment a panting, foaming bay horse was reined in at the gate and the two young men sprang down from a ramshackle buggy.
"Where is father?" Kenneth, the older, a tall, dark young man, asked, hurriedly.
"He is in the library, I think," his sister answered, "Kensy, what is the matter?"
"Oh, don't ask me!" he cried, impatiently, a wild look in his eyes. "Keep the horse there ready, Martin. But never mind. What's the use? It is all in. We'll have to leave the main road, anyway. We must skip for the mountains."
"Oh, brother, brother Kensy, what is it?" Mary cried, in sheer terror, as she clutched his arm.
Drawing it from her impatiently, even roughly, he cried out to Zilla: "Call father! Hurry! No, I'll find him."
"Oh, Martin, Martin, what is it?" and Mary turned to her younger brother, who was short, rather frail-looking, and had blue eyes and reddish hair.
"Nothing, nothing," he said, his glance following Kenneth into the house. "Don't ask me, sis. It is all right."
"But I know something has gone wrong!" Mary cried. "You and Kensy look it; you can't hide it. What is it?"
He shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and then said, reluctantly: "Well, we got in a little scrape, that's all, and had to make a break to get away. The sheriff and a deputy are after us."
"After you! after you!" Mary gasped. "What have you done?"
Martin hesitated sullenly, his eyes on the grass.
"Tell yo' sister de trufe, boy," Aunt Zilla suddenly broke in. "Be ershamed er yo'se'f, keepin' 'er awake all night wid worry. Tell 'er what's de matter. Don't yer see she's half 'stracted over yo-all's doin's?"
"Oh, well," he responded, "it was a little shooting-scrape. Ken and Tobe Keith had a dispute in Gardener's pool-room about an hour ago. Tobe drew a knife. Some say he didn't, but I saw it; I'm sure I saw it. I grabbed him around the waist, and—well, Ken was a little full and had a gun, and while I and Tobe were wrestling he fired."
"And killed him!" Mary cried. "Oh God, have mercy!"
"No, no, don't be a fool, sis! Please don't! He was just wounded slightly, that's all."
"But why did you run away, then?" Mary's pale lips shook as the words dropped from them.
"Because," he frowned—"because some of the mountain boys advised us to, and Sheriff Frazier lived around the corner and had heard the shots. This horse and buggy was loaned to us by Steve Pinkney. He'll be here after them. Zilla, feed and water the horse, please. We've got to get away in the mountains till—till we find out how Keith is."
Mary started to say something, but choked up. She put her arm about her brother's neck, but he gently took it down.
"Don't make it worse than it is, sis dear," he faltered. "We are in trouble, big trouble, this time, but we hardly knew what we were doing. If the fellow lives, we will—"
"If he lives! My God! if he lives!" Mary moaned.
Her father and her older brother were coming out on the veranda now. The old gentleman had a book and manuscript under his handless arm. Charles noted that he was not even pale, though a certain expression of irritation rested on his patrician features.
"Yes, leave the horse," he was saying. "Get into the mountains. As you say, you know a good hiding-place. I'll remember the directions to it, and we'll get food to you somehow or other. It may not be serious. The scoundrel was attacking you with a knife, you think?"
"Martin thought so," Kenneth answered, "but I'm not sure of it now. Steve Pinkney says Martin was mistaken, and that is why he advised us to run. I was drinking. My nerves are all shattered. I got mad when I saw Keith and Martin struggling, and fired before I thought. I'm sorry, but if is too late now. We must get away."
"Yes, and before somebody sees you here," Rowland said. "Are you hungry?"
"Yes, but we can't wait," Kenneth answered. "Come on, Martin."
Mary had run to her older brother. She held out her arms; she was sobbing in her white fluttering throat. He took her into his embrace, drew her bare head to his shoulder, and stroked her hair.
"We are bad boys, sis dear," he said, tenderly. "We have not treated you right; no one knows that better than Martin and I, and we are getting paid for it. I hope Keith won't die. God knows I do! I really haven't anything against him. It was just a dispute over a game of poker. He was mad and so was I. Good-by. We must go. They will not find us where we are going."
"Hurry!" she gasped, as she slid from his arms. "Hurry!"
Side by side the two boys hastened toward the barn. The little group saw them pass through the stable-yard, climb over the fence, and vanish in the thicket which was the border of the vast forest that reached out, dank and trackless, into the mountains toward the west.
With a little sigh of despair, Mary sank down on the lowest step of the veranda. Her father looked at her for a moment with a childlike stare of perplexity, and then said:
"Come, come, don't act that way! It won't do any good."
"Come in de house, missie," Aunt Zilla said, gently, and as soothingly as a mother to an ill child. "Dem boys is gwine ter give de sheriff de slip en' dat man will pull thoo. Come on. Yo' breakfust is gittin' cold. Mr. Brown wants ter git ter his wuk in de cotton."
To his surprise, Charles saw Mary sit more erect. It was as if by a superhuman effort she had shaken herself temporarily free from the overpowering disaster.
"Yes, you must have your breakfast," she said, smiling faintly at Charles. "Come, let's go to the dining-room."
At the table he found himself admiring the self-control of both Mary and her father. Charles noted that Mary ate but little, and that little she seemed to take without relish. Rowland had his manuscript at his side at the table, and once he consulted it, as if his mind had reverted to something he had been interested in before the arrival of his sons.
"I am sorry that I did not have the opportunity to present my boys to you," he remarked once. "I told Kenneth who you were and assured him that you had given us evidence of your friendly spirit. He is glad that you have come to help us out with the work. One might not think so from his present conduct, but he hates to see his sister do manual labor in the field."