BY that time men were beginning to gather again—middle-aged men on horseback, stiff from years of toil, bearded great young men with dogs at their heels, large-boned, ruddy, gaunt, rugged of face like Lincoln, overgrown boys, and boys of the very smallest size which fearful mothers could be persuaded to let go into possible danger—they came walking or riding towards the Keiths’ for thirty miles away. The younger ones were sent on horseback to spread the news along all the roads towards town, even along obscure untraveled paths that led to the cross-state coach road to the north. In the morning council Wully had again ventured to suggest that Peter had of his own accord gone back to the place from which he had so mysteriously come. Again they all refused to consider his suggestion. Was it likely a man should return without a glimpse of those he had come so far to see? The whole thing was baffling. It seemed beyond belief that no one had seen him come. That could have happened only on such a day as the Fourth, when all the settlers were away from home. Wully wondered to himself, grimly, however, why, if Peter had managed to come once, unperceived, he would not be able[211] to come again as slyly. He didn’t see that to tell what he knew would ease the situation. And he had no intention of telling it if he had proof that it would have ended the search. He would tell that tale only to justify his making Chirstie safe from violence. He felt strangely distant from those whose eagerness to help increased with each glimpse they got of Libby Keith. At his father’s bidding he went again with a party to search the creek underbrush. From morning till noon they went on fighting their way through the impenetrable briary wall of green, stopping only for breath at the water’s edge, scratched, mosquito-bitten, baffled, exhausted. Once John and Wully happened to get to the bank at the same moment, and John, stooping down to wash his face, said to his brother, carefully lowering his voice;
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you are right, Wully. It would be just like Peter to have to leave some place suddenly, in some scrape. I think it probable, after all, that he had started on short notice for the west, and passing O’Brien’s, was unable to resist the smell. He wouldn’t even have had the decency to go to see his mother if he had been within half a mile of the house!”
Wully said nothing to this, but it comforted him to know how low John’s opinion of Peter was. He could work with new energy after that. At noon the ten of them stopped at the nearest house for dinner.
[212]There was not a woman in the neighborhood who would not have been glad to set dinner before a party of searchers. Not a woman who had not been frightening her little ones more carefully about wandering into the tall grass, such helpless slight persons, with that tall menace always waiting at hand for them. Marget McDowell had all the morning been looking from time to time down the road, hoping to see a horseman coming with good news. But no news came. She served the men. They ate in silence, hungrily. Having finished, they went out and lay down in the shade of the house. Most of them slept. Davie McDowell sat next to Wully, smoking vile home-grown tobacco in a stern old pipe. Beyond him Geordie Sproul went on theorizing in a lullabying voice. Wully was half asleep himself when he heard him saying;
“If we knew the girl to ask, we might learn something.” “Girl” when he pronounced it, rhymed with peril. He was a canny man, Geordie, and Wully was instantly awake.
“Hoots!” replied Davie. “He was never one to run after girils!”
“Was he not!” answered Geordie. His voice was so suggestive, so leering, that Wully sat up.
“It’s one o’clock!” he hastened to announce. “We ought to be going on!” He woke all the lads up. They started by twos and threes back towards the creek.
Wully might easily have asked Geordie privately[213] what he meant by that comment of his. But he didn’t dare. Was it possible that Geordie, that unconsidered man, knew anything about Chirstie? Or about Wully McLaughlin’s private affairs? He must have meant something, and Wully wanted intensely to know what it was. Doubtless Davie McDowell would presently be inquiring, for gossip’s sake. But Wully assured himself that if Geordie really knew anything about the truth of the matter, he would never dare to tell it. Nor would he have dared to hint before Wully that he knew it! Only—would he not dare? Men dared strange things, nowadays, it seemed! Even cowards like Peter Keith! They seemed to think Wully McLaughlin a soft, easy-going man. They would speedily find out their mistake! They would get rid of the idea that he was a man with whom one might safely take unspeakable liberties. If only he might have the fortune, the one chance in a thousand, or ten thousand, to come upon that damned snake, lying somewhere hidden.... Exhausted, sore in muscles and mind, he went on through the breathless thicket.
At four he came again to the water’s edge, and saw Chirstie’s brother Dod just coming out from a swim. He threw himself down under a great linden tree for a rest, and under his hand he saw Dod’s hat full of choice blackberries. Dod was undoubtedly preparing to make himself as comfortable as possible. He was weary enough to defy the world, and relinquish his pretenses of[214] being a man. He made his decision known flatly.
“I’m not going back into that!” he announced. “I’m through!” It was plain that his swim hadn’t cooled his temper much.
Wully repressed a smile. Dod was extremely thin. The ridges of his ribs showed under his skin, which gleamed white and wet in places, in vivid contrast to his tanned arms and neck, and he was stepping along gingerly to avoid thorns, lifting his bony legs high. One of his eyelids had been scratched so that his eye was swollen shut.
“You’ve done enough,” said Wully. “You’ve got a bad eye there!”
The boy struggled wet into his shirt and overalls and stretching out near Wully, began dividing the berries. Wully had to notice, how men’s zeal to help Libby Keith vanished as she grew distant. In her presence, in the presence of Motherhood itself, so............