"She's gone home," she added more gently--"went at sun-up this mornin'."
"Home," repeated Brice. "Where's that?"
Mrs. Tarbox looked at her husband and hesitated. Then she said--a little
in her old manner--"Her uncle's."
"Can you direct me the way there?" asked Brice simply.
The astonishment in their faces presently darkened into suspicion again.
"Ef that's your little game," began Hiram, with a lowering brow--
"I have no little game but to see her and speak with her," said Brice
boldly. "I am alone and unarmed, as you see," he continued, pointing
to his empty belt and small dispatch bag slung on his shoulder, "and
certainly unable to do any one any harm. I am willing to take what risks
there are. And as no one knows of my intention, nor of my coming here,
whatever might happen to me, no one need know it. You would be safe from
questioning."
There was that hopeful determination in his manner that overrode their
resigned doggedness. "Ef we knew how to direct you thar," said the old
woman cautiously, "ye'd be killed outer hand afore ye even set eyes on
the girl. The house is in a holler with hills kept by spies; ye'd be a
dead man as soon as ye crossed its boundary."
"Wot do YOU know about it?" interrupted her husband quickly, in
querulous warning. "Wot are ye talkin' about?"
"You leave me alone, Hiram! I ain't goin' to let that young feller
get popped off without a show, or without knowin' jest wot he's got to
tackle, nohow ye kin fix it! And can't ye see he's bound to go, whatever
ye says?"
Mr. Tarbox saw this fact plainly in Brice's eyes, and hesitated.
"The most that I kin tell ye," he said gloomily, "is the way the gal
takes when she goes from here, but how far it is, or if it ain't a
blind, I can't swar, for I hevn't bin thar myself, and Harry never comes
here but on an off night, when the coach ain't runnin' and thar's no
travel." He stopped suddenly and uneasily, as if he had said too much.
"Thar ye go, Hiram, and ye talk of others gabblin'! So ye might as well
tell the young feller how that thar ain't but one way, and that's the
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