Judith of the Cumberlands

								

high-couraged head turned jailward; the dark eyes flashed a resentful
look after the retiring posse.
"It looks like to me, from what Haley said, that there's nothing against
them," Bonbright reassured her. "But they're likely to be held as
witnesses--that's the worst about this business.
"I was going over there right now to see what can be done about it--being
a sort of lawyer. But let me help you first. I'm Creed Bonbright--reckon
you know the name--born and raised on Big Turkey Track."
Judith's heart beat to suffocation, the while she answered in commonplace
phrase, "I shorely do. My name is Judith Barrier; I live with Uncle
Jephthah Turrentine, on my farm. Hit's right next to the old Bonbright
place. We've been livin' thar more'n four years. I hate to go back and
tell Uncle Jep of the boys bein' tuck; and that big mule, Pete, I don't
know how I'm a-goin' to git him out o' the settlement, he's that mean and
feisty about town streets."
"I reckon I can manage him," Bonbright suggested, looking about. "Oh,
Givens!" he called to a man hurrying past. "When you get over there ask
Haley not to take any definite action--I reckon he wouldn't anyhow. I'm
going to represent the prisoners, and I'll be there inside of half an
hour. Now let me put you on your horse, Miss Judith, and I'll lead the
mules up the road a piece for you."
And so it came about that Judith sprang to the back of the sorrel nag
from Creed Bonbright's hand. Creed, still bareheaded, and wholly
unconscious of the fact, walked beside her leading the mules. They passed
slowly up the street towards the mountainward edge of Hepzibah, talking
as they went in the soft, low, desultory fashion of their people.
The noises of the village, aroused from its usual dozing calm, died away
behind them. Beyond the last cabin they entered a sylvan world all their
own. While he talked, questioning and replying gravely and at leisure,
the man was revolving in his mind just what action would be best for the
prisoners whose cause he had espoused. As for Judith, she had forgotten
that such persons existed, that such trivial mischance as their arrest
had just been; she was concerned wholly with the immediate necessity to
charm, to subjugate the man.
A rustic belle and beauty, used to success in such enterprises, in the
limited time at her command she brought out for Creed's subduing her
little store of primitive arts. She would know, Pete suggesting the
topic, if he didn't despise a mule, adding encouragingly that she did.
The ash, it seemed, was the tree of her preference; didn't he think it
mighty sightly now when it was just coming into bloom? His favourite
season of the year, his favoured colour, of such points she made inquiry,
giving him, in an elusive feminine fashion, ample opportunity to relate
himself to her. And always he answered. When all was spoken, and at the