The Roof Tree - Charles Buck

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his swarthy face brightened with an idea and he volunteered: "Let me hev thet thar paper. I won't betray ter no man what's in hit but mebby I mout compare them words with ther handwrite of some fellers I knows – an' git at ther gist of the matter, thet fashion."

      It seemed a slender chance yet a possibility. A man who was everywhere acquainted might make use of it, whereas the stranger himself could hardly hope to do so.

      But as Maggard thrust the note forward in compliance he took second thought – and withdrew it.

      "No," he said, slowly. "I'm obleeged ter ye – but ye mout lose this hyar paper an' like es not, I'll hev need of hit herea'tter."

      With evident disappointment Rowlett conceded the argument by a nod of his head.

      "Mebby ye're right," he said. "But anyhow we'd better s'arch round about. Ef thar's a shoe-print left anywheres in ther mud or any sich-like thing, I'd be more like ter know what hit denotes then what a stranger would."

      Together they went up and down the road, studying the dusty and rock-strewn surface with backwoods eyes to which little things were more illuminating than large print.

      They circled back of the ruined stockade and raked the rising laurel tangles with searching scrutiny. Finally Rowlett, who was several paces in advance, beckoned to the other and gave a low whistle of discovery.

      Behind a low rock the thick grass was downpressed as though some huge rabbit had been huddled there.

      "Some person's done fixed hisself a nestie hyar – ter spy on yore dwellin' house," he confidently asserted, then as he stood studying the spot he reached into the matted tangle and drew out a hand closed on some small object.

      For a moment he held it open before his own eyes, then tossed over to Maggard a broken peanut shell.

      Neither of them made any comment just then, but as they turned away Rowlett murmured, as though to himself:

      "Of course, any feller kin eat peanuts."

      All that afternoon Cal Maggard lay hidden in the thicket overlooking his front door and, as a volunteer co-sentinel, Bas Rowlett lay in a "laurel-hell" watching from the rear, but their vigilante was unrewarded.

      That night, though, while Maggard sat alone, smoking his pipe by his hearth, two shadowy figures detached themselves, at separate times and points, from the sooty tangle of the mountain woods some mile and a half away, and met at the rendezvous of a deserted cabin whose roof was half collapsed.

      They held the shadows and avoided the moonlight and they moved like silhouettes without visible features. They struck no matches and conferred in low and guarded tones, squatting on their heels and haunches in the abandoned interior.

      "He went over ter Harper's house yestiddy evenin', an' he's like ter go right soon ergin'," said one.

      "All ye've got ter do air ter keep in tech with me – so any time I needs ye I kin git ye. I hain't plum made up my mind yit."

      The other shadowy and hunched figure growled unpleasantly, then bit from a tobacco twist and spat before he answered.

      "I hain't got no hankerin' fer no more laywayin's," he objected. "Ef ye resolves that he needs killin', why don't ye do hit yoreself? Hit hain't nothin' ter me."

      "I've done told ye why I kain't handily do hit myself. Nobody hain't ergoin'ter suspicion you– an' es fer what's in hit fer ye – ef so be I calls on ye – we've done sottled that."

      The other remained churlishly silent for awhile. Palpably he had little stomach for this jackal task and it was equally obvious that he feared refusal even more than acceptance of the stewardship.

      "Hit hain't like as if I was seekin' ter fo'ce ye ter do suthin' ye hedn't done afore," the persuasive voice reminded him, and again the snarling response growled out its displeasure.

      "No, an' ye hain't said nothin' cons'arnin' what ye knows erbout me, nuther. Ye hain't even drapped a hint thet any time ye takes ther notion ter talk out ter ther High-cote ye kin penitenshery me – but thet's jest because ye knows ye don't haf ter. By God, sometimes I think's hit would well-nigh profit me ter layway you an' be shet of ye."

      The second voice was purring now, with a hint of the claw-power under the softness.

      "Thet would be a right smart pity, though. Thar is one other body thet knows – an' ef so be I got kilt he'd be right speedy ter guess ther man thet done hit – an' ther reason, too. I reckon hit'll profit ye better ter go on bein' friends with me."

      Again long silence, then grudgingly the murderer-elect rose to his feet and nodded reluctant assent.

      "So be it," he grumbled. "I gives ye my hand ter deaden him whensoever ye says ther word. But afore we parts company let's talk ther matter over a leetle more. I wouldn't love ter hev ye censure me for makin' no error."

      "Ther main thing," came the instruction of the employer, "air this: I wants ter be able ter get ye quick an' hev ye ack quick – ef so be I needs ye, no matter when that be."

      CHAPTER VII

      When Cal Maggard closed and locked his cabin door late the next afternoon he stood regarding with sombre eyes his message of defiance which, it seemed, no one had come to read.

      Yet, as he turned his back a smile replaced the scowl, for he was going to see a girl.

      At the bend where the trail crossed the shallow creek, and a stray razor-back wallowed at the roadside, Maggard saw a figure leaning indolently against the fence.

      "I suspicioned ye'd be right likely ter happen along erbout this time," enlightened Bas Rowlett as he waved his hand in greeting. "So I 'lowed I'd tarry an' santer along with ye."

      "I'm beholden ter ye," responded Maggard, but he knew what the other had been too polite to say: That this pretended casualness marked the kindly motive of affording escort because of the danger under which he himself was travelling unfamiliar roads.

      Over the crests heavy banks of clouds were settling in ominous piles of blackness and lying still-heaped in the breathlessness that precedes a tempest, but the sun still shone and Rowlett who was leading the way turned into a forest trail.

      As they went, single file, through a gorge into which the sun never struck save from the zenith; where the ferns grew lush and the great leaves of the "cucumber tree" hung motionless, they halted without a word and a comprehending glance shot between them.

      When two setters, trained to perfect team work, come unexpectedly upon the quail scent in stubble, that one which first catches the nostril-warning becomes rigid as though a breath had petrified him – and at once his fellow drops to the stiff posture of accord.

      So now, as if one hand had pulled two strings, Cal Maggard and Bas Rowlett ceased to be upright animals. The sound of a crackled twig off to the right had come to their ears, and it was a sound that carried the quality of furtiveness.

      Instantly they had dropped to their bellies and wriggled snake-like away from the spots where they had stood. Instantly, too, they became almost invisible and two drawn weapons were thrust forward.

      There they lay for perhaps two minutes, with ears straining into the silence, neither exaggerating nor under-estimating the menace that might have caused that sound in the underbrush. After a while Rowlett whispered, "What did ye hear?"

      "'Peared like ter me," responded Maggard, guardedly, "a twig cracked back thar in ther la'rel."

      Rowlett nodded but after a space he rose, shaking his head.

      "Ef so be thar's anybody a-layin' back thar in ther bresh, I reckon he's done concluded ter wait twell he gits ye by yourself," he decided. "Let's be santerin' along."

      So they went forward until they came to a point where they stood on the unforested patch of a "bald knob." There Rowlett halted again and pointed downward. Beneath them spread the valley with the band of the river winding tenuously through the bottoms of the Harper farm. About that green bowl the first voices of the coming storm were already rumbling with the constant growl of thunder.

      "Thar's ther house – and thar's ther big tree

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