Nearer by a
woman's figure bent over a kettle black on a bed of embers, then a
girl's fire-touched form, with raised arms, shaking down a snake of
hair, which broke and grew cloudy under her disturbing hands. A
resounding smack sounded on a horse's flank, a low ripple of laughter
came tangled with a child's querulous crying, and through the walls of
tents and the thickness of smoke the notes of a flute filtered.
Her ear caught the pad of a footstep on the grass, and her eyes seized
on a shadow that grew from dusky uncertainty to a small, bent shape.
She waited, suffocated with heartbeats, then made a noiseless pounce on
it.
"Daddy John," she gasped, clutching at him.
The old man staggered, almost taken off his feet.
"Is he worse?" he said.
"He's told me. Did you find anyone?"
"Yes--two. One's Episcopal--in a train from St. Louis."
A sound came from her that he did not understand. She gripped at his
shoulders as if she were drowning. He thought she was about to swoon
and put his arm around her saying:
"Come back to the tent. You're all on a shake as if you had ague.
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