Viola Gwyn | Page 7

smoke of the kitchen fire, to be whirled away on the wind that was
guiding the storm out of the rumbling north. There was a dull, wavering
glow in the room behind her. At one of the two small windows gleamed
a candle-light.
"What's takin' you to Clark's Point? There ain't no tavern there. There
ain't nothin' there but a hitch-post and a waterin'-trough. Oh, yes, I
forgot. Right behind the hitch-post is Jake Stone's store and a couple of
ash-hoppers and a town-hall, but you wouldn't notice 'em if you
happened to be on the wrong side of the post. Mebby it's Middleton
you're lookin' fer."
"I am looking for a place to put up for the night, friend. We met a man
back yonder, half an hour ago, who said the nearest tavern was at
Clark's Point."
"What fer sort of lookin' man was he?"
"Tall fellow with red whiskers, riding a grey horse."
"That was Jake Stone hisself. Beats all how that feller tries to advertise
his town. He says it beats Crawfordsville and Lafayette all to smash, an'
it's only three or four months old. Which way was he goin'?"

"I suppose you'd call it south. I've lost my bearings, you see."
"That's it. He was on his way down to Attica to get drunk. They say
Attica's goin' to be the biggest town on the Wabash. Did I ask you what
your name was, stranger?"
"My name is Gwynne. I left Crawfordsville this morning, hoping to
reach Lafayette before night. But the road is so heavy we couldn't---"
"Been rainin' steady for nearly two weeks," interrupted the settler.
"Hub-deep everywhere. It's a good twenty-five or thirty mile from
Crawfordsville to Lafayette. Looks like more rain, too. I think she'll be
on us in about two minutes. I guess mebby we c'n find a place fer you
to sleep to-night, and we c'n give you somethin' fer man an' beast. If
you'll jest ride around here to the barn, we'll put the hosses up an' feed
'em, and--Eliza, set out a couple more plates, an' double the rations all
around." His left arm and hand came into view. "Set this here gun back
in the corner, Eliza. I guess I ain't goin' to need it. Gimme my hat, too,
will ye?"
As the woman drew back from the door, a third figure came up behind
the man and took her place. The horseman down at the roadside, fifty
feet away, made out the figure of a woman. She touched the man's arm
and he turned as he was in the act of stepping down from the door-log.
She spoke to him in a low voice that failed to reach the ears of the
travellers.
The man shook his head slowly, and then called out:
"I didn't jist ketch your name, mister. The wind's makin' such a noise
I--Say it again, will ye?"
"My name is Kenneth Gwynne. Get it?" shouted the horseman. "And
this is my servant, Zachariah."
The man in the door bent his head, without taking his eyes from the
horseman, while the woman murmured something in his ear, something
that caused him to straighten up suddenly.

"Where do you come from?" he inquired, after a moment's hesitation.
"My home is in Kentucky. I live at---"
"Kentucky, eh? Well, that's a good place to come from. I guess you're
all right, stranger." He turned to speak to his companion. A few words
passed between them, and then she drew back into the room. The
woman called Eliza came up with the man's hat and a lighted lantern.
She closed the door after him as he stepped out into the yard.
"'Round this way," he called out, making off toward the corner of the
cabin. "Don't mind the dogs. They won't bite, long as I'm here."
The wind was wailing through the stripped trees behind the house,--a
sombre, limitless wall of trees that seemed to close in with smothering
relentlessness about the lonely cabin and its raw field of stumps. The
angry, low-lying clouds and the hastening dusk of an early April day
had by this time cast the gloom of semi-darkness over the scene.
Spasmodic bursts of lightning laid thin dull, unearthly flares upon the
desolate land, and the rumble of apple-carts filled the ear with promise
of disaster. The chickens had gone to roost; several cows, confined in a
pen surrounded by the customary stockade of poles driven deep into the
earth and lashed together with the bark of the sturdy elm, were huddled
in front of a rude shed; a number of squealing, grunting pigs nosed the
cracks in the rail fence that formed still another pen; three or four
pompous turkey gobblers strutted unhurriedly about the barnlot, while
some of their less theatrical