Page:Harold Bell Wright--The shepherd of the hills.djvu/70

 thought a heap about it, I ain't never seen it myself, and it 'pears to me that if she could come back at all, she'd sure come to her old Daddy. Then again I figure it that bein' took the way she was, part of her dead, so to speak, from the time she got that letter, and her mind so set on his comin' back, that maybe somehow—you see—that maybe she is sort a waitin' for him there. Many's the time I have prayed all night that God would let me meet him again just once, or that proud father of his'n, just once, sir; I'd glad go to Hell if I could only meet them first. If she is waitin' for him down there, ''he'll come; he'll sure come. Hell couldn't hold him against such as that, and when he comes''—"

Unconsciously, as he spoke the last sentences, the giant's voice took a tone of terrible meaning, and he slowly rose from his seat. When he uttered the last word he was standing erect, his muscles tense, his powerful frame shaken with passion.

There was an inarticulate cry of horror, as the mountaineer's guest started to his feet. A moment he stood, then sank back into his chair, a cowering, shivering heap.

Long into the night, the stranger walked the floor of his little room under the roof, his face drawn and white, whispering half aloud things that would have startled his unsuspecting host. "My boy—my boy—