Abner was looking at the man with a curious interest.
“It is strange,” he said, as though speaking to himself, “but it explains the thing. While one is the servant of neither, one has the courage of neither; but when he finally makes his choice he gets what his master has to give him.”
Then he spoke to Dix.
“Sit down!” he said; and it was in that deep, level voice that Abner used when he was standing close behind his words. Every man in the hills knew that voice; one had only a moment to decide after he heard it. Dix knew that, and yet for one instant he hung there on his toes, his eyes shimmering like a weasel’s, his mouth twisting. He was not afraid! If he had had the ghost of a chance against Abner he would have taken it. But he knew he had not, and with an oath he threw the saddle blanket into a corner and sat down by the fire.
Abner came away from the door then. He took off his great coat. He put a log on the fire, and he sat down across the hearth from Dix. The new hickory sprang crackling into flames. For a good while there was silence; the two men sat at either end of the hearth without a word. Abner seemed to have fallen into a study of the man before him. Finally he spoke:
“Dix,” he said, “do you believe in the providence of God?”
Dix flung up his head.
“Abner,” he cried, “if you are going to talk nonsense I promise you upon my oath that I will not stay to listen.”
Abner did not at once reply. He seemed to begin now at another point.
“Dix,” he said, “you’ve had a good deal of bad luck… Perhaps you wish it put that way.”
“Now, Abner,” he cried, “you speak the truth; I have had hell’s luck.”
“Hell’s luck you have had,” replied Abner. “It is a good word. I accept it. Your partner disappeared with all the money of the grazers on the other side of the river; you lost the land in your lawsuit; and you are tonight without a dollar. That was a big tract of land to lose. Where did you get so great a sum of money?”
“I have told you a hundred times,” replied Dix. “I got it from my people over the mountains. You know where I got it.”
“Yes,” said Abner. “I know where you got it, Dix. And I know another thing. But first I want to show you this,” and he took a little penknife out of his pocket. “And I want to tell you that I believe in the providence of God, Dix.”
“I don’t care a fiddler’s damn what you believe in,” said Dix.
“But you do care what I know,” replied Abner.
“What do you know?” said Dix.
“I know where your partner is,” replied Abner.
I was uncertain about what Dix was going to do, but finally he answered with a sneer.
“Then you know something that nobody else knows.”
“Yes,” replied Abner, “there is another man who knows.”
“Who?” said Dix.
“You,” said Abner.
Dix leaned over in his chair and looked at Abner closely.
“Abner,” he cried, “you are talking nonsense. Nobody knows where Alkire is. If I knew I’d go after him.”
“Dix,” Abner answered, and it was again in that deep, level voice, “if I had got here five minutes later you would have gone after him. I can promise you that, Dix.
“Now, listen! I was in the upcountry when I got your word about the partnership; and I was on my way back when at Big Run I broke a stirrup-leather. I had no knife and I went into the store and bought this one; then the storekeeper told me that Alkire had gone to see you. I didn’t want to interfere with him and I turned back… So I did not become your partner. And so I did not disappear… What was it that prevented? The broken stirrup-leather? The knife? In old times, Dix, men were so blind that God had to open their eyes before they could see His angel in the way before them… They are still blind, but they ought not to be that blind… Well, on the night that Alkire disappeared I met him on his way to your house. It was out there at the bridge. He had broken a stirrup-leather and he was trying to fasten it with a nail. He asked me if I had a knife, and I gave him this one. It was beginning to rain and I went on, leaving him there in the road with the knife in his hand.”
Abner paused; the muscles of his great iron jaw contracted.
“God forgive me,” he said; “it was His angel again! I never saw Alkire after that.”
“Nobody ever saw him after that,” said Dix. “He got out of the hills that night.”
“No,” replied Abner; “it was not in the night when Alkire started on his journey; it was in the day.”
“Abner,” said Dix, “you talk like a fool. If Alkire had traveled the road in the day somebody would have seen him.”
“Nobody could see him on the road he traveled,” replied Abner.
“What road?” said Dix.
“Dix,” replied Abner, “you will learn that soon enough.”
Abner looked hard at the man.
“You saw Alkire when he started on his journey,” he continued; “but did you see who it was that went with him?”
“Nobody went with him,” replied Dix; “Alkire rode alone.”
“Not alone,” said Abner; “there was another.”
“I didn’t see him,” said Dix.
“And yet,” continued Abner, “you made Alkire go with him.”
I saw cunning enter Dix’s face. He was puzzled, but he thought Abner off the scent.
“And I made Alkire go with somebody, did I? Well, who was it? Did you see him?”
“Nobody ever saw him.”
“He must be a stranger.”
“No,” replied Abner, “he rode the hills before we came into them.”
“Indeed!” said Dix. “And what kind of a horse did he ride?”
“White!” said Abner.
Dix got some inkling of what Abner meant now, and his face grew livid.
“What are you driving at?” he cried. “You sit here beating around the bush. If you know anything, say it out; let’s hear it. What is it?”
Abner put out his big sinewy hand as though to thrust Dix back into his chair.
“Listen!” he said. “Two days after that I wanted to get out into the Ten Mile country and I went through your lands; I rode a path through the narrow valley west of your house. At a point on the path where there is an apple tree something caught my eye and I stopped. Five minutes later I knew exactly what had happened under that apple tree… Someone had ridden there; he had stopped under that tree; then something happened and the horse had run away-I knew that by the tracks of a horse on this path. I knew that the horse had a rider and that it had stopped under this tree, because there was a limb cut from the tree at a certain height. I knew the horse had remained there, because the small twigs of the apple limb had been pared off, and they lay in a heap on the path. I knew that something had frightened the horse and that it had run away, because the sod was torn up where it had jumped… Ten minutes later I knew that the rider had not been in the saddle when the horse jumped; I knew what it was that had frightened the horse; and I knew that the thing had occurred the day before. Now, how did I know that?
“Listen! I put my horse into the tracks of that other horse under the tree and studied the ground. Immediately I saw where the weeds beside the path had been crushed, as though some animal had been lying down there, and in the very center of that bed I saw a little heap of fresh earth. That was strange, Dix, that fresh earth where the animal had been lying down! It had come there after the animal had got up, or else it would have been pressed flat. But where had it come from?
“I got off and walked around the apple tree, moving out from it in an ever-widening circle. Finally I found an ant heap, the top of which had been scraped away as though one had taken up the loose earth in his hands. Then I went back and plucked up some of the earth. The under clods of it were colored as with red paint… No, it wasn’t paint.
“There was a brush fence some fifty yards away. I went over to it and followed it down.
“Opposite the apple tree the weeds were again crushed as though some animal had lain there. I sat down in that place and drew a line with my eye across a log of the fence to a limb of the apple tree. Then I got on my horse and again put him in the tracks of that other horse under the tree; the imaginary line passed through the pit of my stomach!… I am four inches taller than Alkire.”