youth.

"Huh!" she remarked enigmatically. Then with a sudden change; "Yit whilst
we are a-namin' sech, honey, won't you jest run out to my saddle and
bring me the spotted caliker poke off'n hit--hit's got my bundle of yarbs
in it. I'll put on a drawin' of boneset for you befo' I set down."

"All right, Nancy--but I reckon I'll have to clear these folks out of
this sick-room fust," responded old Jephthah genially. "We're apt to have
too much goin' on for Creed."

But as they were marshalled to leave, the noise of a new arrival in the
kitchen brought the curious Huldah to the door and she threw it wide to
admit Iley, into whose arms she promptly precipitated herself with
voluble explanations, which covered her career from the time she left Jim
Cal's cabin till that moment.

"You an' Wade are wedded? Why couldn't you let a body know?" inquired
Iley wrathfully, grasping her by the shoulder, holding her off for
somewhat hostile inspection.

"That's what I say," echoed Jim Cal's voice from the doorway where he
harboured, a trifle out of sight. "Ef you-all gals would be a little mo'
open an' above-bo'd about yo' courtin' business hit would save lots of
folks plenty of trouble. Here's Iley got some sort o' notion that Huldy
was over at Blatch's, an' she put out an' run me home so fast that I
ain't ketched my breath till yit."

"Over at Blatch's?" old Jephthah looked angrily about him, and Judith
made haste to explain the whole matter, detailing everything that had led
up to the trouble.

"We-all talked it over, Uncle Jep, and as you wasn't here we made out to
do the best we could, and the boys went."

"After me!" crowed Huldah. "An' thar I was on the train 'long o' Wade
comin' to Garyville that blessed minute."

"Well, Blatch had us hog-tied an' waitin' for the marshal to come an'
cyart us down and send us to the penitentiary," Jeff set forth the case.
"But you know how Blatch is, always devilin' folks; he made old Gid Rust
mad, an' when Clianthy an' Pendrilly met the old man out on the road soon
this mornin', he told 'em to take a knife and come up to the cave an'
they could keep what they found."

"I never was so scairt in my life," Cliantha asseverated. Her china-blue
eyes had not yet resumed their normal size or contour, and the assertion
was easily believed.

"Nor me neither," agreed Pendrilla. "I says to him, says I, 'Now you, Gid
Rust, do you 'low we're crazy? We're a-lookin' for old Boss and Spot, an'
we