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“It’s empty,” she said, inverting the basket. She watched him flinch, and asked wonderingly, “Is game skeerce?”

His eyes were at once forlorn and fierce. “Oh, yes, powerful skeerce,” he replied with a bitter laugh.

There was an enigma in the rejoinder; she did not stay to read the riddle, but went on to possess the situation, according to her wont. “Ye hev tuk a powerful pore place ter hide,” she admonished him. “This tree is a plumb cur’osity. Gran’dad Kettison war tellin’ some camp-hunters ’bout’n it jes this evenin’. Like ez not they’ll kem ter view it.”

His eyes dilated with a sudden accession of terror that seemed always a-smoulder. “Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!” he moaned wretchedly.

Meddlesome was true to her name and tradition. “Ye oughter hev remembered the Lawd ‘fore ye done it,” she said, with a repellent impulse; then she would have given much to recall the reproach. The man was desperate; his safety lay in her silence. A pistol-shot would secure it, and anger would limber the trigger.

But he did not seem indignant. His eyes, intelligent and feverishly bright, gazed down at her only in obvious dismay and surprise. “Done what?” he asked, and as, prudence prevailing for once, she did not reply, he spoke for her. “The murder, ye mean? Why, gal, I warn’t even thar. I knowed nuthin’ ’bout it till later. Ez God is my helper and my hope, I warn’t even thar.”

She stood astounded. “Then why n’t ye leave it ter men?”

“I can’t prove it ag’in’ the murderers’ oaths. I had been consarned in the moonshinin’ that ended in murder, but I hed not been nigh the still fer a month,–I war out a-huntin’–when the revenuers made the raid. There war a scrimmage ‘twixt the raiders an’ the distillers, an’ an outsider that hed nuthin’ ter do with the Federal law–he war the constable o’ the deestrick, an’ jes rid with the gang ter see the fun or ter show them the way–he war killed. An’ account o’ him, the State law kem into the game. Them other moonshiners war captured, an’ they swore ag’in’ me ’bout the shootin’ ter save tharselves, but I hearn thar false oaths hev done them no good, they being held as accessory. An’ I be so ez I can’t prove an alibi–I can’t prove it, though it’s God’s truth. But before high heaven”–he lifted his gaunt right hand–“I am innercent, I am inner-cent.”

She could not have said why,–perhaps she realized afterward,–but she believed him absolutely, implicitly. A fervor of sympathy for his plight, of commiseration, surged up in her heart. “I wisht it war so I could gin ye some pervisions,” she sighed, “though ye do ‘pear toler’ble triflin’ ter lack game.”

Then the dread secret was told. “Gal,”–he used the word as a polite form of address, the equivalent of the more sophisticated “lady,”–“ef ye will believe me, all my ammunition is spent. Not a ca’tridge lef’, not a dust of powder.”

Meddy caught both her hands to her lips to intercept and smother a cry of dismay.

“I snared a rabbit two days ago in a dead-fall. My knife-blade is bruk, but I reckon thar is enough lef’ ter split my jugular whenst the eend is kem at last.”

The girl suddenly caught her faculties together. “What sorter fool talk is that!” she demanded sternly.’ “Ye do my bid, ef ye knows what’s good fer ye. Git out’n this trap of a tree an’ hide ‘mongst the crevices of the rocks till seben o ‘clock ternight. Then kem up ter Gran’dad Kettison’s whenst it is cleverly dark an’ tap on the glass winder–not on the batten shutter. An’ I’ll hev cartridges an’ powder an’ ball for ye’ an’ some victuals ready, too.”

But the fugitive, despite his straits, demurred. “I don’t want ter git old man Kettison into trouble for lendin’ ter me.”

“‘T ain’t his’n. ‘T is my dad’s old buckshot ca’tridges an’ powder an’ ball. They belong ter me. The other childern is my half-brothers, bein’ my mother war married twice. Ye kin steal this gear from me, ef that will make ye feel easier.”