'
"The one on the hoe laughed; but the other picked up a stone like my
two fists and let Allen have it in the back. It surprised him like; he
stumbled forward, and the other stepped out and laid the hoe over his
head. It missed him mostly, but enough landed to knock Allen over. He
rolled into the ditch, like, by the road; and then Hatburn jumped down
on him, deliberate, with lumbermen's irons in his shoes."
David was conscious of an icy flood pouring through him; a revulsion of
grief and fury that blinded him. Tears welled over his fresh cheeks in
an audible crying. But he was silenced by the aspect of his father.
Hunter Kinemon's tender blue eyes had changed apparently into bits of
polished steel; his mouth was pinched until it was only a line among
the other lines and seaming of his worn face.
"I'd thank you to drive the stage into Crabapple, Ed," he said; "and if
you see the doctor coming over the mountain--he's been rung up for--ask
him, please sir, will he hurry." He turned and walked abruptly away,
followed by David.
Allen lay under the gay quilt in the Kinemons' big bed. His stained
clothes drooped from a chair where Mrs. Kinemon had flung them. Allen's
face was like white paper; suddenly it had grown as thin and sharp as
an old man's. Only a slight quiver of his eyelids showed that he was
not dead.
Hunter Kinemon sat on the couch, obviously waiting for the doctor. He,
too, looked queer, David thought. He wished his father would break the
dreadful silence gathering over them; but the only sound was the
stirring of the woman in the kitchen, boiling a pot of water.
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