The Wild Olive. Basil King

basket, while Micmac rose and shook himself. Presently she closed the door of the cabin and locked it on the outside. He fancied he could almost hear her step as she sped over the grass and into the forest. Only then did the tension of his nerves relax, as, dropping to his chair in the darkness, he began to eat.

      IV

       Table of Contents

      The two or three days that followed were much like the first. Each morning she came early, bringing him food, and such articles of clothing as she thought he could wear. By degrees she provided him with a complete change of raiment, and though the fit was tolerable, they laughed together at the transformation produced in him. It was the first time he had seen her smile, and even in the obscurity of the inner room where she still kept him secluded he noted the vividness with which her habitually grave features lighted up. Micmac, too, became friendly, inferring with the instinct of his race that Ford was an object to be guarded.

      "No one would know you now," the girl declared, surveying him with satisfaction.

      "Were these things all your father's?" he asked, with a new attempt to penetrate the mystery of her personality.

      "Yes," she returned, absently, continuing her inspection of him. "They were sent to me, and I kept them. I never knew why I did; but I suppose it was—for this."

      "He must have been a tall man?" Ford hazarded, again.

      "Yes, he must have been," she returned, unwarily. Then, feeling that the admission required some explanation, she added, with a touch of embarrassment, "I never saw him—not that I can remember."

      "Then he died a long time ago?"

      Her reply came reluctantly, after some delay:

      "Not so very long—about four years ago now."

      "And yet you hadn't seen him since you were a child?"

      "There were reasons. We mustn't talk. Some one may pass and hear us."

      He could see that her hurry in finishing the small tasks she had come in to perform for him arose not so much from precaution as from a desire to escape from this particular subject.

      "I suppose you could tell me his name?" he persisted.

      Her hands moved deftly, producing order among the things he had left in confusion, but she remained silent. It was a silence in which he recognized an element of protest though he ignored it.

      "You could tell me his name?" he asked, again.

      "His name," she said, at last, "wouldn't convey anything to you. It wouldn't do you any good to know it."

      "It would gratify my curiosity. I should think you might do as much as that for me."

      "I'm doing a great deal for you as it is. I don't think you should ask for more."

      Her tone was one of reproach rather than of annoyance, and he was left with a sense of having committed an indiscretion. The consciousness brought with it the perception that in a measure he was growing used to his position. He was beginning to take it for granted that this girl should come and minister to his wants. She herself did it so simply, so much as a matter of course, that the circumstance lost much of its strangeness. Now and then he could detect some confusion in her manner as she served him, but he could see too that she surmounted it, in view of the fact that for him the situation was one of life and death. She was clearly not indifferent to elementary social usages; she only saw that the case was one in which they did not obtain. In his long, unoccupied hours of darkness it distracted his thoughts from his own peril to speculate about her; and when she appeared his questions were the more blunt because of the small opportunity she allowed for asking them.

      "Won't they miss you at home?" he inquired, on the next occasion when she entered his cell.

      She paused with a look of surprise.

      "At home? Where do you mean?"

      "Why—where you live; where your mother lives."

      "My mother died a few months after I was born."

      "Oh! But even so, you live somewhere, don't you?"

      "I do; but they don't miss me there, if that's what you want to know."

      "I was only afraid," he said, apologetically, "that you were giving me too much of your time."

      "I've nothing else to do with it. I shall be only too glad if I can help you to escape."

      "Why? Why should you care about me?"

      "I don't," she said, simply; "at least, I don't know that I do."

      "Oh, then you're helping me just—on general principles?"

      "Quite so."

      "Well," he smiled, "mayn't I ask why, again?"

      "Because I don't like the law."

      "You mean that you don't like the law as a whole?—or—or this law in particular?"

      "I don't like any law. I don't like anything about it. But," she added, resorting to her usual method of escape, "we mustn't talk any more now. Some men passed here this morning, and they may be coming back. They've given up looking for you; they are convinced you're up in the lumber camps, but all the same we must be careful still."

      He had no further speech with her that day, and the next she remained at the cabin little more than an hour.

      "It's just as well for me not to excite curiosity," she explained to him before leaving; "and you needn't be uneasy now. They've stopped the hunt altogether. They say there's not a spot within a radius of ten miles of Greenport that they haven't searched. It would never occur to any one that you could be here. Every one knows me; and so the thought that I could be helping you would be the last in their minds."

      "And have you no remorse at betraying their confidence?"

      She shook her head. "Most of them," she declared, "are very well pleased to think you've got away; and even if they weren't I should never feel remorse for helping any one to evade the law."

      "You seem to have a great objection to the law."

      "Well, haven't you?"

      "Yes; but in my case it's comprehensible."

      "So it is in mine—if you only knew."

      "Perhaps," he said, looking at her steadily, "this is as good a time as any to assure you that the law has done me wrong."

      He waited for her to say something; but as she stroked Micmac's head in silence, he continued.

      "I never committed the crime of which they found me guilty."

      He waited again for some intimation of her confidence.

      "Their string of circumstantial evidence was plausible enough, I admit. The only weak point about it was that it wasn't true."

      Even through the obscurity of his refuge he could feel the suspension of expression in her bearing, and could imagine it bringing a kind of eclipse over her eyes.

      "He was very cruel to you—your uncle?—wasn't he?" she asked, at last.

      "He was very cantankerous; but that wouldn't be a reason for shooting him in his sleep—whatever I may have said when in a rage."

      "I should think it might be."

      He started. If it were not for the necessity of making no noise he would have laughed.

      "Are you so bloodthirsty—?" he began.

      "Oh no, I'm not; but I should think it is what a man would do. My father wouldn't have submitted to it. I know he killed one man; and he may have killed two or three."

      Ford whistled under his breath.

      "So that," he said, after a pause, "your objection