d as the period of his silence lengthened, Tira was driven by
her fear to another greater fear: that she might mention it herself.
What if she should tell him how the crutch, leaning there at the foot of
the bed, had seemed to her a weapon, not a crutch? What if she appealed
to his pity and even played a part with him, dwelling on her woman's
weakness of nature, her tremors, deprived of the protection that should
be hers? Artifice was foreign to her. Yet what was there, short of
implicating Raven, she would not do for the child? But a glance at
Tenney's face, the tightness of reserve, the fanatical eyes, closed her
lips, and they moved about together dumbly at their common tasks. As she
grew paler and the outline of her cheek the purer over the bones
beneath, he watched her the more intently, but still furtively. One
forenoon when the sky was gray and a soft snow fell in great flakes that
melted as they came, he went haltingly up to the shed chamber and came
down with his gun. He was not a huntsman, and when they moved into the
house it had been left there with a disorder of things not likely to be
needed. He drew a chair to the table and then addressed her almost
urbanely. He wanted, she guessed, to call her attention in some explicit
way.

"You git me some kind of a rag," he bade her. "I'm goin' to clean up
this old musket. You might's well hand me that oiler, too, off'n the
sink shelf. I can't git about any too well."

She brought him the cloth and the oiler and went away to the sink again,
determined not to be drawn into any uneasiness of questioning. But it
fascinated her, the sight of him bending to his task, and her will
weakened. In spite of herself, she went over to the table and stood
looking down at him. Presently he glanced up at her and smiled a little
in a way she did not like. It seemed to imply some recognition of a
common knowledge between them. He had, the look said, more than the
apparent reason for what he was doing. The oiling of the gun was not
all. Something at the back of his mind was more significant than this
act of his hands, and this something, the look said, she also knew. All
through the moment of her gazing down at him Tira was telling herself
she must not speak. Yet she spoke:

"You goin' gunnin'?"

"I dunno but I be," he returned, his eyes again on his work. "I've had
it in mind quite a spell, an' I dunno's there's any reason for puttin'
on't off."

"What you goin' after, Isr'el?"