, a new courage, a new hope in that
pallid, furtive face, and another horse stood saddled among the equine
group at the door. Meddlesome was pinning up the brown skirt of her
gown, showing a red petticoat that had harmonies with a coarse, red
plaid shawl adjusted over her head and shoulders.

"Gran'dad," she observed, never looking up, and speaking with her mouth
full of pins, "Barton Smith say he kin set me down at Aunt Drusina's
house. Ye know she be ailin', an' sent for me this evenin'; but I hed no
way ter go."

The sheriff looked sour enough at this intrusion; but he doubtless
imagined that this relative was no distant neighbor, and as he had need
of hearty aid and popular support, he offered no protest.

There was a clearing sky without, and the wind was laid. The frenzy
of the storm was over, although rain was still falling. The little
cavalcade got to horse deliberately enough amid the transparent dun
shadows and dim yellow flare of light from open door and window. One
of the mounts had burst a girth, and a strap must be procured from
the plow-gear in the shed. Another, a steed of some spirit, reared and
plunged at the lights, and could not be induced to cross the illuminated
bar thrown athwart the yard from the open door. The official impatience
of the delay was expressed in irritable comments and muttered oaths; but
throughout the interval the guide, with his pallid, strained face,
sat motionless in his saddle, his rifle across its pommel, an apt
presentment of indifference, while, perched behind him, Meddy was
continually busy in readjusting her skirts or shawl or a small bundle
that presumably contained her rustic finery, but which, to a close
approach, would have disclosed the sulphurous odor of gunpowder. When
the cluster of horsemen was fairly on the march, however, she sat quite
still, and more than once Seymour noted that, with her face close to
the shoulder of the guide, she was whispering in his ear. What was their
garnet he marvelled, having once projected the idea that this late comer
was, himself, the "wolf's head" whom they were to chase down for a rich
reward, incongruously hunting amidst his own hue and cry. Or, Seymour
again doubted, had he merely constructed a figment of a scheme from his
own imaginings and these attenuations of suggestion? For there seemed,
after all, scant communication between the two, and this was even less
when the moon was unveiled, the shifting shimmer of the clouds