"Arrested, I 'spect," cried O'Day, boldly; "Van Dorn's hit in the
throat."
"He'll not talk much, then," muttered the woman; "his time had to come.
Where will I find another lover at my age? Why, honey," she chuckled to
herself, in a looking-glass, "that son of his'n may come back. He's took
a shine to Huldy: why not to me?"
At the idea another hideous thought came to her mind: to settle Hulda's
fate in her young lover's absence, and monopolize the corrupting power
over Levin Dennis, if he ever lived to see Johnson's Cross-roads again.
As individual fugitives returned, confirming the decisive repulse of the
band, Patty Cannon's face grew dark, and her oaths low and deep; Cyrus
James heard her say:
"If I could only hang some one for this! Joe Johnson's the white-livered
sneak that would not go. I've hanged a better son-in-law."
"Aunt Patty, I love your grandchild, Huldy," Cy James ventured to say.
"The Captain's wounded and Joe's going away to Floridy. Maybe I kin git
you up another band."
Without an instant's consideration of this ambitious proposition, Mrs.
Cannon threw Cy James, by main strength, through the window of her bar,
into her kitchen, and he bawled like a baby, yet came out of his grief
muttering, "Ploughin', ploughin'! I'll make her into batter and fry her
yet."
With this reflection Mr. James hid himself for the remainder of the
afternoon in some secluded part of the Hotel Johnson.
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