In the grim
irony of that exposure, their own penury was doubly conscious. The
little knapsack, the tea-cup and coffee-pot that had hung near his bed,
were gone also. The most indignant protest, the most pathetic of the
letters he had composed and rejected, whose torn fragments still
littered the floor, could never have spoken with the eloquence of this
empty space! The men exchanged no words; the solitude of the cabin,
instead of drawing them together, seemed to isolate each one in selfish
distrust of the others. Even the unthinking garrulity of Union Mills
and the Judge was checked. A moment later, when the Left Bower entered
the cabin, his presence was scarcely noticed.
The silence was broken by a joyous exclamation from the Judge. He had
discovered the Old Man's rifle in the corner, where it had been at
first overlooked. "He ain't gone yet, gentlemen--for yer's his rifle,"
he broke in, with a feverish return of volubility, and a high excited
falsetto. "He wouldn't have left this behind. No! I knowed it from the
first. He's just outside a bit, foraging for wood and water.
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