“I hope so, Polly!” said Cavendish, but her words were a powerful assault on his feelings, which at all times lay close to the surface and were easily stirred.

Under stress of his emotions, he now enjoined silence on his family, fortifying the injunction with dire threats as to the consequences that would descend with lightning—­like suddenness on the head of the unlucky sinner who forgot and raised his voice above a whisper.  Then he despatched a chicken; sure sign that he and Polly considered their guest had reached the first stage of convalescence.

CHAPTER XVIII

AN ORPHAN MAN OF TITLE

The raft drifted on into the day’s heat; and when at last Yancy awoke, it was to find Henry and Keppel seated beside him, each solacing him with a small moist hand, while they regarded him out of the serious unblinking eyes of childhood.

“Howdy!” said he, smiling up at them.

“Howdy!” they answered, a sociable grin puckering their freckled faces.

“Do you find yo’self pretty well, sir?” inquired Keppel.

“I find myself pretty weak,” replied Yancy.

“Me and Kep has been watching fo’ to keep the flies from stinging you,” explained Henry.

“We-all takes turns doin’ that,” Keppel added.

“Well, and how many of you-all are there?” asked Yancy.

“There’s six of we-uns and the baby.”

They covertly examined this big bearded man who had lost his nevvy, and almost his life.  They had overheard their father and mother discuss his plans and knew when he was recovered from his wounds if he did not speedily meet up with his nevvy at a place called Memphis, he was going back to Lincoln County, which was near where they came from, to have the hide off a gentleman of the name of Slosson.  They imagined the gentleman named Slosson would find the operation excessively disagreeable; and that Yancy should be recuperating for so unique an enterprise invested him with a romantic interest.  Henry squirmed closer to the recumbent figure on the bed.

“Me and Kep would like mighty well to know how you-all are goin’ to strip the hide offen to that gentleman’s back,” he observed.

Yancy instantly surmised that the reference was to Slosson.

“I reckon I’ll feel obliged to just naturally skin him,” he explained.

“Sho’, will he let you do that?” they demanded.

“He won’t be consulted none.  And his hide will come off easy once I get hold of him by the scruff of the neck.”  Yancy’s speech was gentle and his lips smiling, but he meant a fair share of what he said.

“Sho’, is that the way you do it?” And round-eyed they gazed down on this fascinating stranger.

“I may have to touch him up with a tickler,” continued Yancy, who did not wish to prove disappointing.  “I reckon you-all know what a tickler is?”