“Here,” said the farmer. He reached down a burly arm and hauled both Dreeme and the girl back to the road. Then, without a word, he took Deborah from the young doctor’s arms and stepped ahead. They circled the hollow partially without gazing through the bushes and soon struck the path by which they had come. Then, at a dogtrot, the sturdy farmer started back to town with Dreeme at his heels.
“What … happened?” inquired the young doctor breathlessly and bewilderedly.
“Judgment Day,” replied Walden Slater. His voice was grim.
Behind them they could hear confused voices.
“Will there … be more … fighting?” panted Dreeme.
Walden Slater cleared his throat.
“Nope,” he said.
He coughed loudly and spat into the darkness.
“Nothing to fight about,” he added. “Nothing to make these fool farmers mad now. It’s all over.”
They went on in silence after that. It was not until they had left the swamp, climbed the open stretch into Briony Wood, and were once more among the trees that Walden Slater spoke again.
“Westcott got away,” he said significantly. His voice was the voice of a trial judge. He was the law personified. Dreeme understood him perfectly.
“You’ve got five shells left,” he said.
“We’ll stop at the Westcott farm,” replied the farmer.
XI
I
The twisting path through Briony Wood had never been traveled at such a speedy pace before. Walden Slater, carrying Deborah in his arms much as he might carry a small baby, maintained his dogtrot over the hummocky path, through puddles, across deceptive roots. As Dreeme, close behind him, running, too, in his bare feet, observed the square back of the farmer, a back against which the water-soaked shirt clung tightly and so revealed the contours of the great sliding back-muscles much as a skin might, a feeling of wonder and intense indebtedness crept over him. He had never known Walden Slater but now he knew him, knew him for a determined and relentless machine bent on justice. He had seen him in previous years bowed by the killing toil of his stony acres, eating gluttonously at table, sagging in his creaking rocker on the back porch, always silent, always (now that he came to think of it) self-contained. The young doctor’s mind swept back over the past few days. Walden Slater eating cabbage. Walden Slater rocking in the darkness. Walden Slater finding words with difficulty, announcing that Deborah might stay with him as long as she pleased. Dreeme knew now that this statement was a secret challenge to Westcott and Burroughs. Walden Slater whittling on the back porch, asking the preacher for a knife. The knife was dull. How easily he had achieved this bit of detective acumen. Walden Slater thinking, reaching conclusions in that slow dogged mind that was, after all, so far from stupidity. Walden Slater watching night after night, keeping guard under the bright moon. Walden Slater like an enormous hound on the scent. Walden Slater rising like justice with the smoking gun in his hand. The figure of the farmer grew to colossal dimensions in the young doctor’s estimation.
All this while they were hurrying through Briony Wood, hurrying through trees that were no longer malevolent spectres of a diseased fancy but merely slender birches and pines. Though the branches whipped across his face, though he stumbled into muddy hollows, though sharp thorns tore at his soiled and soaking garments, Dreeme no longer experienced that instinctive fear that had haunted him so short a time before. His body was emptied of fright. It was almost emptied of exertion as well for a growing hollowness within him, a tightening at the pit of his stomach, a painful numbness in his legs informed him that he was approaching the end of his endurance. Still, an implacable nervous energy pushed him forward, a febrile comprehension of one more important thing to be done. He knew what it was but he did not permit his mind to dwell upon it too fiercely. After all, what had he to do with the peculiar ideas of justice in the valley. He had seen what could be accomplished by established authority during the day following the murder of Wagner. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There had been evasion, then, a deliberate slowness, a maddening deflection of proper proceedings. But this time it would be different. Justice would secure its own and would even the balance. He hurried on at the heels of Walden Slater serious but determined. He could see the loose hair of Deborah resting against the stout shoulder of the farmer and the sight of it filled him with a vast pity. It would be justice accomplished for her sake so far as he was concerned. She, the innocent victim, would be furiously avenged. Walden Slater might have the future of the whole valley in his thoughts, its complete release from an evil domination, but the safety of Deborah was enough for him to think about. There was only one way in which to fight madness.
They were at the height of Briony Wood now and the soughing wind was a cold lance against their faces. It was remarkable how swiftly they had proceeded on their return journey. The way to Dagon had seemed much longer. As they pressed forward the heavens seemed to split apart like two halves of a dark shell and out of the break sprang the moon like a great white seed. A milky light flooded the black shining leaves
