"Is that you, Pr-ressley? Do you r-ride or walk?"
Friedrich slipped the reins over the mule's head, and led him out on to the highway. Pressley walked beside him. The stars shone brightly enough to make visible the open road.
"Are you-all goin' to ask me about the rent, Mr. Baron? Bud 'n me's been pullin' fodder fo' a week. Hit's all ready in the upper field, 'n you c'n take yo' choice any time. They's good bundles, fo' han's to the bundle."
"Thank you. No, it was not of that I was going to speak. I want to tell you that about six weeks ago--it was in August--I was up on Buzzard Mountain one night, and I fell asleep there."
Pink looked at him suspiciously in the darkness, and put a piece of the road between them.
"I fell asleep on a ledge of r-rock, and when I woke up I heard voices just under me."
"Well, what ye goin' to do about hit? Hit ain' befittin' you to squeal on us."
Von Rittenheim turned hot in the darkness, and made an impulsive motion that induced a corresponding disturbance in his companion.
"If I had thought of doing that I should not have spoken to you to-night."
Pressley nodded, and came across the intervening space.
"You-all wan' to come into the game, eh?"
"No, I do not want to join you, if that is what you mean."
"I wees' to say a few things to you. I do not ask you to stop moonshining. You are old enough to decide for yourself what kind of life you pr-refer to lead, though you know well that the life of a law-br-reaker is not the r-right sort."
"Oh, quit preachin', Mr. Baron. You-all's a law-breaker, yo'self."
Friedrich clutched the reins with a jerk that made the mule give a disgusted snort. The justice of the retort compelled him to self-control, as well as the knowledge that a giving way to rage would accomplish nothing, whereas coolness might do something.
"You know as well as I do the penalty of br-reaking the law. You've suffered it more than once, they tell me."
"Ah reckon Ah've cost 'em right smart mo'n they ever got out o' me," chuckled Pink.
"So I do not ask you to face the r-results of what you do, because you know well what they are, and you have made your choice. But I do ask you to think carefully before you undertake the r-responsibility of making Bud a criminal."