"Yes, it was, Anne," he announced. "The word is like the dances. It has a different significance in the hills. For instance when you go to visit your father in Marlin County, Boone will be charitable to you too--or, as we would say, courteous."
"Be ye comin' ter ther mountains?" demanded Boone, and the sudden interest which rang in his voice surprised himself.
Fearful lest he had displayed too much enthusiasm, he withdrew cautiously into his almost stolid manner again. "I'm beholden ter ye fer this hyar sweet cake," he said. "Hit's ther fust Christmas gift I ever got."
The house party ended a few days after that, so the mansion became again a building of shuttered windows and closed doors, and as the old year died and the new one dawned, Saul himself was frequently absent on mysterious journeys to Frankfort.
Sometimes he returned home with a smoulder in his eyes, and once or twice he brought with him a companion, who sat broodingly across the hearth from him and discussed politics, not after the fashion of frank debate but in the sinister undertones of furtiveness. On one particular night in the first week of January, while Saul was entertaining such a visitor, a knock sounded on the door, and when it was opened a man entered, whose dress and bearing were of the more prosperous strata and who seemed to be expected.
Boone overheard the conversation which followed from the obscurity of the chimney corner, where he appeared to be napping and was overlooked.
"I'm right sorry you was called on to journey all the way here from Frankfort," began Saul apologetically, but the other cut him short with a crisp response.
"Don't let that worry you. There are too many eyes and ears in Frankfort. You know what the situation is now, don't you?"
"I knows right well thet ther Democrat aims ter hev ther legislater seat him. He's been balked by ther people an' his own commission--an' now thet's his only chanst."
"The Governor says that if he leaves the state house it will be on a stretcher," announced the visitor defiantly. "But there are more conspiracies against us on foot than I have leisure to explain. The time has come for you mountain men to make good."
Saul rose and paced the floor for a minute, then halted and jerked his head toward the companion whom he had brought home with him that evening.