Behind her was the boy--his dagger
still in hand.
"Come right in!" said the old man, "we are purty pore folks, but
you're welcome to what we have."
The fisherman, too, had to stoop as he came in, for he, too, was
tall. The interior was dark, in spite of the wood fire in the big
stone fireplace. Strings of herbs and red-pepper pods and twisted
tobacco hung from the ceiling and down the wall on either side of
the fire; and in one corner, near the two beds in the room, hand-
made quilts of many colours were piled several feet high. On
wooden pegs above the door where ten years before would have been
buck antlers and an old-fashioned rifle, lay a Winchester; on
either side of the door were auger holes through the logs (he did
not understand that they were port-holes) and another Winchester
stood in the corner. From the mantel the butt of a big 44-Colt's
revolver protruded ominously. On one of the beds in the corner he
could see the outlines of a figure lying under a brilliantly
figured quilt, and at the foot of it the boy with the pine dagger
had retreated for refuge. From the moment he stooped at the door
something in the room had made him vaguely uneasy, and when his
eyes in swift survey came back to the fire, they passed the blaze
swiftly and met on the edge of the light another pair of eyes
burning on him.
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