"
And June choked, her eyes filled, and she was dumb, but Uncle
Billy could not see that it meant distress and not joy. He just
put his arm around her and whispered:
"I ain't told a soul, baby--not a soul."
She went to bed and to sleep with Hale's face in the dream-mist of
her brain, and Uncle Billy's, and the bold, black eyes of Bad Rufe
Tolliver--all fused, blurred, indistinguishable. Then suddenly
Rufe's words struck that brain, word by word, like the clanging
terror of a frightened bell.
"I'm goin' to kill me a policeman." And with the last word, it
seemed, she sprang upright in bed, clutching the coverlid
convulsively. Daylight was showing gray through her window. She
heard a swift step up the steps, across the porch, the rattle of
the door-chain, her father's quick call, then the rumble of two
men's voices, and she knew as well what had happened as though she
had heard every word they uttered. Rufe had killed him a
policeman--perhaps John Hale--and with terror clutching her heart
she sprang to the floor, and as she dropped the old purple gown
over her shoulders, she heard the scurry of feet across the back
porch--feet that ran swiftly but cautiously, and left the sound of
them at the edge of the woods.
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