Who is your friend?" And the Red Fox made the
souls of his listeners leap.
"Jesus Christ," he said.
The Judge reverently bowed his head and the hush of the Court Room
grew deeper when the old man fished his Bible from his pocket and
calmly read such passages as might be interpreted as sure
damnation for his enemies and sure glory for himself--read them
until the Judge lifted his hand for a halt.
And so another sensation spread through the hills and a
superstitious awe of this strange new power that had come into the
hills went with it hand in hand. Only while the doubting ones knew
that nothing could save the Red Fox they would wait to see if that
power could really avail against the Tolliver clan. The day set
for Rufe's execution was the following Monday, and for the Red Fox
the Friday following--for it was well to have the whole wretched
business over while the guard was there. Old Judd Tolliver, so
Hale learned, had come himself to offer the little old woman in
black the refuge of his roof as long as she lived, and had tried
to get her to go back with him to Lonesome Cove; but it pleased
the Red Fox that he should stand on the scaffold in a suit of
white--cap and all--as emblems of the purple and fine linen he was
to put on above, and the little old woman stayed where she was,
silently and without question, cutting the garments, as Hale
pityingly learned, from a white table-cloth and measuring them
piece by piece with the clothes the old man wore in jail.
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