"I'd better see to _that_!" said Bob. "I 'low I'll jest drop in amongst 'em over onto the run, kind-uh accidental-like, afore dinner-time to-day, an' throw 'em off, one way er 'nother, ez the case may be." Mrs. Grayson was seated in a chair placed in the springless wagon for her comfort, while Hiram and Barbara sat on a board laid across from one side to the other of the wagon. They departed out of sight slowly, Mason guiding the horse carefully over the rough ground in the obscurity of a moonlight not yet beginning to give way to the break of day. XII A TRIP TO BROAD RUN As the wagon disappeared, Bob called to his daughter, who had been left in charge. "Mely! Mely! You jes stir up the kitchen fire there, honey, un bile me a cup of coffee, agin I go home un fetch my gun wi' the dogs, un come back." (Bob knew there was no coffee at home.) "I'm a-goin' over onto Broad Run arter bears." "Aw, now, pap, you're all-ays off fer a hunt at the wrong time. Don' choo go away now, un the folks in sech a world uh trouble. Un besides, mammy hain't got anough to eat in the house to do tell you come back." All this Mely said in a minor key of protest, which she had learned from her mother, who was ever objecting in a good-natured, pathetic, impotent way to her husband's thriftless propensities. "I know what I'm up to, Mely. They's reasons, un the schoolmaster knows'em. You keep your tongue still in yer head, honey. On'y be shore to remember, 'f anybody axes about me, 't I'm arter bears. Jes say't bears uz been seed over onto Broad Run, un't pap couldn't noways keep still, he wuz so sot on goin' over 'n' sayin' howdy to 'em. That'll soun' like me, un folks 'll never mistrust." "But mammy hain't akchelly got anough fer the children to eat," responded Mely. "Well, I 'low to fetch some bear meat home, un you kin borry some meal from Mrs. Grayson's bar'el tell I git back. 'F they knowed what kind uh varmints I wuz arter over there, they wouldn't begrudge me nuthin', Sis. Come, now, hump yer stumps; fer I'll be back in a leetle less'n no time."