"Its Unc' Lance is all right, Pretty," he said absently. "Unc' Sylvane and Gran'pappy'll look after him. That's men's work. It help its Mammy to keep the house, and soon Unc' Lance is goin' to be back and play the banjo for it." All day, that strange, brief, silent Sunday in February, Roxy strove to have the secret of Lance's hiding place from her younger brother. Again and again she turned from what she was doing to demand it of him; more than once she quit abruptly her labors about the house, to go and hunt him up, to ask him sometimes half-angrily, sometimes cajolingly, pleadingly, almost with tears. The boy withstood the fire of her importunities as best he could. He answered her in as few words as might be. Without harshness, but only doggedly, he still responded in the negative, and always with mildness and a sort of regret. As it drew toward dusk, Roxy's face began to harden into grim lines, and she went about her preparations for supper with a gleaming eye. Her father, who had walked to a far pasture to salt cattle, came in, and sat with Mary Ann Martha on his knee by the fireplace. Roxy looked in at the door. Mutely, with only a backward jerk of the head, she called them to their [348] meal. As the child was following, her mother detained her and, giving no explanation, went with her into the far room. A moment later she came to the men sitting at the table. "Well, there's yo' supper," she said resentfully to Sylvane, "sence you 'low that's all I'm fitten to do. Ye can put the things away yo'selves, I reckon. I'm a-goin' on a arrant." And with the chubby Mary Ann Martha bundled heavily in shawls, silent as a small mummy, and plainly under the hypnotism of impressive instructions from her mother, she turned and went from the room, and they heard the front door close softly after her. The men looked at each other uneasily, but there seemed nothing to be done. Outside, Roxy stooped and spoke again to the child. She straightened up and peered long about her, listening intently, then moved obliquely among the yard shrubbery down to the gate. Crossing the road in the deep shade of cedar trees, she struck direct for the Gentry place, going by woods-paths that had so often known Lance's feet. When the short, fat little legs that trotted beside her in silence grew weary, she carried Mary Ann Martha pick-a-back, and always she was whispering to her. "We're Injuns now, Ma'y-Ann-Marth'. Mammy's a squaw, and you' a little papoose, out a-scoutin' to see can we find Unc' Lance; or head [349] off them that's a-aimin' to do him mischief. Don't it make no noise." When, in turn, Roxy herself was too tired to carry her daughter longer, she broke a thick willow switch beside a spring branch, and encouraged the little girl to ride a stick horse. "But remember we' Injuns, honey," she whispered. "Injuns don't make no noise nor let they' nags make none."