When all was cleared away with efficient, skillful swiftness, Callista left her patient lying [369] quiescent, and went to the cave, wrapping herself in one of the homespun blankets and sitting where she could look out and see the valley. After a time inaction became irksome, and she went down to gather more chestnut wood for his fire. This she piled in the vestibule, laying it down lightly for fear of disturbing the sleeper. The afternoon wore on. Once she looked around the turn, but the fire had declined, and she could make out nothing save a bulk of shadow where Lance lay. Stealing in, she laid on more wood. The next time she went out the sun was sunk behind the western ranges, and twilight, coming fast, warned her that she must presently get back to her tryst with Sylvane. Returning with the last load of fuel, she found the inner chamber of the cave full of the broken brightness that came from a branch of pine she had ventured to put in place, seeing that the smoke so completely took care of itself. Her husband still lay with his head on his arm. She would not wake him. Doubtfully she regarded the prostrate figure, then knelt a moment at his side and whispered, "Lance. Lance, I have obliged to go now. Either Sylvane or me--or both of us--will be here a-Wednesday night about moonrise. If anything happens that we can't come Wednesday, we'll be here the next night." She waited a moment. Getting no response, she murmured, [370] "Good-by, Lance." The tone was kind, even tender. Yet the man, whose closed lids covered waking eyes, felt no impulse to let her know that he heard, no desire to respond to her farewell. [371] CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SHERIFF SCORES. LANCE CLEAVERAGE lay in the cavern above the East Fork of Caney for nearly two weeks. The search for him was persistent, even savage, the reason given being that he had attempted the life of an officer of the law. Flenton Hands had been taken to the house of his kinsman the sheriff, and the bulletins sent out from his bedside were not encouraging; yet Lance's people clung to such hope as they might from the fact that the man was not yet dead. "No, Flent ain't gone yet," Beason would rumble out when questioned on the subject, "but he's mighty low--mighty low. He's liable to drop off any time; and who'd take Lance Cleaverage then, I'd like to know? Not me. No, nor not any man I've met, so far. The thing for us to do is to git that thar wild hawk of a feller while they's nothing agin him more than assault with intent to kill, or some such. When he smells hemp in the business, he's goin' to make it too dangerous for anybody to go after him, and his folks'll git him out o' them mountains and plumb away to Texas, or Californy."