Chapter 17

To learn that her mountain retreat had been invaded and that she had been spied upon filled Ma Briskow with dismay, but when Allie found fault with her behavior the elder woman burned with resentment.

"We're queer enough," the girl said, "without you cutting up crazy and making folks talk. If you want to dance, for goodness' sake hire somebody to lear--to teach you, same as I did."

Mrs. Briskow had silently endured her daughter's criticism up to this point, but now her lips tightened and there was a defiant tilt to her head.

"Who says I want to dance?" she demanded. "I can dance good enough."

"What was you up to the other day? That Delamater man said you was acting plumb nutty."

"I wasn't doin' anything."

"Where do you go every day, Ma? You stay around nice and quiet till Miz' Ring or I look the other way, then--you're gone."

"I kinda--visit around."

"Who d'you visit with? You don't know anybody. Nobody ever speaks to us. You ain't in earnest about those fairies and things, are you?"

"It ain't anybody's business where I go or what I do," Ma declared, in sullen exasperation. "I ain't bothering anybody, am I?"

"Don't say 'ain't,' say 'isn't.'"

For once in her patient life the mother flamed into open rebellion. "Don't 'don't' me!" she cried. "You're gettin' the 'don't' habit off Miz' Ring an' nothin' I say or do is right any more. You mind your own 'isn'ts' an' I'll handle my 'ain'ts.' I got places where I go an' things I do an' I don't bother nobody. I guess we got enough money so I can do things I want to, as long as I don't bother nobody."

"Why don't you take Pa along? He'd go, then people--"

"Mind your own business!" the old woman snapped. She flounced out of the room, leaving Allie amazed and indignant at this burst of temper.

That day Ma Briskow abandoned her mountain fastness. She took her faithful retainers with her and led them farther up the ravine to a retreat that was truly inaccessible. She moved them, bag and baggage. Of course, there was a scene; the children cried, the women wailed, the men wept. But she told them that traitors had betrayed their hiding place to the dastardly Duke of Dallas, and any moment might bring his cutthroat crew upon them. Some of the younger bloods were for remaining and selling their lives dearly, but Ma would not hear to it.

It was quite an undertaking to move a whole nomad tribe, for there were all the household belongings, the rattle, the sheep, the goats, the milk-white Arabian steeds, the butter and eggs and homemade preserves, and all the paraphernalia of a warlike people. It is surprising how stuff accumulates in a mountain fastness. But she managed the retreat with conspicuous