The tone with which old Jase read the service was full and sonorous and the responses were clear as bell metal. On the fringe of the gathering an old woman's whispered words carried to those about her:

"Did ye heer thet? Jase called him Parish Thornton—I thought he give ther name of Cal Maggard!"

Even Bas Rowlett, whose nerves were keyed for an ordeal, started and almost let the leaning bridegroom fall.

The loft of old Caleb's barn had been cleared for that day, and through the afternoon the fiddles whined there, alternating with the twang of banjo and "dulcimore." Old Spike Crooch, who dwelt far up at the headwaters of Little Tribulation, where the "trails jest wiggle an' wingle about," and who bore the repute of a master violinist, had vowed that he "meant ter fiddle at one more shin-dig afore he laid him down an' died"—and he had journeyed the long way to carry out his pledge.

He had come like a ghost from the antique past, with his old bones straddling neither horse nor mule, but seated sidewise on a brindle bull, and to reach the place where he was to discourse music he had made a "soon start" yesterday morning and had slept lying by the roadside over night.

Now on an improvised platform he sat enthroned, with his eyes ecstatically closed, the violin pressed to his stubbled chin, and his broganned feet—with ankles innocent of socks—patting the spirited time of his dancing measure.

Outside in the yard certain young folk who had been reared to hold dancing ungodly indulged in those various "plays" as they called the games less frowned upon by the strait-laced. But while the thoughtless rollicked, their elders gathered in small clumps here and there and talked in grave undertones, and through these groups old Caleb circulated. He knew how mysterious and possibly significant to these news-hungry folk had seemed the strange circumstance of the bridegroom's answering, in the marriage service, to a name he had not previously worn and he sought to draw, by his own strong influence, the sting of suspicion from their questioning minds.

But Bas Rowlett did not remain through the day, and when he was ready to leave, old Caleb followed him around the turn of the road to a point where they could be alone, and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"Bas," he said, feelingly, "I'd hate ter hev ye think I hain't a-feelin' fer ye terday. I knows right well ye're sore-hearted, boy, an' thar hain't many men thet could hev took a bitter dose like ye've done."

Rowlett looked gloomily away.

"I hain't complainin' none, Caleb," he said.

"No. But I hain't got master long ter live—an' when Jim an' me both passes on, I fears me thar'll be stressful times ahead. I wants ye ter give me yore hand thet ye'll go on standin' by my leetle gal an' her fam'ly, Bas. Else I kain't die satisfied."

Bas Rowlett stood rigidly and tensely straight, his eyes fixed to the front, his forehead drawn into furrows. Then he thrust out his hand.

"Ye've done confidenced me until now," he said simply, "ye kin go on doin' hit. I gives ye my pledge."



CHAPTER XIV

Among the men who danced at that party were Sim Squires and Pete Doane, but when they saddled and mounted at sunset, they rode divergent ways.

Each of the two was acting under orders that day, and each was spreading an infection whose virus sought to stir into rebirth the war which the truce had so long held in merciful abeyance.

Aaron Capper, who was as narrow yet as religious as an Inquisition priest, had always believed the Thorntons to be God's chosen and the Doanes to be children of Satan. The bonds of enforced peace had galled him heavily. Three sons had been killed in the battle at Claytown and he felt that any truce made before he had evened his score left him wronged and abandoned by his kinsmen.

Now Sim Squires, mounted on a swift pacing mare, fell in beside Aaron, his knee rubbing the knee of the grizzled wayfarer, and Sim said impressively:

"Hit looks right bodaciously like es ef ther war's goin' ter bust loose ergin, Aaron."

The other turned level eyes upon his informant and swept him up and down with a searching gaze.

"Who give ye them tidin's, son? I hain't heered nothin' of hit, an' I reckon ef ther Harpers war holdin' any council they wouldn't skeercely pass me by."

"I don't reckon they would, Aaron." Sim now spoke with a flattery intended to placate ruffled pride. "Ther boys thet's gittin' restive air kinderly lookin' ter you ter call thet council. Caleb Harper hain't long fer this life—an' who's goin' ter take up his leadership—onless hit be you?"

Aaron laughed, but there was a grim complaisance in the tone that argued secret receptiveness for the idea.

"'Peared like hit war give out ter us terday thet this hyar young stranger war denoted ter heir thet job."

"Cal Maggard!" Sim Squires spat out the name contemptuously and laughed with a short hyena bark of derision. "Thet woods-colt from God-knows-whar? Him thet goes hand in glove with Bas Rowlett an' leans on his arm ter git married? Hell!"

Aaron took refuge in studied silence, but into his eyes had come a new and dangerously smouldering darkness.

"I'll ponder hit," he made guarded answer—then added with humourless sincerity, "I'll ponder—an' pray fer God's guidin'."

And as Sim talked with Aaron that afternoon, so he talked to others, even less conservative of tendency, and Pete Doane carried a like gospel of disquiet to those whose allegiance lay on the other side of the feud's cleavage—yet both talked much alike. In houses remote and widely scattered the security of the longstanding peace was being insidiously undermined and shaken and guns were taken furtively out and oiled.

But in a deserted cabin where once two shadowy figures had met to arrange the assassination of Cal Maggard three figures came separately now on a night when the moon was dark, and having assured themselves that they had not been seen gathering there, they indulged themselves in the pallid light of a single lantern for their deliberations.

Bas Rowlett was the first to arrive, and he sat for a time alone smoking his pipe, with a face impatiently scowling yet not altogether indicative of despair.

Soon he heard and answered a triple rap on the barred door, and though it seemed a designated signal he maintained the caution of a hand on his revolver until a figure entered and he recognized the features of young Peter Doane.

"Come in, Pete," he accosted. "I reckon ther other feller'll git hyar d'reck'ly."

The two sat smoking and talking in low tones, yet pausing constantly to listen until again they heard the triple rap and admitted a third member to their caucus.

Here any one not an initiate to the mysteries of this inner shrine would have wondered to the degree of amazement, for this newcomer was an ostensible enemy of Bas Rowlett's whom in other company he refused to recognize.

But Sim Squires entered unhesitatingly and now between himself and the man with whom he did not speak in public passed a nod and glance of complete harmony and understanding.

When certain subsidiary affairs had been adjusted—all matters of upbuilding for Rowlett's influence and repute—Bas turned to Sim Squires.

"Sim," he said, genially, "I reckon we're ready ter heer what ye've got on yore mind now," and the other grinned.

"Ther Thorntons an' Harpers—them thet dwells furthest back in ther sticks—air a doin' a heap of buzzin' an' talkin'. They're right sim'lar ter bees gittin' ready ter swarm. I've done seed ter that. I reckon when this hyar stranger starts in ter rob ther honey outen thet hive he's goin' ter find a tol'able nasty lot of stingers on his hands."

"Ye've done cautioned 'em not ter make no move afore they gits ther word, hain't ye—an' ye've done persuaded 'em ye plum hates me, hain't ye?"

Again Sim grinned.

"Satan hisself would git rightfully insulted ef anybody cussed an' damned him like I've done you, Bas."

"All right then. I reckon when ther time comes both ther Doanes and Harpers'll be right sick of Mr. Cal Maggard or Mr. Parish Thornton or Mr. Who-ever-he-is."

They talked well into the night, and Peter Doane was the first to leave, but after his departure Sim Squires permitted a glint of deep anxiety to show in his narrow and shifty eyes.

"Hit's yore own business ef ye confidences Pete Doane in yore own behalf, Bas," he suggested, "but ye hain't told him nuthin' erbout me, hes ye?"

Bas Rowlett smiled.

"I hain't no damn fool, Sim," he reassured. "Thar don't nobody but jest me an' you know thet ye shot Cal Maggard—but ye war sich a damn disable feller on ther job thet rightly I ought ter tell yore name ter ther circuit-rider."

"What fer?" growled the hireling, sulkily, and the master laughed.

"So's he could put hit in his give-out at meetin' an shame ye afore all mankind," he made urbane explanation.

* * * * *

July, which began fresh and cool, burned, that year, into a scorching heat, until the torrid skies bent in a blue arch of arid cruelty and the ridges stood starkly stripped of their moisture.

Forests were rusted and freckled and roads gave off a choke of dust to catch the breath of travellers as the heat waves trembled feverishly across the clear, hot distances.

Like a barometer of that scorched torpor, before the eyes of the slowly convalescing Thornton stood the walnut tree in the dooryard. A little while ago it had spread its fresh and youthful canopy of green overhead in unstinted abundance of vigour.

Now it stood desolate, with its leaves drooping in fever-hot inertia. The squirrel sat gloomily silent on the branches, panting under its fur, and the oriole's splendour of orange and jet had turned dusty and bedraggled.

When a dispirited wisp of breeze stirred in its head-growth its branches gave out only the flat hoarseness of rattling leaves.

One morning before full daylight old Caleb left the house to cross the low creek bed valley and join a working party in a new field which was being cleared of timber. He had been away two hours when without warning the hot air became insufferably close and the light ghost of breeze died to a breathless stillness. The drought had lasted almost four weeks, and now at last, though the skies were still clear, that heat-vacuum seemed to augur its breaking.

An hour later over the ridge came a black and lowering pall of cloud moving slowly and bellying out from its inky centre with huge masses of dirty fleece at its margin—and in the little time that Dorothy stood in the door watching, it spread until the high sun was obscured.

The distant but incessant rumbling of thunder was a chorussed growling of storm voices against a background of muffled drum-beat, and the girl said, a shade anxiously, "Gran'pap's goin' ter git drenched ter ther skin."

While the inky pall spread and lowered until it held the visible world in a gray-green corrosion of gloom the stillness became more pulseless. Then with a crashing salvo of suddenness the tempest broke—and it was as though all the belated storms of the summer had merged into one armageddon of the elements.

A rending and splintering of timber sounded with the shriek of the tornado that whipped its lash of destruction through the woods. The girl, buffeted and almost swept from her feet, struggled with her weight thrown against the door that she could scarcely close. Then the darkness blotted midday into night, and through the unnatural thickness clashed a frenzy of detonations.

Out of the window she and her husband seemed looking through dark and confused waters which leaped constantly into the brief and blinding glare of such blue-white instants of lightning as hurt the eyes. The walnut tree appeared and disappeared—waving arms like a high-priest in transports of frenzy, and adding its wind-song to the mighty chorus.

The sturdily built old house trembled under that assaulting, and when the first cyclonic sweep of wind had rushed by the pelting of hail and rain was a roar as of small-arms after artillery.

"Gran'pap," gasped Dorothy. "I don't see how a livin' soul kin endure—out thar!"

Then came a concussion as though the earth had broken like a bursted emery wheel, and a hall of white fire seemed to pass through the walls of the place. Dorothy pitched forward, stunned, to the floor and at the pit of his stomach Cal Maggard felt a sudden sickness of shock that passed as instantly as it had come. He found himself electrically tingling through every nerve as the woman rose slowly and dazedly, staring about her.

"Did hit strike ... ther house?" she asked, faintly, and then with the same abruptness as that with which darkness had come, the sky began to turn yellowish again and they could see off across the road through the amber thickness of returning daylight.

"No," her husband said, hesitantly, "hit warn't ther house—but hit was right nigh!"

The girl followed his startled gaze, and there about the base of the walnut tree lay shaggy strips of rent bark.

Running down the trunk in the glaring spiral of a fresh scar two hand-breadths wide went the swath along which the bolt had plunged groundward.

For a few moments, though with a single thought between them, neither spoke. In the mind of Dorothy words from a faded page seemed to rewrite themselves: "Whilst that tree stands ... and weathers the thunder and wind ... our family also will wax strong and robust ... but when it falls——!"

Cal rose slowly to his feet, and the girl asked dully, "Where be ye goin'?"

"I'm goin'," he said as their eyes met in a flash of understanding, "ter seek fer yore gran'pap."

"I fears me hit's too late...." Her gaze went outward and as she looked the man needed no explanation.

"Ef he's—still alive," she added, resolutely, with a return of self-control, "ther danger's done passed now. Hit would kill ye ter go out in this storm, weak as ye be. Let's strive ter be patient."

Ten minutes later they heard a knock on the door and opened it to find a man drenched with rain standing there, whose face anticipated their questions.

"Me and old Caleb," he began, "was comin' home tergither ... we'd got es fur as ther aidge of ther woods ..." he paused, then forced out the words, "a limb blew down on him."

"Is he ... is he...?" The girl's question got no further, and the messenger shook his head. "He's dead," came the simple reply. "The other boys air fotchin' him in now."



CHAPTER XV

Into the grave near the house the rough pine coffin, which had been knocked together by neighbour hands, was lowered by members of both factions whose peace the dead man had impartially guarded.

No circuit-rider was available, but one or two godly men knelt there and prayed and over the green valley, splendidly resurrected from the scorch and thirst of the drought, floated untrained voices raised in the old hymns.

Then as the crowd scattered along its several ways a handful of men delayed their departure, and when the place had otherwise emptied itself they led Cal Maggard to his front door where, without realization that they were selecting a spot of special significance, they halted under the nobly spread shade of the tree.

The walnut, with the blight of dry weeks thrown off, had freshened its leafage into renewed vigour—and though its scar was fresh and raw, its vital stalwartness was that of a veteran who has once more triumphed over his wounding.

The few men who had remained were all Doanes, in clan affiliation if not in name, and they stood as solemnly silent as they had been by the open grave but with heads no longer uncovered and with a grimmer quality in their sober eyes.

It was Hump Doane, the man with the twisted back, who broke the silence as spokesman for the group, and his high, sharp voice carried the rasping suggestion of a threat.

"Afore we went away from here," he said with a note of embarrassment, "we 'lowed thet we hed need ter ask ye a few questions, Mr. Thornton."

"I'm hearkenin' ter ye," came the non-committal rejoinder, and the hunchback went on:

"Ther man we've jest laid ter rest was ther leader of ther Harpers an' ther Thorntons but over an' above thet he was ther friend of every man thet loved peace-abidin' and human betterment."

That tribute Cal acknowledged with a grave inclination of his head, but no word.

"So long as he lived ther truce thet he'd done made endured. Now thet he's dead hit would be a right distressful thing ef hit collapsed."

Maggard's candid eyes engaged those of the others in level glance as he inquired, "Is thar any self-respectin' man thet feels contrariwise, Mr. Doane?"

"Thet's what we seeks ter find out. With Caleb dead an' gone, no man kin handily foretell what ther Thorntons aims ter do—an' without we knows we kain't breathe free."

"Why does ye come ter me?"

"Because folks tells hit thet ther old man named ye ter stand in his stead—an' ef ye does thet we hev need ter put some questions up ter ye."

"I hain't said I sought no leadership—but speak right out fer yoreselves," invited Maggard.

"All right. We knows thet ye come hyar from somewhars else—an' we don't know whar from. Because ye're old Caleb's heir, what ye does an' what ye says gets ter be mighty pithy an' pertinent ter us."

"I've done come ter kinderly reelize that, myself, hyar of late."

"Ye comes from Virginny, folks says; air thet true?"

"Thet's true."

"An' ye give one name when ye come an' tuck another atter ye'd been hyar a while, air thet true likewise?"

Maggard stiffened but he bowed his head in assent.

"All right, then—I reckon ye kin see fer yorself thet ef we've got ter trust our business in yore hands tor'ds keepin' ther truce, we've jedgmatically got ter confidence ye. We seeks ter hev ye ter tell us why ye left Virginny an' why ye changed yore name. We wants ter send a man of our own pick an' choosin' over thar an' find out fer ourselves jest what yore repute war in yore own home afore ye come hyar."

Cal could feel the tingling of antagonism in a galvanic current along his spine. He knew that his eyes had flashed defiance before he had quelled their impulse and controlled his features, but he held his lips tight for a rebellious moment and when he opened them he asked with a velvety smoothness:

"Ye says nobody didn't mistrust Caleb Harper. Why didn't ye ask him, whilst he war still a-livin', whether he'd made an heir outen a man thet couldn't be confidenced?"

"So long es he lived," came the hunchback's quick and stingingly sharp retort, "we didn't need ter ask no questions atall an' thar warn't no prophets amongst us ter foresay he was goin' ter die suddent-like, without tellin' us what we needed ter know. Will ye give us them facts thet we're askin' fer—or won't ye?"

"I won't," said Maggard, shortly. "I stand ter be jedged by ther way I demeans myself—an' I don't suffer no man ter badger me with questions like es ef I war some criminal in ther jail-house."

The grotesque face of the hunchback hardened to the stony antagonism of an issue joined. His dwarfed and twisted body seemed to loom taller and more shapely as if the power of the imprisoned spirit were expanding its ugly shell from within, and an undeniable dignity showed itself flashingly through the caricatured features.

Back of him, his silent colleagues stiffened, too, and though they were all tall men, with eyes flaming in unspoken wrath, they seemed smaller in everything but bodily stature than he.

After a brief pause, Hump Doane wheeled and addressed himself to his companions. "I reckon thet's all, men," he said, briefly, and Cal Maggard recognized that the silence with which they turned away from him was more ominous than if they had berated him.

Yet before he reached the stile Doane halted and stood irresolute with his gaze groundward and his chin on his breast, then summoning his fellows with a jerk of the thumb, he turned back to the spot where Cal Maggard had remained unmoving at the base of the great tree, and his face though still solemn was no longer wrathful.

"Sometimes, Mr. Thornton," he said with a slow weighing of his words, "men thet aims at accord fails ter comprehend each other—an' gits ther seemin' of cavillin'. Mebby we kinderly got off on ther wrong foot an' I kain't go away from hyar satisfied without I'm plum sartain thet ye onderstands me aright."

Maggard had learned to read the type of human features and human contact clearly enough to place this man in his rightful page and column of life. He recognized an honesty and sincerity that might be trusted under the test of torture itself, purposes undeviatingly true—and the narrow intensity of fanaticism. He would have liked to make an ally of this man, and a friend, yet the question that had been raised could not be answered.

"I hain't only willin' but plum anxious ter hear all ye've got ter say, Mr. Doane," he made serious reply, and the other after a judicial pause went on:

"Hit hain't no light an' frivolous sperit of meddlin' thet brings me hyar askin' ye questions thet seems imp'dent an' nosy. Hit's a dire need of safeguardin' ther peace of our folks—aye, an' thar lives, too, like es not."

He paused, leaving room for an answer that would make easier his approach to an understanding, but no answer came, and he continued:

"Ye hain't got no handy way of knowin' like me an' some of these other men thet's always lived hyarabouts, what a ticklish balance things rests on in this section. A feller mout reasonably surmise thet a peace what hes stood fer twenty y'ar an' more would go on standin'—but mebby in yore time ye've done seed a circus-show—hev ye?"

Maggard nodded, wondering what moral was to be drawn from tan-bark ring and canvas top, and his interviewer continued:

"Then like es not ye've seed one of them fellers in tights an' tin spangles balancin' a ladder on his chest with a see-saw atop hit—an' a human bein' settin' on each eend of thet see-saw. Hit looks like he does hit plum easy—but ef he boggles or stumbles, them folks up thar falls down, sure as hell's hot."

"I reckon thet's right."

"Wa'al, thar's trouble-makin' sperits amongst both ther Doanes an' ther Harpers—an' they seeks ter start all thet hell up a-bilin' ergin like ther devil's own cauldron.... Ef we've done maintained peace 'stid of war fer upwards of twenty y'ars hit's because old Caleb an' a few more like him hes been balancin' thet ladder till th'ar hearts was nigh ter bustin' with ther weight of hit. Peace hain't nuver stood upright amongst us by hits own self—an' hit won't do hit now. Ef ye stands in old Caleb's shoes, Mr. Thornton, ye've got ter stand balancin' thet ladder, too."

"We hain't hed no disagreement es ter thet, Mr. Doane. I craves law-abidin' life an' friendly neighbours as master strong es you does."

"An' yit," continued the cripple, earnestly, "ef thet old-time war ever busts loose afresh hit'll make these hyar numerous small streams, in a manner of speakin', run red with men's blood an' salty with women's tears, too, I fears me. I've done dream't of a time when all thet pizen blight would be swep' away from ther hills like a fog—an' I sought ter gain yore aid in hastenin' thet day. A man kain't skeercely plead with his enemy but he kin with his friend—an' that's how I hoped I'd be met."

"Yore friend is what I'd love ter be." Maggard stood with his hand resting on the bark of the tree, as though out of it he might hope to draw some virtue from the far past which it commemorated or from the dust of those wiser men whose graves its roots penetrated. His eyes were darkly clouded with the trouble and perplexity of his dilemma. To refuse still was to stand on a seeming point either of over-stubborn pride or of confessed guilt. To accede was to face the court that wanted him for murder and that would prostitute justice to hang him.

"Them things ye dreams of an' hopes fer," he went on in a voice thrilling with earnestness and sincerity, "air matters thet I've got heart an' cravin' ter see come erbout. An' yit—I kain't answer yore question. Hit's ther only test ye could seek ter put me ter—thet I wouldn't enjoy ter meet outright——"

"Then, even atter what I've told ye, ye still refuses me?"

"Even atter what ye've told me, an' deespite thet I accords with all ye seeks ter compass hyarabouts, I've got ter refuse ye. I hain't got no other choice."

This time Hump Doane and his delegation did not turn back, but crossed the stile and passed stiffly on.

Thornton, for now it was useless to think of himself longer as Cal Maggard, stood straight-shouldered until the turn of the road took them beyond sight, then his head came down and his eyes clouded into a deep misery.

That night the moon rode in a sky where the only clouds were wisps of opal-fleece and the ranges were flat-toned and colossal ramparts of cobalt. Down in the valley where the river looped its shimmering thread the radiance was a wash of platinum softly broken by blue-gray islands of shadow.

Dorothy Thornton stood, a dim and ghostly figure of mute distress, by the grave in the thicketed burial ground where the clods had that day fallen and the mound still stood glaringly raw with its freshly spaded earth, and Parish Thornton stood by her side.

But while she mourned for the old man who had sought to be father and mother to her, he thought, too, of the sagacious old shepherd without whose guidance the flocks were already showing tendencies to stampede in panic.

Parish Thornton would have given much for a word of counsel to-night from those silent lips, and hardly realizing what impulse prompted him he raised his eyes to the great gray-purple shadow-shape of the tree. Its roots lay in those Revolutionary graves and its top-most plumes of foliage seemed to brush the starry sky, where the spirits of the dead might be having their longer and serener life.

Half comprehended yet disquieting with its vague portent, a new element of thought was stirring in the mind of the young man. By nature he was an individualist whose inherent prompting was to walk his own way neither interfering with his neighbour nor permitting his neighbour to encroach unduly upon him. Had he been a quoter of Scripture his chosen text might have been, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

And if that had been the natural colour of his mind and nature it was deepened and intensified by his circumstance. The man whom the law seeks and whom it charges with murder must keep to himself and within himself if he would escape notice and capture. Yet now the older impulses that had driven and urged his pioneering ancestors were beginning to claim voice, too, and this voice demanded of him "can any man live alone?"

Somehow that plea from the hunchbacked Doane had, with its flaming sincerity, left its unforgettable mark upon him. His own affairs included a need of hiding from Virginia sheriffs and of reckoning with Bas Rowlett, and yet he began to wonder if his own private affairs were not after all only part of a whole, and as such smaller than the whole. If a man is born to play a part greater in its bearings than the merely personal he cannot escape his destiny, and to-night some stirring of that cloudy realization was troubling Thornton.

"Let's get some leaves offen ther old tree," suggested the girl in a hushed voice, "an' make a kind of green kiverlet over him." She shuddered as she added, "Ther ground's plum naked!"

When they had performed their whimsical service—these two representatives of a grimly unimaginative race of stoics—they went again and stood together under the tree and into the girl's grief and the man's forebodings crept an indefinable anodyne of quiet and consolation.

That tree had known death before, and always after death it had known rebirth. It could stand serene and placid over hearts bruised as was her own because it had heard the echoes of immortality and seen the transient qualities of human grief.

Now she could realize only death and death's wounding, but to it the seasons came and went as links in an unbroken chain. Beneath it slept the first friends who had loved it. Somewhere in the great, star-strewn spaces above it perhaps dwelt the souls of unborn men and women who would love it hereafter. Somehow its age-old and ever-young message seemed to come soothingly to her heart. "All end is but beginning, and no end is final. The present is but hesitation between past and future. Shadows and sunlight are abstract things until you see them side by side—filtered through my branches. Winds are silent until they find voice through my leaves.... My staunch column gives you your standard of uprightness ... beneath me red men and white have fought and whispered of love ... as my bud has come to leaf and in turn fallen so generation has followed generation. For the present I bear the word of steadfastness and courage. For the future, I bear the promise of hope."

Dorothy's lissome beauty took on a touch of something supernatural from the magic of moonlight and soft shadow and the man slipped his arm about her, while they looked off across the tempered nocturne of the hills and heard the lullaby of the night breeze in the branches overhead.

"I war thinkin', Cal," said the girl in a hushed voice, "of what would of happened ter me ef ye hedn't come. I'd be ther lonesomest body in ther mountings of Kaintuck—but, thank God, ye did come."

* * * * *

An agency for disturbing the precarious balance of peace was at work, and the mainspring of its operation was the intriguing mind of Bas Rowlett.

Bas had had nothing to gain and everything to lose by weakening the pacific power of old Caleb, whose granddaughter he sought to wed, but with a successful rival, whom he must kill or be killed by, usurping the authority to which he had himself expected to succeed, his interests were reversed. If he could not rule, he could wreck, and the promiscuous succession of tragedies that would follow in the wake of such an avalanche had no terrors to give Bas pause. Many volunteers would arise to strike down his enemy and leave him safe on the outskirts of the conflict. He could stand apart unctuously crying out for peace and washing his hands after the fashion of Pontius Pilate.

Manifestly the provocation must seem to come from the Harper-Thornton faction in order that their Doane-Rowlett adversaries might righteously take the path of reprisal.

The device upon which the intriguer decided was one requiring such delicate handling in both strategy and marksmanship that he dared not trust it to either young Pete Doane or the faithful Sim Squires.

Indeed, he could trust no one but himself, and so one evening he lay in the laurel back of the house where dwelt his universally respected kinsman, old Jim Rowlett.

Bas had no intention of harming the old man who sat placidly smoking, yet he was bent on making it seem evident and certain that someone had sought to assassinate him, and so it was not at the breast that he aimed his rifle but at the peak of the tall-crowned slouch hat.

The sights of his rifle showed clean as the rustless barrel rested on a log. Bas himself lay stretched full-length in that position which gives the greatest surety of marksmanship.

His temples were moist with nervous sweat, and once he took the rifle down from his shoulder and flexed his muscles in rest. Then he aimed again and pressed the trigger.

He could not tarry now, but he paused long enough to see the punctured hat spin downward from the aged head and the old man rise, bewildered but unhurt, with a dazed hand experimentally rubbing his white crown. Then Bas grinned, and edging backward through the brush as a woman rushed screaming out, he made his way to the house of Parish Thornton. The first gun had been fixed in the new Harper-Doane war.

Bas knew that the tidings of the supposed attempt on the patriarch's life would go winging rapidly through the community, and it pleased his alibi instinct to be at his enemy's house at a time which would seem almost contemporaneous with the shooting. To have reached his own place would have taken longer.

But when he arrived Thornton was not indoors. He was strong enough now to move about the place a little, though he still fretted under a weakness that galled him, so Bas found Dorothy alone.

"I reckon, leetle gal," he made a sympathetic beginning, "yore heart's right sore these days since yore gran'pap died. My own heart's sore fer ye, too."

"He was mighty devoted ter ye, Bas," said the girl, and the man who had just come from an act of perfidy nodded a grave head.

"I don't know whether he ever named hit ter ye, Dorothy," came his slow words, "but thet day when ye war wedded he tuck me off ter one side an' besought me always ter stand by ye—an' befriend ye."

"Ye acted mouty true-hearted thet day, Bas," she made acknowledgment and the conspirator responded with a melancholy smile.

"I reckon I don't hev ter tell ye, I'd do most anything fer ye, leetle gal. I'd hed hopes thet didn't turn out—but I kin still be a friend. I'd go through hell fer ye any time."

He rose suddenly from his seat on the kitchen threshold, and into his eyes came a flash of feeling. She thought it love, but there was an unexpectedly greedy quality in it that frightened her. Then at once the man recovered himself, and turned away, and the girl breathed easy again.

"I'm beholden ter ye fer many things," she said, softly.

Suddenly and with no reason that she could explain, his recent words, "I'd do most anything fer ye," set her thoughts swirling into a new channel ... thoughts of things men do, without reward, for the women they love.

This man, she told herself in her ignorance of the truth, had sacrificed himself without complaint. She knew of only one greater sacrifice, and of that she could never think without a cloud of dread shutting off the sunlight of her happiness.

Even Bas would hardly have done what her husband had done for his sister: assumed a guilt of murder which made of himself an exile and a refugee whom the future always threatened.

Then somehow, as Bas sat silent, she saw again that hunger in his eyes, a hunger so wolf-like that it was difficult to harmonize it with his record of generous self-effacement; a hunger so avidly rapacious that a dim and unacknowledged uneasiness stirred in her heart.

But at that moment they heard a shout from the front, and Peanuts Causey came hurriedly around the corner of the house. His great neck and fat face were fiery red with heat and excitement, and he panted as he gave them his news.

"Old Jim Rowlett's done been shot at from ther bresh!" he told them. "He escaped death, but men says ther war's like ter bust, loose ergin because of hit."

"My God!" exclaimed Bas Rowlett in a tone of shocked incredulity; "old Jim hain't got no enemies. A man would hev need ter be a fiend ter harm him! I've got ter git over thar straightway."

Yet the crater did not at once burst into molten up-blazing. For a while yet it smouldered—held from eruption by the sober counsel of the man who had been fired on and who had seemingly escaped death by a miracle.

Adherents of the two factions still spoke as they met on the road, but when they separated each turned his head to watch the other out of sight and neither trusted an unprotected back to the good faith of any possible adversary.

To the house of Aaron Capper, unobtrusively prompted by Sim Squires, went certain of the Harper kin who knew not where else to turn—ignoring Parish Thornton as a young pretender for whom they had little more liking than for the enemy himself.

The elderly clansman received them and heard their talk, much of which was wild and foolish. All disclaimed, and honestly disclaimed, any knowledge of the infamy that had been aimed at old Jim Rowlett, but even in their frothy folly and yeasty clamour none was so bereft as to deny that the Harpers must face accountability. If war were inevitable, argued the hotheads, it were wisdom to strike the first blow.

Yet Aaron, who had during the whole long truce been fretting for a free hand, listened now with a self-governed balance that astonished his visitors.

"Men," said he with a ring of authority in his voice, "thar hain't no profit in headlong over-hastiness. I've been foreseein' this hour an' prayin' fer guidance. We've got ter hev speech with young Parish Thornton afore we turns a wheel."

Sim Squires had not been enlisting his recruits from the ranks of those who wished to turn to Thornton, and from them rose a yelping clamour of dissent, but Aaron quelled that mutiny aborning and went evenly on.

"Ef warfare lays ahead of us we hev need ter stand tergether solid—an' thar's good men amongst us thet wouldn't nuver fergive affrontin' old Caleb's memory by plum lookin' over his gal's husband. Thet's my counsel, an' ef ye hain't a-goin' ter heed hit——"

The quiet voice ripped abruptly into an explosiveness under which some of them cowered as under a lash.

"Then I reckon thar'll be Thorntons an' Harpers thet will—an they'll fight both ther Doanes an' your crowd alike."



CHAPTER XVI

Parish Thornton sat on the doorstep of the house gazing abstractedly upward where through soft meshes of greenery the sunlight filtered.

Here, he told himself, he ought to be happy beyond any whisper of discontent—save for the fret of his lingering weakness. Through the open door of the house came the voice of Dorothy raised in song, and the man's face softened and the white teeth flashed into a smile as he listened. Then it clouded again.

Parish Thornton did not know all the insidious forces that were working in the silences of the hills, but he divined enough to feel the brewing of a storm, which, in its bursting, might strike closer and with more shattering force than the bolt that had scarred the giant tree trunk.

Two passions claimed his deep acknowledgment of allegiance and now they stood in conflict. One was as clear and flawlessly gracious as the arch of blue sky above him—and that was his love; the other was as wild and impetuous as the tempests which sprang to ungoverned life among these crags—and that was his hate.

When he had sworn to Bas Rowlett that the moon should not "full again" before he avenged his betrayal with death, he had taken that oath solemnly and, he sincerely believed, in the sight of God. It was, therefore, an oath that could be neither abandoned nor modified.

The man who must die knew, as did he himself and the heavenly witness to the compact, that his physical incapacity had been responsible for his deferred action—but now with returning strength he must make amends of promptness.

He would set out to-day on that enterprise of cleansing his conscience with performance. In killing Bas Rowlett he would be performing a virtuous act. As to that he had no misgiving, but an inner voice spoke in disturbing whispers. He could not forget Hump Doane's appeal—and prophecy of tribulation. By killing Bas now he might even loose that avalanche!

"An' yit ef I tarries a few days more," he argued stubbornly within himself, "hit's ergoin' ter be even wusser. I'm my own man now—an' licensed ter ack fer myself." He rose and stiffened resolutely, against the tide of doubt, and his fine face darkened with the blood malignity of his heritage.

He went silently into the house and began making his preparations. His pistol holster should have fitted under his left arm-pit but it was useless there now with no right hand to draw or use it. So Parish Thornton thrust it into his coat pocket on the left-hand side, and then at the door he halted in a fresh perplexity.

He could not embark on a mission that might permit of no returning without bidding Dorothy good-bye—and as he thought of that farewell his face twitched and the agate hardness wavered.

So he stood for awhile in debate with himself, the relentlessness of the executioner warring obdurately with the tenderness of the lover—and while he did so a group of three horsemen came into view on the highway, moving slowly toward his house.

When the trio of visitors had dismounted, an elderly man, whose face held a deadly sort of gravity, approached, introducing himself as Aaron Capper and his companions as Sim Squires and Lincoln Thornton.

"Albeit we hain't well beknowest ter one another," Aaron reminded him, "we're all kinfolks more or less—an' we've done rid over ter hev speech with ye cons'arnin' right sober matters."

"Won't ye come inside an' sot ye cheers?" invited Parish, but the elder man shook his head as he wiped his perspiring and dust-caked face on the sleeve of his shirt.

"Ther breeze is stirrin' tol'able fresh out hyar," suggested Aaron, "an thet old walnuck tree casts down a right grateful shade. I'd jest es lieve talk out hyar—ef hit suits ye."

So under the tree, where a light breeze stirred with welcome tempering across the river, the four men squatted on their heels and lighted their pipes.

"Thar hain't no profit in mincin' matters none," began old Aaron, curtly. "I lost me three boys when they fit ther battle of Claytown twenty y'ars back—an' now hit looks powerful like ther war's fixin' ter bust out afresh. Ef hit does I aims ter take me full toll fer tha'r killin'."

Parish Thornton—who had ten minutes before been planning a death infliction of his own—raised his brows at this unsoftened bluntness of announcement, but he inquired of Aaron Capper as he had done of Hump Doane: "Why does ye come ter me?"

"We comes ter ye," Aaron gave him unambiguous answer, "because ef ther Harpers hev got ter fight, that hain't no health in divided leaderships ner dilatary delays.... Some men seems ter hold thet because ye wed with Old Caleb's gal, ye're licensed ter stand in Old Caleb's shoes ... whilst others seems plum resolved not ter tolerate ye atall an' spits ye outen thar mouths."

"Which of them lots does you men stand with?"

The question came soberly, yet something like a riffle of cynical amusement glinted in the eyes of Parish Thornton as he put it.

"I hain't made up my mind yit. All I knows is thet some fellers called on me ter head ther Harpers ... an' afore I give 'em any answer, I 'lowed thet hit become us ter hev speech with ye fust. We owed ye thet much because ther Doanes'll pint-blank deem thet ther trouble started when ye wed Bas Rowlett's gal—an' whatever we does, they'll hold ye accountable."

The heir to Caleb Harper's perplexities stood leaning against the tree. There were still moments when his strength seemed to ebb capriciously and leave him giddy. After a moment, though, he smiled quietly and glanced about the little group.

"When I come over hyar," he said, "I didn't ask nothin' but ter be left alone. I married Dorothy, an' old Caleb confidenced me. I've got my own affairs ter tend an' I'm satisfied ter tend 'em. So fur es frayin' an' fightin' goes"—his voice mounted suddenly and the half-whimsical humour died instantly in his eyes—"I've got some of my own ter study erbout—an' I don't have ter meddle with other folkses' quarrels."

"Then ye aims ter stand aside an' let things take thar own course?"

"Thet's what I 'lowed ter do, but ye've jest done told me thet the Doanes don't aim ter let me stand aside. S'pose ye tells me some more."

"All right," said Aaron, brusquely. "Ef thet's what ye wants I'll tell ye a lavish."

Dorothy had come to the front door and looked out, and seeing the men still mopping hot faces, she had brought out a pitcher of cool buttermilk and a pewter mug.

The backs of the three visitors were turned toward the house, and her feet on the grass had made no sound so that only Parish himself had known of her coming and he had, with a lifting of the brows, signalled her to wait until old Aaron finished speaking.

"I've done sought by prayer an' solemn ponderin' ter take counsel with Almighty God," declared the spokesman. "Ther blood of them three boys of mine hes been cryin' out ter me fer twenty y'ars but yet I knows thet ef ther war does come on again hit's goin' ter bring a monstrous sum of ruination an' mischief. So I comes ter ye—es Caleb Harper's heir—ter heer what ye've got ter say."

Dorothy Thornton's eyes widened as, standing with the pitcher and the ancient mug in her hands, she listened to that speech. Then as the full import of its feudal menace broke upon her understanding the blossom colour flowed out of her smooth cheeks and neck, leaving them ivory white.

She saw herself as the agency which had drawn her husband into this vortex, and bitterly reflected that this had been her dowry and the gift of her love!

Parish's glance held by that stunned fixety in her expression attracted the attention of the others and old Aaron Capper, turning his head, saw her and let a low oath of exasperation escape him.

"Send her away!" he snapped, angrily. "This hyar hain't no woman's business. How much did she hyar?"

Parish Thornton went forward and took the pitcher and pewter mug from his wife's hand, then he shook his head, and his voice altered to a new ring, quiet, yet electrically charged with dominance.

"No," he ripped out, shortly. "I hain't ergoin' ter send her away. Ye says hit hain't no woman's business, and yit she's Caleb Harper's gran'daughter—an' because of her weddin' with me—Harpers an' Doanes alike—ye won't suffer me ter foller out my own affairs in my own fashion, onmolested!"

Aaron came to his feet, bristling indignantly and with new protests rising to his lips, but an imperious gesture of command from Parish silenced him into a bewildered obedience. It had become suddenly impossible to brow-beat this man.

"Dorothy," said her husband, "I reckon ye heered enough ter know what brought these men hyar. They norates thet ther Doanes holds me accountable fer whatever ther Harpers does—good or evil—because I stands as heir ter yore gran'pap. They tells me likewise thet ther Harpers hain't got no settled leader, an' only two things hinders me from claimin' thet job myself: Fust place, I don't crave ter mingle in thar ructions, and second place they won't hev none of me. Seems like I'm ther gryste betwixt two mill-stones ... an' bein' es ye're my wife, thet's a state of things thet consarns you es well es me."

A Valkyrie fire glowed in the dark eyes of the young woman and her hands clenched themselves tautly. The colour that had gone out of her cheeks came back with a rush of vividness which seemed to transform her as a lighted wick transforms a candle.

"When my gran'pap war a-strivin' aginst all manner of odds fer peace," she said, disdainfully, "thar was them thet kept hamperin' him by whoopin' on ther troublemakers—an' I've done heered him say thet one turrible hard man ter reason with bore ther name of Aaron Capper."

The elderly spokesman of the delegation flushed brick-red and his heavy lashes gathered close in a menacing scowl.

"No man didn't love Caleb Harper no better'n me," he protested, indignantly, "but ef we've got ter fight hit profits us ter hit fust—an' hit hard."

"Now, I've got somethin' ter tell ye," went on Parish, and though they did not know just when or how the change had been wrought, each of the three visitors began to realize that a subtle shifting of places had come over their relations to their host.

At first they had spoken categorically and he had listened passively. Now when he spoke they felt the compulsion of hearkening to him as to one whose words carried authority. Personalities had been measured as are foils in the hands of fencers, and Parish Thornton was being recognized to hold the longest and keenest blade.

"I've done sought ter show ye, outen yore own mouths," he said, soberly, "thet at one an' ther same time ye was demandin' ter know what I aimed ter do an' tellin' me I couldn't do nothin'. Now I tells ye thar's one thing I jedgmatically hain't a-goin' ter do, an' thet is ter stand by an' suffer them two mill-stones ter grind me ter no powder."

He paused, and the girl had moved forward until she stood at his side with her outstretched hand resting against the bark of the old tree in a reverent touch of caress. She ignored the others and spoke to her husband.

"Back thar in ther beginnin's, Cal," she said, clinging to the name by which she had first known him, "our foreparents planted this tree—an' founded this country—an' held hit erginst ther Injuns. They was leaders then—afore any man hed ever heered of Cappers an' Squireses an' ther like. I reckon ef men needs a leader now, hit runs in yore blood ter be one ... but a leader fer betterment—an' one thet gives orders 'stid of takin' 'em."

She turned then, and with her chin regally high, she left them, and a brief silence held after her going.

"I reckon I couldn't hardly hev said hit thet well, myself," announced Parish Thornton, quietly, "but yit hit erbout sums up my answer ter ye."

"Whatever ye says from now on, erbout takin' me er leavin' me, ther enemy's done picked me out es ther head man of ther Harpers—an' what they'd love best would be ter see ye all cavillin' amongst yoreselves. Caleb Harper picked me out, too. Now I aims ter stand by his choosin'—an' I aims ter be heeded when I talks."

Aaron and Parish stood eye to eye, searching and measuring each other with gazes that sought to penetrate the surface of words and reach the core of character. The older man, angry, and insulted though he felt himself, began to realize about his heart the glow of that unwilling admiration which comes of compulsion in the presence of human mastery and pays tribute to inherent power. The quiet assurance of this self-announced chieftain carried conviction that made argument idle—and above all else the Thorntons needed an unchallengeable leader.

"Afore God," he murmured, "I believes ye're a man!" Then after a pause he added: "But nobody don't know ye well enough—an' afore a man kin be trusted ter give orders he's got ter prove hisself."

Parish Thornton laughed.

"Prove yoreself, then, Aaron," he challenged, "ye talks erbout yore hunger ter avenge yore dead boys—albeit they fell in a pitch-battle an' ye don't know who deadened 'em—an' ther fire of thet wrath's been coolin' fer a full score of ya'rs. Why did ye let hit simmer so long?"

"Because I was pledged ter peace an' I wasn't no truce-buster. I sought ter remain steadfast and bide my time."

"All right. Then ef fresh war-farin' kin be carcumvented, ye still stands beholden by thet pledge, don't ye?"

"Ef hit kin be, yes—but how kin hit be?"

"Thet's what I aims ter show ye. Ye talks erbout yore grievance. Now listen ter mine. Ther bullit wound hyar in my shoulder hain't healed yit—an' thar hain't no hotter fire in hell then my own hate fer whoever caused hit. So when ye talks ter me about grievances, ye talks a language I kin onderstand without no lingster ter construe hit."

He paused a moment, unconscious that his term for an interpreter was one that Englishmen had used in Chaucer's day, and, save here, not since a long-gone time. Then he swept on, and Sim Squires listening to this man whom for hire he had waylaid felt an unmanning creep of terror along his spine; a fear such as he had not felt for any human being before. The sweat on his face grew clammy, but with a mighty effort he held his features mask-like.

"But atter you an' me hed evened our scores—what then? Air ye willin' ter burn down a dwellin' house over ther heads of them inside hit, jest ter scorch out a feisty dog that's done molested ye? Is thet leadin' men forwards—or jest backwards like a crawfish?"

"Ye talks," said Aaron Capper, sharply, "like es if I'd stirred up an' provoked tribulation. Them fellers air a-plottin' tergither right now over at old Hump Doane's house—an' hell's broth air a-brewin' thar."

The younger man's head came back with a snap.

"Ye says they're holdin' a council over thar at Hump Doane's?" he demanded.

"Yes—an' hit's a war conf'rence. I've hed men find thet out—they're right sim'lar ter a swarm of hornets."

Parish Thornton took a step forward.

"Will ther Harpers stand to what ther two of us agrees on tergither in full accord—an' leave cavillin' an' wranglin' amongst ourselves fer a more seemly time?"

Aaron nodded his head. "So long as us two stands agreed we kin handle 'em, I reckon."

The young man nodded his head in a gesture of swift decision.

"All right then! I'm goin' over thar ter Hump Doane's house—an' reason with them hotheads. I'm goin' ter advocate peace as strong es any man kin—but I'm goin' ter tell 'em, too, thet ther Harpers kin give 'em unshirted hell ef they disdains peace. I'm goin' ter pledge ourselves ter holp diskiver an' penitenshery ther man thet shot at old Jim Rowlett. Does thet suit ye?"

Aaron stood looking at Parish Thornton with eyes blankly dumfounded, and the other two faces mirrored his bewilderment, then the spokesman broke into bitterly derisive laughter, and his followers parroted his mirthless ridicule.

"Hit mout suit me," he finally replied, "save only hit denotes thet ye're either p'intedly wishful ter throw yore life away—or else plum bereft of reason."

"Thet's a secret meetin' over thar," interposed Lincoln Thornton, grimly, "with rifles in ther la'rel ter take keer of trespassers. They'd stretch ye dead afore ye got nigh enough ter shout out—much less reason with 'em. Some things is practical an' others is jest damn foolery."

"I took thought of them chances," replied Parish, quietly, "afore I made my proffer."

This time there was no laughter but Aaron shook his head decisively. "No," he declared, "hit won't do. Hit's a right bold idee but hit would be sartain death. Ye're ther man they're cussin' an' damnin' over an' above all others, over thar—right now."

"All right then," asserted Thornton, crisply, "ef I kin stop 'em from cussin' an' damnin' me, mebby they mout quiet down again an listen ter reason. Anyhow, ef ye agrees ter let me bind ye by my words, I'm a-goin' over thar."

After that the talk was such a discussion of ways and means as takes place between allies in complete harmony of agreement.

"Afore God in Heaven," exclaimed the old clansman at its end, "ye air a man thet's cut out ter lead! Hev ye got yore pistol handy?"

"Hit's handy enough," answered Parish, "but I don't aim ter go over thar armed—ef they kills me like ye foretells they will, they've got ter murder me coldblooded—so all men kin see wh'ar ther fault lays at."



CHAPTER XVII

Parish Thornton and Aaron Capper stood for a few moments watching the departure of the two other horsemen, one of whom was a spy and a traitor—for Aaron himself meant to wait here until he could ride home with some knowledge of the outcome of his new ally's mad project.

But Parish could not wait long, for the summer afternoon was already half spent and his depleted strength would make travelling slow.

The thought that now oppressed him with the poignancy of an immediate ordeal was the need of saying good-bye to Dorothy, and neither of them would fail to understand that it might be a last good-bye. There was no room for equivocation in this crisis, and as he gazed up into the full and peaceful shade over his head, a flood of little memories, bound tendril-like by sounds, sights, and fragrances to his heart, swept him with disconcerting violence.

He steadied himself against that assaulting and went resolutely into the room where Dorothy was standing with her back half turned so that she did not at once see him.

She stood deep in thought—artlessly posed in lance-like straightness, and on the smooth whiteness of her neck a breath of breeze stirred wisps of bronzed and crisply curling hair. The swing of her shoulders was gallant and the man thanked God for that. She would want her courage now.

"Dorothy," he said, softly, standing close at her side, "I've got ter do somethin' thet ye're goin' ter hate ter hev me ter ondertake—an' yet I knows ye'll want me ter do hit, too."

She wheeled at the tenseness of his voice and he wondered whether some premonition had already foreshadowed his announcement, for her cheeks were pale as she raised her hands and locked her fingers behind his head, standing off at arms' length so that she might look into his face.

He felt the hands tighten and tremble as he explained his mission, and saw the lids close over the eyes as if to shut out pictures of terror-stricken foreboding, while the lips parted stiffly in the pain of repressed and tidal emotions. Dorothy swayed uncertainly on her feet, then recovered self-command.

With a passionate impulse of holding him for herself, her arms closed more rigidly about him and her soft body clung against his own, but no sound of sobbing came from her lips and after a little she threw back her head and spoke rapidly, tensely, with the molten fierceness of one mountain-bred:

"I hain't seekin' ter dissuade ye ... I reckon I kinderly egged ye on out thar under ther tree ... but ef any harm comes ter ye, Cal ... over yon ... then afore God, even ef I'm only a woman ... I'll kill ther man thet causes hit!"

It was Dorothy who saddled and bridled the easy-paced mule for the man with the bandaged arm to mount, and who gave him directions for reaching his destination. As he turned in his saddle he summoned the spirit to flash upon her his old smile in farewell and she waved as though she were speeding him on some errand of festival. Then while old Aaron paced the dooryard with a grim face of pessimism bowed low over his chest, she turned into the house and, beside the bed where her lover had so long lain, dropped to her knees and clasped her hands in prayer.

Parish Thornton had told Aaron that he meant to go unarmed to that meeting, but so many thoughts had crowded upon him that only when he settled back against the high cantle of his saddle was he reminded, by its angular hardness, of the pistol which bulged in his pocket.

He drew rein to take it back, then shook his head and rode on again.

"Goin' over an' comin' back," he told himself, "I'd jest as lieve be armed, anyhow. Afore I gits thar I'll climb down an' hide ther thing in some holler log."

* * * * *

Hump Doane's house was larger than many of those lying scattered about it, but between its long walls hung that smoky air of the rudely mediaeval that made a fit setting for so grim a conclave as that of to-day. About the empty hearth of its main room men, uncouthly dressed and unbarbered, sat, and the smoke from their pipes hung stale and heavy. A door at the back and one at the front stood wide, but there were no windows and along the blackened rafters went strings of peppers and "hands" of home-grown tobacco. A dull glint here and there against the walls proclaimed leaning rifles.

On the threshold of the back door sat Bas Rowlett gazing outward, and his physical position, beyond the margin of the group proper, seemed to typify a mental attitude of detachment from those mounting tides of passion that held sway within.

"I'm ther feller thet got shot at, men," declared old Jim, rising unsteadily from his chair and sweeping them all with his keen and sagacious old eyes, "an' until terday ye've all stud willin' ter hearken ter my counsel. Now ef ye disregards me an' casts loose afresh all them old hates an' passions, I'd a heap ruther be dead then alive."

"Afore God, what fer do we waste good time hyar cavillin' an' backbitin' like a passel of old granny-women?" demanded Sam Opdyke whose face was already liquor-flushed, as he came tumultuously to his feet, overturning his chair and lifting clenched fists above his head.

"When this hyar unknowed man come from Virginny ter start things up whar old Burrell Thornton left 'em off at, he brung ther war with him. Thet troublemaker's got ter die—an' when he's dead hit's time ter parley erbout a new truce."

A low growl of approval ran in the throats of the hearers, but Hump Doane rose and spoke with his great head and misshapen shoulders reaching only a little way above the table top, and his thin voice cutting sharp and stridently.

"I've always stood staunch by Jim Rowlett's counsel," he announced, soberly, "but we kain't handily refuse ter see what our own eyes shows us. Ef ther Harpers hed any survigrous leader thet hed come out strong fer peace, I'd still sanction givin' him a chanst, but who hev they got? I talked solemn with this new man, Parish Thornton, an' I didn't git no satisfaction outen hem."

From the door Bas Rowlett raised an even voice of hypocrisy:

"I knows ther new man better then any of ye, I reckon ... an' I believes him when he says he wants a quiet life ... but I don't skeercely deem ther Harpers hev any notion of heedin' him."

"Men," old Jim, who felt his power slipping from him, and who was too old to seize it back with the vigour of twenty years ago, rose again and in his attitude was the pathos of decayed influence and bitter failure at life's end.

"Men," he implored, "I beseeches ye ter hearken ter me one time more. A man thet's got ter be kilt kin always be kilt, but one thet's dead kain't be fotched back ter life. Hold off this bloodshed fer a spell yit.... Suffer me ter counsel with two or three Harpers an' Thorntons afore ye goes too fur!"

So long had this man's voice held a wizardry of influence that even now, though the spirit of reconciliation had faint life in that meeting, a silence of respect and veneration followed on his words, and while it endured he gazed beseechingly around the group to meet eyes that were all obdurately grim and adverse.

It was Hump Doane who broke the pause.

"Save fer a miracle of luck, Jim, ye'd be a dead man now—an' whilst we tarries fer ye ter parley, you an' me an' others besides us air like ter die. Over-hastiness is a sorry fault—but dilitariness is oftentimes sorrier."

* * * * *

Back in the house that had grown around the nucleus of a revolutionary cabin sat the woman who had been for such a short time a wife—and who might so soon be a widow.

She had risen from her knees at last after agonized praying, but even through her prayers came horrible and persistent pictures of what might be happening to the man who had smiled as he rode away.

The insupportable dread chilled and tortured her that the brief happiness of her marriage had been only a scrap and sample, which would leave all the rest of life and widowhood bleaker for its memory and loss.

Dorothy sat by the window with a face ghost-pallid and fingers that wound in and out of spasmodic clutchings.

She closed her eyes in an effort to forget her nightmare imaginings and saw only more fantastic visions of a body sliding from its saddle and lying still in the creek bed trail.

She rose at last and paced the room, but outside in the road her gaze fell on old Aaron who was uneasily pacing, too, and in his drooping shoulders and grimly set face she read no encouragement to hope. That morose and pessimistic figure held her gaze with a fascination of terror and she watched it until its pacing finally carried it around a twist of the road. Then she went out and stood under the tree which in its wordlessness was still a more sympathetic confidant than human beings.

She dropped on her knees there in the long grass at the roots of the straight-stemmed walnut and for the first time some spark of hope crept into her bruised soul. She began catching at straws of solace and had she known it, placing faith and reliance in the source of all the danger, yet she found a vestige of comfort in the process—and that was something.

"I'd done fergot," she exclaimed as she rose from her knees. "Most like Bas Rowlett's thar—so he'll hev one friend thet men won't skeercely das't ter defy. Bas'll stand by him—like he done afore."



CHAPTER XVIII

Riding with the weariness of a long convalescence, Parish Thornton passed the house where for two days only he had made his abode, and turned into an upward-climbing trail, gloomily forested, where the tangle brushed his stirrups as he rode. On a "bald-knob" the capriciousness of nature had left the lookout of an untimbered summit, and there he drew rein and gazed down into the basin of a narrow creek-valley a mile distant, where, in a cleared square of farm land, a lazy thread of smoke rose from a low roof.

That house was his objective, and from here on he must drop downward through woods which the eye could penetrate for only a few paces in any direction; where the poison ivy and sumac grew rank and the laurel and rhododendron made entanglements that would have disconcerted a bear. He realized that it was a zone picketed with unseen riflemen, and advisers, who were by no means alarmists, had told him that he could not pass through it alive. Yet he believed there was the possibility, and upon it he was staking everything, that so long as he rode openly and with the audacity of seemingly nickel-plated self-confidence, these watchers by the way would, in sheer curiosity, pass him on to those superiors within the house from whom they took their orders.

His life hung on the correctness of that assumption, but the hazard was a part of the game. He thrust his pistol into a broken oak where a woodpecker had nested, then flapped his reins and clucked to his mule. For the sake of a bold appearance he raised his voice in a spirited and cheerful ballad, but from time to time he broke off since he had stern need for acute listening.

The mule carried him into—and through—a gorge where day-long a shadowy gloom hung among the fern-fringed rocks, and where the austere wildness of dripping cliffs and forbidding woods seemed a stage set for dark and tragic happenings.

He passed not one but several rifles as he went—he even caught the glint of one muzzle among the waxen rhododendron leaves but pretended not to see it, and though on him every barrel was trained, not a trigger was pressed.

The coming of a Harper clansman whom some men called a leader to the conclave of the Doane chieftains was so astounding a phenomenon that it would be a pity to cut it short until its intent was made manifest. So the sentinels along the way held their breath—and their fire.

But Thornton came at last to the place where the forest ran out into more open woods and the "trace" widened to a sledge-trail. He drew his horse to a standstill and hallooed loudly, for he knew that at this point all policy of experiment must end. The showdown could no longer be delayed. From near by in the laurel came a prompt voice of response though the speaker remained unseen.

"Halt whar ye're at," it commanded, gruffly. "What does ye want over hyar?"

"I aimed ter hev speech with Hump Doane," answered Thornton, unruffled, counterfeiting a tranquil ease, and from the thicket drifted the unintelligible mingling of two low voices in consultation. Then a second voice spoke:

"Wait right whar ye stands at an' don't aim ter move till I tells ye ye kin."

Punctiliously, Parish Thornton obeyed that injunction, sitting quietly in his saddle with a meditative gaze fixed on the twitching of his mule's ears, until after so long a time a stir in the thicket announced the return of the messenger and a command came succinctly from an invisible speaker.

"Hitch yore critter an' light down. Hump 'lows he'll see ye."

The door at the front of the house was closed now but when Thornton had dismounted and knocked, it opened, and straining his eyes at the darkness of the interior he found himself in a room cloudy with tobacco smoke and crowded with unoccupied chairs—yet empty of any humanity save for himself and the hunchback who stood inhospitably bulking just beyond the threshold.

The trap to the cock-loft was open, though, and the ladder was drawn up so Thornton knew that this seeming of vacancy was specious and that in all likelihood gun barrels were trained from above.

"I've done come," he said, steadily, and he raised his voice so that it would also carry to those unseen individuals whom he believed to be concealed near by, "ter see kin us two carcumvent bloodshed. I bears due authority from ther Thorntons and ther Harpers. We seeks ter aid ye in diskiverin' an' punishin' ther man thet sought ter kill Jim Rowlett—if so be ye'll meet us halfway."

For a moment there was silence in the room, then with a skeptical note of ridicule and challenge the hunchback demanded: "Why didn't ye go ter Jim Rowlett hisself?"

Though he had not been invited to enter Parish Thornton took a forward step into the room, and a bold effrontery proclaimed itself in both the words and the manner of his response.

"I've done come ter both of ye. I knows full well I'm speakin' right now in ther hearin' of numerous men hyar—albeit they're hidin' out from me."

Again there was silence, then Parish Thornton turned his eyes, following the cripple's gaze, toward the open door and found himself gazing into the muzzles of two rifles presented toward his breast. He laughed shortly and commented, "I thought so," then glancing at the cock-loft he saw other muzzles and in the back door which swung silently open at the same moment yet others gave back a dull glint of iron from the sunlight, so that he stood ringed about with levelled guns.

Hump Doane's piercing eyes bored into the face of the intruder during a long and uneasy silence. Then when his scrutiny had satisfied itself he asserted with a blunt directness:

"Ye hain't skeercely got no means of knowin' who's inside my house without ye come by thet knowledge through spyin' on me."

From the darkness of the cock-loft came a passionate voice of such rabid truculence as sounds in the throat of a dog straining at its leash.

"Jest say one word, Hump ... jest say one word an' he won't know nothin' a minute hence!... My trigger finger's itchin' right now!"

"Hold yore cacklin' tongue, Sam Opdyke, an' lay aside thet gun," the cripple barked back with the crack of a mule whip in his voice, and silence again prevailed up there and fell upon the room below.

Again the householder paused and after that he decided to throw aside futile pretence.

"Come on back in hyar, men," he gave curt order. "Thar hain't no need of our askin' no man's lieve ter meet an' talk nohow."

Slowly and somewhat shamefacedly, if the truth must be told, the room refilled itself and the men who trooped heavily back through the two doors, or slid down the lowered ladder, came rifle and pistol armed.

Parish Thornton had no trouble in identifying, by the malevolence on one face, the man who had pleaded for permission to kill him, but the last to saunter in—and he still stood apart at the far threshold with an air of casual detachment—was Bas Rowlett.

"Now," began Hump Doane in the overbearing tone of an inquisitor, "we don't owe ye no explanations as ter which ner whether. We've gathered tergether, as we hev full right ter do, because you Harpers seems hell bent on forcin' warfare down our throats—an' we aims ter carcumvent ye." He paused, and a murmur of general approbation gave force to his announcement, then he added, "But hit's right p'intedly seemly fer you ter give us a reason why ye comes oninvited ter my house—at sich a time as this."

It was to old Jim Rowlett that Parish Thornton turned now, ignoring the spokesman who had addressed him, and his voice was clear and even:

"When I come hyar from Virginny," he declared, "I didn't never seek no leadership—an' ther Thorntons in gin'ral didn't never press me ter take over none—but thar was men hyar thet wouldn't look on me in no other guise, an them men war you Doanes."

"Us Doanes," broke out the red-eyed Opdyke, explosively, "what hev we got ter do with yore feisty lot?"'

"Yes, you Doanes," Thornton shot back at him with a stiffening jaw. "When ther Harpers didn't want me, and I didn't want them, you men plum fo'ced me on 'em by seekin' ter hold me accountable fer all thar doin's. Ef I'm goin' ter be accountable, I'm likewise goin' ter be accounted to! Now we've done got tergither over thar an' they've despatched me hyar ter give ye our message an' take back yore answer."

"Thet is ter say," amended the firebrand with significant irony, "providin' we concludes ter let ye take back any message atall."

Thornton did not turn his head but held with his eyes the faces of old Jim and Hump Doane and it was still to them that he addressed himself.

"I'm licensed ter bind ther Harpers an' Thorntons by my words—an' my words air plain ones. We proffers ye peace or war, whichever ye chooses: full peace or war ter ther hinges of hell! But peace air what we wants with all our hearts an' cravin's, an' peace hit'll be onlessen ye denies us." He paused for a moment only, then in altered voice he reminded them: "Ef I don't go back, my death'll be all the answer they'll need over thar—but ther guilt fer bloodshed an' what follers hit will rest on ther Doanes henceforth. We've done our damnedest."

"We're wastin' time an' breath. Kill ther damn moon-calf an' eend hit," clamoured the noisy agitator with the bloodshot eyes. "They only seeks ter beguile us with a passel of fair-seemin' lies."

"No, we hain't wastin' breath, men!" Old Jim Rowlett was on his feet again with the faded misery of defeat gone out of his eyes and a new light of contest kindled in them.

"Every man hyar, save a couple of clamorous fools, hes declared hisself thet ef ther Thorntons hed a trustworthy leader, he favoured dealin' with him. This man says they've got tergither. Let's hear him out."

A muttering chorus of dissent sounded inarticulate protest that needed only a spokesman and Hump Doane raised his hand.

"I've done already hed speech with Mr. Thornton—who come over hyar by another name—an' he refused ter give me any enjoyment. I misdoubts ef he kin do much better now. Nonetheless"—he stepped forward and turned as he spoke, swinging his glance with compelling vigour about the rough circle of humanity—"Nonetheless he's done come, an' claims he's been sent. Stand over thar, Mr. Thornton, in front of the chimbley—an' I aims ter see thet ye gits yore say!"

So Parish Thornton took his place before the hearth and began an argument that he knew to be adversely prejudged.

"Thar's grievances festerin' amongst ther men of yore crowd an' mine alike, but warfare won't ease 'em none," he said at the end; "I've got a grievance myself thet calls fer avengin'—but hit hain't no Harper-Doane matter. I hadn't dwelt hyar amongst ye three days afore I was laywayed—an' I hadn't give just offence ter no man so fur es I knows of."

"But sence ye've done tuck up preachin' a gospel of peace," came the sneering suggestion from the fringe of the crowd, "I reckon ye're willin' ter lay thet grudge by like a good Christian an' turn t'other cheek, hain't ye?"

Thornton wheeled, and his eyes flamed.

"No," he exclaimed in a voice that filled the room. "I'd be a damn hypocrite ef I claimed thet. I swore thet night, whilst I lay thar, thet thet man belonged ter me ter kill, an' I hain't altered thet resolve no fashion, degree ner whipstitch. But thet's a thing thet's separate an' apart from ther war...."

He paused, realizing the difficulty of making clear so complicated and paradoxical a position, while an outburst of derisive laughter fell on the pause as he reached his period. Then someone made ironic comment: "Hit's all beginnin' ter come out now. Ye aims ter hev everybody else fergive thar enemies an' lay down like lambs tergither—atter ye gits teetotally done with yore own shootin' an avengin'."

But Hump Doane seized the hickory staff that leaned against old Jim's chair and pounded with it on the table.

"Silence!" he roared; "suffer ther feller ter git through!"

"I don't aim ter bushwack ner layway nobody," went on Thornton, obdurately. "Hit wouldn't content me ef I wasn't facin' my enemy when I sottled with him—an' hit's a private business—but this other matter te'ches everybody. Hit denotes y'ars of blood-spillin' an' murder—of women an' children sufferin' fer causes thet hain't no wise th'ar fault ner doin'."

The cripple still stood regarding the man by the hearth with a brow knit in absorption, and so tense was his expression that it seemed to bind the others to a brief, waiting silence until Hump himself slowly broke the tension.

"I said I aimed ter give ye a chanst ter hev yore say out.... Hev ye got fur enough ter let me ask ye a question?"

The nodded head of assent gave permission and Doane inquired briefly:

"Does I onderstand ye ter plead fer ther Harpers an' ther Doanes ter 'bide by ther old truce—an' yit ter seek ter stand free yore own self an' kill yore own enemy?"

Old Jim Rowlett leaned forward gripping his staff head with eyes of incredulity, and from the chest of the others sounded long-drawn breaths, inarticulate yet eloquent of scorn and sneering repudiation.

But Parish Thornton retained the earnest and resolute poise with which he had spoken before as he made his answer.

"I means thet I don't aim ter suffer no craven betrayal an' not hit back. I means thet ther feller thet sought my murder is my man ter kill, but I aims ter kill him in f'ar combat. Hit jest lays between him an' me an' hit hain't no Harper-Doane affair, nohow."

Hump Doane shook his head and there was in the gesture both decisiveness and disappointment.

"What commenced ter look like a mighty hopeful chanst falls flat right hyar an' now," he announced. "I'd begun ter hope thet atter all a leader hed done riz up amongst us, but I sees when ye talks erbout peace ye means a peace fer other folks thet don't bind ner hamper yoreself. Thar hain't nuthin' but folly in seekin' ter build on a quicksand like thet."

"I told ye fust-off thet we war a-wastin' time an' breath," broke out Opdyke, furiously. "A man only courts trouble when he seeks ter gentle a rattlesnake—ther seemly thing ter do air ter kill hit."

Parish Thornton turned his eyes and studiously appraised the hare-brained advocate of violence, then he said, again addressing Hump Doane:

"An' yit hit's a pity, Mr. Doane, ef you an' me kain't some fashion git tergither in accord. We've got ther same cravin's in our hearts, us two."

"I come ter ye onc't afore, Mr. Thornton," the cripple reminded him, "an' I asked ye a question thet ye didn't see fit ter answer. Now I asks ye ter lay by one grudge, when ye calls on us ter lay by many—an' hit happens ergin thet ye don't see fit ter yield no p'int. Mebby me an' you have got cravin's fer betterment in common betwixt us—but hit 'pears like thar's always one diff'rence risin' up thet balks everything else."



CHAPTER XIX

Even the peppery Opdyke did not venture to break heatedly in on the pause that followed those regretful words. Into the minds of the majority stole a sense, vague and indefinable it is true, that a tragic impasse was closing on a situation over which had flashed a rainbow gleam of possible solution. Ahead lay the future with its sinister shadows—darker because of the alternative they had glimpsed in its passing.

Old Jim Rowlett came to his feet, and drew his thin shoulders back—shoulders that had been broad and strong enough to support heavy burdens through trying years.

"Mr. Thornton," he said, and the aged voice held a quaver of emotion which men were not accustomed to hearing it carry, "I wants ter talk with ye with ther severe freedom of an' old man counsellin' a young 'un—an' hit hain't ergoin' ter be in ther manner of a Doane argyfyin' with a Harper so much es of a father advisin' with a son."

The young Thornton met those eyes so full of eagle boldness yet so tempered with kindness, and to his own expression came a responsive flash of that winning boyishness which these men had not seen on his face before.

"Mr. Rowlett," he made answer in a low and reverent voice, "I hain't got no remembrance of my pappy, but I'd love ter think he favoured ye right smart."

Slowly the low-pitched voice of the Nestor began to dominate the place, cloudy with its pipe-smoke and redolent with the stale fumes of fires long dead. Like some Hogarth picture against a sombre background the ungainly figures of men stood out of shadow and melted into it: men unkempt and tribal in their fierceness of aspect.

Old Jim made to blaze again before their eyes, with a rude and vigorous eloquence, all the ruthless bane of the toll-taking years before the truce. He stripped naked every specious claim of honour and courage with which its votaries sought to hallow the vicious system of the vendetta. He told in words of simple force how he and Caleb Harper had striven to set up and maintain a sounder substitute, and how for the permanence of that life-work they had prayed.

"Caleb an' me," he said at last, "we didn't never succeed without we put by what we asked others ter forego. Yore wife's father was kilt most foully—an' Caleb looked over hit. My own boy fell in like fashion, an' my blood wasn't no tamer then thet in other veins—but yit I held my hand. Ye comes ter us now, frettin' under ther sting of a wrong done ter ye—an' I don't say yore wrath hain't righteous, but ye've done been vouchsafed sich a chanst as God don't proffer ter many, an' God calls fer sacrifices from them elected ter sarve him."

He paused there for a moment and passed his knotted hand over the parchment-like skin of his gaunt temples, then he went on: "Isaac offered up Jacob—or leastways he stud ready ter do hit. Ye calls on us ter trust ye an' stand with ye, an' we calls on you in turn fer a pledge of faith. Fer God's sake, boy, be big enough ter bide yore time twell ther Harpers an' Doanes hev done come outen this distemper of passion. I tells ye ye kain't do no less an' hold yore self-esteem."

He paused, then came forward with his old hand extended and trembling in a palsy of eagerness, and despite the turmoil of a few minutes before, such a taut silence prevailed that the asthmatic rustiness of the old man's breath was an audible wheezing through the room.

The young messenger had only to lift his hand then and grasp that outheld one—and peace would have been established—yet his one free arm seemed to him more difficult to lift in a gesture of compliance than that which was bandaged down.

His own voice broke and he answered with difficulty: "Give me a leetle spell ter ponder—I kain't answer ye off-hand."

Thornton's eyes went over, and in the lighted doorway fell upon Bas Rowlett sitting with his features schooled to a masked and unctuous hypocrisy, but back of that disguise the wounded man fancied he could read the satisfaction of one whose plans march toward success. His own teeth clicked together and the sweat started on his temples. He had to look away—or forget every consideration other than his own sense of outrage and the oath he had sworn to avenge it.

But the features of old Jim were like the solace of a reef-light in a tempest; old Jim whose son had fallen and who had forgiven without weakness.

If what Parish knew to be duty prevailed over the passionate tide that ran high in temptation, what then? Would he live to serve as shepherd when his undertaking under the private compact had been waived and the other man stood free to indulge his perfidy?

Finally he laid his hand on the shoulder of the veteran.

"Mr. Rowlett," he declared, steadily, "I've got ter ask ye ter give me full twenty-four hours afore I kin answer ye fer sartain. Will yore men agree ter hold matters es they stands twell this time termorrer?"

Jim Rowlett glanced at Hump Doane and the cripple nodded an energetic affirmation. He was hard to convince but when convinced he was done with doubt.

"I'd ruther heer Mr. Thornton talk thetaway," he declared, crisply, "then ter hev him answer up heedless an' over-hasty."

With his knee brushing against that of old Jim Rowlett, Parish Thornton rode away from that meeting, and from the sentinels in the laurel he heard no hint of sound.

When he had come to the place where his pistol lay hidden he withdrew it and replaced it in his pocket, and a little farther on where the creek wound its way through a shimmering glade and two trails branched, the veteran drew rein.

"I reckon we parts company hyar," he said, "but I feels like we've done accomplished a right good day's work. Termorrow Hump an' me'll fare over ter yore house and git yore answer."

"I'm obleeged," responded the new chief of the Thorntons, but when he was left alone he did not ride on to the house in the river bend. Instead he went to the other house upon whose door his first letter of threat had been posted, and hitching his horse in its dilapidated shed he set out on foot for the near-by place where Bas Rowlett dwelt alone.

Twenty-four hours had been all he could ask in reaching a decision on such an issue, yet before he could make answer much remained to be determined, and in that determination he must rely largely on chances which he could not hope to regulate or force into a pattern of success.

He had, for example, no way of guessing how long it would be before Bas returned to his farm or whether, when he came, he would be alone—and to-morrow's answer depended upon an unwitnessed interview between them.

But he had arrived on foot and taken up his place of concealment at the back of the log structure with only a half-hour of waiting when the other man appeared, riding in leisurely unconcern and unaccompanied.

Thornton loosed his pistol and drew back into the lee of the square stone chimney where he remained safe from discovery until the other had passed into the stable and begun to ungirth his saddle.

The house stood remote from any neighbouring habitation, and the road at its front was an infrequently used sledge trail. The stable was at its side, while back of the buildings themselves, angling off behind the screening shoulder of a steep spur of hillside, stretched a small orchard where only gnarled apple trees and a few "bee-gums" broke a small and level amphitheatre into which the possible passerby could not see.

The lord of this manor stood bent, his fingers wrestling with the stubbornness of a rusted buckle, when he heard at his back, low of tone but startlingly staccato in its quality of imperativeness, the single syllable, "Bas!"

Rowlett wheeled, leaping back with a hand sweeping instinctively to his holster—but he arrested that belligerent gesture with a sudden paralysis of caution because of the look in the eyes of the surprise visitor who stood poised with forward-bending readiness of body, and a revolver levelled in a hand of bronze steadiness.

"I'm on my feet now, Bas," came a quiet voice that chilled the hearer with an inexplicable rigour, "I reckon ye hain't fergot my promise."

Rowlett gave way backward until the wall obstructed his retreat, and in obedience to the unspoken command in the eyes of his visitor, he extended both arms high above his head, but while he stood unmoving, his adroit mind was racing.

He knew what he would do if the situation were reversed, and he believed that the other was waiting only to punish him with a castigation of vengeful words before he shot him down and left him lying in the trampled straw and manure of that unclean stable.

Now he had to brace himself against the tortures of a physical fear from which he had believed himself immune. So he stood breathing unevenly and waiting, and while he waited the temper of his nerves was being drawn as it is drawn from over-heated steel.

"Come on with me," commanded Thornton.

The surprised man obeyed sullenly, casting an anxious eye about in the slender hope of interruption, and when they reached the orchard where even that chance ended Parish Thornton spoke again:

"When us two tuck oath ter sottle matters betwixt ourselves—I didn't skeercely foresee what was comin' ter pass. Now I kain't seek ter make ther compact hold over till a fairer time, ner seek ter change hit's terms, nuther, without ye're willin'."

"Suppose I hain't willin'?"

For answer Parish Thornton sheathed his weapon.

"Now," he said with a deadly quiet, "we're on even terms. Either you an' me draws our pistols an' fights twell one of us draps dead or else——"

He paused, and saw the face of his enemy go green and pasty as Rowlett licked his lips yet left his hands hanging at his sides. At length the intriguer demanded, "Or else—what?"

Thornton knew then beyond doubt what he already believed. This man was quailing and had no stomach for the fair combat of duel yet he would never relinquish his determination to glut his hatred by subterfuge.

"Or else ye've got ter enter inter a new compact."

"What's thet?" A ring of hope sounded in the question, since in any fresh deal lies the possibility of better fortune.

"Ter go on holdin' yore hand twell this feud business blows over—an' I sarves notice on ye thet our own private war's opened up ergin."

"I reckon," said Rowlett, seeking to masquerade his relief under the semblance of responsible self-effacement, "common decency ter other folks lays thet need on both of us alike."

"I'm offerin' ye a free choice," warned Thornton, "but onless ye're ready ter fight hyar an' now ye've p'int-blank got ter walk in thar an' set down in handwrite, with yore name signed at ther bottom, a full confession thet ye hired me shot thet night."

"Like hell I will!" Bas roared out his rejection of that alternative with his swarthy cheekbones flaming redly, and into his rapidly and shiftily working mind came the comfort of a realization which in that first surprise and terror had escaped him. It was not to his enemy's first interest to goad him into a mortal clash, since that would make it impossible to give a favourable answer to the leaders to-morrow—and incidentally it would be almost certain to mean Thornton's own death.

Now he straightened up with a ghost of renewed bravado and shook his head while an enigmatical grin twisted his lips.

"S'posin'," he made insolent suggestion, "I don't see fit ter do nuther one ner t'other? S'posin' I jest tells ye ter go ter hell?"