It was a thing of her doing, a thing which, if need be, she would do again; but that did not prevent her seeing in the thin, haggard-faced boy, who watched the embers die to ashes, a creature for whom she could feel sorrow—even sympathy. Perhaps it was a sympathy too wide in its scope; but, if so, it was a criticism for which Christ, Lord of broad sympathies, might, possibly, have felt a leniency.
In the months that followed, Henry Falkins organized and drilled into some semblance of military form a company of militiamen. His men were enlisted from Falkins and Falerin territory, and, though he invited the Spooners to join them, the distance made it impracticable. Henry believed that by military training these people might be weaned from lawless intolerance to a rudimentary acceptance of discipline.
One day, Newt Spooner, having ridden over to Jackson, saw these raw amateurs going through their manual of arms, and he stood at the side and sneered contemptuously as he watched. But the Deacon, who watched, too, did not sneer. With a constant diplomacy Black Pete had rehabilitated his reputation, and, if any of the Falkins clan still disbelieved in his sincerity, he was lonely in his scepticism. Men on both sides ceased to speak of the "truce," and called it by the more permanent name of "peace." But, reflected the far-sighted Deacon, there might come an outbreak some day, and then it would be no advantage to the Spooners to have a hundred Falkinses take to the brush with the high-power military rifles. It would be just as well, if this militia idea were a good one, to carry it further. The county should have not one company—but two. Over in the section where the Spooners held dominance, the second should be mustered. So, in the course of time, the Spooner platoons were duly organized and taken into the state guard. The Deacon himself consented only to become a sergeant. Yet, from the inception, it was the sergeant, rather than the captain or lieutenant, who dictated every matter of importance.
The feeling between the erstwhile enemies had become outwardly so cordial that a challenge was given and accepted for a competitive drill, and Newt, who had at first scoffed and then yielded to the lure of the military, marched with his comrades the little matter of twenty miles to Jackson, bearing a Springfield rifle and wearing a state uniform.
He had seen Henry Falkins only once since that Fourth of July, and it was now October. The hills were ablaze with gold and burgundy and scarlet. Newt knew that Captain Falkins would not command his company that day: that he was in fact "down below." Had he not been assured of this, he would have stayed at home and sulked in the woods.
He was biding his time. He had neither forgotten nor forgiven.
And yet, in spite of the black shadows of a life which exalted the vindictive and scowled on every gracious thing, Newt Spooner felt to-day the stirring of a new emotion. In this novel game of playing soldier, he found, rather against his will, an interest that threatened to become an enthusiasm. For the first time in his lonely life, he began to taste, with a tang of relish, the pleasures of companionship. These men with whom he hiked accorded him a rough fellowship. At first, he had been suspicious and surly, but now, when they called him the "tough kid of Troublesome," he grinned sheepishly and without resentment. Newt was waking out of a sleep that had lasted since babyhood and that had been all nightmare.
The flaming hills with their veils of violet haze across the distances; the cheerful rustle of crisp leaves under foot; the whole autumnal gamut of color and fragrance and spice was softening the world, even to its hard men of the mountains. They swung their rifles and kits with a tramp-like slouchiness, and when the noon grew warm they insisted on hiking with their shirt-tails outside their trousers; but in their swinging gait was a tireless energy that could walk armory-trained men off their feet, and then, if called on, go fresh into battle.
They swung down Jay-bird Creek, and passed the mouth of Fist-fight, and there, lying above its saw-mill, came to view a bit of landscape as much out of the picture as though it had been torn from another page of the geography and pasted there by mistake. At the edge of a town, so sprawling and ragged that one did not see it until he stumbled upon it out of a creek-bed gulch, spread the smooth campus of the college.