“The station agent. He has to be neutral.”
“And how did you happen to keep out of it?” Scott asked.
“Because I am a Quaker,” the old man answered proudly, “and do not believe in fighting. And now,” he added with the same sad smile Scott had noticed several times before, “one of my daughters has married a Wait and the other a Morgan.”
Scott rose to go. “Well, Mr. Sanders,” he said earnestly, “I have almost as good a reason as you have for keeping neutral. I am certainly obliged to you for your advice, and I may need your help again. In the meanwhile I shall keep away from those stores, and try not to stir anything up.”
Scott walked slowly on up the mountain road with bent head, and when the old man had watched him out of sight he continued to gaze dreamily at the turn of the road where the young man had disappeared.
“He’s not a fool like the others, anyway,” he said aloud, “and I think he’ll stay here.”
Scott wandered on. He wanted to find a place where he could be alone and think.
CHAPTER IV
OLD JARRED
Two miles farther up that same road a little log cabin stood back from the road about fifty feet behind its weather-beaten picket fence. The little yard, like most of the yards in that section of the country, was perfectly bare, and at first glance it seemed to be deserted. But if a member of the Wait settlement had tried to enter the yard, he would instantly have been aware of a very real presence.
Seated on the doorstep of the cabin, and so motionless that he might have been a part of it, was a man clad in a black sateen shirt and homespun trousers tucked into heavy Congress boots. Judging from the silvery whiteness of his hair he might have been eighty-five, but from the strong, stern lines of his thin, smooth-shaven face he might have been forty-five. There was no sign of nervousness. Not a finger moved and his eyes rested unwaveringly on a small clearing half a mile down the mountain where he could catch a glimpse of the road to the village.