“Thank you, Seth, but I reckon I won’t for a while.” Lawyer Todd tried to smile in answer to the welcome, but his eyes were grave.
He was a man of middle age and some little refinement of appearance, in spite of the mud that now besplotehed him. A native of the Kentucky Mountains, he had taken his degree at a college in the Blue Grass, but had returned to the hills to practice among his own people. He was one of them: he knew their ways, their faults, their virtues, their peculiarities, and of Seth Brannon he was particularly wise. Ever since hanging out his shingle at the county seat, Todd had been his legal adviser whenever Seth had seen fit to waive the local militant manner of settling disputes and rely upon the instruments of law and order. Between the two men there existed a feeling that was more than professional. Seth, while many years his senior, made Todd his confidant, looked up to him with the deference due superior wisdom, and knew that his trust was not misplaced. In return Todd gave sympathetic understanding to this primitive man of the hills, respected his traditions, and stood by him in time of trouble.
It was this bond between friend and friend, rather than between lawyer and client, that had drawn Todd over long, hard miles through the most isolated and inaccessible part of that Kentucky county which bears the title “Bloody.”
Todd did not dismount from his mare; and old Seth, squatting on the stile block, regarded him keenly with eyes much used to the analysis of their fellow-men.
“What’s on yer mind, lawyer?” he inquired. “’Pears like all ain’t good news ye’ve brung over the hills with ye.”
He took in at a glance the mud-caked legs and belly of the mare, and the blue clay drops that had sprayed and dried on the lawyer, from his leather boots to his gray slouch hat.
“Ye must ’a’ come a long piece, from the looks o’ ye,” Seth resumed with friendly concern. “Shorely, now, ye ain’t rid all the way from Jackson town?”
“Yes,” Todd answered, “that’s what I have.”
“And what fer?”
The lawyer reached to an inside pocket and drew out a yellow envelope, the flap of which had been torn open. With a slowness that was almost hesitancy, he handed the envelope to the old man.