WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY

You're agoing to marry me and we're goin' to dwell thar—together

WHEN 'BEAR CAT'
WENT DRY

BY

CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK

Author of
"The Call of the Cumberlands," etc.

Illustrations by
GEORGE W. GAGE

New York
W. J. Watt & Company
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1918, by
W. J. WATT & COMPANY

OTHER BOOKS
By
CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK

• The Key to Yesterday
• The Lighted Match
• The Portal of Dreams
• The Call of the Cumberlands
• The Battle Cry
• The Code of the Mountains
• Destiny
• The Tyranny of Weakness

PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.

TO

M. F.

WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY

CHAPTER I

A creaking complaint of loose and rattling boards rose under the old mountaineer's brogans as he stepped from the threshold to the porch. His eyes, searching the wooded mountain-side, held at first only that penetration which born woodsmen share with the hawk and ferret, but presently they kindled into irascibility as well.

He raised his voice in a loud whoop that went skittering off across the rocky creek bed where Little Slippery crawled along to feed the trickle of Big Slippery ten miles below, and the volume of sound broke into a splintering of echoes against the forested crags of the Old Wilderness Ridges.

"You, Turner!" bellowed the man with such a bull-like roar as might have issued from the chest of a Viking. "You, Turner, don't ye heer me a-callin' ye?"

A woman, rawboned and crone-like before her time under the merciless forcing of drudgery, appeared in the door, wiping reddened hands on a coarse cotton apron.

"I reckon he'll be hyar, presently, paw," she suggested in a high-pitched voice meant to be placating. "I reckon he hain't fared far away."

The hodden-gray figure of the man turned to his wife and his voice, as it dropped to conversational pitch, held a surprisingly low and drawling cadence.

"What needcessity did he hev ter go away a-tall?" came his interrogation. "He knowed I aimed ter hev him tote thet gryste acrost ther ridge ter the tub-mill, didn't he? He knows that hits perilous business ter leave corn like that a-layin' 'round, don't he—sprouted corn!"

A flash of poignant anxiety clouded the woman's eyes. Corn sprouted in the grain before grinding! She knew well enough what that meant—incrimination in the eyes of the Government—trial, perhaps, and imprisonment.

"Ye 'lowed a long while since, Lone," she reminded him with a trace of wistfulness in her voice, "that ye aimed ter quit makin' blockade licker fer all time. Hit don't pleasure me none ter see ye a-follerin' hit ergin. Seems like thar's a curse on hit from start ter finish."

"I don't foller hit because I delights in hit," he retorted grimly. "But what else is thar ter do? I reckon we've got ter live somehow—hain't we?" For an instant his eyes flared with an upleaping of rebellion; then he turned again on his heel and roared "Turner—you, Turner!"

"Ther boy seemed kinderly fagged out when he come in. I reckon he aimed ter slip off and rest in ther shade somewhars fer a lettle spell afore ye needed him," volunteered the boy's mother, but the suggestion failed to mollify the mounting impatience of the father.

"Fagged! What's fagged him? I hain't never disc'arned nothin' puny about him. He's survigrous enough ter go a-snortin' an' a-stompin' over ther hills like a yearlin' bull, a-honin' fer battle. He's knowed from God's Blessin' Creek ter Hell's Holler by ther name of Bear Cat Stacy, hain't he? Bear Cat Stacy! I'd hate ter take my name from a varmint—but it pleasures him."

"I don't sca'cely b'lieve he seeks no aimless quarrels," argued the mother defensively. "Thar hain't no meanness in him. He's jest like you was, Lone, when ye was twenty a-goin' on twenty-one. He's full o' sperrit. I reckon Bear Cat jest means thet he's quick-like an' supple."

"Supple! Hell's torment! Whar's he at now? He's jest about a-layin' somewhar's on his shoulder-blades a-readin' thet everlastin' book erbout Abe Lincoln—You, Turner!"

Then the figure of a young man appeared, swinging along with an effortless stride down the steep grade of the mountain which was richly mottled with the afternoon sun. He came between giant clusters of flowering laurel, along aisles pink with wild roses and white with the foaming spray of elder blossoms; flanked by masses of colossal rock, and every movement was a note of frictionless power.

Like his father, Turner Stacy measured a full six feet, but age and the yoke of hardship had not yet stooped his fine shoulders nor thickened his slenderness of girth. His face was striking in its clear chiseling of feature and its bronzed color. It would have been arrestingly handsome but for its marring shadow of surliness.

In one hand he held a battered book, palpably one used with the constancy and devotion of a monk's breviary, and a forefinger was still thrust between the dog-eared pages. "Lincoln: Master of Men,"—such was the title of the volume.

As Turner Stacy arrived at the house, his father's uncompromisingly stern eyes dwelt on the book and they were brimming with displeasure.

"Didn't ye know I hed work for ye ter do terday?"

The boy nodded indifferently.

"I 'lowed ye hed ther power ter shout fer me when ye war ready, I wasn't more'n a whoop an' a holler distant."

The mother, hovering in the shadowed interior of the house, listened silently, and a little anxiously. This friction of unbending temper between her husband and son was a thing to which she could never quite accustom herself. Always she was interposing herself as a buffer between their threats of clashing wills.

"Turner," said the elder man slowly, and now he spoke quietly with an effort to curb his irascibililty, "I knows thet boys often-times gits uppety an' brash when they're a-growin' inter manhood. They've got thar growth an' they feel thar strength an' they hain't acquired neither sense ner experience enough ter realize how plumb teetotally much they don't know yit. But speakin' jedgmatically, I hain't never heered tell of no Stacy afore what hain't been loyal ter his family an' ther head of his house. 'Pears like ter me hit pleasures ye beyond all reason ter sot yoreself crost-wise erginst me."

The boy's eyes grew somberly dark as they met those of his father with undeviating steadiness. An analyst would have said that the outward surliness was after all only a mask for an inner questioning—the inarticulate stress of a cramped and aspiring spirit.

"I don't know as ye hev any rightful cause fer ter charge me with bein' disloyal," he answered slowly, as if pondering the accusation. "I hain't never aimed ter contrary ye."

Lone Stacy paused for a moment and then the timbre of his voice acquired the barb of an irony more massive than subtle.

"Air yore heart in torment because ye hain't ther President of ther country, like Abe Lincoln was? Is thet why ye don't delight in nothin' save dilitary dreams?"

A slow, brick-red flush suffused the brown cheeks of Bear Cat Stacy, and his answer came with a slowness that was almost halting.

"When Abraham Lincoln was twenty years old he warn't no more President then what I be. Thar hain't many Lincoln's, but any feller kin have ther thing in him, though, thet carried Lincoln up ter whar he went. Any feller kin do his best and want ter do some better. Thet's all I'm aimin' after."

The father studied his son's suddenly animated eyes and inquired drily, "Does this book-l'arnin' teach ye ter lay around plumb ind'lent with times so slavish hard thet I've been pintedly compelled ter start ther still workin' ergin, despite my a-bein' a Christian an' a law-lover: despite my seekin' godliness an' abhorin' iniquity?"

There was in the sober expression of the questioner no cast of hypocrisy or conscious anomaly, and the younger man shook his head.

"I hain't never shirked no labor, neither in ther field ner at ther still, but——" He paused a moment and once more the rebellious light flared in his eyes and he continued with the level steadiness of resolution. "But I hates ter foller thet business, an' when I comes of age I aims ter quit hit."

"Ye aims ter quit hit, does ye?" The old mountaineer forgot, in the sudden leaping of wrath at such unfilial utterances, that he himself had a few minutes before spoken in the same tenor. "Ye aims ter defy me, does ye? Wa'al even afore ye comes of age hit wouldn't hardly hurt ye none ter quit drinkin' hit. Ye're too everlastin' good ter make blockade licker, but ye hain't none too good ter lay drunk up thar with hit."

This time the boy's flush was one of genuine chagrin and he bit off the instinctive retort that perhaps a realization of this overpowering thirst was the precise thing which haunted him: the exact urge which made him want to break away from a serfdom that held him always chained to his temptation.

"Ye thinks ye're too much like Abe Lincoln ter make blockade licker," went on the angry parent, "but ye hain't above rampagin' about these hills seekin' trouble an' raisin' up enemies whar I've done spent my days aimin' ter consort peaceable with my neighbors. Hit hain't been but a week since ye broke Ratler Webb's nose."

"Hit come about in fair fight—fist an' skull, an' I only hit him oncet."

"Nobody else didn't feel compelled ter hit him even oncet, did they?"

"Mebby not—but he was seekin' ter bulldoze me an' he hurt my feelin's. I'd done laughed hit off twic't."

"An' so ye're a-goin' on a-layin' up trouble erginst ther future. Hit hain't ther makin' of licker thet's laid a curse on these hills. Hit's drinkin' hit. Ef a man kin walk abroad nowadays without totin' his rifle-gun an' a-dreadin' ther shot from the la'rel, hit's because men like me hev sought day an' night ter bring about peace. I counseled a truce in ther Stacy-Towers war because I war a Christian an' I didn't 'low thet God favored bloodshed. But ther truce won't hardly last ef ye goes about stirrin' up ructions.

"Bear Cat Stacy!" stormed the older man furiously as his anger fed upon itself. "What air a bear cat anyways? Hit's a beast thet rouses up from sleep an' crosses a mountain fer ther pure pleasure of tearin' out some other critter's throat an' vitals. Hit's a varmint drove on by ther devil's own sperit of hatefulness.

"Even in ther feud days men warred with clean powder an' lead, but sich-like fightin' don't seem ter satisfy ye. Ye hain't got no use fer a rifle-gun. Ye wants ter tear men apart with yore bare hands an' ter plumb rend 'em asunder! I've trod ther streets of Marlin Town with ye, an' watched yore eyes burnin' like hot embers, until peaceable men drew back from ye an' p'inted ye out ter strangers. 'Thar goes ther Bear Cat,' they'd whisper. 'Give him ther whole road!' Even ther town marshal walked in fear of ye an' war a-prayin' ter God Almighty ye wouldn't start nothin'."

"I don't never seek no fight." This time Turner Stacy spoke without shame. "I don't never have no trouble save whar I'm plumb obleeged ter hev hit."

"Thet's what Kinnard Towers always 'lowed," was the dry retort, "though he's killed numerous men, and folks says he's hired others killed, too."

The boy met the accusing glance and answered quietly:

"Ye don't favor peace no more than what I do."

"I've aimed ter be both God-fearin' an' law-abidin'," continued the parent whose face and figure might have been cast in bronze as a type of the American pioneer, "yet ye censures me fer makin' untaxed licker!" His voice trembled with a repressed thunder of emotion.

"I've seed times right hyar on this creek when fer ther most part of a whole winter we hurted fer salt an' thar warn't none to be had fer love nor money. Thar warn't no money in these hills nohow—an' damn'-little love ter brag about. Yore maw an' me an' Poverty dwelt hyar tergether—ther three of us. We've got timber an' coal an' no way ter git hit ter market. Thar's jest only one thing we kin turn inter money or store-credit—an' thet's our corn run inter white licker."

He paused as if awaiting a reply and when his son volunteered none he swept on to his peroration. "When I makes hit now I takes numerous chances, an' don't complain. Some revenuer, a-settin' on his hunkers, takin' life easy an' a-waitin' fer a fist full of blood money is liable ter meet up in ther highway with some feller thet's nursin' of a grudge erginst me or you. Hit's plumb risky an' hits damn'-hard work, but hit hain't no wrong-doin' an' ef yore grandsires an' yore father hain't been above hit, I rekon you hain't above hit neither."

Turner Stacy was still standing on the porch, with one finger marking the place where he had left off reading his biography of Lincoln—the master of men.

Born of a line of stoics, heir to laconic speech and reared to stifle emotions, he was inarticulate and the somberness of his eyes, which masked a pageantry of dreams and a surging conflict in his breast, seemed only the surliness of rebellion.

He looked at his father and his mother, withered to sereness by their unrelenting battle with a life that had all been frostbite until even their power of resentment for its injustice had guttered out and dried into a dull acceptance.

His fingers gripped the book. Abraham Lincoln had, like himself, started life in a log house and among crude people. Probably he, too, had in those early days no one who could give an understanding ear to the whispering voices that urged him upward. At first the urge itself must have been blurred of detail and shadowy of object.

Turner's lips parted under an impulse of explanation, and closed again into a more hopelessly sullen line. The older man had chafed too long in heavy harness to comprehend a new vision. Any attempt at self-expression would be futile.

So the picture he made was only that of a headstrong and wilful junior who had listened unmoved to reason, and a mounting resentment kindled in the gaze of the bearded moonshiner.

"I've done aimed ter talk reason with ye," barked the angry voice, "an' hit don't seem ter convince ye none. Ef ther pattern of life I've sot ye hain't good enough, do ye think ye're better than yore maw, too?"

"I didn't never say ye warn't good enough." The boy found himself freezing into defiant stiffness under this misconstruction until his very eagerness to be understood militated against him.

"Wa'al, I'll tell ye a thing I don't talk a heap about. Hit's a thing thet happened when ye was a young baby. I spent two y'ars in prison then fer makin' white whiskey."

"You!" Turner Stacy's eyes dilated with amazement and the older face hardened with a baleful resentment.

"Hit warn't jest bein' put in ther jail-house thet I kain't fergit ner fergive so long as I goes on livin'. Hit war ther reason. Ye talks mighty brash erbout ther sacredness of ther Revenue laws—wa'al, listen ter me afore ye talks any more." He paused and then continued, as if forcing himself to an unwelcome recital.

"I've always borne the name hyarabouts of bein' a law-abidin' citizen and a man thet could be trusted. I'd hoped ter bring peace to the mountings, but when they lawed me and sent me down to Looeyville fer trial, ther Government lawyer 'lowed thet sence I was a prominent citizen up hyar a-breakin' of the law, they had ought to make a sample of me. Because my reputation was good I got two y'ars. Ef hit hed been bad, I mout hev come cl'ar."

The son took an impulsive step forward, but with an imperious wave of the hand, his father halted him and the chance for a sympathetic understanding was gone.

"Hold on! I hain't quite done talkin' yit. In them days we war livin' over ther ridge, whar Little Ivy heads up. You thinks this hyar's a pore fashion of dwellin'-house, but thet one hed jest a single room an' na'ry a winder in all hits four walls. You're maw war right ailin' when they tuck me away ter ther big Co'te an' she war mighty young, too, an' purty them days afore she broke. Thar warn't no man left ter raise ther crops, an' you ra'red like a young calf ef ye didn't git yore vittles reg'lar.

"I reckon mebby ye hain't hardly got no proper idee how long two y'ars kin string out ter be when a man's sulterin' behind bars with a young wife an' a baby thet's liable ter be starvin' meanwhile! I reckon ye don't hardly realize how I studied down thar in prison about ther snow on these Godforsaken hillsides an' ther wind whirrin' through ther chinks. But mebby ye kin comprehend this hyar fact. You'd hev pintedly starved ter death, ef yore maw hedn't rigged up a new still in place of ther one the Government confiscated, an' made white licker all ther time I was down thar sarvin' time. She did thet an' paid off ther interest on the mortgage an' saved a leetle mite for me erginst ther day when I come home. Now air ye sich a sight better then yore maw was?"

A yellow flood of sunlight fell upon the two figures and threw into a relief of high lights their two faces; one sternly patriarchal and rugged, the other vitally young and spare of feature.

Corded arteries appeared on Bear Cat's temples and, as he listened, the nails of his fingers bit into the flesh of his palms, but his father swept on, giving him no opportunity to reply.

"My daddy hed jest shortly afore been lay-wayed an' killed by some Towers murderer, an' his property had done been parceled out amongst his children. Thar wasn't but jest fourteen of us ter heir hit an' nobody got much. When they tuck me down ter ther big Co'te I had ter hire me a lawyer—an' thet meant a mortgage. Yore maw hedn't, up ter then, been used ter sich-like slavish poverty. She could hev married mighty nigh any man in these parts—an' she tuck me.

"Whilst I war a-layin' thar in jail a-tormentin' myself with my doubtin' whether either one of ye would weather them times alive, she was a-runnin' ther still hyar in my stead. Many's the day she tromped over them hills through ther snow an' mud with you a-whimperin' on her breast an' wropped in a shawl thet she needed her own self. Many's ther night she tromped back ergin an' went hongry ter bed, so's you could have plenty ter eat, when thar warn't sca'cely enough ter divide betwixt ye. But them things she did in famine days, you're too sanctified ter relish now."

Turner Stacy trembled from head to foot. It seemed to him that he could see that grim picture in retrospect and despite his stoic's training his eyes burned with unshed tears. Loyalty to kith and kin is the cornerstone of every mountain man's religion, the very grail of his faith. Into his eyes blazed a tawny, tigerish light, but words choked in his throat and his father read, in his agitation, only a defiance which was no part of his thought.

"Now, see hyar," he went on with mounting autocracy, "I've done told ye things I don't oftentimes discuss. I've done reasoned with ye an' now I commands ye! Ye hain't of age yit and until ye do be, ye've got to do as I bids ye. Atter that, ef ye aims to turn yore back on yore family ye can do hit, an' I reckon we can go our two ways. That's all I got to say to ye. Now pick up that sack of gryste an' be gone with hit."

The boy's face blackened and his muscles tautened under the arrogant domineering of the edict. For a moment he neither spoke nor stirred from his place, though his chest heaved with the fulness of his breathing. The elder man moved ominously forward and his tone was violently truculent.

"Air ye goin' ter obey me or do I hev ter make ye? Thar's a sayin' thet come acrost ther waters thet no man kin lick his own daddy. I reckon hit still holds good."

Still the son remained as unmoving as bronze while his eyes sustained unflinchingly the wrathful gaze of a patriarchal order. Then he spoke in a voice carefully schooled to quietness.

"As to thet sayin'," he suggested evenly, "I reckon mebbe hit mought be disproved, but I hain't aimin' to try hit. Ye've done said some right-hard things to-day an' some thet wasn't hardly justified—but I aims ter fergit 'em."

Suddenly, by virtue of a leaping light in his eyes, the boy in jeans and hodden-gray stood forth strangely transfigured. Some spirit revelation seemed to have converted him into a mystifying incarnation of latent, if uncomprehended power. It was as startling as though a road-side beggar had tossed aside a drab cloak and hood of rags and revealed beneath it, the glitter of helmet and whole armor.

"I aims ter fergit hit all," he repeated. "But don't seek ter fo'ce me ner ter drive me none—fer thet's a thing I kain't hardly suffer. As fur as a man kin go outen loyalty I'll go fer you—but I've got ter go in my own fashion—an' of my own free will. Ye've done said that I went erbout seekin' trouble an' I hain't got no doubt ye believes what ye says albeit most of hit's false. Ye says I lays drunk sometimes. Thet's true an' hit's a shameful thing fer a man ter admit, but hit's a thing I've got ter fight out fer myself. Hit don't profit neither of us fer ye ter vilify me."

He broke off abruptly, his chest heaving, and to Lone Stacy it seemed that the air was electrically charged, as with the still tensity that goes, windless and breathless, before the bursting of thunder heads among the crags. Then Bear Cat spoke again somewhat gropingly and with inarticulate faultiness, as though a flood pressure were seeking egress through a choked channel. The words were crude, but back of them was a dammed-up meaning like the power of hurricane and forest fire. "Thar's somethin' in me—I don't know how ter name it—thar's somethin' in me sort of strugglin' an' a-drivin' me like a torment! Thet weakness fer licker—I hates hit like—like all hell—but I hain't all weakness! Thet thing, whatever hit be—sometimes jest when hit seems like hit ought ter raise me up—hit crushes me down like the weight of ther mountings themselves."

He wheeled suddenly and disappeared into the house where he deposited his book on the mantel-shelf and from behind the door swung a grain sack to his shoulder. Then he left the house.

Lone Stacy turned to his wife and lifted his hands with a gesture of baffled perplexity as he inquired, "Does ye understand ther boy? He's our own blood an' bone, but sometimes I feels like I was talkin' ter a person from a teetotally diff'rent world. Nobody round hyar don't comprehend him. I've even heered hit norated round amongst foolish folks thet he talks with graveyard ha'nts an' hes a witch-craft charm on his life. Air he jest headstrong, maw, or air he so master big thet we kain't comprehend him? No man hain't never called me a coward, but thar's spells when I'm half-way skeered of my own boy."

"Mebby," suggested the woman quietly, "ef ye gentled him a leetle mite he wouldn't contrary ye so much."

Lone Stacy nodded his head and spoke with a grim smile. "Seems like I've got ter be eternally blusterin' at him jest ter remind myself thet I'm ther head of this fam'ly. Ef I didn't fo'ce myself ter git mad, I'd be actin' like he was my daddy instid of me bein' his'n."

CHAPTER II

T he afternoon was half spent and the sun, making its way toward the purpled ridges of the west, was already casting long shadows athwart the valleys. Along a trail which wound itself in many tortuous twists across forested heights and dipped down to lose itself at intervals in the creek bed of Little Slippery, a mounted traveler rode at a snail-like pace. The horse was a lean brute through whose rusty coat the ribs showed in under-nourished prominence, but it went sure-footedly up and down broken stairways of slimy ledges where tiny waterfalls licked at its fetlocks and along the brinks of chasms where the sand shelved with treacherous looseness.

The rider, a man weather-rusted to a drab monotone, slouched in his saddle with an apathetic droop which was almost stupor, permitting his reins to flap loosely. His face, under an unclean bristle of beard, wore a sleepy sneer and his eyes were bloodshot from white whiskey.

As he rode, unseeing, through the magnificent beauty of the Cumberlands his glance was sluggish and his face emotionless. But at last the horse halted where a spring came with a crystal gush out of the rhododendron thickets, and then Ratler Webb's stupefaction yielded to a semi-wakefulness of interest. He rubbed a shoddy coat-sleeve across his eyes and straightened his stooped shoulders. The old horse had thrust his nose thirstily into the basin with evident eagerness to drink. Yet, after splashing his muzzle about for a moment he refused refreshment and jerked his head up with a snort of disgust. A leering smile parted the man's lips over his yellow and uneven teeth:

"So ye won't partake of hit, old Bag-o'-bones, won't ye?" he inquired ironically. "Ye hain't nobody's brag critter to look at, but I reckon some revenue fellers mought be willin' to pay a master price fer ye. Ye kin stand at ther mouth of a spring-branch an' smell a still-house cl'ar up on hits headwaters, kain't ye?"

For a while Webb suffered the tired horse to stand panting in the creek bed, while his own eyes, lit now with a crafty livening, traveled up the hillside impenetrably masked with verdure, where all was silence. Somewhere up along the watercourse was the mash-vat and coil which had contaminated this basin for his mount's brute fastidiousness: an illicit distillery. This man clad in rusty store clothes was not inspired with a crusading ardor for supporting the law. He lived among men whose community opinion condones certain offenses—and pillories the tale-bearer. But above the ethical bearing of local standards and Federal Statutes, alike, loomed a matter of personal hatred, which powerfully stimulated his curiosity. He raised one hand and thoughtfully stroked his nose—recently broken with workman-like thoroughness and reset with amateurish imperfection.

"Damn thet Bear Cat Stacy," he muttered, as he kicked his weary mount into jogging motion. "I reckon I'll hev my chance at him yit. I'm jest a-waitin' fer hit."

A half-mile further on, he suddenly drew rein and remained in an attitude of alert listening. Then slipping quietly to the ground, he hitched his horse in the concealment of a deep gulch and melted out of sight into the thicket. Soon he sat crouched on his heels, invisible in the tangled laurel. His place of vantage overlooked a foot-path so little traveled as to be hardly discernible, but shortly a figure came into view around a hulking head of rock, and Ratler Webb's smile broadened to a grin of satisfaction. The figure was tall and spare and it stooped as it plodded up the ascent under the weight of a heavy sack upon its shoulders. The observer did not move or make a sound until the other man had been for several minutes out of sight. He was engaged in reflection.

"So, thet's how ther land lays," he ruminated. "Bear Cat Stacy's totin' thet gryste over to Bud Jason's tub-mill on Little Ivy despite ther fact thet thar's numerous bigger mills nigher to his house. Thet sack's full of sprouted corn, and he dasn't turn it in at no reg'lar mill. Them Stacys air jest about blockadin' up thet spring-branch."

He spat at a toad which blinked beadily up at him and then, rising from his cramped posture, he commented, "I hain't plumb dead sartin yet, but I aims ter be afore sun-up ter-morrer."

Bear Cat Stacy might have crossed the ridge that afternoon by a less devious route than the one he followed. In so doing he would have saved much weariness of leg and ache of burdened shoulder, but Ratler Webb's summing up had been correct, and though honest corn may follow the highways, sprouted grain must go by blinder trails.

When he reached the backbone of the heights, he eased the jute sack from his shoulders to the ground and stretched the cramp out of his arms. Sweat dripped from his face and streamed down the brown throat where his coarse shirt stood open. He had carried a dead weight of seventy pounds across a mountain, and must carry back another as heavy.

Now he wiped his forehead with his shirt-sleeve and stood looking away with a sudden distraction of dreaminess. A few more steps would take him again into the steamy swelter of woods where no breath of breeze stirred the still leafage, and even in the open spaces the afternoon was torridly hot. But here he could sweep with his eyes league upon league of a vast panorama where sky and peak mingled in a glory of purple haze. Unaccountably the whole beauty of it smote him with a sense of undefined appreciation and grateful wonderment. The cramp of heart was eased and the groping voices of imagination seemed for the time no longer tortured nightmares of complaint.

There was no one here to censor his fantasies and out of the gray eyes went their veiling sullenness and out of the lips their taut grimness. Into eyes and lips alike came something else—something touched with the zealousness of aspiration.

"Hit's right over thar!" he murmured aloud but in a voice low pitched and caressing of tone. "I've got ter get me money enough ter buy thet farm offen Kinnard Towers."

He was looking down upon a point far below him where through a cleared space flashed the shimmer of flowing water, and where in a small pocket of acreage, the bottom ground rolled in gracious amenability to the plow and harrow.

Again he nodded, and since he was quite alone he laughed aloud.

"She 'lows thet's ther place whar she wants ter live at," he added to himself, "an' I aims ter satisfy her."

So after all some of his day-dreams were tangible!

He realized that he ought to be going on, yet he lingered and after a few moments he spoke again, confiding his secrets to the open woods and the arching skies—his only confidants.

"Blossom 'lowed yestiddy she was a-goin' over ter Aunt Jane Colby's this mornin'. 'Pears like she ought ter be passin' back by hyar about this time."

Cupping his hands at his lips, he sent out a long whoop, but before he did that he took the precaution of concealing his sack of sprouted grain under a ledge. Then he bent listening for an answer—but without reward, and disappointment mantled in his gray eyes as he dropped to the age-corroded rock and sat with his hands clasped about his updrawn knees.

It was very still there, except for the industrious hammering of a "peckerwood" on a decayed tree trunk, and the young mountaineer sat almost as motionless as his pedestal.

Then without warning a lilting peal of laughter sounded at his back and Turner came to his feet. As he wheeled he saw Blossom Fulkerson standing there above him and her eyes were dancing with the mischievous delight of having stalked him undiscovered.

"It's a right happy thing fer you, Turner Stacy, that I didn't aim ter kill ye," she informed him with mock solemnity. "I've heered ye brag thet no feller hereabouts could slip up on ye in the woods, unbeknownst."

"I wasn't studyin' erbout nobody slippin' up on me. Blossom," he answered calmly. "I hain't got no cause ter be a-hidin' out from nobody."

She was standing with the waxen green of the laurel breaking into pink flower-foam at her back and through the oak and poplar branches showed scraps of blue sky—the blue of June.

A catch came into Turner's voice and he said somewhat huskily, "When they christened ye Blossom they didn't misname ye none."

Blossom, he thought, was like a wild-rose growing among sun-flowers. When the evening star came up luminous and dewy-fresh over the darkening peaks, while twilight still lingered at the edges of the world, he always thought of her.

But the charm was not all in his own eye: not all the magic endowment of first love. The mountain preacher's daughter had escaped those slovenly habits of backwoods life that inevitably coarsen. Her beauty had slender strength and flower freshness.

Now she stood holding with one hand to the gnarled branch of a dogwood sapling. A blue sunbonnet falling back from her head left the abundance of her hair bared to the light so that it shimmered between brown and gold.

She was perhaps sixteen and her heavily lashed eyes were brownish amber and just now full of a mirthful sparkle.

"Ye seemed ter be studyin' about somethin' almighty hard," she insisted teasingly. "I thought for a minute that mebbe ye'd done growed thar."

Turner Stacy smiled again as he looked at her. In his eyes was unveiled and honest worship.

"I was a'studyin' about you, Blossom. I don't know no way ter do that save almighty hard. Didn't ye hear me whoop?"

The girl's head nodded.

"Why didn't ye answer me?"

"I aimed ter slip up on ye, if I could, Turner, but I didn't low it would be so plumb easy.—You made believe that yore ears could hear the grass a-growin'."

The youth took a sudden step toward her and stood close, so close that her breath touched his face fragrantly as she looked up with a witching mockery in her eyes. His heart fluttered with the clamor of impulse to seize her in his arms, but his half-lifted hands dropped to his sides.

He was not quite twenty-one and she was only sixteen, and the code of the mountains is strict with the simplicity of the pioneer. A woman gives her lips in betrothal or, giving them lightly, drops to the caste of a light woman.

So the boy drew back with a resolute jerk of his head.

"I was a-studyin' erbout some day, Blossom," he said, "when thar's a-goin' ter be a dwellin'-house down thar. Not a house of warped timbers whar the hawgs scratch their backs under the floors—but a real house. Mebby by thet day an' time thar'll be a highway men kin travel without torment." As he paused, at a loss for power of architectural enlargement, the girl sighed.

"Then I reckon ye don't hardly 'low ter raise thet house in my lifetime, Turner," she teased. "I'll most likely be too old ter visit ye thar afore a highway gits built."

But he shook his head. "I aims ter speed up ther comin' of sich things," he announced with the splendid effrontery of youth. "Hit hain't been so long since ther fust wagon crossed Cedar Mountain. We're liable to see balloons comin' afore we die."

"Aunt Jane Colby was tellin' me about that first wagon to-day at dinner," Blossom assented. "She says one old man asked folks whether it was true or whether he was fitified. He said: 'What manner of contrivance air thet? Hit's got four wheels an' one pair's bigger then t'other pair, an' two of 'em goes round faster then t'other two an' the Lord A'mighty only knows how hit manages ter keep up with hitself.'"

They both laughed with young condescension for the old-fashioned and then Turner went on, haltingly by reason of callow diffidence.

"Ef thet house couldn't be reared in time fer you ter come to hit, Blossom—hit wouldn't be no manner of use ter me a-tall."

"Does ye aim ter make me a present of a house?" she challenged and again the provocative allurement of her swept him so that the smooth sinews of his arms tightened as if with physical effort.

"I means thet someday—when I've done something worth doin' an' when ye're a leetle bit older yoreself, Blossom, you're agoin' ter marry me, an' we're goin' ter dwell thar—together."

The girl's cheeks reddened furiously and for a moment she made no response, then she declared with a stout self-assertion designed to mask her confusion, "I reckon I'll hev somethin' ter say about thet."

"Ye'll have everything ter say about hit, Blossom, but"—there was a purposeful ring in his voice that hinted at ultimate victory—"but some day I aims ter persuade ye ter say, 'yes.'"

Her cheeks were brightly pink and she pretended to be engrossed in the demeanor of a squirrel that chattered quarrelsomely at them from a nearby poplar. Turner Stacy dropped his voice until it was very soft.

"I kin bide my time an' wait twell ye're ready, Blossom, but if ye don't never say hit, I don't hardly see how I kin go on livin'."

"I'm right glad ef ye likes me, Turner," she demurely assured him. "We've growed up together an' ef ye was to go away somewhar's an' leave me, I reckon I'd nigh die of lonesomeness."

Distrust of effusiveness was bred in his bone. Laconic utterance was his heritage, and now that his heart demanded expression and his eyes kindled with the dreamer's fire, he stood struggling against the fettering of his tongue. Then abruptly, tumultuously he burst out, talking fast.

"I hain't got ther gift of speech, Blossom; I only knows thet hit hain't enough ter jest have ye miss me ef I went away. I knows thet when ye stands thar with ther sun on yore hair hit would be springtime fer me, even ef thar war snow on ther hillsides an' ice in ther creek. I knows thet I'm standin' hyar on solid rock. Yore paw says these-hyar hills were old when ther Alps hadn't riz up yit outen ther waters, but when I looks at ye, Blossom, this mountain's shakin' under me ... an' yore face is ther only thing thet's steady afore my eyes."

He broke off with something like a choke in his throat and Blossom was trembling a little under that first impact of new emotion that comes with the waking of the senses. Then she remembered the stories of his escapades and her eyes clouded. Her hand fell flutteringly on his arm.

"If—if ye cares thet much about me, Turner, I wish—I don't aim ter nag ye—but I wish ye'd promise me thet ye won't give men cause ter say ye drinks too much."

Turner's brow contracted and his lips stiffened. The defensive mask which seemed sullen because it was his idea of impassiveness set itself again, but he nodded.

"Thet's a fair thing," he said slowly at last. "Drinkin' hain't hardly a thing a gal kin understand noways. I hain't jest a common drunkard, Blossom. Thar's times though when I feels es ef I war a-livin' in a jail-house—an' seekin' ter git free. Thar's su'thin' in me—I don't know jest what—thet's always fightin'. These hyar hills with their ign'rance an' dirt an' poverty seems ter be on top of me 'stid of underneath me. Thet's when I drinks too much. Fer a little spell I seems ter dream I'm free."

A few minutes later the girl started down the "yon" side of the wooded slope, going with a light step and humming a ballade that had come across the sea with the beginnings of America, and the boy looked after her with a passionate tenderness that was far from stoical.

If most of his dreams were intangible and misty, this, his greatest and brightest dream, was at least clear and vivid.

When he could no longer see the flash of her blue dress between the interlacing branches he turned, and drawing his sack of sprouted corn out of its hiding place, hefted it to his shoulders. He would have to hurry now to finish his task and get back by dusk.

CHAPTER III

Old man Bud Jason stood at the door of his tub-mill, leaning on the long hickory staff which he always carried. He stood gauntly tall even now that his once-broad shoulders sagged and his mane of hair was white, and from his lips came a querulous mumbling as though he were awaiting some one tardy of arrival. At last, though, he gave a grunt of relief when the thicket far above him stirred and the figure of Bear Cat Stacy appeared, bending under his load of grist.

He turned then into the shack and drew out a sack of meal from the bottom of a pile, and as he finished this task a shadow fell across the door. Turner Stacy let his burden fall and availed himself of the opportunity to drop into a sitting posture on the step of the shanty, resting his back against a post. His broad chest heaved and a profound sigh of relief broke from his panting lips. The old miller stood regarding him for a little while without words, then broke into volcanic utterance:

"Hell's banjer! May God Almighty holp a country whar a young pa'r of shoulders like your'n don't find no worthier use than man-powerin' good corn acrost ther ridges ter turn hit inter bad licker."

Turner Stacy glanced up with mild surprise for the sentiment.

"I hain't nuver heered ye cavil with a man's license ter use his own corn as he sees fit, afore, Bud," was his casual reply, and the white-bearded one wagged his head and laughed tremulously after the fashion of the old.

"I reckon ye don't mistrust me none, Bear Cat, even ef I does hit now, but here of late I've cogitated a heap whilst I've been a-settin' hyar listenin' ter ther creak of that old mill. Seems almost like ther wheel was a-lamentin' over hits job. Thar bein' sich a sight of wickedness in ther community whar my grand-children hes got ter be reared up is a powerful solemn thing fer me ter study over, an' I've jes erbout concluded thet whilst ther whiskey-makin' goes on ther killin's an gin'ral wickedness won't hardly diminish none."

Furrows of dubious thought etched themselves on the young man's forehead.

"Ef ye feels thet-a-way, Bud, why does yer consent ter grind corn fer blockaders?" he demanded, and the reply was prompt:

"I don't grind hit only fer a few men thet I'm beholden to." Pausing a moment, he became more specific. "Yore paw stood over my body onct when I'd done been shot outen my saddle, an' fought off numerous enemies single-handed, thereby savin' me from death in ther creekbed. I couldn't hardly deny him ther use of my mill even ef his corn hes got sprouts in ther grain two inches long, now, could I?"

The boy looked abstractedly away, then suddenly blurted out: "I disgusts blockadin', too, Bud, but pap 'lows hit's ther only way ter mek a livin' hyarabouts."

"Lots of folks argues hit out in like fashion, but I don't hold with 'em." The speaker rapped the boards with his long staff and spoke with conviction. "What these mountings needs air a mite of l'arnin' an' a leetle common sense an' a heap of good roads. Ef prosperity ever comes ter these hills, sonny, hit'll come along a highway—an' so long as stills don't thrive none along highways, hit looks mightily like a sorry chance." After a thoughtful pause he added, "Hit won't never change, so long es hits only furriners thet aims ter alter hit. Revenuers kain't do nothin'. Damn thar skunk hides anyhow! They're our mortal enemies." The old man drew himself up as if he were seeing a vision and his eyes held an almost fanatical gleam. "But mark down my words! Some day thar'll rise up a mountain man—a man thet hain't never met up with fear an thet's as steadfast as ther hills he sprung from. Thet man will change hit all, like ther sun changes fog. I wisht I mout live ter see thet day."

"Hit'll tek a powerful towerin' man ter bring sich things ter pass," mused the listener and the oracle declared vehemently:

"Hit teks a powerful towerin' man ter lead any fight ter victory, whether hit's a-guidin' ther Children of Israel outen thar bondage or our benighted children outen thars."

Suddenly the miller laid a trembling hand on the boy's arm and demanded in a hushed voice: "Why shouldn't hit be you, Bear Cat? Folks says ye bears a charmed life, thet thar hain't enough lead in ther mountings ter kill ye. I heered Kinnard Towers say with my own ears, thet hit war a God's blessin' ther feud ended afore ye got yore growth—an' Kinnard don't fear many. When a man thet's hardly nothin' but a saplin' of a boy bears a repute like thet—hit must denote thet thar's power in him beyond ther common!"

The boy stood silent for a moment and slowly his brow drew into a black scowl.

"I reckon, Bud, one reason air this," he said bitterly, "thet I'm accounted ter be a drunkard my own self an' like as not, one sich reason es thet air plenty."

Turner glanced up to the bristling ridge which he must climb. Already the west was kindling into a flare of richness and the skyline hills were dyed with ashy purple.

"I've done over-tarried," he said abruptly, as he lifted his sack from the floor, but his face wore a glow which was not altogether from the sinking sun. "I reckon I'd better be on my way—but I hain't denyin' thet I've done hed thoughts like your'n myself, Bud."

But young Stacy had not gone far when that sense of intensified woodcraft which Blossom had derided caused him to halt dead in his tracks.

The sound that had first arrested him had been nothing more than a laugh, but, in it, he had recognized a quality that bespoke derisive hostility and a thickness that indicated drink.

He had left the place empty except for Old Bud Jason and no one could have reached it, unannounced by normal sounds, so soon unless the approach had been achieved by stealth.

Bear Cat Stacy put down his sack and worked his way back, holding the concealment of rock and laurel; guarding each footfall against the betrayal of a broken twig—and, as yet, denied a view of the tub-mill. But his cars were open and doing duty for his eyes.

"Wa'al," came the miller's voice in a wrathful tremolo, "what business brings ye hyar es ef ye war aimin' ter lay-way somebody? Folks gin'rally comes hither upstandin'—an' open."

This time the voice of the new arrival was sneeringly truculent:

"Does they come thet-a-way when they fotches in sprouted corn thet they dastn't take elsewhere?"

Bear Cat stiffened as he recognized the voice of Ratler Webb, whom he had not met since their encounter in which a nose had been broken. He knew that in the breast of this man, hitherto unchallenged as neighborhood bully, an ugly and dangerous grudge was festering.

Now it seemed that the old miller, because of friendship for the Stacys was to be heckled, and Bear Cat's wrath boiled. He heard Bud Jason inquiring in tones no longer querulous but firmly indignant:

"Is thet all ye come fer? Ter blackguard me?"

Ratler answered in a voice savoring more of highwayman's coercion than request.

"I was jest a-funnin' with ye, Old Bud, but I'd be mighty obleeged ter ye fer a leetle dram of licker. My bottle's nigh empty an' I've got a far way ter travel yit."

Turner Stacy had now arrived at a point from which he could see around the hulking shoulder of sandstone and the picture which met his eye was not reassuring.

The miller stood barring the door to his shack and the visitor, inflamed of eye, a little unsteady on his feet, confronted him with a swagger of lawless daredeviltry.

"I hain't got no licker. I don't never use hit," replied Jason curtly. "So ef thet's all thet brought ye hyar, ye've already got yore answer an' ye mout es well be farin' on."

Webb's leer darkened to malignity and his voice came in a snarl.

"Ye hain't hardly got no tolerance fer drinkin', hes ye, Bud? Albeit ye hain't none too sanctified ter grind up all ther sprouted corn thet other fellers fotches in ter ye."

The old fellow was alone and unarmed save for his hickory staff, but he was vested with that authority which stiffens a man, standing on his own threshold and facing an insolent trespasser. His manner was choleric and crisp in its note of command.

"I don't aim ter waste no time cavilin' with a drunken carouser. I bids ye ter leave my place. Begone!"

But the traveler, inflamed with the venom of the drunken bully, lurched forward, whipping a revolver from its sagging pocket. With an oath he rammed the muzzle close against the pit of the other's stomach.

Bud's level eyes did not falter. He gripped his useless hickory as if it had been a lictor's staff of unchallengeable office. Perhaps that steady moment saved his life, for before his assailant's flood of obscene vilification had reached its period, Ratler Webb leaped back—interrupted. He changed front, wheeling to protect his back against the logs of the rude wall and thrusting his pistol before him, while his jaw sagged abruptly in dismay.

Bear Cat stood facing him, ten yards distant, and his right hand was thrust into his opened shirt, under the armpit, where the mountain man carries his holster. That the position of the hand was a bluff, covering an unarmed helplessness, Ratler Webb did not know.

"Air ye follerin' revenuin' these days, Ratler?" inquired Stacy in a voice of such velvet softness that the other responded only with an incoherent snarl. "Because ef ye air, numerous folks hyarabouts will be right glad ter find out who it is that's informin' on 'em."

"Damn ye! Keep thet hand whar hit's at!" ordered the aggressor violently and like the cornered rat he had become doubly dangerous. He had set out only to torture a defenseless victim, and now it seemed a question of killing or being killed, so he loaded his voice with truculence as he went on.

"Ef ye seeks ter draw hit out or come a step frontwards, so help me Almighty God I'll kill ye in yore tracks!"

Turner Stacy smiled. Upon his ability to do so with a semblance of quiet contempt he was staking everything.

"Shoot whenever ye gits ready, Ratler," he challenged. "But don't do hit onless ye're expectin' ter die, too. When this trigger-work commences, I aims ter git ye."

"Move a hand or a foot then, an' see—" The voice was desperately high pitched and nasal now, almost falsetto, but through its threat Bear Cat recognized an undercurrent of sudden terror. The desperado remembered that his horse stood hitched a quarter of a mile away. His right boot sole had been freshly patched and left a clearly identifying mark in the mud. He had prepared no alibi in advance, and within a few hours after Turner fell scores of his kinsmen would be baying on the trail.

"Shoot!" taunted Bear Cat Stacy. "Why don't ye shoot?"—and then with an effrontery which dazed his antagonist, he deliberately moved several steps forward—halting nearer the pistol's muzzle.

"I don't aim ter kill ye onless I has ter," stormed Webb with weakening assurance. "Halt! I'm givin' ye fa'r warnin'. Hit's self-deefense ef ye crowds me."

Stacy spoke again, standing once more motionless.

"Ye couldn't shoot thet pistol at me ef I walked in on ye with my hands over my head. My time hain't come yit ter die, because ther's things I was born ter do—an' God Almighty aims ter hev me live till I've done 'em. He don't aim ter hev me hurt by no coward like you, I reckon. Ye couldn't shoot any man noways whilst his eyes was lookin' full at ye. Ye has need ter lay hid in ther la'rel afore ye kin pull yore trigger finger. I dares ye to shoot!"

The white-bearded miller stood motionless, too, measuring all the chances. For a moment he wondered whether it would be possible to strike up the armed hand with his long staff, but he wisely repressed the impulse. This after all was a new sort of combat, a duel of wills rather than of weapons. He knew that Bear Cat Stacy was unarmed because he had so recently seen the sweat-drenched shirt clinging close to the arched chest.

Ratler Webb's hand no longer trembled with the uncertainty of tipsiness. His eyes were no longer obfuscated and muddled with whiskey fumes. He had reverted to the feral instincts of desperation—and was suddenly sobered.

He gripped his out-thrust pistol in both hands for greater surety and half-crouched with knees bent under him, ready either to spring or brace himself against attack. His eyes, gleaming with blood-passion, traveled shiftily so that he could keep watch on both his possible adversaries.

The other and younger man stood upright, but his muscles, too, were poised and balanced with all nicety of readiness and his eyes were measuring the distance between: gauging sundry odds of life and death.

For a moment more the tableau held in silence. Both the miller and the boy could hear the labored, almost gasping breath of the man with the pistol and both knew that the mean temper of his heart's metal was weakening.

Then when a squirrel barked from the timber, Ratler Webb started violently and above the stubble of dirty beard, sweat drops began to ooze on his face.

Why didn't Bear Cat Stacy say something? Why didn't somebody move? If he fired now he must kill both men or leave a witness to blab deadly information close on the heels of his flight! In his heart welled a rising tide of panic.

Turner knew by instinct that every moment he could hold Ratler there with his pistol leveled, was for the desperado, a moment of weakening resolve and nerve-breaking suspense. But he also knew another thing. When the strain of that waiting snapped Ratler would either run or shoot. Mountain annals hold more instances of the latter decision that the former, but that was the chance to be taken.

Webb carried a notched gun. He had forced many fights in his day, but in all of them there had been the swift tonic of action and little time to think. Now he dared not lower his weapon in surrender—and he was afraid to fire. He felt that his lips were growing dry and thickening. He thrust out his tongue to lick them, and its red tip gave, to his ugly features, a strange grotesqueness.

Under the brown of wind and sun and the red of liquor-flush his face paled perceptibly. Then it grew greenish yellow with a sick clamminess of dread.

At last with a discernible quaver in his voice he broke the unendurable silence, and his words came brokenly and disjointed:

"I didn't aim ter force no quarrel on ye, Bear Cat.... Ef ye plumb compels me ter do hit, I've got ter kill ye, but I hain't a-hankerin' none fer ther task."

"Thet's a lie, too. Ye come hyar a-seekin' of evidence because ye're harborin' a grudge erginst me an' ye dastn't satisfy hit no other way."

There was a pause, then Webb said slowly, and with a half-heartedness from which all the effrontery had ebbed:

"I 'lows ter go on erbout my business now, but if either one of ye moves from whar ye're standin' twell I'm outen range I aims ter kill ye both."

Shifting his revolver to his right hand and feeling behind him with his left, he began backing away, still covering his retreat and edging a step at a time toward the corner of the shack, but at the second step, with a swiftness which vindicated his name, the Bear Cat sprang.

The old miller shook his head, but made no outcry. He heard the thud of two bodies and the grunt driven from a chest by the impact of charging shoulders. He saw two figures go down together while a tongue of flame and a muffled roar broke belatedly from the mouth of the pistol.

Whether the bullet had taken effect or, if so, who was its victim, he could not at first distinguish. Two human beings, muscled like razor-backs were writhing and twisting in a smother of dust, their limbs clinched and their voices mingled in snarling and incoherent savagery. The mountain ethics of "fist and skull" impose no Queensbury restrictions. Tooth and knee, heel and knuckle may do their best—and worst.

But the pistol itself flew clear and the old miller picked it up, turning again to observe the result of the encounter.

The fighters had struggled up again to their feet and were locked in a bone-breaking embrace of hatred. For the moment the advantage seemed to rest with Webb, who was clutching Turner's head in the distressing chancery of his powerful right arm and doing his utmost to break the neck. Bear Cat's breathing was a hoarse and strangling agony, but his fists battered like unremitting flails against the ribs and kidneys of his antagonist. As they swayed and tottered their brogans were ploughing up the hard soil and, totally blinded by sweat and rage, they wavered perilously close to the edge of the huge rock—with its ten-foot drop to the mill race.

Even as Old Bud gave his warning cry, they went down together—and fell short of the brink, escaping that danger. Stacy writhed free from the neck-grip, and both came up again, leaping into a fresh embrace of panthers, with eyes glaring insanely out of blood-smeared faces.

Then it all ended abruptly. Bear Cat wrenched himself free and sent a chance blow, but one behind which went all his weight and passion, to the other's mouth. The smitten head went back with a jerk. Webb reeled groggily for an instant, then crumpled, but before he had quite fallen Stacy, with an insensate fury, was dragging him to his feet and clutching at the throat which his fingers ached to strangle.

At that instant, the old miller seized his arms.

"Hold on thar, Bear Cat," he cried with his quavering voice. "He's already licked. You'll kill him ef ye hain't heedful."

"I aims ter kill him," panted the boy, casting off the interference of aged arms with the savagery of a dog whose fangs have been pried too soon from the throat of its victim.

But Bud Jason clung on, reiterating: "Fer shame, son! Thet hain't yore manner of conduct. Fer shame!"

Unsteadily, then, with a slow dawning of reason Bear Cat Stacy staggered back and leaned heavily against the wall of the tub-mill, breathing in sob-like gasps. His shirt was half torn from his body and for the first time the miller saw the ugly gash where a pistol bullet had bitten its grazing course along his left shoulder. Grime and blood stained him and for a while he stood gazing down on the collapsed figure at his feet—a figure that stirred gropingly.

"I reckon," he said slowly, "I'd jest about hev finished him, ef hit hadn't a-been fer you, Bud. I'm beholden ter ye. I reckon I was seein' red."

Together they lifted Ratler Webb and gave him water from the gourd that hung by the door. When he was able to stand, dourly resentful, baleful of eye but mute as to tongue, Bear Cat spoke briefly with the victor's authority:

"I aims ter keep thet pistol o' your'n fer a spell, Ratler. I don't hardly trust ye with hit jest yit. When ye wants hit, come by my house and ask fer hit."

The bully turned sullenly away. He spoke no word of farewell and offered no protest, but when he was out of sight the miller shook his head and his voice was troubled.

"Of course ye knows, son, thet he hain't never agoin' ter fergit hit? So long as ther two of ye lives ye've got ter keep on watchin' him."

Turner nodded. He was bathing his shoulder and spreading cobwebs on its grazed wound.

"I've done wasted a heap of time," he said irrelevantly. "An' hit's comin' on to rain, too. I reckon I'll be benighted afore I gets over ter ther still."

Starting away, he paused and turned shamefacedly back for a moment.

"Hit won't profit us none to norrate this matter abroad," he suggested. "I've got enough name already fer gittin' into ructions. Paw don't like hit none."

Gazing after the retreating figures the old man wagged his head and his expression was one of foreboding.

"Meanness an' grudge-nursin' kin bring on a heap of pestilence," he mused. "This Ratler will nurse his on ther bottle, an' he won't never wean hit—an' some day——! But it don't profit a feller ter borry trouble. These hills hes got enough misfortunes withouten thet."

Already twilight was settling over the valleys and the ridges were starkly grim as their color died to the neutrality of night, and the murk of a gathering storm.

CHAPTER IV

With a mutter of distant thunder in his ears, the young mountaineer plodded "slavishly" on under his load as night closed about him. The path twisted among heaped up bowlders where a misstep might mean broken bones and crawled through entanglements of fallen timber: of gnarled rhododendron and thorn-leaved holly. It wormed into dew-drenched thicknesses where branches lashed the burden-bearer's face with the sting of whips, and soon the colossal barriers began to echo with the storm roar of high places. The clouds were ripped with the blue-white blades of lightning. The rock walls of the ranges seemed quaking under the thunder's incessant cannonading, and the wind's shrieking mania. Then through the rent and buffeted timber-tops the rain burst in a lashing curtain of water as violent as a shot-shower.

Bear Cat Stacy, wet to the skin, with the steaming sweat of toil and fight turned into a marrow-pinching chill, cast about him for a place where he could protect his sack of meal until an abatement should come to the storm's violence.

As he sat under a dripping roof of shelving rock to which he had groped his way by the beacon of the lightning, a startled owl swept past him, almost brushing his face with its downy wings.

His wet clothes hung to his flesh with what seemed icy coldness. His shoulder throbbed with an abomination of pain and his bones ached with a dull wretchedness.

But after a time the wind and thunder dropped away to whimpering echoes. It was as if the hound pack of the furies had been whistled in, its hunt ended.

Turner rose and stamped his numbed feet. There was yet a long way to go before he arrived at the low-built shed, thatched with brush and screened behind a fallen hemlock top, where the Stacy still lay hidden.

At last he was there, with every muscle proclaiming its location by the outcry of sore tissues, and ahead of him lay the task of watching and feeding the fire under the mash kettle until dawn.

"Ye kin lay down when ye're ready, Lee," he said shortly to the stockily built man whom he was relieving from duty there. "I'll keep ther fire goin' an' call ye round about dawn."

Taking up the rifle to which he had fallen heir, as picket, he made his way from the sentinel's shelter to the still-house itself, stooping low, so that the waning fire might not throw his figure or face into relief. He piled a handful of wood under the kettle and crawled back into the timber.

The heavens were full of stars now: not the small light-points of skies arching over lowlands, but the gorgeous, great stars of the walled highlands.

His mother had done this sort of work to keep him alive, while his father was in prison! If he went on doing it, and if Blossom married him, they faced a future of the same drab decay! At the thought of that prospect he ground his chattering teeth and cursed under his breath.

The dull glow of the fire on a tin bucket and cup held his eyes with a spell of fascination. It was white liquor, raw, sweetish and freshly brewed. A gleam of craving flashed into his eyes: a craving that had come down through generations of grandsires—even though his own father had escaped it. Turner put out one hand, trembling with anticipation.

Here was warmth! Here was to be had for the taking a glow about the heart and a quickened current in the veins. Here was the stuff from which ease and waking dreams would come; release from his aching chill and dulness of spirit!

Bear Cat's eyes burned thirstily. He seemed only a vessel of flesh overflowing with craving—with a torture of craving—an utter hell of craving! Then he drew back the eagerly extended hand.

"No," he said grimly. "Blossom air right. Ther stuff'll ruin me."

Resolutely he turned his back and stood facing the woods, listening to the drip of drenched leafage. Through raw hours he struggled with his appetite. Each time that he went back to throw fresh faggots on the fire he moved warily around the bucket, seeking to keep his eyes averted, but each time his gaze came back to it, and rested there thirstily.

Twice as his watch drew near its end he dipped the cup into the pail only to spill back the contents again, almost wildly, watching the thin trickle; and greedily sniffing its sweetish invitation of odor. Once the rim met his lips and the taste touched his tongue, but he violently spat it out and wiped his lips on the sleeve of his shirt.

"Hits ther devil's holy water," he murmured to himself. "Thet's what Brother Fulkerson says—an' I reckon he's right."

The evening star always reminded him of Blossom. He thought of it as her star, and upon it, as upon her own face, he kept his eyes fixed for encouragement as his spirit's resistance waned in the mounting tide of exhaustion. But when even that beacon was gone behind the mountain-top he felt the despair of one whose last ally has abandoned him to face travail unsupported.

He fell back on his dreams; dreams of what Lincoln had faced and conquered; of what he, too, might achieve. But now he could see them only dispiritedly as hollow shapes; misty things without hope or substance. That bucket now—a sip from it would rehabilitate them, give them at least the semblance of attainability. There lay relief from despair!

His mind flashed back to his father's rebuke and his answer: "Ye says I lay drunk. Thet's true an' hit's a shameful thing fer a man ter admit.... But hit's a thing I've got ter fight out fer myself."

A great indignation against his father's misunderstanding possessed him. He must fight in his own way! Even Blossom had only asked him not to drink "too much."

When it needed only an hour more for the coming of dawn, his face grew darkly sullen.

"Hit's hell thet I've got ter spend my whole life a-brewin' ther stuff ergin my will—takin' chances of ther jail-house fer hit—an' yit I kain't have a drink when I'm wet ter ther bone," he growled.

Going as if drawn by a power stronger than his own volition, he moved balkingly yet with inevitable progress once more to the bucket. He half filled the cup—raised it—and this time gulped it down greedily and recklessly to the bottom.

Immediately his chilled veins began to glow with an ardent gratefulness. The stars seemed brighter and the little voices of the night became sweeter. The iron-bound gates of imagination swung wide to a pageantry of dreams, and as he crouched in the reeking underbrush, he half forgot his discontent.

Repeatedly he dipped and drained the cup. He was still on duty, but now he watched with a diminished vigilance. Gradually his senses became more blunt. The waking dreams were vaguer, too, and more absurd.

He still tended the fire under the kettle—but he laughed scornfully at the foolish need of keeping his face always in the shadow. Then suddenly he dropped down close to the dark earth, let the cup splash into the bucket, and thrust forward his rifle.

His ears had caught a sound which might have been a raccoon stirring in the brush—or a fox slipping covertly through the fallen hemlock top.

But there was no repetition, so he laughed again and with the first pallid hint of dawn on the ridges he shook the shoulder of his sleeping companion. Then he himself sank down in the heavy torpor of exhaustion and drunkenness.

At the same time, because it would soon be light, the living creature which had made the sound began creeping away, and in doing so it avoided any other alarms. It was the figure of a man who had learned what he came there to determine.

When Lone Stacy plodded up to his still-house some hours later, he exchanged nods with the squat mountaineer whom he found waiting.

"Whar's Turner?" was his brief inquiry and the reply matched it in taciturnity. "In thar—a-layin' drunk."

The father went over and looked scowlingly down at the prostrate figure stretched awkwardly in open-mouthed stupor.

"I reckon," he announced succinctly, "thar hain't nothin' fer hit but ter suffer him ter sleep hit off."

With the toe of his boot Lone Stacy stirred the insensate body which sprawled there; all its youthful vitality stilled into grotesque stagnation. But when the hired man, Lee, was out of sight the bearded face twitched with a spasm of distress.

Its eyes traveled in a silent pathos from the sight of sagging jaw and hunched shoulders to the unresponsive majesty of the calm hills as if beseeching comfort there. In his only son's spirit had seemed to burn a fire of promise which even he could not understand. Was that fire to be quenched into the stale ashes of habitual drunkenness?

A groan rumbled in his throat.

Yet, had he remembered his Scriptures, Samson, the Mighty, had surrendered in his moment of weakness to the allurements and the shears of Delilah! Afterward, he had pulled down the pillars of the temple.

These hills that had stood upright in days when the Alps and the Himalayas had not yet stirred in conception, looked down placid, and unsympathetic. Perhaps the eternal spirit of the range was not ashamed of this erring child, asleep on its bosom. Perhaps, cognizant alike of tempest and calm, it recognized this son's kinship with itself. The prophecy which dwells in the immemorial may have foreseen gathering powers of hurricane and might, which should some day make him rise, above lesser summits. Possibly as he slept the great, silent voices were crooning a lullaby over offspring destined for mastery.

When Ratler Webb had turned away from the tub-mill his brain was still half stunned from the jarring punishment of battle. He was thoroughly conscious only of deep chagrin and a gnawing hunger for reprisal.

From childhood he retained no tender memories.

There was no one upon whom he had a claim of blood, and neighborhood report had not let him forget that he was a woodscolt. In hill parlance a woodscolt signifies one whose birth has been sanctioned by no prior rites of matrimony.

Since he could remember he had existed only by virtue of the same predatory boldness which gives the lean razor-back strength and innate craftiness to live.

Just now his whole abundant capacity for hatred was centered on Bear Cat Stacy, yet since Bear Cat's kinsmen peopled every creek and spring-branch of this country he could not be casually murdered.

Any word slipped to the ear of the revenue man might be traced back to him and after that he could no longer live among his native hills. Still, he reflected as he slowly rubbed his fingers along his uneven nose, time brings changes and chances. The possession of definite evidence against his enemy might some day bear fruit.

So Ratler did not ride home after his encounter at the mill. He took refuge instead in an abandoned cabin of which he knew, strategically located within a mile of the place where he had surmised the Stacy family were making illicit whiskey. While the storm raged, threatening to bring down the sagging roof timbers about his ears, he sat before its dead and ruined hearth, entertaining bitter thoughts.

Between midnight and dawn he stepped over the broken threshold and began his reconnaissance. For two hours he crouched, wet and cramped, in the laurel near enough to throw a stone against the kettle of the primitive distillery—waiting for that moment of relaxed vigilance, when the figure that moved in the shadows should permit a ray from the fire to fall upon its features.

When dawn had almost come his vigil was rewarded and he had turned away again.

Blossom Fulkerson knew none of these things at noon of the day following the fight at the mill when, in the road, she encountered Lone Stacy making his way back to his house for his midday dinner, but as the old man stopped and nodded she read trouble in his eyes.

"Air ye worrited about somethin', Mr. Stacy?" she demanded, and for a little space the man stood hesitantly silent.

At last he hazarded, "Little gal, thar's a thing I'd like ter name ter ye. I reckon if anybody kin holp me hit mout be you."

The girl's eyes lighted with an instinctive sympathy—then shadowed with a premonition of what was coming.

"Is hit—about—Turner?"

The father nodded his head gravely. His eyes wore the harassed disquiet of a problem for which he knew no solution.

"Does ye mean thet he's—he's——" She broke off abruptly and Lone Stacy answered her with unrelieved bluntness.

"He's a-layin' up thar drunk ergin, an' he's got a gash on one shoulder thet's powder burned. I reckon he's been engagin' in some manner of ruction."

For a moment the girl did not speak, but her cheeks paled and tears swam abruptly in her eyes. She raised one hand and brushed them fiercely away.

She had awakened this morning with a new and unaccountable happiness in her heart. In all the lilt and sparkle of the world and all the tunefulness of the young summer there had seemed a direct message to herself. In her memory she had been hearing afresh the crude but impassioned eloquence with which the boy had talked to her yesterday. Now he lay up there at the distillery in the heavy sleep of the drunkard.

"Ther boy's all I've got," announced Lone Stacy with an unaccustomed break in his voice. "I reckon mebby ef I hadn't been so harsh I mout hev more influence with him." Then he turned abruptly on his heel and trudged on.

Blossom Fulkerson slipped into the woods and came to a sun-flecked amphitheater of rock and rhododendron where the ferns grew lush and tall, by the sparkle of water. There she sank down and covered her face with her hands. Her sobs shook her for a while, and then washing the tears away, she knelt and prayed with a passionate simplicity.

Sometimes she lifted a pale face and her lips twisted themselves pathetically in the earnestness of her prayer.

The Almighty to Whom she made her plea, and Who knew everything, must know, even as she knew, that Turner Stacy was not like those rowdy youths who habitually disgraced the hills. That occasional smile which lurked with its inherent sweetness under his affected sullenness must mean something.

Turner had always been her willing vassal, and "sometime" she had supposed, though hitherto that had always seemed a vaguely distant matter like the purple haze on the horizon, they would be avowed sweethearts.

Yesterday, though, as she walked back from the meeting on the ridge it had seemed as if she had spent a moment in that languourous land where the far mists drouse,—and yet the glamour had not faded. She hadn't sought to analyze then, she had only felt a new thrill in her heart as she instinctively broke clusters of pink-hearted bloom from the laurel.

She left the woods after a while and as she came out again to the high road, she heard a voice raised in the high-pitched, almost falsetto, minors of mountain minstrelsy.

It was not a pleasing voice, nor was the ballad a cheery one. As for the singer himself, the twisting of the way still concealed him from view, so that his song proclaimed him like a herald in advance.

"He stobbed her to ther heart an' she fell with a groan.

He threw a leetle dirt ov-er her, an' started fer home,"

wailed the dolorous voice of the traveler. There was a splashing of hoofs in shallow water, then a continuation

"His debt ter ther devil now William must pay,

Fer he fell down an' died afore break of day."

Thus announced, a mule plodded shortly into sight, and upon his back, perching sidewise, sat a tow-headed lout of a boy with staring, vacant eyes and a mouth which hung open, even when he desisted from song.

With an access of callow diffidence he halted his mount at sight of Blossom, staring with a nod and a bashful "Howdy."

"Howdy, Leander," accosted the girl. "How's all your folks?"

Leander White, of Crowfoot Branch, aged fifteen, gulped twice with prodigious and spasmodic play of his adam's apple, before he eventually commanded voice to reply:

"They're all well.... I'm obleeged ... ter ye." Then, however, reassured by the cordial smile on the lips of Blossom Fulkerson, his power of speech and his hunger for gossip returned to him in unison.

"But old Aunt Lucy Hutton, over acrost ther branch, she fell down yistiddy an' broke a bone inside of her, though."

"Did she?" demanded the girl, readily sympathetic, and Leander, thus given sanction as a purveyor of tidings, nodded and gathered confidence. "Huh-huh, an' Revenuers raided Joe Simmons's still-house on ther headwaters of Skinflint an' cyarried off a beautiful piece o' copper—atter they'd punched hit full o' holes."

"Revenuers!" Into the girl's voice now came a note of anxiety.

"Huh-huh, revenuers. Folks says they're gittin' bodaciously pesky these days."

"Ye ain't—ye ain't seen none of 'em yourself, have ye, Leander?" The question came a bit breathlessly and the boy forgot his bashfulness as he expanded with the importance of his traveler's tales.

"Not to know 'em fer sich," he admitted, "but I met up with a furriner a few leagues back along ther highway. He was broguein' along mighty brash on his own two feet. La! But he was an elegant party ter be a-ridin' on shoe-leather, though!"

"What manner of furriner was he, Leander?" demanded Blossom with a clutch of fright at her heart, but the boy shook his head stupidly.

"Wa'al he was jest a feller from down below. Ter tell hit proper, I didn't hev much speech with him. We jest met an' made our manners an' went our ways. He 'lowed ter go ter Lone Stacy's house."

"Lone Stacy's house," echoed the girl faintly.

"Reckon' I'll be a-ridin' on," drawled the young horseman nonchalantly. "Reckon I've done told ye all ther tidings I knows."

Blossom stood, for a while, rooted where he had left her, listening to the splash of the mule's feet along the creek. If a prying eye should discover the Stacy still to-day it would find not only "a beautiful piece of copper" but Bear Cat lying there incapacitated and helpless!

Her heart missed its beat at the thought. The hills seemed to close in on her stiflingly with all their age-old oppression of fears and impending tragedies, and she sat down by the roadside to think it out. What should she do?

After a while she saw the tall figure of the elder Stacy climbing the mountainside, but he was taking a short cut—and would not come within hailing distance. Her eye, trained to read indications, noted that a rifle swung in his right hand.

Bitterly she had been taught by her father to resent the illicit business to which Turner's service was grudgingly given. But above all ethical hatred of law-breaking rose the very present danger to Turner himself. Laws were abstract things and Turner was Turner!

There was only one answer. She must watch and, if need arose, give warning.

Just where the brook that trickled down from the still gushed out to the creek and the road which followed its course, lay a steeply sloping field of young corn. Along its back grew rows of "shuckybeans," and here Blossom took her station for her self-appointed task of sentry duty.

CHAPTER V

Jerry Henderson had lost his way.

Aching muscles protested the extra miles because back there at Marlin Town he had been advised to cross Cedar Mountain on foot.

"Unless they suspicions ye, 'most any man'll contrive ter take ye in an' enjoy ye somehow," his counselors had pointed out. "But thar's heaps of them pore fam'lies over thar thet hain't got feed fer a ridin' critter noways."

Now Cedar Mountain is not, as its name mendaciously implies, a single peak but a chain that crawls, zig-zag as herringbone, for more than a hundred miles with few crossings which wheels can follow.

It is a wall twenty-five hundred feet high, separating the world from "back of beyond." Having scaled it since breakfast, Jerry Henderson was tired.

He was tanned and toughened like saddle-leather. He was broad of shoulder, narrow of thigh, and possessed of a good, resolute brow and a straight-cut jaw. His eyes were keen with intelligence and sufficiently cool with boldness.

Arriving at a narrow thread of clear water which came singing out at the edge of a corn-field, his eyes lighted with satisfaction. Tilled ground presumably denoted the proximity of a human habitation where questions could be answered.

So he stood, searching the forested landscape for a thread of smoke or a roof, and as he did so he perceived a movement at the edge of the field where the stalks had grown higher than the average and merged with the confusion of the thicket.

Jerry turned and began making his way along the edge of the patch, respecting the corn rows by holding close to the tangle at the margin. Then suddenly with a rustling of the shrubbery as startling as the sound with which a covey of quail rises from nowhere, a figure stepped into sight and the stranger halted in an astonishment which, had Blossom Fulkerson realized it, was the purest form of flattery.

He had seen many women and girls working in the fields as he had come along the way and most of them had been heavy of feature and slovenly of dress. Here was one who might have been the spirit of the hills themselves in bloom; one who suggested kinship with the free skies and the sunlit foliage.

With frank delight in the astonishing vision, Jerry Henderson stood there, his feet well apart, his pack still on his shoulders and his lips parted in a smile of greeting and friendliness.

"Howdy," he said, but the girl remained motionless, vouchsafing no response.

"I'm a stranger in these parts," he volunteered easily, using the vernacular of the hills, "and I've strayed off my course. I was aiming to go to Lone Stacy's dwelling-house."

Still she remained statuesque and voiceless, so the man went on: "Can you set me right? There seems to be a sort of a path here. Does it lead anywhere in particular?"

He took a step nearer and eased his pack to the ground among the briars of the blackberry bushes.

Abruptly, as if to bar his threatened progress, Blossom moved a little to the side, obstructing the path. Into her eyes leaped a flame of Amazonian hostility and her hands clenched themselves tautly at her sides. Her lips parted and from her throat came a long, mellow cry not unlike the yodle of the Tyrol. It echoed through the timber and died away—and again she stood confronting him—wordless!

"I didn't mean to startle you," he declared reassuringly, "I only wanted information."

Again the far-carrying but musical shout was sent through the quiet of the forest—his only answer.

"Since you won't answer my questions," said Jerry Henderson, irritated into capriciousness, "I think I'll see for myself where this trail leads."

Instantly, then, she planted herself before him, with a violently heaving bosom and a wrathful quivering of her delicate nostrils, Her challenge broke tensely from her lips with a note of unyielding defiance.

"Ye can't pass hyar!"

"So you can talk, after all," he observed coolly. "It's a help to learn that much at all events."

He had chanced on a path, he realized, which some moonshiner preferred keeping closed and the girl had been stationed there as a human declaration, "no thoroughfare."

Still he stood where he was and presently he had the result of his waiting.

A deep, masculine voice, unmistakable in the peremptoriness of its command, sounded from the massed tangle of the hillside. It expressed itself in the single word "Begone!" and Henderson was not fool enough to search the underbrush for an identifying glimpse of his challenger.

"My name is Jerry Henderson and I was seeking to be shown my way," he said quietly, keeping his eyes, as he spoke, studiously on the face of the girl.

"Begone! I'm a-warnin' ye fa'r. Begone!"

The wayfarer shrugged his shoulders. Debate seemed impracticable, but his annoyance was not lessened as he recognized in the clear eyes of the young woman a half-suppressed mockery of scorn and triumph.

Henderson stooped and hefted his pack again to his shoulders, adjusting it deliberately. If it must be retreat, he wished at least to retire with the honors of war. The girl's expression had piqued him into irascibility.

"I'd heard tell that folks hereabouts were civil to strangers," he announced bluntly. "And I don't give a damn about whatever secret you're bent on hiding from me."

Then he turned on his heel and started, not rapidly but with a leisurely stride to the road. He seemed to feel the eyes of the girl following him as he went, and his spirit of resentment prompted an act of mild bravado as he halted by the rotten line of fence and unhurriedly tightened the lace of a boot.

"Hasten!" barked the warning voice from the laurel, but Henderson did not hasten. He acknowledged the disquieting surmise of a rifle trained on him from the dense cover, but he neither looked back nor altered his pace. Then he heard a gun bark from the shrubbery and a bullet zip as it found its billet in a tree trunk above his head, but that he had expected. It was merely a demonstration in warning—not an attempt on his life. As long as he kept on his way, he believed hostilities would go no further.

Without venturing to use his eyes, he let his ears do their best, and a satirical smile came to his lips as he heard a low, half-smothered scream of fright break from the lips of the girl whom he could no longer see.

And, had he been able to study the golden-brown eyes just then, he would have been even more compensated, for into them crept a slow light of admiration and astonished interest.

"He ain't nobody's coward anyways," she murmured as the figure of the unknown man swung out of sight around the bend, and some thought of the same sort passed through the mind of the elderly man in the thicket, bringing a grim but not an altogether humorless smile to his lips.

"Wa'al, I run him off," he mused, "but I didn't hardly run him no-ways hard!"

Jerry Henderson had borne credentials from Uncle Israel Calvert who kept a store on Big Ivy, and he had been everywhere told that once Uncle Billy had viséd his passports, he would need no further safe-conduct.

In the encounter at the cornfield there had been no opportunity to show that bill of health and it was only after an hour spent in walking the wrong way, that its possessor met the next person to whom he could put questions. Then he learned that "Lone Stacy dwelt in a sizeable house over on Little Slippery,"—but that he had strayed so far from the true course that now he must climb a mountain or take a detour and that in either event he would have to hasten to arrive there before nightfall.

So the shadows were lengthening when he turned into the course of what must be "Little Slippery"—and came face to face with two men of generous stature, one elderly and the other youthful. He noted that the older of these men carried a rifle on his shoulder and was conscious of a piercing scrutiny from both pairs of eyes.

"I'm seeking Lone Stacy," began Henderson, and the older face darkened into a momentary scowl of animosity, with the coming of the curt reply:

"Thet's my name."

The traveler gave a violent start of astonishment. It was a deep-chested voice which, once heard, was not to be confused with other voices, and Jerry Henderson had heard it not many hours before raised in stentorian warning from the depth of the thickets. But promptly he recovered his poise and smiled.

"I have a piece of paper here," he said, "from Uncle Israel Calvert. He said that if he vouched for me you would be satisfied."

As Lone Stacy accepted the proffered note with his left hand he passed his rifle to the younger man with his right, and even then he held the sheet unopened for a space while his serious gaze swept the stranger slowly from head to foot in challenging appraisal.

He read slowly, with the knitted brows of the unscholastic, and as he did so the youth kept his eye on Henderson's face—and his finger on the trigger.

Having seen the boy's face, Henderson found it hard to shift his glance elsewhere. He had encountered many mountain faces that were sinister and vindictive—almost malign, but it was not the unyielding challenge which arrested him now. It was something far more individual and impressive. There are eyes that reflect light with the quicksilver responsiveness of mirrors. There are others, though more rare, which shine from an inner fire.

Bear Cat Stacy's held the golden, unresting flame that one encounters in the tawny iris of a captive lion or eagle. Such eyes in a human face mean something and it is something which leads their possessor to the gallows or the throne. They are heralds of a spirit untameable and invincible; of the will to rend or rebuild.

Henderson found himself thinking of volcanoes which are latent but not extinct. It was a first glimpse, but if he never again saw this boy, who stood there measuring him with cool deliberation, he would always remember him as one remembers the few instantly convincing personalities one has brushed in walking through life.

But when Lone Stacy had finished his perusal, the nod of his head was an assurance of dissipated doubt. There was even a grave sort of courtesy in his manner now, as he announced:

"Thet's good enough fer me. If Uncle Israel vouches fer ye, ye're welcome. He says hyar 'ther bearer is trustworthy'—but he don't say who ye air. Ye said yore name war Jerry Henderson, didn't ye?"

"That is my name," assented the newcomer, once more astonished. "But I didn't realize I'd told it yet."

With an outright scorn for subterfuge the older man replied, "I reckon thar hain't no profit in a-beatin' ther devil round ther stump. You've heered my voice afore—an' I've seed yore face. Ye tole me yore name back thar—in ther la'rel, didn't ye?"

Henderson bowed. "I did recognize your voice, but I didn't aim to speak of it—unless you did."

"When I says that I trusts a man," the moonshiner spoke with an unambiguous quietness of force, "I means what I says an' takes my chances accordin'. Ef a man betrays my confidence—" he paused just an instant then added pointedly—"he takes his chances. What did ye 'low yore business war, hyarabouts, Mr. Henderson?"

"I mean to explain that to you in due time, Mr. Stacy, but just now it takes fewer words to say what's not my business."

"Wall then, what hain't yore business?"

"Other people's business."

"Wa'al so far as hit goes thet's straight talk. I favors outright speech myself an' ye don't seem none mealy-mouthed. Ye talks right fer yoreself—like a mountain man."

"You see," said Henderson calmly, "I am a mountain man even if I've dwelt down below for some years."

"You—a mountain man?" echoed the bearded giant in bewilderment and the visitor nodded.

"Ever hear of Torment Henderson?" he inquired.

"Colonel Torment Henderson! Why, hell's fiddle, man, my daddy sarved under him in ther war over slavery! I was raised upon stories of how he tuck thet thar name of 'Torment' in battle."

"He was my grandpap," the stranger announced, dropping easily into the phrases of the country.

"Mr. Henderson," said the old man, drawing himself up a trifle straighter, "we're pore folks, but we're proud ter hev ye enjoy what little we've got. This hyar's my son, Turner Stacy."

Then Bear Cat spoke for the first time. "I reckon ye be leg-weary, Mr. Henderson. I'll fotch yore contraptions ter ther house."

There remained to the splendidly resilient powers of Bear Cat's physical endowment no trace of last night's debauch except that invisible aftermath of desperate chagrin and mortification. As he lifted the pack which Henderson had put down something like admiring wonderment awoke in him. Here was a man born like himself in the hills, reared in crude places, who yet bore himself with the air of one familiar with the world, and who spoke with the fluency of education.

As the wearied traveler trudged along with his two hosts, he had glowing before his eyes the final fires of sunset over hills that grew awesomely somber and majestic under the radiance of gold and ash of rose. Then they reached a gate, where a horse stood hitched, and before them bulked the dark shape of a house whose open door was a yellow slab of lamplight.

From the porch as they came up, rose a gray figure in the neutrality of the dying light; a man with a patriarchal beard that fell over his breast and an upper lip clean shaven, like a Mormon elder. Even in that dimness a rude dignity seemed inherent to this man and as Henderson glanced at him he heard Lone Stacy declaring, "Brother Fulkerson, ye're welcome. This hyar is Mr. Henderson." Then turning to the guest, the householder explained. "Brother Fulkerson air ther preacher of God's Word hyarabouts. He's a friend ter every Christian an' a mighty wrastler with sin."

As the stranger acknowledged this presentation he glanced up and, standing in the light from the door, found himself face to face with yet another figure; the figure of a girl who was silhouetted there in profile, for the moment seemingly frozen motionless by astonishment. Her face was flooded with the pinkness of a deep blush, and her slender beauty was as undeniable as an axiom.

Lone Stacy turned with an amused laugh, "An' this, Mr. Henderson," he went on, "air Brother Fulkerson's gal, Blossom. I reckon ye two hev met afore—albeit ye didn't, in a way of speakin', make yore manners ther fust time."

Blossom bowed, then she laughed shyly but with a delicious quality of music in her voice.

"I reckon ye 'lowed I didn't know nothin'—I mean anything—about manners, Mr. Henderson," she confessed and the man hastily assured her:

"I 'lowed that you were splendidly loyal—to somebody."

As he spoke he saw Bear Cat at his elbow, his eyes fixed on the girl with a wordless appeal of contrition and devotion, and he thought he understood.

"Howdy, Blossom," murmured Turner, and the girl's chin came up. Her voice seemed to excommunicate him as she replied briefly: "Howdy, Turner."

This was a lover's quarrel, surmised Henderson and discreetly he turned again to the host, but, even so, he saw Turner step swiftly forward and raise his hands. His lips were parted and his eyes full of supplication, but he did not speak. He only let his arms fall and turned away with a face of stricken misery.

Blossom knew about last night, reflected Bear Cat. He was, as he deserved to be, in disgrace.

Then as the girl stood looking off into the gathering darkness her own face filled wistfully with pain and the boy, dropping to a seat on the floor of the porch, watched her covertly with sidewise glances.

"Blossom met me down ther road," observed the minister, "an' named ter me thet she hed——" He paused, casting a dubious glance at the stranger, and Lone Stacy interrupted: "She named ter ye thet she stood guard at ther still an' warned Mr. Henderson off?"

Brother Fulkerson nodded gravely. "I was a little mite troubled in my mind lest she'd put herself in jeopardy of the law. Thet's why I lighted down an' hitched hyar: ter hev speech with ye."

"Ye needn't worrit yoreself none, Brother Fulkerson," reassured the host. "Mr. Henderson comes vouched fer by Uncle Israel."

The preacher sat for a space silent and when he next spoke it was still with a remnant of misgiving in his tone.

"I don't aim to go about crossin' good men and a-cavilin' with thar opinions," he began apologetically. "Like as not heaps of 'em air godlier men than me, but I holds it to be my duty to speak out free." Again he paused and cast a questioning glance at his host as though in deference to the hospitality of the roof, and the tall mountaineer, standing beside the post of his porch, nodded assent with equal gravity.

"Talk right fer yoreself, Brother Fulkerson. I don't never aim ter muzzle no man's speech."

"Waal, this day I've rid some twenty miles acrost high ridges and down inter shadowy valleys, I've done traversed some places thet war powerful wild an' laurely. Wharsoever God's work calls me, I'm obleeged ter go, but I raised my voice in song as I fared along amongst them thickets, lest some man thet I couldn't see; some man a-layin' on watch, mout suspicion I was seekin' ter discover somethin' he aimed ter keep hid—jest as ye suspicioned Mr. Henderson, hyar."

Lone Stacy stroked his beard.

"I reckon thet war ther wisest way, Brother Fulkerson, unless every man over thar knowed ye."

"I reckon God likes ther songs of his birds better," declared the preacher, "then ther song of a man thet hes ter sing ter protect his own life. I reckon no country won't ever prosper mightily, whilst hit's a land of hidin' out with rifle-guns in ther laurel."

There was no wrath in the eyes of the host as he listened to his guest's indictment or the voice of thrilling earnestness in which it was delivered. He only raised one hand and pointed upward where a mighty shoulder of mountain rose hulking through the twilight. Near its top one could just make out the thread-like whiteness of a new fence line.

"Yonder's my corn patch," he said. "When I cl'ared hit an' grubbed hit out my neighbors all came ter ther workin' an' amongst us we toiled thar from sun-up twell one o'clock at night—daylight an' moonlight. On thet patch I kin raise me two or three master crops o' corn an' atter thet hit won't hardly raise rag weeds! A bushel o' thet corn, sledded over ter ther nighest store fotches in mebby forty cents. But thar's two gallons of licker in hit an' thet's wuth money. Who's a-goin' ter deny me ther rightful license ter do hit?"

"Ther Law denies ye," replied the preacher gravely, but without acerbity.

"Thar's things thet's erginst ther law," announced the old man with a swift gathering of fierceness in his tone, "an' thar's things thet's above ther law. A criminal is a man thet's done befouled his own self-respect. I hain't never done thet an' I hain't no criminal. What do you think, Mr. Henderson?"

Henderson had no wish to be drawn, so soon, into any conflict of local opinion, yet he realized that a candid reply was expected.

"My opinion is that of theory only," he responded seriously. "But I agree with Brother Fulkerson. A community with secrets to hide is a hermit community—and one of the strangers that is frightened away—is Prosperity."

Bear Cat Stacy, brooding silently in his place, looked suddenly up. Hitherto he had seen only the sweet wistfulness of Blossom's eyes. Now he remembered the words of the old miller.

"Some day a mountain man will rise up as steadfast as the hills he sprung from—an' he'll change hit all like ther sun changes fog!" Perhaps Turner Stacy was ripe for hero-worship.

Over the mountain top appeared the beacon of the evening star—luminous but pale. As if saluting it the timber became wistful with the call of whippoorwills and fireflies began to flit against the sooty curtain of night.

Something stirred in the boy, as though the freshening breeze brought the new message of an awakening. Here was the talk of wise men, concurring with the voices of his dreams! But at that moment his mother appeared in the doorway and announced

"You men kin come in an' eat, now."

CHAPTER VI

In former days an Appalachian tavern was a "quarter-house"; a hostelry where one paid a quarter for one's bed and a quarter, each, for meals. Now the term has fallen into such disuse as to be no longer generic, but locally it survived with a meaning both specific and malodorous. The press of Kentucky and Virginia had used it often, coupled with lurid stories of blood-lettings and orgies; linking with it always the name of its proprietor, Kinnard Towers.

How could such things go on in the twentieth century? questioned the readers of these news columns, forgetting that this ramparted isolation lives not in the twentieth century but still in the eighteenth; that its people who have never seen salt water still sing the ballads of Walter Raleigh's sea-rovers, and that from their lips still fall, warm with every-day usage, the colloquialisms of Chaucer and of Piers the Ploughman.

The Quarterhouse stood in a cleft where the mountains had been riven. Its front door opened into Virginia and its rear door gave into Kentucky. Across the puncheon floor was humorously painted a stripe of whitewash, as constantly renewed as the markings of a well-kept tennis court—and that line was a state boundary.

Hither flocked refugees from the justice of two states, and if a suddenly materializing sheriff confronted his quarry in the room where each day and each night foregathered the wildest spirits of a wild land, the hounded culprit had only to cross that white line and stand upon his lawful demand for extradition papers. Here, therefore, the hunted foxes of the law ran to ground. The man who presided as proprietor was a power to be feared, admired, hated as individual circumstance dictated, but in any case one whose wrath was not to be advisedly stirred.

He had found it possible to become wealthy in a land where such achievement involves battening on poverty. Cruel—suave; predatory—charitable, he had taken life by his own hand and that of the hireling, but also he had, in famine-times, succored the poor.

He had, in short, awed local courts and intimidated juries of the vicinage until he seemed beyond the law, and until office-holders wore his collar.

Kinnard Towers was floridly blond of coloring, mild of eye and urbanely soft-spoken of voice.

Once, almost two decades ago, while the feud was still eruptive, it had seemed advisable to him to have Lone Stacy done to death, and to that end he had bargained with Black Tom Carmichael.

Black Tom had been provided with a double-barreled gun, loaded with buckshot, and placed in a thicket which, at the appointed hour, the intended victim must pass. But it had chanced that fate intervened. On that day Lone Stacy had carried in his arms his baby son, Turner Stacy, and, seeing the child, Black Tom had faltered.

Later in the seclusion of a room over the Quarterhouse, the employer had wrathfully taken his churl to task.

"Wa'al, why didn't ye git him?" was the truculent interrogation. "He passed by close enough fer ye ter hit him with a rock."

"He was totin' his baby," apologized the designated assassin shamefacedly, yet with a sullen obstinacy, "I was only hired ter kill a growed-up man. Ef ye'd a-give me a rifle-gun like I asked ye 'stid of a scatter-gun I could've got him through his damned head an' not harmed ther child none. Thet's why I held my hand."

Kinnard Towers had scornfully questioned: "What makes ye so tormentin' mincy erbout ther kid? Don't ye know full well thet when he grows up we'll have ter git him, too? Howsoever next time I'll give ye a rifle-gun."

Like all unlettered folk the mountaineer is deeply superstitious and prone to believe in portents and wonders. Often, though he can never be brought to confess it he gives credence to tales of sorcery and witchcraft.

Turner Stacy was from his birth a "survigrous" child, and he was born on the day of the eclipse. As he came into the world the sun was darkened. Immediately after that a sudden tempest broke which tore the forests to tatters, awoke quiet brooks to swirling torrents, unroofed houses and took its toll of human life. Even in after years when men spoke of the "big storm" they always alluded to that one.

An old crone who was accounted able to read fortunes and work charms announced that Turner Stacy came into life on the wings of that storm, and that the sun darkened its face because his birth savored of the supernatural. This being so, she said, he was immune from any harm of man's devising. Her absurd story was told and retold around many a smoky cabin hearth, and there were those who accorded it an unconfessed credence.

Later Black Tom was given a rifle and again stationed in ambush. Again Lone Stacy, favored by chance, carried his baby son in his arms. Black Tom, whose conscience had never before impeded his action, continued to gaze over his gun-sights—without pressing the trigger.

Towers was furious, but Carmichael could only shake his head in a frightened bewilderment, as if he had seen a ghost.

"Ther brat looked at me jest as I was about to fire," he protested. "His eyes didn't look like a human bein's. He hain't no baby—he was born a man—or somethin' more then a man."

As affairs developed, the truce was arranged soon afterward, and also the marked man's death became unnecessary, because he was safe in prison on a charge of moonshining.

Neither Lone Stacy nor his son had ever known of this occurrence, and now the Stacys and the Towers met on the road and "made their manners" without gun-play.

But to Kinnard Towers local happenings remained vital and, for all his crudity, few things of topical interest occurred of which he was not duly apprised.

Into his dwelling place came one day the Honorable Abraham Towers, his nephew, who sat in the state Legislature at Frankfort. The two were closeted together for an hour and as the nephew emerged, at the end of the interview, Kinnard walked with him to the hitching-post where the visitor's horse stood tethered.

"I'm obleeged ter ye, Abe," he said graciously. "When this man Henderson gits hyar, I'll make hit a point ter hev casual speech with him. I aims ter l'arn his business, an' ef what ye suspicions air true, he'll have dealin's with me—or else he won't hardly succeed."

So it happened logically enough that on the evening of Jerry's arrival, Kinnard Towers mounted and started out over the hill trails. He rode, as he always did when he went far abroad, under armed escort since tyrants are never secure. Four rifle-equipped vassals accompanied him; two riding as advance guard and two protecting the rear.

Kinnard's destination was the house of Lone Stacy on Little Slippery, a house whose threshold he could not, in the old days, have crossed without blood-letting; but these were the days of peace.

Arriving, he did not go direct to the door and knock, but discreetly halting in the highway, lifted his voice and shouted aloud, "Halloo! I'm Kinnard Towers an' I'm a-comin' in."

The door was thrown promptly open and Lone Stacy appeared, framed between threshold and lintel, holding a lamp aloft and offering welcome.

"Gentlemen," said the host in a matter-of-fact voice, "ef you'll excuse me, I'll rest yore guns."

Then in observance of a quaint and ancient ceremonial, each armed guardian passed in, surrendering his rifle at the threshold. In retarded Appalachia so runs the rule. To fail in its fulfilment is to express distrust for the honesty and ability of the householder to protect his guests, and such an implication constitutes a grave discourtesy.

Inside a fire roared on the hearth, for even in June, the mountain nights are raw.

Henderson, watching the small cavalcade troop in, smiled inwardly. He was not unmindful of the identity or the power of this modern baron, and he was not without suspicion that he himself was the cause of the visit.

"I chanced ter be farin' by, Lone," Kinnard Towers enlightened his host easily, "an' I 'lowed I'd light down an' rest a little spell."

"Ye're welcome," was the simple reply. "Draw up ter ther fire an' set ye a cheer."

The talk lingered for a space on neighborhood topics, but the host had found time, between hearing the shout outside and replying to it, to say in a low voice to his guest: "I reckon atter Kinnard Towers comes in we won't talk no more erbout my still—jest stills in gin'ral," and that caution was religiously observed.

The kitchen tasks had been finished now and while the men sat close to the smoking hearth the faces of the women looked on from the shadowed corners of the room, where they sat half obscured upon the huge four-poster beds.

The man who had crossed Cedar Mountain lighted his pipe from the bed of coals and then, straightening up, he stood on the hearth where his eyes could take in the whole semicircle of listening faces. They were eyes that, for all their seeming of a theorist's engrossment, missed little.

This house might have been a pioneer abode of two hundred years ago, standing unamended by the whole swelling tide of modernity that had passed it by untouched.

The leaping blaze glittered on the metal of polished rifles stacked in a corner, and on two others hanging against the smoke-dimmed logs of the walls. Red pods of peppers and brown leaves of tobacco were strung along the rafters. Hardly defined of shape against one shadowy wall, stood a spinning wheel.

Henderson knew that the room was pregnant with the conflict of human elements. He realized that he himself faced possibilities which made his mission here a thing of delicate manipulation; even of personal danger.

The blond man with the heavy neck, who sat contemplatively chewing at the stem of an unlighted pipe, listened in silence. He hardly seemed interested, but Henderson recognized him for the sponsor and beneficiary of lawlessness. He more than any other would be the logical foe to a new order which brought the law in its wake—and the law's reckonings.

Near to the enemy whom he had heretofore faced in pitched battle, sat old Lone Stacy, his brogans kicked off and his bare feet thrust out to the warmth; bearded, shrewd of eye, a professed lover of the law, asking only the exemption of his illicit still. He, too, in the feud days had wielded power, but had sought in the main to wield it for peace.

And there, showing no disposition to draw aside the skirts of his raiment in disgust, sat the preacher of the hills whose strength lay in his ability to reconcile antagonisms, while yet he stood staunch, abating nothing of self-sacrificial effort. It was almost as though church and crown and commoner were gathered in informal conclave.

But luminous, like fixed stars, gleamed two other pairs of eyes. As he realized them, Henderson straightened up with such a thrill as comes from a vision. Here were the eyes of builders of the future—agleam as they looked on the present! Blossom's were wide and enthralled and Turner Stacy's burned as might those of a young crusader hearing from the lips of old and seasoned knights recitals of the wars of the Sepulchre.

Bear Cat Stacy saw in this stranger the prophet bearing messages for which he had longed—and waited almost without hope. But Kinnard Towers saw in him a dangerous and unsettling agitator.

"You said," declared Henderson, when the theme had swung back again to economic discussion, "that your cornfield was good for a few crops and then the rains would wash it bare, yet as I came along the road I saw an out-cropping vein of coal that reached above my head, and on each side of me were magnificent stretches of timber that the world needs and that is growing scarce."

"Much profit thet does me," Lone Stacy laughed dryly. "Down at Uncle Israel's store thar's a dollar bill thet looks like hit's a-layin' on ther counter—but when ye aims to pick hit up ye discarns thet hit's pasted under ther glass. Thet coal an' timber of mine air pasted ter ther wrong side of Cedar Mounting."

"And why? Because there are few roads and fewer schools. It's less the cost and difficulties of building wagon roads than something else that stands in the way. It's the laurel."

"The laurel?" repeated Lone Stacy, but the preacher nodded comprehendingly, and the visitor went on:

"Yes. The laurel. I've been in Central American jungles where men died of fever because the thick growth held and bred the miasma. Here the laurel holds a spirit of concealment. If there wasn't a bush in all these hills big enough to hide a man, the country would be thrown open to the markets of the world. It's the spirit of hiding—that locks life in and keeps it poor."

"I presume ye means on account of ther blockade licker," replied the host, "but thet don't tech ther root of ther matter. How erbout ther fields thet stand on end; fields thet kain't be plowed an' thet ther rains brings down on yore head, leavin' nuthin 'thar but ther rock?"

Henderson had the power of convincing words, abetted by a persuasive quality of voice. As a mountain man he preached his faith in the future of the hills. He spoke of the vineyards of Madeira where slopes as incorrigibly steep as these were redeemed by terracing. He talked of other lands that were being exhausted of resources and turning greedy eyes upon the untapped wealth of the Cumberlands. He painted the picture glowingly and fervently, and Turner Stacy, listening, bent forward with a new fire in his eyes: a fire which Kinnard Towers did not fail to mark.

"When ther railroad taps us," interpolated Lone Stacy, in a pause, "mebby we kin manage ter live. Some says ther road aims ter cross Cedar Mounting."

"Don't deceive yourself with false hopes," warned the visitor. "This change must be brought about from inside—not outside. The coming of the railroad lies a decade or two away. I've investigated that question pretty thoroughly and I know. The coal-fields are so large that railroads can still, for a long time to come, choose the less expensive routes. Cedar Mountain balks them for the present. It will probably balk them for the length of our lives—but this country can progress without waiting for that."

"So ye thinks thet even without no railroad this God-forsaken land kin still prosper somehow?" inquired the host skeptically, and the visitor answered promptly:

"I do. I am so convinced of it that I'm here to buy property—to invest all I have and all my mother and sisters have. I think that by introducing modern methods of intensive farming, I can make it pay a fair return in my own time—and when I die I'll leave property that will ultimately enrich the younger generations. I don't think it can make me rich in my lifetime—but some day it's a certainty of millions."

"Why don't ye buy yoreself property whar ther railroad will come in yore own day, then? Wouldn't thet pay ye better?"

The suggestion was the first contribution to the conversation that had come from Kinnard Towers, and it was proffered in a voice almost urbane of tone.

Henderson turned toward him.

"That's a straight question and I'll answer it straight. To buy as much property as I want along a possible railway line would cost too much money. I'm gambling, not on the present but on the future. I come here because I know the railroad is not coming and for that reason prices will be moderate."

As he made this explanation the newcomer was watching the face of his questioner almost eagerly. What he read there might spell the success or failure of his plans. Any enterprise across which Kinnard Towers stamped the word "prohibited" was an enterprise doomed to great vicissitude in a land where his word was often above the law.

But the blond and florid man granted him the satisfaction of no reply. He gazed pensively at the logs crackling on the hearth and his features were as inscrutably blank as those of the Sphinx.

After a moment Towers did speak, but it was to his host and on another topic.

"Lone," he said, "thet firewood of yourn's right green an' sappy, hain't it? Hit pops like ther fo'th of July."

Brother Fulkerson spoke reflectively: "We needs two more things then we've got in these hills—an' one thing less then we've got. We wants roads an' schools—and the end of makin' white licker."

Henderson saw Blossom slip from the bed and flit shadow-like through the door, and a few moments later he missed, too, the eagerly attentive presence of the boy. Blossom had escaped from the reek of tobacco smoke inside, to the soft cadences of the night-song and the silver wash of the moonlight.

Turner Stacy found her sitting, with her face between her palms, under a great oak that leaned out across the trickle of the creek, and when he spoke her name, she raised eyes glistening with tears.

"Blossom," he began in a contrite voice, "ye're mad at me, ain't ye? Ye've done heerd about—about last night." Then he added with moody self-accusation, "God knows I don't blame ye none."

She turned her head away and did not at once answer. Suddenly her throat choked and she broke into sobs that shook her with their violence. The young man stood rigid, his face drawn with self-hatred and at last she looked up at him.

"Somehow, Turner," she said unsteadily, "hit wouldn't of been jest ther same ef hit had been any other time. Yestiddy—up thar on ther ridge—ye promised me thet ye'd be heedful with licker."

"I knows I did," he declared bitterly. "Ye've got a right ter plumb hate me."

"Ef I'd a-hated ye," she reminded him simply, "I wouldn't sca'cely have watched ther road all day." Then irrelevantly she demanded, "How did ye git yore shoulder hurt?"

The wish to defend himself with the palliations of last night's desperate fatigue and the chill in his wound was a strong temptation, but he repressed it. Knowledge of his encounter with Ratler Webb would only alarm her and conjure up fears of unforgiving vengeance.

"Hit war just a gun thet went off accidental-like," he prevaricated. "I wasn't harmed none, Blossom." Then in a tense voice he continued: "I only aimed ter drink a leetle—not too much—an' then somehow I didn't seem ter hev ther power ter quit."

He felt the lameness of that plea and broke off.

"I'd been studyin' about what you said on ther ridge," she told him falteringly, and the tremor of her voice electrified him. Again the mountains on their ancient foundations grew unsteady before his eyes.

"Does ye mean thet—thet despite last night—ye keers fer me?"

He bent forward, lips parted and heart pounding—and her reply was an unsteady whisper.

"I hain't plumb dead sartain yit, Turner, but—but this mornin' I couldn't think of nothin' else but you."

"Blossom!" exclaimed the boy, his voice ringing with a solemn earnestness. "I don't want thet ye shall hev ter feel shame fer me—but——"

Once again the words refused to come. The girl had risen now and stood slender in the silver light, her lashes wet with tears. With that picture in his eyes it became impossible to balance the other problems of his life. So he straightened himself stiffly and turned his gaze away from her. He was seeing instead a picture of the squat shanty where the copper worm was at work in the shadow, and for him it was a picture of bondage.

So she waited, feeling some hint of realization for the struggle his eyes mirrored.

There would be many other wet nights up there, he reflected as his jaw set itself grimly; many nights of chilled and aching bones with that wild thirst creeping seductively, everpoweringly upon him out of the darkness. There would be the clutch of longing, strangling his heart and gnawing at his stomach.

But if he did promise and failed, he could never again recover his self-respect. He would be doomed. With his face still averted, he spoke huskily and laboriously.

"I reckon thar hain't no way ter make ye understand, Blossom. I don't drink like some folks, jest ter carouse. I don't oftentimes want ter tech hit, but seems like sometimes I jest has ter hev hit. Hit's most gin'rally when I'm plumb sick of livin' on hyar withouten no chance ter better myself."

Even in the moonlight she could see that his face was drawn and pallid. Then abruptly he wheeled:

"Ther Stacys always keeps thar bonds. I reckons ye wants me ter give ye my hand thet I won't never tech another drop, Blossom, but I kain't do thet yit—I've got ter fight hit out fust an' be plumb dead sartain thet I could keep my word ef I pledged hit——"

Blossom heard her father calling her from the porch and as she seized the boy's arms she found them set as hard as rawhide.

"I understands, Turney," she declared hastily, "an'—an'—I'm a-goin' ter be prayin' fer ye afore I lays down ternight!"

As Turner watched the preacher mount and ride away, his daughter walking alongside, he did not return to the house. He meant to fight it out in his own way. Last night when the hills had rocked to the fury of the storm—he had surrendered. To-night when the moonlit slopes drowsed in the quiet of silver mists, the storm was in himself. Within a few feet of the gate he took his seat at the edge of a thick rhododendron bush, where the shadow blotted him into total invisibility. He sat there drawn of face and his hands clenched and unclenched themselves. He did not know it, but, in his silence and darkness, he was growing. There was for him a touch of Golgotha in those long moments of reflection and something of that anguished concentration which one sees in Rodin's figure of "The Thinker"—that bronze man bent in the melancholy travail of the birth of thought.

When an hour later Kinnard Towers and his cortège trooped out of Lone Stacy's house, Jerry Henderson, willing to breathe the freshness of the night, strolled along.

The men with the rifles swung to their saddles and rode a few rods away, but Towers himself lingered and at last with a steady gaze upon the stranger he made a tentative suggestion.

"I don't aim ter discourage a man thet's got fine ideas, Mr. Henderson, but hev ye duly considered thet when ye undertakes ter wake up a country thet's been slumberin' as ye puts hit, fer two centuries, ye're right apt ter find some sleepy-heads thet would rather be—left alone?"

"I'm not undertaking a revolution," smiled the new arrival. "I'm only aiming to show folks, by my own example, how to better themselves."

The man who stood as the sponsor of the old order mounted and looked down from his saddle.

"Hain't thet right smart like a doctor a-comin' in ter cure a man," he inquired dryly, "a-fore ther sick person hes sent fer him? Sometimes ther ailin' one moutn't take hit kindly."

"I should say," retorted Henderson blandly, "that it's more like the doctor who hangs out his shingle—so that men can come if they like."

There was a momentary silence and at its end Towers spoke again with just a hint of the enigmatical in his voice.

"Ye spoke in thar of havin' personal knowledge thet ther railroad didn't aim ter come acrost Cedar Mounting, didn't ye?"

"Yes."

"Well now, Mr. Henderson—not meanin' ter dispute ye none—I don't feel so sartain about thet."

"I spoke from fairly definite information."

The man on horseback nodded.

"I aims ter talk pretty plain. We're a long ways behind ther times up hyar, an' thet means thet we likes ter sort of pass on folks thet comes ter dwell amongst us."

"I call that reasonable, Mr. Towers."

"I'm obleeged ter ye. Now jest let's suppose thet ther railroad did aim ter come in atter all an' let's jest suppose for ther fun of ther thing, thet hit likewise aimed ter grab off all ther best coal an' timber rights afore ther pore, ign'rant mountain-men caught on ter what war happenin'. In sich a case, ther fust step would be ter send a man on ahead, wouldn't hit—a mountain man, if possible—ter preach thet ther railroad didn't aim ter come? Thet would mean bargains, wouldn't hit?"

Jerry Henderson laughed aloud.

"Do you mean that you suspect me of such a mission?"

Glancing about to assure himself that no one heard except his single auditor, the erstwhile hirer of assassins bent over his saddle pommel. Into the suavity of his voice had crept a new hardness and into the pale color of his eyes an ominous glint.

"Back in ther days of ther war with England, Mr. Henderson, I've heered tell thet our grandsires hed a flag with a rattlesnake on hit, an' ther words, 'Don't tread on me!' Some folks says we're right-smart like our grandsires back hyar in ther timber."

"If that's a threat, Mr. Towers," said Henderson steadily, "I make it a point never to understand them."

"An' I makes hit a point never ter give them more then onct. I don't say I suspicions ye—but I do p'intedly say this ter ye: Whatever yore real project air, afore ye goes inter hit too deep—afore ye invests all ye've got, an' all yore mother hes got an' all yore sister hes got, hit mout be right heedful ter ride over ter my dwellin'-house an' hev speech with me."

An indignant retort rose to Jerry's lips, but with diplomatic forbearance he repressed it.

"When I've been here a while, I guess your suspicions will be allayed without verbal assurances, Mr. Towers."

"Even if ye only comes preachin' ther drivin' out of licker," said Towers slowly, "ye're treadin' on my friends. We suffers Sabbath talk like thet from preachers, but we don't relish hit on week-days from strangers. In thar a while back I listened. I seen ye an' Brother Fulkerson a-stirrin' up an' onsettlin' ther young folks. I kin feel ther restless things thet's a-ridin' in ther wind ter-night, Mr. Henderson, an' hit hain't sca'cely right ter bring trouble on these folks thet's shelterin' ye."

Bear Cat Stacy, unseen but eagerly listening, felt a leaping of resentment in his veins. All the feudal instincts that had their currents there woke to wrath as he heard his hereditary enemy warning away his guest. It was the intolerable affront of a hint that the power of the Stacys had dwindled and waned until it could no longer secure the protection of its own roof-trees.

With the anger of Marmion for Angus, sternly repressed but forceful, Bear Cat suddenly stood out revealed in the moonlight. He had only to take a step, but the effect was precisely that of having been suddenly materialized out of nothingness, and when his voice announced him, even the case-hardened control of Kinnard Towers suffered a violent jolt of surprise.

"I reckon, Kinnard Towers," said the boy with a velvety evenness of voice, "ther day hain't hardly come yit when ther Stacys hes ter ask ye what visitors they kin take inter thar dwellin'-houses. I reckon mebby Mr. Henderson's ideas may suit some folks hyarabouts, even if they don't pleasure you none. So long as he aims ter tarry hyar, an' we aims ter enjoy him, ther man thet seeks ter harm him will hev ter come hyar an' git him."

Never since the fend had ended in a pact of peace, had two factional leaders come so near a rupture. Henderson could feel the ominous tensity in the air, but Towers himself only shook his head and laughed. It was a good-humored laugh, since this was not the time for open enmity.

"Oh, pshaw, son! I reckon nobody don't aim no harm to Mr. Henderson. I jest knows this country an' he ought ter realize thet my counsel mout help him." There was a brief pause and then with an audacity of bantering Kinnard proceeded. "I've done heered thet ye tuck yore dram onct in a while yoreself—mebby you've got friends thet makes licker—an' you knows how they mout feel about too much talk."

Bear Cat Stacy stood with his shoulders drawn back and his eyes smoldering.

"Thet's my business," he retorted curtly, but the Quarterhouse baron went on with the same teasing smile.

"Mebby so, son, but hit kinderly 'peared like ter me thet Brother Fulkerson's gal war a-'lowin' thet hit war her business, too. I overheered yore maw say somethin' 'bout yore drinkin' some last night an' I seed Blossom's purty eyes flash."

The mounted man waved his hand and rode away, his escort falling in at front and rear, but when the cavalcade had turned the angle of the road Kinnard Towers beckoned Black Tom Carmichael to his side and spoke grimly.

"Thar's trouble breedin', Tom, an' this young Bear Cat Stacy's in ther b'ilin'. Ye played ther fool when yer failed ter git him as a kid. Hit war only a-layin' up torment erginst ther future."

Henderson lay long awake that night in the loft which he shared with Bear Cat. He heard the snores of the man and woman sleeping below, but the unmoving figure beside him had not relaxed in slumber. Henderson wondered if he were reflecting upon that talk by the gate and all the dark possibilities it might presage.

It was almost dawn, when Bear Cat slipped from under his quilt, drew on his shoes and trousers and left the loft-like attic, his feet making no sound on the rungs of the ladder.

What furtive mission was taking him out, pondered Henderson, into the laurel-masked hills at that hour?

But out in the creek-bed road, with the setting moon on his face, Bear Cat Stacy paused and drank in a long breath.

"He seen Blossom's eyes flash, he said," murmured the boy with his hands clenched at his sides, then he threw back his shoulders and spoke half aloud and very resolutely: "Wa'al they won't never hev ter flash no more fer thet cause." After a little while, his gaze fixed on the myriad stars, he spoke again. "God Almighty, I needs thet ye should holp me now. I aims ter go dry fer all time—an' I kain't hardly compass hit withouten ye upholds me."

Wheeling abruptly, he went with long strides around the turn of the road. A half hour later he was noiselessly opening the gate of the preacher's house. He meant to wait there until Blossom awoke, but prompted by habit he gave, thrice repeated, the quavering and perfectly counterfeited call of a barn owl. Since she had been a very small girl, that had been their signal, and though she would not hear it now, it pleased him to repeat it.

Then to his astonishment he heard, very low, the whining creak of an opening door, and there before him, fully dressed, intently awake, stood the girl herself.

"Blossom," said Bear Cat in a low voice that trembled a little, "Blossom, I came over ter wail hyar till ye woke up. I came ter tell ye—thet I'm ready ter give ye my hand. I hain't never goin' ter tech a drap of licker no more, so long es I lives. I says hit ter ye with God Almighty listenin'."

"Oh, Turney——!" she exclaimed, then her voice broke and her eyes swam with tears. "I'm—I'm right proud of ye," was all she could find the words to add.

"Did I wake ye up?" demanded the boy in a voice of self-accusation. "I didn't aim to. I 'lowed I'd wait till mornin'."

Blossom shook her head. "I hain't been asleep yit," she assured him. Her cheeks flushed and she drooped her head as she explained. "I've been a-prayin, Turney. God's done answered my prayer."

Turner Stacy took off his hat and shook back the dark lock of hair that fell over his forehead. Beads of moisture stood out on his temples.

"Did ye keer—thet much, Blossom?" he humbly questioned, and suddenly the girl threw both arms about his neck. "I keers all a gal kin keer, Turney. I wasn't sartain afore—but I knowed hit es soon as I begun prayin' fer ye."

Standing there in the pallid mistiness before dawn, and yielding her lips to the pressure of his kiss, Blossom felt the almost religious solemnity of the moment. She was crossing the boundary of acknowledged love—and he had passed through the stress of terrific struggle before he had been able to bring her his pledge. His face, now cool, had been hot with its fevered passion. But she did not know that out of this moment was to be born transforming elements of change destined to shake her life and his; to quake the very mountains themselves; to rend the old order's crust, and finally, after tempest and bloodshed—to bring the light of a new day. No gift of prophecy told her that, of the parentage of this declaration of her love and this declaration of his pledge, was to be born in him a warrior's spirit of crusade which could only reach victory after all the old vindictive furies had been roused to wrath—and conquered—and the shadow of tragedy had touched them both.

And had Bear Cat Stacy, holding her soft cheek pressed to his own, been able to look even a little way ahead, he would have gone home and withdrawn the hospitality he had pledged to the guest who slept there.

CHAPTER VII

Because Jerry Henderson viewed the life of the hills through understanding eyes, certain paradoxes resolved themselves into the expected. He was not surprised to find under Lone Stacy's rude exterior an innate politeness which was a thing not of formula but of instinct.

"Would hit pleasure ye," demanded the host casually the next morning, "ter go along with me up thar an' see that same identical still thet I tuck sich pains yestiddy ye shouldn't see?" But Henderson shook his head, smiling.

"No, thank you. I'd rather not see any still that I can avoid. What I don't know can't get me—or anyone else—into trouble."

Lone Stacy nodded his approval as he said: "I didn't aim ter deny ye no mark of confidence. I 'lowed I'd ought ter ask ye."

Turner Stacy stood further off from illiteracy than his father. In the loft which the visitor had shared with him the night before he had found a copy of the Kentucky Statutes and one of Blackstone's Commentaries, though neither of them was so fondly thumbed as the life of Lincoln.

By adroit questioning Jerry elicited the information that the boy had been as far along the way of learning as the sadly deficient district schools could conduct him; those shambling wayside institutions where, on puncheon benches, the children memorize in that droning chorus from which comes the local name of "blab-school."

Turner had even taken his certificate and taught for a term in one of these pathetic places. He laughed as he confessed this: "Hit jest proves how pore ther schools air, hyarabouts," he avowed.

"I expect you'd have liked to go to college," inquired Henderson, and the boy's eyes blazed passionately with his thwarted lust for opportunity—then dimmed to wretchedness.

"Like hit! Hell, Mr. Henderson, I'd lay my left hand down, without begrudgin' hit, an' cut hit off at ther wrist fer ther chanst ter do thet!"

Henderson sketched for him briefly the histories of schools that had come to other sections of the hills; schools taught by inspired teachers, with their model farms, their saw-mills and even their hospitals: schools to which not only children but pupils whose hair had turned white came and eagerly learned their alphabets, and as much more as they sought.

The boy raised a hand. "Fer God's sake don't narrate them things," he implored. "They sots me on fire. My grandsires hev been satisfied hyar fer centuries an' all my folks sees in me, fer dreamin' erbout things like thet, is lackin' of loyalty."

Henderson found his interest so powerfully engaged that he talked on with an excess of enthusiasm.

"But back of those grandsires were other grandsires, Turner. They were the strongest, the best and the most American of all America; those earlier ancestors of yours and mine. They dared to face the wilderness, and those that got across the mountains won the West."

"Ours didn't git acrost though," countered the boy dryly. "Ours was them thet started out ter do big things an' failed."

Henderson smiled. "A mule that went lame, a failure to strike one of the few possible passes, made all the difference between success and failure in that pilgrimage, but the blood of those empire-builders is our blood and what they are now, we shall be when we catch up. We've been marking time while they were marching, that's all."

"Ye've done been off ter college yoreself, hain't ye, Mr. Henderson?"

"Yes. Harvard."

"Harvard? Seems ter me I've heered tell of hit. Air hit as good as Berea?"

The visitor repressed his smile, but before he could answer Bear Cat pressed on:

"Whilst ye're up hyar, I wonder ef hit'd be askin' too master much of ye ef—" the boy paused, gulped down his embarrassment and continued hastily—"ef ye could kinderly tell me a few books ter read?"

"Gladly," agreed Henderson. "It's the young men like you who have the opportunity to make life up here worth living for the rest."

After a moment Bear Cat suggested dubiously: "But amongst my folks I wouldn't git much thanks fer tryin'. Ther outside world stands fer interference—an' they won't suffer hit. They believes in holdin' with their kith an' kin."

Again Henderson nodded, and this time the smile that danced in his eyes was irresistibly infectious. In a low voice he quoted:

"The men of my own stock

They may do ill or well,

But they tell the lies I am wonted to,

They are used to the lies I tell.

We do not need interpreters

When we go to buy and sell."

Bear Cat Stacy stood looking off over the mountain sides. He filled his splendidly rounded chest with a deep draft of the morning air,—air as clean and sparkling as a fine wine, and into his veins stole an ardor like intoxication.

In his eyes kindled again that light, which had made Henderson think of volcanoes lying quiet with immeasurable fires slumbering at their hearts.

Last night the boy had fought out the hardest battle of his life, and to-day he was one who had passed a definite mile-post of progress. This morning, too, a seed had dropped and a new life influence was stirring. It would take storm and stress and seasons to bring it to fulfilment, perhaps. The poplar does not grow from seed to great tree in a day—but, this morning, the seed had begun to swell and quicken.

What broke, like the fledgling of a new conception, in Bear Cat's heart, was less palpably but none the less certainly abroad in the air, riding the winds—with varied results.

That an outside voice was speaking: a voice which was dangerous to the old gods of custom, was the conviction entertained, not with elation but with somber resentment in the mind of Kinnard Towers. Upon that realization followed a grim resolve to clip the wings of innovation while there was yet time. It was no part of this crude dictator's program to suffer a stranger, with a gift for "glib speech," to curtail his enjoyment of prerogatives built upon a lifetime of stress and proven power.

Back of Cedar Mountain, where there are few telephones, news travels on swift, if unseen wings. Henderson had not been at Lone Stacy's house twenty-four hours when the large excitement of his coming, gathering mythical embellishment as it passed from mouth to mouth, was mysteriously launched.

Wayfarers, meeting in the road and halting for talk, accosted each other thus:

"I heer tell thar's a man over ter Lone Stacy's house thet's done been clar ter ther other world an' back. He's met up with all character of outlanders."

Having come back from "ther other world" did not indeed mean, as might be casually inferred, that Henderson had risen from his grave; relinquishing his shroud for a rehabilitated life. It signified only that he had been "acrost the waters"—a matter almost as vague. So the legend grew as it traveled, endowing Jerry with a "survigrous" importance.

"Folks says," went the rumor, "thet he knows ways fer a man ter make a livin' offen these-hyar tormentin' rocks. Hev ye seed him yit?"

Having come to the house of Lone Stacy, it was quite in accordance with the custom of the hills that he should remain there indefinitely. His plans for acquiring land meant first establishing himself in popular esteem and to this end no means could have contributed more directly than acceptance under a Stacy roof.

With the younger Stacy this approval was something more: it savored of hero-worship and upon Henderson's store of wisdom, Bear Cat's avid hunger for knowledge feasted itself.

Henderson saw Blossom often in these days and her initial shyness, in his presence, remained obdurate. But through it he caught, with a refreshing quality, the quick-flashing alertness of her mind and he became anxious to win her confidence and friendship.

And she, for all her timidity, was profoundly impressed and fed vicariously on his wisdom—through the enthusiastic relaying of Bear Cat Stacy's narration.

When conversation with Jerry was unavoidable, Turner noted that she was giving a new and unaccustomed care to her diction, catching herself up from vernacular to an effort at more correct forms.

"Blossom," he gravely questioned her one day, "what makes ye so mindful of yore P's and Q's when ye hes speech with Jerry Henderson?"

"I reckon hit's jest shame fer my ign'rance," she candidly replied, forgetting to be ashamed of it now that the stranger was no longer present.

"And yit," he reminded her, "ye've got more eddication now then common—hyarabouts."

"Hyarabouts, yes," came the prompt retort, touched with irony. "So hev you. Air ye satisfied with hit?"

"No," he admitted honestly. "God knows I hain't!"

One evening Kinnard Towers entered the saloon at the Quarterhouse and stood unobserved at the door, as he watched the roistering crowd about the bar. It was a squalid place, but to the foreign eye it would have been, in a sordid sense, interesting. Its walls and the eight-foot stockade that went around it were stoutly builded of hewn timbers as though it had been planned with a view toward defense against siege.

A few lithographed calendars from mail-order houses afforded the sole note of decoration to the interior. The ordinary bar-mirror was dispensed with. It could hardly have come across the mountain intact. Had it come it could scarcely have survived.

The less perishable fixtures of woodwork and ceiling bore testimony to that in their pitted scars reminiscent of gun-play undertaken in rude sport—and in deadly earnest. The shutters, heavy and solid, had on occasion done service as stretchers and cooling boards. Vilely odorous kerosene lamps swung against the walls, dimly abetted by tin reflectors, and across the floor went the painted white line of the state border. At the room's exact center were two huge letters. That east of the line was V. and that west was K.

The air was thick with the reek of smoke and the fumes of liquor. The boisterousness was raucously profane—the general atmosphere was that of an unclean rookery.

As the proprietor stood at the threshold, loud guffaws of maudlin laughter greeted his ears and, seeking the concrete cause, his gaze encountered Ratler Webb, propped against the bar, somewhat redder of eye and more unsteady on his legs than usual. Obviously he was the enraged butt of ill-advised heckling.

"Ye hadn't ought ter hev crossed Bear Cat," suggested a badgering voice. "Then ye wouldn't hev a busted nose. He's a bad man ter fool with. Thar war witches at his bornin'."

"I reckon Bear Cat knows what's healthful fer him," snarled Webb. "When we meets in ther highway he rides plumb round me."

The speaker broke off and, with a sweeping truculence, challenged contradiction. "Air any of you men friends of his'n? Does airy one of ye aim ter dispute what I says?" Silence ensued, possibly influenced by the circumstance that Ratler's hand was on his pistol grip as he spoke, so he continued:

"Ef I sought ter be a damn' tale-bearer, I could penitenshery him fer blockadin' right now, but thet wouldn't satisfy me nohow. I aims ter handle him my own self."

Again there was absence of contradiction near about the braggart, though ripples of derisive mirth trickled in from the outskirts.

Ratler jerked out his weapon and leaned against the bar. As he waved the muzzle about he stormed furiously: "Who laughed back thar?" And no one volunteered response.

Webb squinted hazily up at one of the reflector-backed lamps. "Damn thet light," he exclaimed. "Hit hurts my eyes." There followed a report and the lamp fell crashing.

For a brief space the drunken man stood holding the smoking weapon in his hand, then he looked up and started, but this time he let the pistol swing inactive at his side and the truculent blackness of his face faded to an expression of dismay.

Kinnard Towers stood facing him with an unpleasant coldness in his eyes.

"I reckon, Ratler," suggested the proprietor, "ye'd better come along with me. I wants ter hev peaceable speech with ye."

In a room above-stairs Kinnard motioned him to a chair much as a teacher might command a child taken red-handed in some mad prank.

"Ratler, hit hain't a right wise thing ter talk over-much," he volunteered at last. "Whar air thet still ye spoke erbout—Bear Cat Stacy's still?"

Webb cringed.

"I war jest a-talkin'. I don't know nuthin' erbout no sich still."

What means of loosening unwilling tongues Kinnard Towers commanded was his own secret. A half hour later he knew what he wished to know and Ratler Webb left the place. Upon his Ishmaelite neck was firmly fastened the collar of vassalage to the baron of the Quarterhouse.

On the day following that evening Towers talked with Black Tom Carmichael.

"This man Henderson," he said musingly, "air plumb stirring up ther country. I reckon hit'd better be seen to."

Black Tom nodded. "Thet oughtn't ter be much trouble." But Towers shook his blond head with an air of less assured confidence.

"Ter me hit don't look like no easy matter. Lone Stacy's givin' him countenance. Ef I war ter run him outen these parts I reckon ther Stacys would jest about swarm inter war over hit."

"What does ye aim ter do, Kinnard?"

"So far I'm only bidin' my time, but I aims ter keep a mighty sharp eye on him. He hain't made no move yit, but he's gainin' friends fast an' a man's obleeged ter kinderly plan ahead. When ther time's ripe he's got ter go." Towers paused, then added significantly, "One way or another—but afore thet's undertook, I 'lows ter git rid of his protectors."

"Thet's a mighty perilous thing ter try, Kinnard," demurred the lieutenant in a voice fraught with anxiety. "Ye kain't bring hit ter pass without ye opens up ther war afresh—an' this time they'd hev Bear Cat ter lead 'em."

But Towers smiled easily.

"I've got a plan, Tom. They won't even suspicion I knows anything about events. I'm goin' ter foller Mr. Henderson's counsel an' do things ther new way, 'stid of ther old."

CHAPTER VIII

Henderson found Brother Fulkerson a preacher who, more by service and example and comforting the disconsolate than by pulpit oratory, held a strong influence upon his people, and commanded their deep devotion.

His quiet ministry had indeed been heard of beyond the hills and even in the black days of feudal hatred, dead lines had been wiped out for him so that he came and went freely among both factions, and no man doubted him.

Kindly, grave and steadfast, Henderson found him to be, and possessed of a natively shrewd brain, as well. Blossom was usually at the Fulkerson house when Jerry called, but she fitted silently in the background and her eyes regarded him with that shy gravity, in which he found an insurmountable barrier to better acquaintance.

One morning as he passed the Fulkerson abode he found the girl alone by the gate—and paused there.

The season's first tenderness of greenery along the slopes had ripened now to the sunburned and freckled warmth of midsummer, but the day was young enough for lingering drops of the heavy dew to remain on the petals of the morning-glories and the weed stalks along the roadside. Between the waxen delicacy and rich variety of the morning-glory petals and the bloom of the girl, Jerry fell musingly to tracing analogies.

The morning-glory is among the most plebeian of flowering things, boasting no nobility except a charm too fragile to endure long its coarse companionship with smart-weed and mullen, so that each day it comes confidently into being only to shrink shortly into disappointed death.

Blossom, too, would in the course of nature and environment, have a brief bloom and a swift fading—but just now her beauty was only enhanced by the pathos of its doom.

"Blossom," he smilingly suggested, "I'd like to be friends with you, just as I am with Turner. I'm not really an evil spirit you know, yet you seem always half afraid of me."

The girl's lashes drooped shyly, veiling her splendid eyes, but she made no immediate response to his amenities, and Henderson laughed.

"It's all the stranger," he said, "because I can't forget our first meeting. Then you were the spirit of warfare. I can still seem to see you standing there barring the path; your eyes ablaze and your nostrils aquiver with righteous wrath."

For an instant, in recollection of the incident, she forgot her timidity and there flashed into her face the swift illumination of a smile.

"Thet war when I 'lowed ye war an enemy. Folks don't show no—I mean don't show any—fear of thar enemies. Leastways—at least—mountain folks don't."

He understood that attitude, but he smiled, pretending to misconstrue it.

"Then I'm not dangerous as an enemy? It's only when I seek to be a friend that I need be feared?"

Her flush deepened into positive confusion and her reply was faltering.

"I didn't mean nothin' like thet. Hit's jest thet when I tries ter talk with ye, I feels so plumb ign'rant an'—an' benighted—thet—thet——" She broke off and the man leaning on the fence bent toward her.

"You mean that when you talk to me you think I'm comparing you with the girls I know down below, isn't that it?"

Blossom nodded her head and added, "With gals—girls I mean—that wears fancy fixin's an' talks grammar."

"Sit down there for a minute, Blossom," he commanded, and when she had enthroned herself on the square-hewn horse-block by the gate he seated himself, cross-legged at her feet.

"Grammar isn't so very hard to learn," he assured her. "And any woman who carries herself with your lance-like ease, starts out equipped with more than 'fancy fixin's.' I want to tell you about a dream I had the other night."

At once her face grew as absorbed as a child's at the promise of a fairy story.

"I dreamed that I went to a very grand ball in a city down below. The ladies were gorgeously dressed, but late in the evening an unknown girl came into the room and everybody turned to look at her, forgetting all the rest of the party." He paused a moment before adding, "I dreamed that that girl was you."

"What did they all hev ter say about me?" she eagerly demanded.

"To be perfectly frank—you see it was a dream—most of them just exclaimed: 'My God!'"

"I don't hardly censure 'em," admitted Blossom. "I reckon I cut a right sorry figger at that party."

Henderson laughed aloud.

"But don't you see, that wasn't it at all. They were all breathless with admiration. You had the things they would have given all their jewels for—things they can't buy."

For a little space she looked at him with serious, pained eyes, suspicious of ridicule, then the expression altered to bewilderment, and her question came in a lowered voice.

"Things I hev thet they lacks? What manner of things air them—I mean——those?"

"The very rare gifts of originality and an elfin personality," he assured her. "Besides that you have beauty of the freshest and most colorful sort."

For a moment Blossom flushed again shyly, then she lifted one hand and pointed across the road.

"See thet white flower? Thet's wild parsely. I always calls it the pore relation to the elder bush—but it's jest got to stay a pore relation—always—because it started out thet way."

Henderson, as the summer progressed, discovered an absurd thought lurking in his mind with annoying pertinacity. He could not for long banish the fanciful picture of Blossom Fulkerson transplanted—of Blossom as she might be with fuller opportunities for development. There is an undeniable fascination in building air-castles about the Cinderella theme of human transformations and the sight of her always teased his imagination into play.

That these fantasies bore any personal relation to himself he did not admit or even suspect. Readily enough, and satisfactorily enough he explained to himself that he, who was accustomed to a life of teeming activities, was here marooned in monotony. All things are measurable by contrasts, and in her little world, Blossom stood out radiantly and exquisitely different from her colorless sisters. When he had crossed Cedar Mountain again and boarded a railroad train, more vital things would engage him, and he would promptly forget the beautiful little barbarian.

One hot afternoon in late July Jerry Henderson sat in the lounging-room of his club in Louisville. The windows were open and the street noises, after the still whispers of the mountains, seemed to beat on his senses with discordant insistence. Down the length of the broad, wainscoted hall he saw a party of young men in flannels and girls in soft muslins passing out and he growled testily.

"All cut to a single pattern!" he exclaimed. "All impeccably monotonous!" Then he irrelevantly added to himself, "I'm allowing myself to become absurd—I expect its the damned heat. Anyhow she's Bear Cat Stacy's gal!"

As Jerry sat alone he was, quite unconsciously, affording a theme of conversation for two fellow clubmen in the billiard-room.

"I see Jerry Henderson has reappeared in our midst," commented one. "I wonder what titanic enterprise is engaging his genius just now."

"Give it up," was the laconic reply. "But whatever it is, I'm ready to wager he'll emerge from it unscathed and that everybody who backs him will be ruined. That's the history of his buccaneer activities up to date."

"What's his secret? Why don't his creditors fall on him and destroy him?" inquired the first speaker and his companion yawned.

"It's the damned charm of the fellow, I suppose. He could hypnotize the Shah of Persia into Calvinism."

For a moment the speakers fell silent, watching a shot on the pool-table, then one of them spoke with languid interest.

"Whatever we may think of our friend Henderson, he's a picturesque figure, and he's running a most diverting race. He's always just a jump behind a billion dollars and just a jump ahead of the wolf and the constable."

While this conversation proceeded, a heavy-set and elderly gentleman, with determined eyes, entered the club. It was President Wallace of the C. and S-E Railways, and palpably something was on his mind.

Glancing in at the reading-room, and seeing Henderson there, he promptly disposed himself in a heavily cushioned chair at his side and inquired:

"Well, what have you to report?"

"Very little so far," rejoined Henderson with his suavest smile. "You see, there's a man up there who has an annoying capacity for seeing into things and through things. On the day of my arrival he put his finger on my actual purpose in coming."

"You mean Kinnard Towers, I presume." The railroad president drummed thoughtfully on the table-top with his fingers. "I was afraid he would try to hold us up."

Jerry nodded. "He pretends to be unalterably opposed to innovation, but I fancy he really wants to be let in on the ground floor. He has decided that unless he shares our loot, there is to be no plundering."

"Possibly," the railroad magnate spoke thoughtfully, "we'd better meet his terms. The damned outlaw has power up there and we stand to win—or lose—a little empire of wealth."

Henderson's closed fist fell softly but very firmly on the table. His tone was smooth and determined. "Please leave me in command for a while, Mr. Wallace. I mean to beat this highbinder at his own favorite game. If we yield to him he'll emasculate our profits. You gave me five years when we first discussed this thing. In that time I can accomplish it."

"Take seven if you need them. It's worth it."

Sitting in the smoking-car of the train that was transporting him again from civilization to "back of beyond," Jerry Henderson found himself absorbed in somewhat disquieting thoughts.

He gazed out with a dulled admiration on the fertility of blue-grass farms where the land rolled with as smooth and gracious a swell as a woman's bosom. Always heretofore the Central Kentucky mansions with their colonial dignity and quiet air of pride had brought an eager appreciation to his thoughts—the tribute of one who worships an aristocracy based on wealth.

But now when he saw again the tangled underbrush and outcropping rock of the first foothills, something in him cried out, for the first time since boyhood, "I'm going home!" When the altitudes began to clamber into the loftiness of peaks, with wet streamers of cloud along their slopes, the feeling grew. The sight of an eagle circling far overhead almost excited him.

Jerry Henderson was a soldier of fortune, with Napoleonic dreams, and finance was his terrain of conquest. To its overweening ambition he had subordinated everything else. To that attainment he had pointed his whole training, cultivating himself not only in the practicalities of life but also in its refinements, until his bearing, his speech, his manners were possibly a shade too meticulously perfect; too impeccably starched.

Where other men had permitted themselves mild adventures in love and moderate indulgence in drink, he had set upon his conduct a rigid censorship.

His heart, like his conduct, had been severely schooled, for upon marriage, as upon all else, he looked with an opportunist's eye.

His wife must come as an ally, strengthening his position socially and financially. She must be a lady of the old aristocracy, bringing to his house cultivated charm and the power of wealth. She must be fitted, when he took his place among the financially elect, to reign with him.

So it was strange that as he sat here in the smoking-car he should be thinking of an unlettered girl across Cedar Mountain, and acknowledging with a boyish elation that on the way to Lone Stacy's house he would pass her cabin, see her—hear the lilting music of her laugh.

And when Cedar Mountain itself rose before him he swung his way with buoyant stride, up one side and down the other of the range.

Blossom was not in sight when at last he reached the Fulkerson cabin, but the door stood open and Henderson approached it stealthily. He paused for a moment, pondering how conspicuously the small house contrasted with the shabbiness of its neighborhood. It was as trim as a Swiss chalet, reflecting the personality of its mistress. Door frames and window casings were neatly painted—and he knew that was Bear Cat's labor of love. The low hickory-withed chairs on the porch were put together with an approach to a craftsman's skill—and he knew that, too, was Bear Cat's labor of love.

As he reached the porch he saw the girl herself sitting just within, and a broad shaft of sun fell across her, lighting the exquisite quality of her cheeks and the richness of her hair. She was bending studiously over a book, and her lips were drooping with an unconscious wistfulness.

Then, as his shadow fell, Blossom looked up and, in the sudden delight with which she came to her feet, she betrayed her secret of a welcome deeper than that accorded to a friendly but casual stranger.

They were still very much engrossed in each other when half an hour later Bear Cat Stacy appeared without warning in the door. For just a moment he halted on the threshold with pained eyes, before he entered.

The two men walked home together and, along the way, the younger was unaccountably silent. His demeanor had relapsed into that shadow of sullenness which it had often worn before Henderson's coming.

Finally Jerry smilingly demanded an explanation and Bear Cat Stacy turned upon him a face which had suddenly paled. He spoke with a dead evenness.

"We've been honest with each other up to now, Mr. Henderson, an' I demands thet ye be honest with me still."

"I aim to be, Turner. What is it?"

The younger man gulped down a lump which had suddenly risen in his throat, and jerked his head toward the house they had just left.

"Hit's Blossom. Does ye aim ter—ter co'te her?"

"Court her! What put such an idea into your head?"

"Never mind what put hit thar. I've got ter know! Blossom hain't never promised ter wed me, yit, but——" He broke off and for a little while could not resume though his face was expressive enough of his wretchedness. Finally he echoed: "I've got to know! Ef she'd rather marry you, she's got a license ter choose a-tween us. Only I hadn't never thought of thet—an'——." Once more he fell silent.

"My God, Turner," exclaimed Jerry, with a sudden realization of the absurdity of such an idea, "I could have no thought of marrying her."

"Why couldn't ye?" For an instant the gray eyes narrowed and into them came a dangerous gleam. "Hain't she good enough—fer you or any other man?"

Jerry Henderson nodded with grave assent.

"She's good enough for any man alive," he declared. "But I can't think of marriage at all now. All my plans of life prohibit that." Bear Cat Stacy drank in the clear air in a long breath of joyous relief.

"That's all I needs ter know," he said with entire sincerity. "Only," his voice dropped and he spoke very gently, "only, I reckon ye don't realize how much yore eddycation counts with us thet wants hit an' hain't got hit. Don't let her misunderstand ye none, Mr. Henderson. I don't want ter see her hurt."

CHAPTER IX

Marlin Town lies cradled in the elbow of the river and about its ragged edges the hills stand beetling, hemming it in.

Had it been located in Switzerland, it would have been acclaimed in guide-book and traveler's tales for the sheer beauty of its surroundings.

Hither, when the summer had spent its heat and the hard duties of the farmer had relaxed, flocked the men and women and the children of the country side for that annual diversion which combined with the ardor of religious pilgrimage a long-denied hunger for personal intercourse and excitement. Then, in fine, came "big-meeting time."

The clans gathered from "'way over on t'other side of nowhars." They trooped in from communities which the circuit rider visited so rarely that it was no disgrace for a man and a maid to dwell together as man and wife until a child had been born to them before opportunity came to have the marriage rites solemnized. They flocked from localities so remote that in them sometimes the dead lay buried without funeral until an itinerant minister chanced by to hold obsequies over all delinquent graves in common. It is even told how occasionally a widowed husband wept over the mortal remains of his first and second wife—at a sermon held for both.

So while the magnet which draws them out of their deep-burrowed existence is the Camp-meeting with its hymns and discourse, the occasion holds also the secular importance of county-fair and social conclave.

Brother Fulkerson left his cabin before daylight one morning for the journey to town, riding his old mare, with his daughter on a pillion behind him. With them started Lone Stacy, Bear Cat and Henderson, though since these three must travel with only two mules, the younger men followed the ancient custom of "riding and tying"—alternating in the saddle and on foot.

The air held the heady bouquet of autumn now with the flavor of cider presses and of ripened fox-grapes for the delight of the nostril and the dreamy softness of hazy horizons for the eye.

Oak and poplar flaunted their carnival color along the hillsides. Maples threw out scarlet and orange banners against the sedate tone of the pines and cedars. Among the falling acorns of the woods, mast-fed razor-backs were fattening against the day of slaughter, when for a little while the scantily supplied cabin-dwellers would be abundantly provisioned with pork and cider.

Bear Cat's eyes dwelt steadfastly on Blossom, and Jerry Henderson's turned toward her oftener than he meant them to. There was, in the air, a pervasive holiday spirit.

Roads usually so bare of travel were full now, full with a rude procession of wayfarers; men trudging along with trailing families at their heels; calico-clad women riding sideways on bony steeds, sometimes bizarre in fanciful efforts at finery; tow-headed children with wide-staring eyes.

Then at last they were in Marlin Town, rubbing shoulders with all the narrow mountain world. There was Kinnard Towers riding among his rifle-armed henchmen. He sat stiff in his saddle, baronially pleased as men pointed him out,—and Jerry thought it a safe wager that Kinnard had not come as a convert to the mourners' bench.

Towers nodded affably and shouted his salutation in passing.

But among all the strange types foregathered here with a tone of the medieval about them and over them, none were more fantastic than the two preachers who were to conduct the revival. Brother Fulkerson and his party encountered this pair as they passed the Court-house. Both were tall, cadaverous and preternaturally solemn of visage. Both wore rusty Prince Albert coats faded to a threadbare green. One had a collar and no necktie; the other a necktie and no collar. Between the frayed bottoms of shrunken trousers and the battered tops of crude brogans each showed a dusty and unstockinged shank.

"Who are these preachers we're going to hear?" inquired Jerry Henderson, and Brother Fulkerson shook his head dubiously.

"I heer tell thet they're some new sect," was the guarded reply. "I don't hold with them none, myself."

"They are sensational exhorters, I take it," hazarded Jerry, and again the preacher from across the mountain tempered his criticism with charity:

"Folks say so. I don't aim ter jedge 'em though—leastways not till I've sat under th'ar discourse first."

But Bear Cat was restrained by no such inhibition and his voice was openly scornful.

"They're ther sort of preachers thet keeps folks benighted. All they teaches is superstition an' ign'rance."

"Son," suggested Lone Stacy with a grave consideration, "I wouldn't hardly condemn 'em unheard, ef I was you. They claims ter be preachers of God's word, an' thar's room, a-plenty, fer all sorts an' sects."

But the younger man's eyes glowed with that tawny fire of militant rebellion, which was awakening in him against all the shackling influences of mental lethargy.

"They don't believe in book larnin'," went on Bear Cat contemptuously, "because they says thar hain't no Holy Ghost in hit. They harangues so long es thar wind holds out, an' all they keers about is how many takes a big through at meetin'."

Jerry smiled at the characterization. He had seen men and women "take big throughs," that hysterical—and often ephemeral declaration of conversion which measures its over-wrought zeal by the vehemence of outcry and bodily contortion with which the convert comes through to the mourners' bench.

Later in the day Henderson and Bear Cat, returning from the livery stable, were walking single-file along the narrow plank that served as a sidewalk, when they encountered a young man, blood-shot of eye and malevolent of expression. Either Bear Cat Stacy who was in advance or the newcomer must step down into the mud and surrender the right-of-way. If pedestrians so situated are friends, each will be prompt of courtesy. If they are enemies, ethics require that the weaker will must yield and the stronger hold to its rights.

Now Henderson perceived that the two were confronting each other rigidly. Over Turner's shoulder he could see the bleary eyes of the other smolder with a wrath that he knew meant blood-lust as Bear Cat waved his hand in an imperious gesture which commanded as plainly as words, "Give me the road!"

It was a brief and tense situation, but it was being publicly observed and he who surrendered would be branded in street-corner gossip with cowardice.

Passers-by, across the way, halted and held their breath. The more timid glanced about for shelter should gun-play ensue, but after an instant Ratler Webb turned grudgingly aside and stepped down into the outer road. Bear Cat Stacy walked on, stiffly erect, and he did not turn his head for a backward glance.

Ratler halted where he stood, dangerously snarling, and his hand fumbled for a moment under his coat. He challengingly swept the faces of all men in sight, and murmurs of laughter, which had broken out in sheer relief at a relaxed tension, died as abruptly as they had begun. Every pair of eyes became studiously inattentive.

Through the crowds that overflowed the town moved one figure who seemed more the Ishmaelite than even the disgraced Ratler.

Men who had, in the past, plotted against each other's lives to-day "met an' made their manners" with all outward guise of complete amity, yet this one figure walked ungreeted or recognized only with the curt nod which was in itself a modified ostracism. It must be said of him that he bore the baleful insistence of public enmity with a half-contemptuous steadiness in his own eyes, and a certain bold dignity of bearing. Mark Tapier—mongrelized by mountain pronunciation into Tapper—was the revenue officer and behind him, though operating from remote distance, lay the power of Washington.

To comprehend the universal hatred of the backwoods highlander for the "revenue" one must step back from to-day's standard of vision into the far past and accept that prejudice which existed when as legalistic a mind as Blackstone said: "From its original to the present time, the very name of excise has been odious to the people of England," and when Dr. Johnson defined the term in his dictionary as: "A hateful tax levied upon commodities ... by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid."

Such a "wretch" was Mark Tapper in the local forum of public thought; a wretch with an avocation dependent upon stealth and treachery of broken confidences; profiting like Judas Iscariot upon blood-money.

Yet before the first day of "Big Meeting time" had progressed to noon, Mark Tapper sat in close and secret conference with the strongest and most typical exponent of the old order of the hills.

Into the side door of the Court-house strolled Kinnard Towers at ten-thirty in the morning. From the jailer, who was his vassal, he received the key which unlocked the small study giving off from the Circuit Court-room—the judge's chamber—now vacant and cobwebbed.

In this sanctum of the law's ostensible upholding, surrounded by battered volumes of code and precedent, the man who was above the law received first Jud White, the town marshal.

"I reckon sich a gatherin' of folks es this hyar sort of complicates yore job, Jud," he began blandly. "I thought I ought to tell ye thet Ratler Webb's broguein' round town gittin' fuller of licker an' hostility every minute thet goes by."

The town marshal scowled with a joyless foreboding.

"Mebby," he tentatively mused, "hit moutn't be a bad idee ter clap him in ther jail-house right now—afore he gits too pizen mean ter handle."

But with judicial forbearance Kinnard Towers shook his head. "No, I wouldn't counsel ye ter do thet. Hit wouldn't be hardly lawful. I've done instructed Black Tom Carmichael ter kinderly keep an eye on him." After a moment he casually added: "Thar's bad blood betwixt Ratler an' young Bear Cat Stacy. Hit would sarve a better purpose fer ye ter keep a heedful watch on Bear Cat."

The town marshal's face fell. He felt that to him was being assigned a greater share than his poor deserts in the matter of safe-guarding the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.

Towers caught the crestfallen frown and repressed a twinkle of amusement.

"What's ther matter, Jud? Air ye a-settin' on carpet tacks?" he inquired with even, good humor. "Or air ye jest plain skeered at ther idee of contraryin' Bear Cat Stacy?"

"No, I hain't skeered of Bear Cat," lied the officer, reddening. "Ef he breaches ther peace terday I aims ter jail him fer hit ther same es anybody else." He paused, then broke out with fervor: "But he's a mighty good man ter leave alone, Kinnard. He's ther best man ter leave alone I ever met up with, an' thet's God's own blessed truth."

Towers laughed. "Well, son, I aims ter be kinderly keepin' in touch with Bear Cat Stacy myself, an' ef any ruction rises a-tween ye, I'll be thar ter straighten hit out. So, if need be,—why, jest treat him like anybody else—as ye says—an' don't be narvous about hit."

Ten minutes after the dejected exit of Jud White, Mark Tapper, the Revenuer, entered the front door of the Courthouse and shouldered his way aggressively among loungers who eyed him with hostile vindictiveness. Passing unchallenged between several rifle-bearers in the upper area, he entered the judge's office, where Towers sat expectantly waiting.

Kinnard opened the interview by drawing forth his wallet and counting sundry bank notes into Tapper's extended palm.

"Kinnard," suggested the federal sleuth irritably, "it was clearly understood between us that you were going to limit those stills you're interested in—not develop them into a damned syndicate."

Towers frowned a little. "Ther more thar is of 'em ther more ye gits, don't ye?"

"Yes, and where my revenue, from your hush money, increases a picayune, my peril increases—vastly. One tip to the government, and I'm ruined."

"Oh, pshaw, Mark," urged Towers conciliatingly, "hit's jest an exchange of leetle favors a-tween us. There's some fellers I've got ter kinderly protect an' thar's some information ye needs ter hev in yore business—so 'stid of wagin' war on one another we trades tergether. Thet's all."

For a few moments the revenue officer restlessly paced the room, then, halting before the desk, he rapped sharply with his knuckles. "Since I let myself in for this folly of selling you protection I'm not damned fool enough to try to threaten you. You can hurt me worse than I can hurt you—and have me assassinated to boot—but unless we can arrange things more to my liking, I'll get myself transferred to another district—and you'll have to begin all over again."

Towers did not at once answer. When he did it was with the air of one tendering the olive branch of peace.

"Set down, Mark, an' let's be reasonable. If so be thar's dissatisfaction I reckon we kin fix matters. Right now I've got a bigger project in mind than thet—an' I needs yore aid. This here Jerry Henderson stands mightily in my light an' I aims ter be rid of him. He hain't got no money invested hyar. He kin go without no loss ner trouble. He don't even hev ter put out ther fire an' call ther dawg. He sets by Lone Stacy's fire an' he hain't got no dawg."

"If you mean a watch-dog he doesn't need one—so long as the Stacys choose to protect him."

Towers slowly nodded. "Thet's right, but with Lone Stacy and Bear Cat moved away fer a leetle spell, hit would be as easy as old shoes."

"And how do you aim to move them?"

"Thet's whar you comes in, Mark. Lone's runnin' a blockade still over on Little Slippery."

The revenuer leaned forward with as unreceptive a stare as though his companion had graciously proffered him the gift of a hornet's nest.

"Hold on," he bluntly protested, "I have no evidence of that—and what's more, I don't want any."

"Air you like ther balance of 'em hyarabouts?" came Kinnard's satiric inquiry. "Air ye skeered ter tackle Bear Cat Stacy?"

Mark Tapper replied with entire sincerity.

"Yes, I'm afraid to tackle him—and I'm brave enough to admit it. Once in a century a man like that is born and he's born to be a master. I warn you betimes, Kinnard, leave him alone! Play with a keg of blasting powder and a lighted match if you like. Tickle a kicking mule if you've a mind to, but leave Bear Cat alone!" The minion of the federal law rose from his chair and spoke excitedly. "And if you're hell-bent on starting an avalanche, do it for yourself—don't try to make me pull it down on my own head, because I won't do it."

Kinnard Towers leaned back in the judge's swivel chair and laughed uproariously.

"Mark, right sensibly at times, ye shows signs of human discernment. I hain't seekin' no open rupture with this young tiger cat my own self. I aims ter show in this matter only es his friend. You hain't overly popular with them Stacys nohow an' I've got hit all deevised, ter plumb convince 'em thet ye're only actin' in ther lawful discharge of yore duty."

"That will be very nice—if you succeed," commented the proposed catspaw dryly.

"I aims ter succeed," came the prompt assurance. "I aims ter demonstrate thet thar war so much talkin' goin' round thet ye war plumb obleeged ter act an' thet thar hain't no profit in resistin'. I'll tell 'em hit's a weak case atter all. They won't harm ye. Ye hain't a-goin' ter arrest ther boy nohow—jest ther old man."

"And leave Bear Cat foot-loose to avenge his daddy! No thank you. Not for me."

Again Towers smiled. "Now don't be short-sighted, Mark. Bear Cat won't be hyar neither."

"Why won't he be here? Because you'll tell him to go?"

"I won't need ter say a word. His daddy'll counsel him ter leave fer a spell an' hide out—so thet he kain't be tuck down ter Looeyville fer a gover'ment witness."

"When am I supposed to perform this highly spectacular stunt?" inquired Mark Tapper.

"I aims ter hev ye do hit this afternoon."

"This afternoon—with every foot of street and sidewalk full of wild men, ready to pull me to pieces!" The revenuer's face was hot with amazement. "Besides I have no evidence."

"Ye kin git thet later," Towers assured him calmly. "Besides we don't keer a heap if ye fails ter convict. We only wants 'em outen ther way fer a while. Es fer ther crowds, I'm fixed ter safeguard ye. I've got all my people hyar—ready—an' armed. I aims ter run things an' keep peace in Marlin Town terday!"

CHAPTER X

On the river bank at the outskirts of Marlin Town that afternoon so primitive was the aspect of life that it seemed appropriate to say in Scriptural form: "A great multitude was gathered together." The haze of Indian summer lay veil-like and sweetly brooding along the ridged and purple horizon. The mountainsides flared with torch-like fires of autumnal splendor—and the quaint old town with its shingled roofs and its ox-teams in the streets, lay sleepily quiet in the mid-distance.

Toward the crudely constructed rostrum of the two preachers in long-tailed coats, strained the eyes of the throng, pathetically solemn in their tense earnestness. Men bent with labor and women broken by toil and perennial child-bearing; children whose faces bore the stupid vacuity of in-bred degeneracy; other children alert and keen, needing only the chance they would never have. It was a sea of unlettered humanity in jeans and calico, in hodden-gray and homespun—seeking a sign from Heaven, less to save their immortal souls than to break the tedium of their mortal weariness.

Henderson stood with folded arms beside the preacher whose pattern of faith differed from that of the two exhorters he had come to hear. Blossom's cheeks were abloom and her eyes, back of their grave courtesy, rippled with a suppressed amusement. To her mind, her father exemplified true ministry and these others were interesting quacks, but to Bear Cat, standing at her elbow, they were performers whose clownish antics savored of charlatanism—and who capitalized the illiteracy of their hearers. Lone Stacy was there, too, but with a mask-like impassiveness of feature that betrayed neither the trend nor color of his thought.

Not far distant, though above and beyond the press of the crowd, stood the Towers chief, and his four guardians, and shifting here and there, sauntered others of his henchmen, swinging rifles at their sides and watchful, through their seeming carelessness, for any signal from him. Once for a moment Henderson caught a glimpse of Ratler Webb's skulking figure with a vindictive glance bent upon Bear Cat—but in another instant he had disappeared.

The first of the exhorters had swung into the full tide of his discourse. His arm swung flail-like. His eyes rolled in awe-provoking frenzy. His voice leaped and fell after the fashion of a troubled wind and through his pauses there came back to him the occasional low wail of some almost convinced sinner. Gradually, under this invocation of passionate phrase and "holy-tone," the tide of crowd-psychology was mounting to hysteria.

Between sentences and phrases the preacher interlarded his sermon with grunts of emotion-laden "Oh's" and "Ah's."

"Fer them thet denies ther faith, oh brethren—Oh! Ah! ther pits of hell air yawnin' wide an' red! Almighty God air jest a-bidin' His time afore He kicks 'em inter ther ragin', fiery furnace an' ther caldrons of molten brimstone, Oh! Ah!"

The speaker rolled his eyes skyward until only their whites remained visible. With his upflung fingers clawing talon-wise at the air he froze abruptly out of crescendo into grotesque and motionless silence.

Through the close-ranked listeners ran a shuddering quaver, followed by a sighing sound like rising wind which in turn broke into a shrieking chorus of "Amens!" and "Hallelujahs!"

The simple throng was an instrument upon which he played. Their naive credulity was his keyboard. Joel Fulkerson's eyes were mirrors of silent pain as he looked on and listened. "Lord God," he said in his heart, "I have toiled a lifetime in Thy service and men have hardened their hearts. Yet to these who harangue them in the market-place, they give ear—ay, and shed abundant tears."

Then the long-coated, long-haired preacher having exhausted the dramatic value of the pause, launched himself afresh.

"Ther Lord hes said thet ef a man hes faith, even so sizeable es a mustard seed, he shell say ter thet mounting, 'move' an' hit'll plumb move! Oh-Ah!"

Once more the tone dwindled to a haunting whisper, then vaulted into sudden thunder.

"Brethren, I hev sich faith! Right now I could say ter thet thar mounting thet's stood thar since ther commencement of time, 'Move,' an' hit would roll away like a cloud afore ther wind! Right now afore ye all, I could walk down ter thet river an' cross hits deep waters dry-shod!"

Jerry Henderson, looking with amusement about the overwrought crowd, saw no spirit of skepticism on any untutored face, only a superstitiously deep earnestness everywhere.

Now even the hysterical "Amens!" which had been like responses to a crazed litany were left unspoken. The hearers sat in a strained silence; a voicelessness of bated breath—as if awed into a trance. That stillness held hypnotically and long.

Then like a bomb bursting in a cathedral came a clear voice, frankly scornful and full of challenge from somewhere on the fringe of the congregation.

"All right—let's see ye do hit! Let's see ye walk over ther waters dry-shod!"

Petrified, breathlessly shocked, men and women held for a little space their stunned poses, so that a margin of silence gave emphasis to the sacrilege. Then, gradually gathering volume, from a gasp to a murmur, from a murmur to a sullen roar, spoke the voice of resentment. Some indignant person, wanting full comprehension and seeking only a Biblical form of expression, shouted loudly: "Crucify him!" and following that, pandemonium drowned out individual utterances.

Kinnard Towers did not share in the general excitement. He only bit liberally from his tobacco plug and remarked: "I reckon Bear Cat Stacy's drunk ergin." But Bear Cat Stacy, standing at the point from which he had interrupted the meeting, looked on with blazing eyes and said nothing.

"Now ye've done gone an' made another damn' fool of yourself!" whispered his father hoarsely in his ear. "Ye've done disturbed public worship—an' as like es not hit'll end in bloodshed."

Turner made no reply. His fingers were tense as they gripped biceps equally set. The fury of his face died into quiet seriousness. If the howling mob destroyed him he had, at least, flung down the gauntlet to these impostors who sought to victimize the helplessness of ignorance.

About him surged a crowd with shuffling feet and murmuring undertones; a crowd that moved and swayed like milling cattle in a corral, awaiting only leadership for violence. Then abruptly a pistol shot ripped out, followed instantly by another, and the edges of the throng began an excited eddying of stampede.

The babel of high voices, questioning, volunteering unreliable information, swelling into a deep-throated outcry, became inarticulate. The first impression was that some one in a moment of fanaticism had conceived himself called upon to punish sacrilege. The second had it that Bear Cat Stacy himself, not satisfied with his impious beginnings, was bent on carrying his disturbance to a more sweeping conclusion. Neither assumption was accurate.

A few moments before Bear Cat's outbreak, Kinnard Towers had whispered to Black Tom Carmichael, indicating with a glance of his eye the skulking figure of Ratler Webb, "Watch him."

Nodding in response to that whisper, Black Tom had strolled casually over, stationing himself directly behind Bear Cat. His face wore a calm benignity and his arms were crossed on his breast so peacefully that one would hardly have guessed the right hand caressed the grip of an automatic pistol and that the pistol had already been drawn half free from its hidden holster.

It happened that Ratler's hand, in his coat pocket, was also nursing a weapon. Ratler was biding his time. He had read into every face a contemptuous mockery for his surrender of the road to Turner Stacy that morning. In his disordered brain a fixed idea had festered into the mandate of a single word: "Revengeance."

Then when Bear Cat had drawn down on himself the wrath of an outraged camp-meeting Ratler thought his opportunity knocked. The crowd began to shift and move so that the focus of men's impressions was blurred. Availing himself of that momentary confusion, he stole a little nearer and shifted sidewise so that he might see around Black Tom Carmichael's bulking shoulders. He glanced furtively about him. Kinnard Towers was looking off abstractedly—another way. No one at front or back seemed to be noticing him.

Ratler Webb's arm flashed up with a swiftness that was sheer slight-of-hand and Black Tom's vigilant eye caught a dull glint of blue metal. With a legerdemain superlatively quick, Carmichael's hand, too, flashed from his breast. His pistol spoke, and Ratler's shot was a harmless one into the air. When the startled faces turned that way Ratler was staggering back with a flesh wound and Black Tom was once more standing calmly by. On the ground between his feet and Bear Cat Stacy's, as near to the one as the other, lay a smoking pistol.

"Bear Cat's done shot Ratler Webb!" yelled a treble voice, and again the agitated crowd broke into a confused roar.

Turner bent quickly toward Blossom and spoke in a tense whisper. "Leave hyar fer God's sake. This hain't no place fer you right now!"

The girl's eyes leaped into instant and Amazonian fire and, as her chin came up, she answered in a low voice of unamenable obduracy:

"So long es you stays, I stays, too. I don't aim ter run away."

The crowd was edging in, not swiftly but sullenly and there were faces through whose snarls showed such yellow fangs as suggested a wolf pack. Here and there one could see the flash of a drawn pistol or the glint of a "dirk-knife."

Then, coming reluctantly, yet keyed to his hard duty by the consciousness of Kinnard Towers' scrutiny, Jud White, the town marshal, arrived and laid a hand on Bear Cat's shoulder.

"I reckon," he said, licking his lips, "ye'll hev ter come ter ther jail-house with me, Bear Cat."

"What fer, Jud?" inquired Turner quietly, though the tawny fire was burning in his eyes. "I didn't shoot them shoots."

"Folks ses ye did, Bear Cat."

"Them folks lies."

A sudden crescendo of violent outcry interrupted their debate. Through it came shouts of: "Kill ther blasphemer!" "String him up!"

With a sudden flash of sardonic humor in his eyes Bear Cat suggested softly: "I reckon, Jud, hit's yore duty ter kinderly protect yore prisoner, hain't hit?"

A cold sweat broke out over the face of the town officer and as he stood irresolute, the crowd, in which mob passion was spreading like flames in dry grass, swayed in a brief indicision—and in that moment Brother Fulkerson stood forward, raising his arms above his head.

"Brethren," he cried in a voice that trembled, "I implores ye ter listen ter me. I hain't never lied ter ye afore now, an' unless my labors hev been fer naught, I des'arves ter be h'arkened to."

Curiosity prevailed and the din subsided enough to let the evangelist be heard.

"I was standin' right hyar by Bear Cat Stacy when them shots war fired," Fulkerson went on earnestly, "an' I swears ter ye, with Almighty God fer my witness, thet he didn't hev nothin' more ter do with hit then what I did."

As he paused a sarcastic voice from the crowd demanded: "Will ye swear he didn't aim ter break up ther meetin' neither?"

"Let me answer that question," shouted Bear Cat Stacy, stepping defiantly forward.

There was peril in that interruption, and the young man knew it. He realized that only a savage, cat-and-mouse spirit of prolonging excitement had, so far, held in leash the strained wrath of a crowd worked already to frenzy. But the mountaineer loves oratory of any sort, and a lynching need not be hurried through. They would have listened to Brother Fulkerson—but would they give him a hearing?

For a moment Bear Cat stood there, sweeping them with a gaze that held no fear and a great deal of open scorn. The effrontery of his attitude, the blaze of his eyes and even the rumors of his charmed life were having their effects. Then he spoke:

"Any man thet charges me with blasphemin' lies! Brother Fulkerson hes done toiled his life away amongst ye—an' ye skeercely heeds his preachin'. I believes these fellers thet calls themselves God's sarvents ter be false prophets. Instid of the light of knowledge, they offers ye ther smoke of ign'rance. They hev 'lowed thet they kin work miracles. Ef they kin, why don't they? Ef they kain't they lies an' sich a lie as thet air blasphemy. I called on 'em ter make good thar brag—an' now I calls on 'em ergin! Let's see a miracle."

He ended and, as the voice of the crowd rose once more, this time a shade less unanimous in tone, a strange thing happened. About Bear Cat Stacy and the town marshal appeared a little knot of rifle-armed men, and coming to their front, Kinnard Towers bellowed:

"Men! Listen!"

They looked at his face and his guns—and listened.

"I was standin' whar I could see this whole matter," asserted Towers. "Bear Cat Stacy never drawed nor fired no weepin. My friend Tom Carmichael shot Ratler Webb in deefense of his life. Ratler shot a shoot, too. I counsels ther town marshal not ter jail Bear Cat Stacy, an' I counsels ther rest of ye ter settle down ergin ter quiet. Mebby Bear Cat oughtn't ter hev interrupted ther preachin', but whoever aims ter harm him must needs take him away from me!"

Over the sea of faces ran a wave of amazement sounding out in a prolonged murmur. Here was the incredible situation of a Towers leader vouching for and protecting a Stacy chieftain. Feudal blood tingled with the drama of that realization.

Varied excitements were breaking the drab monotony of life to-day for Marlin Town! A voice shouted, "I reckon Ratler needs a leetle shootin' anyhow," and the sally was greeted with laughter. The tide had turned.

On Bear Cat's face, though, as he wheeled to his powerful rescuer was a mingling of emotions; surprise blended with a frown of unwillingly incurred obligation.

"I'm obleeged ter ye, Kinnard Towers," he said dubiously, "but I reckon I could hev keered fer myself. I hain't seekin' ter be beholden ter ye."

The florid man laughed. "Ye hain't none beholden ter me, son," was his hearty disclaimer. "A man likes ter testify ter ther truth when he sees somebody falsely accused, thet's all."

Brother Fulkerson and his daughter started back to Little Slippery that same evening, meaning to spend the night with friends a few miles from town. After bidding them farewell at the edge of the town, Henderson and Bear Cat strolled back together toward the shack tavern where Jerry had his quarters. The younger man's eyes were brooding, and suddenly he broke out in vehement insurgency:

"I reckon I was a fool down thar by ther river—but I couldn't hold my peace deespite all my effort. Hyar's a land dry-rottin' away in ign'rance—an' no man raisin' his voice fer its real betterment." His tone dropped and became gentle with an undernote of pain. "I looked at Blossom, standin' thar, with a right ter ther best thar is—an' I could foresee ther misery an' tribulation of all this makin' her old in a few years. I jest had ter speak out."

Henderson only nodded. He, too, had been thinking of Blossom, and he realized that wherever he went, when he left the hills, there was going to be an emptiness in his life. He was not going to be able to forget her. The shield which he had always held before his heart had failed to protect him against the dancing eyes of a girl who could not even speak correct English—the tilted chin of a girl who would not flee from a mob.

"Turner," he said, drawing himself together with an effort, "come over to the hotel with me. I'm going down to Louisville for a few days, and I want you to help me make out a list of books for Blossom and yourself."

Turner's eyes lighted. One man at least sought to be, in so far as he could, a torch-bearer.

As they sat talking of titles and authors the boy's face softened and glowed with imagination. Off through the window the peaks bulked loftily against the sunset's ash-of-rose. Both men looked toward the west and a silence fell between them, then they heard hurried footsteps and, without knocking, Jud White the town marshal, flung open the door.

"Bear Cat," he announced briefly, "yore paw bade me fotch ye ter him direct. The revenue hes got him in ther jail-house, charged with blockadin'."

CHAPTER XI

Under the impact of these tidings Turner Stacy came to his feet with a sudden transformation of bearing. The poetic abstraction which had, a moment ago, been a facial mirror for the sunset mysticism, vanished to be harshly usurped by a spirit of sinister wrath.

For several seconds he did not speak, but stood statuesquely taut and strained, the line of his lips straight and unbending over the angle of a set jaw.

The yellow glow of the sinking sun seemed to light him as he stood by the window into a ruddy kinship with bronze, awakening a glint of metallic hardness on cheekbone, temple and dilated nostril. It was the menacing figure of a man whose ancestors had always settled their own scores in private reprisal and by undiscounted tally, and one just now forgetful of all save his heritage of blood.

Then the strained posture relaxed and Bear Cat Stacy inquired in a tone of dead and impersonal calm:

"Mr. Henderson, hev ye got a gun?"

As Jerry shook his head, Bear Cat wheeled abruptly on Jud White: "Lend me yore weepin, Jud," he demanded with a manner of overbearing peremptoriness.

"I'd love ter obleege ye, Bear Cat," haltingly parried the officer, "but I kain't hardly do hit—lawfully."

Volcanic fires burst instantly in the eyes where they had been smoldering, until from them seemed to spurt an outpouring of flame and the voice of command was as explosive as the rending thunders that release a flow of molten lava.

"Don't balk me, Jud," Stacy cautioned. "I'm in dire haste. Air ye goin' ter loan me thet gun of yore own free will or hev I got ter take hit offen ye?"

The town marshal glanced backward toward the exit, but with leopard swiftness Bear Cat was at the door, barring it with the weight of his body, and his breath was coming with deep intake of passion. After an irresolute moment, White surrendered his automatic pistol.

But as Turner gripped the knob, Jerry Henderson laid a deterring hand on his shoulder. "Just a moment, Bear Cat," he said quietly. Somewhat to his surprise the younger man paused and, as he turned his face questioningly to the speaker, some part of its fury dissolved.

"This is a time, Turner, when it's mighty easy to make a mistake," went on the promoter earnestly. "If your father sent for you, it's pretty certain that he wants to speak to you before you take any step."

"Thet's identically what he bade me caution ye, Bear Cat," echoed White. "He 'lowed thar'd be time enough fer reprisal later on."

"Mr. White," Henderson demanded as he turned and fronted the marshal with a questioning gaze, "before he goes over there, I want you to give me your hand that this isn't a scheme to get Bear Cat Stacy in the jail under false pretenses, so that he can be more easily arrested."

"An' answer thet honest," Turner warned vehemently, "because ef I don't walk outen thet jail-house es free es I goes inter hit, you won't never leave hit alive yoreself, Jud. How comes hit ther revenue didn't seek ter arrest me, too?"

"So holp me Almighty God, men," the voice of the officer carried conviction of its sincerity. "I came over hyar only bearin' tidin's from Lone Stacy. I hain't aidin' no revenue. I heered Mark Tapper 'low thet he hedn't no charge ter mek ergin ye jest now."

"In that case," declared Henderson, assuming the rôle of spokesman, "we'll both go with you to the jail. Bear Cat will give me the gun, since he can't go in unsearched, and you will remain with me, unarmed, as a hostage until he comes out."

"Thet satisfies me, all right," readily agreed the town marshal.

The jail-house at Marlin Town squats low of roof and uncompromising in its squareness to the left of the Courthouse; hardly more than a brick pen, sturdily solid and sullenly unlovely of façade.

When father and son met in the bare room where one rude chair was the only furnishing save for a tin basin on a soap-box, the fire of renewed wrath leaped in Turner's eyes and he spoke with a tremor of voice:

"I reckon ye knows full well, pap, thet I don't aim ter let ye lay hyar long. I aims ter tek ye outen hyar afore sun-up—ef I hes ter take ye single-handed!"

The sunset was fading and in the bleak cell there was a grayness relieved only by the dim light from a high, barred slit that served as a window. The two men had to peer intently at each other through widened pupils to read the expression of lips and eyes.

Old Lone Stacy smiled grimly.

"I'm obleeged ter ye, son." His response was quiet. "An' I knows ye means what ye says, but jest now ye've got ter let me decide whether hit's a fit time ter wage war—or submit."

"Submit!" echoed the son in blank amazement. "Ye don't aim ter let 'em penitenshery ye ergin, does ye?"

Laying a soothing hand on the arm that shook passionately, the senior went on in a modulated voice.

"I've done studied this matter out, son, more ca'mly then you've hed time ter do yit—an' I discerns how ye kin holp me best. Sometimes hit profits a man more ter study ther fox then ther eagle."

The boy stood there in the half light, finding it bitter to stomach such passive counsel, but he gulped down his rising gorge of fury and forced himself to acquiesce calmly, "I'm hearkenin' ter ye."

"Ther revenue 'lowed thet he war plumb obleeged ter jail me," went on the elder moonshiner evenly, "because tidin's hes done reached ther men up above him."

"I aims ter compel Mark Tapper ter give me ther names of them damn' tale-bearers," exploded Bear Cat violently, "an' I'm a-goin' ter settle with him an' them, too, in due course."

But again Lone Stacy shook his head.

"Thet would only bring on more trouble," he declared steadfastly. "Mark Tapper made admission thet he hes a weak case, an' he said thet ef I went with him peaceable he wouldn't press hit no further then what he war compelled ter. He 'lowed he hedn't no evidence erginst you. I don't believe he's seed our still yit an' ef ye heeds my counsel, he won't never see hit."

"What does ye counsel then? I'm a-listenin'."

Lone Stacy's voice cast off its almost conciliating tone and became one of command. "I wants thet ye shell ride back over thar es fast es a beast kin carry ye—an' git thar afore ther revenue. I wants thet ye shell move thet still into a place of safe concealment erginst his comin', I wants thet 'stid of tryin' ter carcumvent him ye sha'n't be thar at all when he comes."

"Not be thar?" The words were echoed in surprise, and the older head bowed gravely.

"Jist so. Ef they don't find ther copper worm ner ther kittle—an' don't git ye ter testify ergin me, I've still got a right gay chanst ter come cl'ar."

"Does ye 'low," demanded the son with deeply hurt pride, "that anybody this side of hell-a-poppin' could fo'ce me ter give testimony ergin my own blood?"

Again the wrinkled hand of the father fell on the shoulder of his son. It was as near to a caress as his undemonstrative nature could approach.

"I wouldn't hev ye perjure yoreself, son—an' without ye did thet—ye'd convict me—ef ye was thar in Co'te."

Turner glanced up at the narrow slit in the brick wall through which now showed only a greenish strip of pallid sky. His lips worked spasmodically. "I come over hyar resolved ter sot ye free," he said slowly, "ter fight my way outen hyar an' take ye along with me—but I'm ready ter heed yore counsel."

"Then ride over home es fast es ye kin go—an' when ye've told yore maw what's happened, an' hid ther still, take Lee along with ye an' go cl'ar acrost inter Virginny whar no summons sarver kain't find ye. Stay plumb away from hyar till I sends ye word. Tell yore maw where I kin reach ye, but don't tell me. I wants ter swear I don't know."

Bear Cat hesitated, then his voice shook with a storm of protest.

"I don't delight none thet ye should go down thar an' sulter in jail whilst I'm up hyar enjoyin' freedom."

The older man met this impetuous outburst with the stoic's fine tranquillity.

"When they tuck me afore," he said, "I left yore maw unprotected behind me an' you was only a burden on her then. Now I kin go easy in my mind, knowin' she's got you." The prisoner's voice softened. "She war a mighty purty gal, yore maw, in them times. Right sensibly Blossom Fulkerson puts me in mind of her now."

Lone Stacy broke off with abruptness and added gruffly: "I reckon ye'd better be a-startin' home now—hit's comin' on ter be nightfall."

As Turner Stacy went out he turned and looked back. The cell was almost totally dark now and its inmate had reseated himself, his shoulders sagging dejectedly. "I'll do what he bids me now," Bear Cat told himself grimly, "but some day thar's a-goin' ter be a reckonin'."

On his way to the livery stable he met Kinnard Towers on foot but, as always, under escort. Still stinging under the chagrin of an hereditary enemy's gratuitous intervention in his behalf and a deep-seated suspicion of the man, he halted stiffly and his brow was lowering.

"Air these hyar tidin's true, Bear Cat? I've heerd thet yore paw's done been jailed," demanded Kinnard solicitously, ignoring the coldness of his greeting. "Kin I holp ye in any fashion?"

"No, we don't need no aid," was the curt response. "Ef we did we'd call on ther Stacys fer hit."

Towers smiled. "I aimed ter show ye this a'tternoon thet I felt friendly, Turner."

The manner was seemingly so sincere that the young man felt ashamed of his contrasting churlishness and hastened to amend it.

"I reckon I hev need ter ask yore pardon, Kinnard. I'm sore fretted about this matter."

"An' I don't blame ye neither, son. I jest stopped ter acquaint ye with what folks says. This hyar whole matter looks like a sort of bluff on Mark Tapper's part ter make a good showin' with ther government. He hain't hardly got nothin' but hearsay ter go on—unless he kin make you testify. Ef ye was ter kinderly disappear now fer a space of time, I reckon nothin' much wouldn't come of hit."

"I'm obleeged ter ye Kinnard. Paw hes don' give me ther same counsel," said Bear Cat, as he hurried to the stable where he parted with Jerry Henderson after a brief and earnest interview.

It was with a very set face and with very deep thoughts that Bear Cat Stacy set out for his home on Little Slippery. He rode all night with the starlight and the clean sweep of mountain wind in his face, and at sunrise stabled his mount at the cabin of a kinsman and started on again by a short cut "over the roughs" where a man can travel faster on foot.

When eventually he entered the door of his house his mother looked across the dish she was drying to inquire, "Where's yore paw at?"

He told her and, under the sudden scorn in her eyes, he flinched.

"Ye went down thar ter town with him," she accused in the high falsetto of wrath, "an' ye come back scot free an' abandoned him ter ther penitenshery an' ye didn't raise a hand ter save him! Ef hit hed of been me I'd hev brought him home safe or I wouldn't of been hyar myself ter tell of hit!"

Bear Cat Stacy went over and took the woman's wasted hands in both of his own. As he looked down on her from his six feet of height there came into his eyes a gentleness so winning that his expression was one of surprising and tender sweetness.

"Does ye 'low," he asked softly, "that I'd hev done thet ef he hadn't p'intedly an' severely bid me do hit?"

He told her the story in all its detail and as she listened no tears came into her eyes to relieve the hard misery of her face. But when he had drawn a chair for her to the hearth and she had seated herself stolidly there, he realized that he must go and remove the evidence which still remained back there in the laurel thickets. He left her tearless and haggard of expression, gazing dully ahead of her at the ashes of the burned-out fire; the gaunt figure of a mountain woman to whom life is a serial of apprehension.

When he came back at sunset she still sat there, bending tearlessly forward, and it was not until he had crossed the threshold that he saw another figure rise from its knees. Blossom Fulkerson had been kneeling with her arms about the shrunken shoulders—but how long, he did not know.

"Blossom," he said that evening as he was starting away into banishment across the Virginia boundary, "I don't know how long I'm a-goin' ter be gone, but I reckon you knows how I feels. I've done asked Mr. Henderson ter look atter ye, when he comes back from Louisville. He aims ter see ter hit that paw gits ther best lawyers ter defend him while he's thar."

"I reckon then," replied the girl with a faith of hero-worship which sent a sharp paroxysm of pain into Bear Cat's heart, "thet yore paw will mighty sartain come cl'ar."

They were standing by the gate of the Stacy house, for Blossom meant to spend that night with the lone woman who sat staring dully into the blackened fireplace. To the lips of the departing lover rose a question, inspired by that note of admiration which had lent a thrill to her voice at mention of Jerry Henderson, but he sternly repressed it.

To catechize her love would be disloyal and ungenerous. It would be a wrong alike to her whom he trusted and to the man who was his loyal friend—and hers. But in his heart, already sore with the prospect of exile, with the thought of that dejectedly rocking figure inside and the other figure he had left in the neutral grayness of the jail cell, awakened a new ache. He was thinking how untutored and raw he must seem now that his life had been thrown into the parallel of contrast with the man who knew the broad world of "down below" and even of over-seas. If to Blossom's thinking he himself had shrunken in stature, it was not a surprising thing—but that did not rob the realization of its cutting edge or its barb.

"Blossom," he said, as his face once more became ineffably gentle, "thar's ther evenin' star comin' up over ther Wilderness Ridges." He took both her hands in his and looked not at the evening star but into the eyes that she lifted to gaze at it. "So long es I'm away—so long es I lives—I won't never see hit withouten I thinks of you. But hit hain't only when I see hit thet I thinks of ye—hit's always. I reckon ye don't sca'cely realize even a leetle portion of how much I loves ye." He fell for a space silent, his glance caressing her, then added unsteadily and with an effort to smile, "I reckon thet's jest got ter be a secret a-tween ther Almighty, Who knows everything—an' me thet don't know much else but jest thet!"

She pressed his hands, but she did not put her arms about him nor offer to kiss him, and he reflected rather wretchedly that she had done that only once. Though it might be ungenerous to think of it, save as a coincidence, that one time had been before Jerry Henderson had been on the scene for twenty-four hours.

Bear Cat Stacy, with the lemon afterglow at his back and only the darkness before his face, was carrying a burdened spirit over into old Virginia, where for the first time in his life he must, like some red-handed murderer, "hide out" from the law.

Kinnard Towers felt that his plans had worked with a well-oiled precision until the day after Lone Stacy's arrest, when he awoke to receive the unwelcome tidings that Jerry Henderson had taken the train at four o'clock that morning for Louisville.

For a moment black rage possessed him, then it cleared away into a more philosophical mood as his informant added, "But he 'lowed ter several folks thet he aimed ter come back ergin in about a week's time."

On that trip to Louisville Jerry Henderson saw to it that old Lone Stacy should face trial with every advantage of learned and distinguished counsel.

Jerry and President Williams of the C. and S.-E. Railways knew, though the public did not, that the expenses of that defense were to be charged up to the road's accounts under the head of "Incidentals—in re Cedar Mountain extension."

Old Lone had been an unconscious sponsor during these months and his friendship warranted recognition, not only for what he had done, but also for what he might yet do.

But the promoter's stay in the city was not happy since he found himself floundering in a quandary of mind and heart which he could no longer laugh away. He had heretofore boasted an adequate strength to regulate and discipline his life. Such a power he had always regarded as test and measure of an ambitious man's effectiveness. Its failure, total or partial, was a flaw which endangered the metal and temper of resolution.

On these keen and bracing days, as he walked briskly along the streets of the city, he found himself instinctively searching for a face not to be found; the face of Blossom Fulkerson and always upon realization followed a pang of disappointment. Unless he watched himself he would be idiotically falling in love with her, he mused, which was only a vain denial that he was already in love with her.

It was in their half-conscious pervasiveness, their dream-like subtlety, that these influences were strongest. When they emerged into the full light of consciousness he laughed them away. Such fantasies did not fit into his pattern of life. They were suicidally dangerous. Yet they lingered in the fairy land of the partially realized.

He wished that her ancestors had been among those who had won through to the promised land of the bluegrass, instead of those who had been stranded in the dry-rot of the hills. In that event, perhaps, her grandmothers would have been ladies in brocade and powdered hair instead of bent crones dipping snuff by cabin hearth-stones. All their inherent fineness of mind and charm, Blossom had—under the submerging of generations. The most stately garden will go to ragged and weed-choked desolation if left too long untended.

But he could hardly hope to make his more fashionable world see that. The freshness of her charm would be less obvious than the lapses of her grammar; the flash of her wit less marked than her difficulties with a tea-cup.

Blossom, too, of late had been troubled with a restlessness of spirit, new to her experience. Until that day last June upon which so many important things had happened the gay spontaneity of her nature had dealt little with perplexities. She had acknowledged a deep and unsatisfied yearning for "education" and a fuller life, but even that was not poignantly destructive of happiness.

Then within a space of twenty-four hours, Henderson had made his appearance, bringing a sense of contact with the wonder-world beyond the purple barriers; she had prayed through the night for Turner and he had come to her at dawn with his pledge—and finally, she had confessed her love.

In short she had matured with that swift sequence of happenings into womanhood, and since then nothing had been quite the same. But of all the unsettling elements, the disturbing-in-chief was Jerry Henderson. He had flashed into her life with all the startling fascination of Cinderella's prince, and matters hitherto accepted as axiomatic remained no longer certain.

"Gittin' education" had before that meant keeping pace with Turner's ambition. Now it involved a pathetic effort to raise herself to Henderson's more complex plane.

She had sought as studiously as Jerry himself to banish the absurd idea that this readjustment of values was sentimental, and she had as signally failed.

These changes in herself had been of such gradual incubation that she had never realized their force sufficiently to face and analyze them—yet she had sent young Stacy away without a caress!

"I'm jest the same as plighted to Bear Cat," she told herself accusingly, because loyalty was an element of her blood. "I ain't hardly got ther right to think of Mr. Henderson." But she did think of him. Perhaps she was culpable, but she was very young. Turner had seemed a planet among small stars—then Jerry had come like a flaming comet—and her heart was in sore doubt.

When, on his return, Henderson dropped from the step of the rickety day-coach to the cinder platform of the station at Marlin Town, he met Uncle Israel Calvert who paused to greet him.

"Wa'al howdy, stranger," began the old man with a full volumed heartiness, then he added swiftly under his breath and with almost as little movement of his lips as a ventriloquist. "Don't leave town withouten ye sees me fust—hit's urgent. Don't appear ter hev much speech with me in public. Meet me at ther Farmers' Bank—upsta'rs—one hour hence."

Jerry Henderson recognized the whispered message as a warning which it would be foolhardiness to ignore. Probably even as he received it he was under surveillance, so instead of setting out at once on foot, he waited and at the appointed time strolled with every appearance of unconcern into the Farmers' Bank.

At the same time Black Tom Carmichael happened in to have a two-dollar bill changed into silver, and overheard the cashier saying in a matter-of-fact voice, "Thar's been some little tangle in yore balance, Mr. Henderson. Would ye mind steppin' up to the directors' room an' seein' ef ye kin straighten it out with the bookkeeper. She's up thar."

With a smile of assent Henderson mounted the narrow stairs and Black Tom lighted his pipe and loafed with inquisitive indolence below.

CHAPTER XII

Instead of a puzzled accountant Jerry found in the bare upper room the rosy-faced, white-haired man who had given him credentials when he first arrived in the hills, and who kept the store over on Big Ivy.

"I come over hyar on my way ter Knoxville ter lay me in a stock of winter goods," volunteered the storekeeper, "an' I 'lowed I'd tarry an' hev speech with ye afore I fared any further on." As he spoke he tilted back his chair, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets.

Henderson lifted his brows in interrogation and the storekeeper proceeded with deliberate emphasis.

"Somebody, I hain't found out jest who—aims ter hev ye lay-wayed on yore trip acrost ther mounting. I felt obleeged ter warn ye."

"Have me way-laid," repeated Jerry blankly, "what for?"

Uncle Israel shook his silvery poll. "I hain't hardly got ther power ter answer thet," he said, "but thar's right-smart loose talk goin' round. Some folks laments thet ye 'lowed ter teach profitable farmin' an' ye hain't done nothin'. They 'lows ye must hev some crooked projeck afoot. This much is all I jedgmatic'lly knows, Joe Campbell was over ter Hook Brewer's blind tiger, on Skinflint, last week. Some fellers got ter drinkin' an' talkin' aimless-like an' yore name come up. Somebody 'lowed thet yore tarryin' hyar warn't a-goin' ter be tolerated no longer, an' thet he knowed of a plan ter git ye es ye crossed ther mounting whilst Lone Stacy an' Bear Cat was both away. Joe, bein' a kinsman of mine an' Lone's, told me. Thet's all I knows, but ef I was you I wouldn't disregard hit."

"What would you advise, Uncle Israel?"

"Does ye plumb pi'ntedly hev ter go over thar? Ye couldn't jest linger hyar in town twell ther night train pulls out an' go away on hit?"

Henderson shook his head with a sharp snap of decisiveness. "No, I'm not ready to be scared away just yet by enemies that threaten me from ambush. I mean to cross the mountain."

For a moment the old storekeeper chewed reflectively on the stem of his pipe, then he nodded his approval and went on:

"No, I didn't hardly 'low ye'd submit ter ther likes of thet without no debate." He lifted a package wrapped in newspaper which lay at his elbow on the table. "This hyar's one of them new-fangled automatic pistols and a box of ca'tridges ter fit hit. I reckon ye'd better slip hit inter yore pocket.... When I started over hyar, I borrowed a mule from Lone Stacy's house ... hit's at ther liv'ry-stable now an' ye kin call fer hit an' ride hit back."

"I usually go on foot," interrupted Henderson, but Uncle Israel raised a hand, commanding attention.

"I knows thet, but this time hit'll profit ye ter ride ther mule. He's got calked irons on his feet an' every man knows his tracks in ther mud.... They won't sca'cely aim ter lay-way yer till ye gits a good ways out from town, whar ther timber's more la'rely an' wild-like.... Word'll go on ahead of ye by them leetle deestrick telephone boxes thet ye're comin' mule-back an' they'll 'low ye don't suspicion nothin'. They will be a-watchin' fer ther mule then ... an' ef ye starts out within ther hour's time ye kin make hit ter the head of Leetle Ivy by nightfall."