THE PRODIGAL JUDGE

By Vaughan Kester

CONTENTS

[ CHAPTER I. ] THE BOY AT THE BARONY
[ CHAPTER II. ] YANCY TELLS A MORAL TALE
[ CHAPTER III. ] TROUBLE AT SCRATCH HILL
[ CHAPTER IV. ] LAW AT BALAAM'S CROSS-ROADS
[ CHAPTER V. ] THE ENCOUNTER
[ CHAPTER VI. ] BETTY SETS OUT FOR TENNESSEE
[ CHAPTER VII. ] THE FIGHT AT SLOSSON'S TAVERN
[ CHAPTER VIII. ] ON THE RIVER
[ CHAPTER IX. ] JUDGE SLOCUM PRICE
[ CHAPTER X. ] BOON COMPANIONS
[ CHAPTER XI. ] THE ORATOR OF THE DAY
[ CHAPTER XII. ] THE FAMILY ON THE RAFT
[ CHAPTER XIII. ] THE JUDGE BREAKS JAIL
[ CHAPTER XIV. ] BELLE PLAIN
[ CHAPTER XV. ] THE SHOOTING-MATCH AT BOGGS'
[ CHAPTER XVI. ] THE PORTAL OF HOPE
[ CHAPTER XVII. ] BOB YANCY FINDS HIMSELF
[ CHAPTER XVIII. ] AN ORPHAN MAN OF TITLE
[ CHAPTER XIX. ] THE JUDGE SEES A GHOST
[ CHAPTER XX. ] THE WARNING
[ CHAPTER XXI. ] THICKET POINT
[ CHAPTER XXII. ] AT THE CHURCH DOOR
[ CHAPTER XXIII. ] THE JUDGE OFFERS A REWARD
[ CHAPTER XXIV. ] THE CABIN ACROSS THE BAYOU
[ CHAPTER XXV. ] THE JUDGE EXTENDS HIS CREDIT
[ CHAPTER XXVI. ] BETTY LEAVES BELLE PLAIN
[ CHAPTER XXVII. ] PRISONERS
[ CHAPTER XXVIII. ] THE JUDGE MEETS THE SITUATION
[ CHAPTER XXIX. ] COLONEL FENTRESS
[ CHAPTER XXX. ] THE BUBBLE BURSTS
[ CHAPTER XXXI. ] THE KEEL BOAT
[ CHAPTER XXXII. ] THE RAFT AGAIN
[ CHAPTER XXXIII. ] THE JUDGE RECEIVES A LETTER
[ CHAPTER XXXIV. ] THE DUEL
[ CHAPTER XXXV. ] A CRISIS AT THE COURT-HOUSE
[ CHAPTER XXXVI. ] THE END AND THE BEGINNING

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CHAPTER I. THE BOY AT THE BARONY

The Quintards had not prospered on the barren lands of the pine woods whither they had emigrated to escape the malaria of the low coast, but this no longer mattered, for the last of his name and race, old General Quintard, was dead in the great house his father had built almost a century before and the thin acres of the Barony, where he had made his last stand against age and poverty, were to claim him, now that he had given up the struggle in their midst. The two or three old slaves about the place, stricken with a sense of the futility of the fight their master had made, mourned for him and for themselves, but of his own blood and class none was present.

Shy dwellers from the pine woods, lanky jeans-clad men and sunbonneted women, who were gathering for the burial of the famous man of their neighborhood, grouped themselves about the lawn which had long since sunk to the uses of a pasture lot. Singly or by twos and threes they stole up the steps and across the wide porch to the open door. On the right of the long hall another door stood open, and who wished could enter the drawing-room, with its splendid green and gold paper, and the wonderful fireplace with the Dutch tiles that graphically depicted the story of Jonah and the whale.

Here the general lay in state. The slaves had dressed their old master in the uniform he had worn as a colonel of the continental line, but the thin shoulders of the wasted figure no longer filled the buff and blue coat. The high-bred face, once proud and masterful no doubt, as became the face of a Quintard, spoke of more than age and poverty—it was infinitely sorrowful. Yet there was something harsh and unforgiving in the lines death had fixed there, which might have been taken as the visible impress of that mystery, the bitterness of which had misshaped the dead man's nature; but the resolute lips had closed for ever on their secret, and the broken spirit had gone perhaps to learn how poor a thing its pride had been.

Though he had lived continuously at the Barony for almost a quarter of a century, there was none among his neighbors who could say he had looked on that thin, aquiline face in all that time. Yet they had known much of him, for the gossip of the slaves, who had been his only friends in those years he had chosen to deny himself to other friends, had gone far and wide over the county.

That notable man of business, Jonathan Crenshaw—and this superiority was especially evident when the business chanced to be his own—was closeted in the library with a stranger to whom rumor fixed the name of Bladen, supposing him to be the legal representative of certain remote connections of the old general's.

Crenshaw sat before the flat-topped mahogany desk in the center of the room with several well-thumbed account-books open before him. Bladen, in riding dress, stood by the window.

“I suppose you will buy in the property when it comes up for sale?” the latter was saying.

Mr. Crenshaw had already made it plain that General Quintard's creditors would have lean pickings at the Barony, intimating that he himself was the chiefest of these and the one to suffer most grievously in pocket. Further than this, Mr. Bladen saw that the old house was a ruin, scarcely habitable, and that the thin acres, though they were many and a royal grant, were of the slightest value. Crenshaw nodded his acquiescence to the lawyer's conjecture touching the ultimate fate of the Barony.

“I reckon, sir, I'll want to protect myself, but if there are any of his own kin who have a fancy to the place I'll put no obstacle in their way.”

“Who are the other creditors?” asked Bladen.

“There ain't none, sir; they just got tired waiting on him, and when they began to sue and get judgment the old general would send me word to settle with them, and their claims passed into my hands. I was in too deep to draw out. But for the last ten years his dealings were all with me; I furnished the supplies for the place here. It didn't amount to much, as there was only him and the darkies, and the account ran on from year to year.”

“He lived entirely alone, saw no one, I understand,” said Bladen.

“Alone with his two or three old slaves—yes, sir. He wouldn't even see me; Joe, his old nigger, would fetch orders for this or that. Once or twice I rode out to see him, but I wa'n't even allowed inside that door; the message I got was that he couldn't be disturbed, and the last time I come he sent me word that if I annoyed him again he would be forced to terminate our business relations. That was pretty strong talk, wa'n't it, when you consider that I could have sold the roof from over his head and the land from under his feet? Oh, well, I just put it down to childishness.” There was a brief pause, then Crenshaw spoke again. “I reckon, sir, if you know anything about the old general's private affairs you don't feel no call to speak on that point?” he observed, and with evident regret. He had hoped that Bladen would clear up the mystery, for certainly it must have been some sinister tragedy that had cost the general his grip on life and for twenty years and more had made of him a recluse, so that the faces of his friends had become as the faces of strangers.

“My dear sir, I know nothing of General Quintard's private, history. I am even unacquainted with my clients, who are distant cousins, but his nearest kin—they live in South Carolina. I was merely instructed to represent them in the event of his death and to look after their interests.”

“That's business,” said Crenshaw, nodding.

“All I know is this: General Quintard was a conspicuous man in these parts fifty years ago; that was before my time, Mr. Crenshaw, and I take it, too, it was before yours; he married a Beaufort.”

“So he did,” said Crenshaw, “and there was one child, a daughter; she married a South Carolinian by the name of Turberville. I remember that, fo' they were married under the gallery in the hall. Great folks, those Turbervilles, rolling rich. My father was manager then fo' the general—that was nearly forty years ago. There was life here then, sir; the place was alive with niggers and the house full of guests from one month's end to another.” He drummed on the desktop. “Who'd a thought it wa'n't to last for ever!”

“And what became of the daughter who married Turberville?”

“Died years ago,” said Crenshaw. “She was here the last time about thirty years back. It wa'n't so easy to get about in those days, no roads to speak of and no stages, and besides, the old general wa'n't much here nohow; her going away had sort of broken up his home, I reckon. Then the place stood empty fo' a few years, most of the slaves were sold off, and the fields began to grow up. No one rightly knew, but the general was supposed to be traveling up yonder in the No'th, sir. As I say, things ran along this way quite a while, and then one morning when I went to my store my clerk says, 'There's an old white-headed nigger been waiting round here fo' a word with you, Mr. Crenshaw.' It was Joe, the general's body servant, and when I'd shook hands with him I said, 'When's the master expected back?' You see, I thought Joe had been sent on ahead to open the house, but he says, 'General Quintard's at the Barony now,' and then he says, 'The general's compliments, sir, and will you see that this order is filled?' Well, Mr. Bladen, I and my father had factored the Barony fo' fifteen years and upward, but that was the first time the supplies fo' the general's table had ever been toted here in a meal sack!

“I rode out that very afternoon, but Joe, who was one of your mannerly niggers, met me at the door and says, 'Mr. Crenshaw, the general appreciates this courtesy, but regrets that he is unable to see you, sir.' After that it wa'n't long in getting about that the general was a changed man. Other folks came here to welcome him back and he refused to see them, but the reason of it we never learned. Joe, who probably knew, was one of your close niggers; there was, no getting anything out of him; you could talk with that darky by the hour, sir, and he left you feeling emptier than if he'd kept his mouth shut.”

They were interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in,” said Crenshaw, a trifle impatiently, and in response to his bidding the door opened and a small boy entered the room dragging after him a long rifle. Suddenly overcome by a speechless shyness, he paused on the threshold to stare with round, wondering eyes at the two men. “Well, sonny, what do you want?” asked Mr. Crenshaw indulgently.

The boy opened his mouth, but his courage failed him, and with his courage went the words he would have spoken.

“Who is this?” asked Bladen.

“I'll tell, you presently,” said Crenshaw. “Come, speak up, sonny, what do you want?”

“Please, sir, I want this here old spo'tin' rifle,” said: the child. “Please, sir, I want to keep it,” he added.

“Well, you run along on out of here with your old spo'tin' rifle!” said Crenshaw good-naturedly.

“Please, sir, am I to keep it?”

“Yes, I reckon you may keep it—least I've no objection.” Crenshaw glanced at Bladen.

“Oh, by all means,” said the latter. Spasms of delight shook the small figure, and with a murmur that was meant for thanks he backed from the room, closing the door. Bladen glanced inquiringly at Crenshaw.

“You want to know about him, sir? Well, that's Hannibal Wayne Hazard.”

“Hannibal Wayne Hazard?” repeated Bladen.

“Yes, sir; the general was the authority on that point, but who Hannibal Wayne Hazard is and how he happens to be at the Barony is another mystery—just wait a minute, sir—” and quitting his chair Mr. Crenshaw hurried from the room to return almost immediately with a tall countryman. “Mr. Bladen, this is Bob Yancy. Bob, the gentleman, wants to hear about the woman and the child; that's your story.”

“Howdy, sir,” said Mr. Yancy. He appeared to meditate on the mental effort that was required of him, then he took a long breath. “It was this a-ways—” he began with a soft drawl, and then paused. “You give me the dates, Mr. John, fo' I disremember.”

“It was four year ago come next Christmas,” said Crenshaw.

“Old Christmas,” corrected Mr. Yancy. “Our folks always kept the old Christmas like it was befo' they done mussed up the calendar. I'm agin all changes,” added Mr. Yancy.

“He means the fo'teenth of December,” explained Mr. Crenshaw.

“Not wishin' to dispute your word, Mr. John, I mean Christmas,” objected Yancy.

“Oh, very well, he means Christmas then!” said Crenshaw.

“The evening befo', it was, and I'd gone to Fayetteville to get my Christmas fixin's; there was right much rain and some snow falling.” Mr. Yancy's guiding light was clearly accuracy. “Just at sundown I hooked up that blind mule of mine to the cart and started fo' home. As I got shut of the town the stage come in and I seen one passenger, a woman. Now that mule is slow, Mr. John; I'm free to say there are faster mules, but a set of harness never went acrost the back of a slower critter than that one of mine.” Yancy, who thus far had addressed himself to Mr. Crenshaw, now turned to Bladen. “That mule, sir, sees good with his right eye, but it's got a gait like it was looking fo' the left-hand side of the road and wondering what in thunderation had got into it that it was acrost the way; mules are gifted with some sense, but mighty little judgment.”

“Never mind the mule, Bob,” said Crenshaw.

“If I can't make the gentleman believe in the everlasting slowness of that mule of mine, my story ain't worth a hill of beans,” said Yancy.

“The extraordinary slowness of the mule is accepted without question, Mr. Yancy,” said Bladen.

“I'm obliged to you,” rejoined Yancy, and for a brief moment he appeared to commune with himself, then he continued. “A mile out of town I heard some one sloshing through the rain after me; it was dark by that time and I couldn't see who it was, so I pulled up and waited, and then I made out it was a woman. She spoke when she was alongside the cart and says, 'Can you drive me on to the Barony?' and it came to me it was the same woman I'd seen leave the stage. When I got down to help her into the cart I saw she was toting a child in her arms.”

“What did the woman look like, Bob?” said Crenshaw.

“She wa'n't exactly old and she wa'n't young by no manner of means; I remember saying to myself, that child ain't yo's, whose ever it is. Well, sir, I was willing enough to talk, but she wa'n't, she hardly spoke until we came to the red gate, when she says, 'Stop, if you please, I'll walk the rest of the way.' Mind you, she'd known without a word from me we were at the Barony. She give me a dollar, and the last I seen of her she was hurrying through the rain toting the child in her arms.”

Mr. Crenshaw took up the narrative.

“The niggers say the old general almost had a fit when he saw her. Aunt Alsidia let her into the house; I reckon if Joe had been alive she wouldn't have got inside that door, spite of the night!”

“Well?” said Bladen.

“When morning come she was gone, but the child done stayed behind; we always reckoned the lady walked back to Fayetteville sometime befo' day and took the stage. I've heard Aunt Alsidia tell as how the old general said that morning, pale and shaking like, 'You'll find a boy asleep in the red room; he's to be fed and cared fo', but keep him out of my sight. His name is Hannibal Wayne Hazard.' That is all the general ever said on the matter. He never would see the boy, never asked after him even, and the boy lived in the back of the house, with the niggers to look after him. Now, sir, you know as much as we know, which is just next door to nothing.”

The old general was borne across what had once been the west lawn to his resting-place in the neglected acre where the dead and gone of his race lay, and the record of the family was complete, as far as any man knew. Crenshaw watched the grave take shape with a melancholy for which he found no words, yet if words could have come from the mist of ideas in which his mind groped vaguely he would have said that for themselves the deeds of the Quintards had been given the touch of finality, and that whether for good or for evil, the consequences, like the ripple which rises from the surface of placid waters when a stone is dropped, still survived somewhere in the world.

The curious and the idle drifted back to the great house; then the memory of their own affairs, not urgent, generally speaking, but still of some casual interest, took them down the disused carriage-way to the red gate and so off into the heat of the summer day. Crenshaw's wagon, driven by Crenshaw's man, vanished in a cloud of gray dust with the two old slaves, Aunt Alsidia and Uncle Ben, who were being taken to the Crenshaw place to be cared for pending the settlement of the Quintard estate. Bladen parted from Crenshaw with expressions of pleasure at having had the opportunity of making his acquaintance, and further delivered himself of the civil wish that they might soon meet again. Then Crenshaw, assisted by Bob Yancy, proceeded to secure the great house against intrusion.

“I make it a p'int to always stay and see the plumb finish of a thing,” explained Yancy. “Otherwise you're frequently put out by hearing of what happened after you left; I can stand anything but disapp'intment of that kind.”

They passed from room to room securing doors and windows, and at last stepped out upon the back porch.

“Hullo!” said Yancy, pointing.

There on a bench by the kitchen door was a small figure. It was Hannibal Wayne Hazard asleep, with his old spo'tin' rifle across his knees. His very existence had been forgotten.

“Well, I declare to goodness!” said Crenshaw.

“What are you going to do with him, Mr. John?”

This question nettled Crenshaw.

“I don't know as that is any particular affair of mine,” he said. Now, Mr. Crenshaw, though an excellent man of business, with an unblinking eye on number one, was kindly, on the whole, but there was a Mrs. Crenshaw, to whom he rendered a strict account of all his deeds, and that sacred institution, the home, was only a tolerable haven when these deeds were nicely calculated to fit with the lady's exactions. Especially was he aware that Mrs. Crenshaw was averse to children as being inimical to cleanliness and order, oppressive virtues that drove Crenshaw himself in his hours of leisure to the woodshed, where he might spit freely.

“I reckon you'd rather drop a word with yo' missus before you toted him home?” suggested Yancy, who knew something of the nature of his friend's domestic thraldom.

“A woman ought to be boss in her own house,” said Crenshaw.

“Feelin' the truth of that, I've never married, Mr. John; I do as I please and don't have to listen to a passel of opinion. But I was going to say, what's to hinder me from toting that boy to my home? There are no calico petticoats hanging up in my closets.”

“And no closets to hang 'em in, I'll be bound!” rejoined Crenshaw. “But if you'll take the boy, Bob, you shan't lose by it.”

Yancy rested a big knotted hand on the boy's shoulder.

“Come, wake up, sonny! Yo' Uncle Bob is ready fo' to strike out home,” he said. The child roused with a start and stared into the strange bearded face that was bent toward him. “It's yo' Uncle Bob,” continued Yancy in a wheedling tone. “Are you the little nevvy what will help him to hook up that old blind mule of hisn? Here, give us the spo'tin' rifle to tote!”

“Please, sir, where is Aunt Alsidia?” asked the child.

Yancy balanced the rifle on his great palm and his eyes assumed a speculative cast.

“I wonder what's to hinder us from loading this old gun, and firing this old gun, and hearing this old gun go-bang! Eh?”

The child's blue eyes grew wide.

“Like the guns off in the woods?” he asked, in a breathless whisper.

“Like the guns a body hears off in the woods, only louder—heaps louder,” said Yancy. “You fetch out his plunder, Mr. John,” he added in a lower tone.

“Do it now, please,” the child cried, slipping off the bench.

“I was expectin' fo' to hear you name me Uncle Bob, sonny; my little nevvies get almost anything they want out of me when they call me that-a-ways.”

“Please, Uncle Bob, make it go bang!”

“You come along, then,” and Mr. Yancy moved off in the direction of his mule, the child following. “Powder's what we want fo' to make this old spo'tin' rifle talk up, and I reckon we'll find some in a horn flask in the bottom of my cart.” His expectations in this particular were realized, and he loaded the rifle with a small blank charge. “Now,” he said, shaking the powder into the pan by a succession of smart taps on the breech, “sometimes these old pieces go off and sometimes they don't; it depends on the flint, but you stand back of your Uncle Bob, sonny, and keep yo' fingers out of yo' ears, and when you say—bang!—off she goes.”

There was a moment of delightful expectancy, and then—

“Bang!” cried the child, and on the instant the rifle cracked. “Do it again! Please, Uncle Bob!” he cried, wild with delight.

“Now if you was to help yo' Uncle Bob hook up that old mule of hisn and ride home with him, fo' he's going pretty shortly, you and Uncle Bob could do right much shootin' with this old rifle.” Mr. Crenshaw had appeared with a bundle, which he tossed into the cart. Yancy turned to him. “If you meet any inquiring friends, Mr. John, I reckon you may say that my nevvy's gone fo' to pay me a visit. Most of his time will be agreeably spent shootin' with this rifle at a mark, and me holdin' him so he won't get kicked clean off his feet.”

Thereafter beguiling speech flowed steadily from Mr. Yancy's bearded lips, in the midst of which relations were established between the mule and cart, and the boy quitted the Barony for a new world.

“Do you reckon if Uncle Bob was to let you, you could drive, sonny?”

“Can she gallop?” asked the boy.

Mr. Yancy gave him a hurt glance.

“She's too much of a lady to do that,” he said. “No, I 'low this ain't 'so fast as running or walking, but it's a heap quicker than standing stock-still.” The afternoon sun waned as they went deeper and deeper into the pine woods, but at last they came to their journey's end, a widely scattered settlement on a hill above a branch.

“This,” said Mr. Yancy, “are Scratch Hill, sonny. Why Scratch Hill? Some say it's the fleas; others agin hold it's the eternal bother of making a living here, but whether fleas or living you scratch fo' both.”

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CHAPTER II. YANCY TELLS A MORAL TALE

In the deep peace that rested like a benediction on the pine-clad slopes of Scratch Hill the boy Hannibal followed at Yancy's heels as that gentleman pursued the not arduous rounds of temperate industry which made up his daily life, for if Yancy were not completely idle he was responsible for a counterfeit presentment of idleness having most of the merits of the real article. He toiled casually in a small cornfield and a yet smaller truck patch, but his work always began late, when it began at all, and he was easily dissuaded from continuing it; indeed, his attitude toward it seemed to challenge interference.

In the winter, when the weather conditions were perfectly adjusted to meet certain occult exactions he had come to require, Yancy could be induced to go into the woods and there labor with his ax. But as he pointed out to Hannibal, a poor man's capital was his health, and he being a poor man it behooved him to have a jealous care of himself. He made use of the dull days of mingled mist and drizzle for hunting, work being clearly out of the question; one could get about over the brown floor of the forest in silence then, and there was no sun to glint the brass mountings of his rifle. The fine days he professed to regard with keen suspicion as weather breeders, when it was imprudent to go far from home, especially in the direction of the Crenshaw timber lands, which for years had been the scene of all his gainful industry, and where he seemed to think nature ready to assume her most sinister aspect. Again in the early spring, when the young oak leaves were the size of squirrel's ears and the whippoorwills began calling as the long shadows struck through the pine woods, the needs of his corn ground battled with his desire to fish. In all such crises of the soul Mr. Yancy was fairly vanquished before the struggle began; but to the boy his activities were perfectly ordered to yield the largest return in contentment.

The Barony had been offered for sale and bought in by Crenshaw for eleven thousand dollars, this being the amount of his claim. Some six months later he sold the plantation for fifteen thousand dollars to Nathaniel Ferris, of Currituck County.

“There's money in the old place, Bob, at that figure,” Crenshaw told Yancy.

“There are so,” agreed Yancy, who was thinking Crenshaw had lost no time in getting it out.

They were seated on the counter in Crenshaw's store at Balaam's Cross Roads, where the heavy odor of black molasses battled with the sprightly smell of salt fish. The merchant held the Scratch Hiller in no small esteem. Their intimacy was of long standing, for the Yancys going down and the Crenshaws coming up had for a brief space flourished on the same social level. Mr. Crenshaw's rise in life, however, had been uninterrupted, while Mr. Yancy, wrapped in a philosophic calm and deeply averse to industry, had permitted the momentum imparted by a remote ancestor to carry him where it would, which was steadily away from that tempered prosperity his family had once boasted as members of the land-owning and slaveholding class.

“I mean there's money in the place fo' Ferris,” Crenshaw explained.

“I reckon yo're right, Mr. John; the old general used to spend a heap on the Barony and we all know he never got a cent back, so I reckon the money's there yet.

“Bladen's got an answer from them South Carolina Quintards, and they don't know nothing about the boy,” said Crenshaw, changing the subject. “So you can rest easy, Bob; they ain't going to want him.”

“Well, sir, that surely is a passel of comfort to me. I find I got all the instincts of a father without having had none of the instincts of a husband.”

A richer, deeper realization of his joy came to Yancy when he had turned his back on Balaam's Cross Roads and set out for home through the fragrant silence of the pine woods. His probable part in the young life chance had placed in his keeping was a glorious thing to the man. He had not cared to speculate on the future; he had believed that friends or kindred must sooner or later claim Hannibal, but now he felt wonderfully secure in Crenshaw's opinion that this was not to be.

Just beyond the Barony, which was midway between Balaam's and the Hill, down the long stretch of sandy road he saw two mounted figures, then as they drew nearer he caught the flutter of skirts and recognized one of the horsewomen. It was Mrs. Ferris, wife of the Barony's new owner. She reined in her horse abreast of his cart.

“Aren't you Mr. Yancy?” she asked.

“Yes, ma'am, that's me—Bob Yancy.” He regarded her with large gray eyes that were frankly approving in their expression, for she was more than commonly agreeable to look upon.

“I am Mrs. Ferris, and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“The same here,” murmured Yancy with winning civility.

Mrs. Ferris' companion leaned forward, her face averted, and stroked her horse's neck with gloved hand.

“This is my friend, Miss Betty Malroy.”

“Glad to know you, ma'am,” said Yancy.

Miss Malroy faced him, smiling. She, too, was very good to look upon, indeed she was quite radiant with youth and beauty.

“We are just returning from Scratch Hill—I think that is what you call it?” said Mrs. Ferris.

“So we do,” agreed Yancy.

“And the dear little boy we met is your nephew, is he not, Mr. Yancy?” It was Betty Malroy who spoke.

“In a manner he is and in a manner he ain't,” explained Yancy, somewhat enigmatically.

“There are quite a number of children at Scratch Hill?” suggested Mrs. Ferris.

“Yes, ma'am, so there are; a body would naturally notice that.”

“And no school—not a church even!” continued Mrs. Ferris in a grieved tone.

“Never has been,” rejoined Yancy cheerfully. He seemed to champion the absence of churches and schools on the score of long usage.

“But what do the people do when they want to go to church?” questioned Mrs. Ferris.

“Never having heard that any of 'em wanted to go I can't say just offhand, but don't you fret none about that, ma'am; there are churches; one's up at the Forks, and there's another at Balaam's Cross Roads.”

“But that's ten miles from Scratch Hill, isn't it?”

“It's all of that,” said Yancy. He sensed it that the lady before him, was a person of much force and energy, capable even of reckless innovation. Mr. Yancy himself was innately conservative; his religious inspiration had been drawn from the Forks and Balaam's Cross Roads. It had seemed to answer very well. Mrs. Ferris fixed his wavering glance.

“Don't you think it is too bad, Mr. Yancy, the way those children have been neglected? There is nothing for them but to run wild.”

“Well, I seen some right good children fetched up that-a-ways—smart, too. You see, ma'am, there's a heap a child can just naturally pick up of himself.”

“Oh!” and the monosyllable was uttered rather weakly. Mr. Yancy's name had been given her as that of a resident of weight and influence in the classic region of Scratch Hill. Miss Malroy came to her friend's rescue.

“Mrs. Ferris thinks the children should have a chance to learn at home. Poor little tots!—they can't walk ten or fifteen miles to Sunday-school, now can they, Mr. Yancy?”

“Bless yo' heart, they won't try to!” said Yancy reassuringly. “Sunday's a day of rest at Scratch Hill. So are most of the other days of the week, but we all aspire to take just a little mo' rest on Sunday than any other day. Sometimes we ain't able to, but that's our aim.”

“Do you know the old deserted cabin by the big pine?—the Blount place?” asked Mrs. Ferris.

“Yes, ma'am, I know it.”

“I am going to have Sunday-school there for those children; they shan't be neglected any longer if I can help it—I should feel guilty, quite guilty! Now won't you let your little nephew come? Perhaps they'll not find it so very terrible, after all.” From which Mr. Yancy concluded that when she invaded it, skepticism had rested as a mantle on Scratch Hill.

“Every one said we would better talk with you, Mr. Yancy, and we were hoping to meet you as we came along,” supplemented Miss Malroy, and her words of flattery were wafted to him with so sweet a smile that Yancy instantly capitulated.

“I reckon you-all can count on my nevvy,” he said.

When he reached Scratch Hill, in the waning light of day, Hannibal, in a state of high excitement, met him at the log shed, which served as a barn.

“I hear you-all have been entertaining visitors while Uncle Bob was away,” observed Yancy, and remembering what Crenshaw had told him, he rested his big hand on the boy's head with a special tenderness.

“There's going to be a school in the cabin in the old field!” said the boy. “May I go?—Oh, Uncle Bob, will you please take me?”

“When's this here school going to begin, anyhow?”

“To-morrow at four o'clock, she said, Uncle Bob.”

“She's a quick lady, ain't she? Well, I expected you'd be hopping around on one leg when you named it to me. You wait until Sunday and see what I do fo' my nevvy,” said Yancy.

He was as good as his implied promise, but the day began discouragingly with an extra and, as it seemed to Hannibal, an unnecessary amount of soap and water.

“You owe it to yo'self to show a clean skin in the house of worship. Just suppose one of them nice ladies was to cast her eye back of yo' ears! She'd surely be put out to name it offhand whether you was black or white. I reckon I'll have to barber you some, too, with the shears.”

“What's school like, Uncle Bob?” asked Hannibal, twisting and squirming under the big resolute hands of the man.

“I can't just say what it's like.”

“Why, didn't you ever go to school, Uncle Bob?”

“Didn't I ever go to school! Where do you reckon I got my education, anyhow? I went to school several times in my young days.”

“On a Sunday, like this?”

“No, the school I tackled was on a week-day.”

“Was it hard?” asked Hannibal, who was beginning to cherish secret misgivings; for surely all this soap and water must have some sinister portent.

“Well, some learn easier than others. I learned middling easy—it didn't take me long—and when I felt I knowed enough I just naturally quit and went on about my business.”

“But what did you learn?” insisted the boy.

“You-all wouldn't know if I told you, because you-all ain't ever been to school yo'self. When you've had yo' education we'll talk over what I learned—it mostly come out of a book.” He hoped his general statement would satisfy Hannibal, but it failed to do so.

“What's a book. Uncle Bob?” he demanded.

“Well, whatever a body don't know naturally he gets out of a book. I reckon the way you twist, Nevvy, mebby you'd admire fo' to lose an ear!” and Mr. Yancy refused further to discuss the knowledge he had garnered in his youth.

Hannibal and Yancy were the first to arrive at the deserted cabin in the old field that afternoon. They found the place had been recently cleaned and swept, while about the wall was ranged a row of benches; there was also a table and two chairs. Yancy inspected the premises with the eye of mature experience.

“Yes, it surely is a school; any one with an education would know that. Just look!—ain't you glad yo' Uncle Bob slicked you up some, now you see what them ladies has done fo' to make this place tidy?”

Shy children from the pine woods, big brothers with little sisters and big sisters with little brothers, drifted out of the encircling forest. Coincident with the arrival of the last of these stragglers Mrs. Ferris and Miss Malroy appeared, attended by a colored groom.

“It was so good of you to come, Mr. Yancy! The children won't feel so shy with you here,” said Mrs. Ferris warmly, as Yancy assisted her to dismount, an act of courtesy that called for his finest courage.

Mrs. Ferris' missionary spirit manifested itself agreeably enough on the whole. When she had ranged her flock in a solemn-faced row on the benches, she began by explaining why Sunday was set apart for a day of rest, touching but lightly on its deeper significance as a day of worship as well; then she read certain chapters from the Bible, finishing with the story of David, a narrative that made a deep impression upon Yancy, comfortably seated in the doorway.

“Can't you tell the children a story, Mr. Yancy? Something about their own neighborhood I think would be nice, something with a moral,” the pleasant earnest voice f Mrs. Ferris roused the Scratch Hiller from his meditations.

“Yes, ma'am, I reckon I can tell 'em a story.” He stood up, filling the doorway with his bulk. “I can tell you-all a story about this here house,” he said, addressing himself to the children. He smiled happily. “You-all don't need to look so solemn, a body ain't going to snap at you! This house are the old Blount cabin, but the Blounts done moved away from it years and years ago. They're down Fayetteville way now. There was a passel of 'em and they was about as common a lot of white folks as you'd find anywhere; I know, because I come to a dance here once and Dave Blount called me a liar right in this very room.” He paused, that this impressive fact might disseminate itself. Hannibal slid forward in his seat, his earnest little face bent on Yancy.

“Why did he call you a liar, Uncle Bob?” he demanded.

“Well, I scarcely know, Nevvy, but that's what he done, and he stuck some words in front of it that ain't fitten I should repeat.”

Miss Malroy's cheeks had become very red, and Mrs. Ferris refused to meet her eye, while the children were in a flutter of pleased expectancy. They felt the wholly contemporary interest of Yancy's story; he was dealing with forms of speech which prevailed and were usually provocative of consequences more or less serious. He gave them a wide, sunny smile.

“When Dave Blount called me that, I struck out fo' home.” At this surprising turn in the narrative the children looked their disgust, and Mrs. Ferris shot Betty a triumphant glance. “Yes, ma'am, I struck out across the fields fo' home, I didn't wish to hear no mo' of that loose kind of talk. When I got home I found my old daddy setting up afo' the fire, and he says, 'You come away early, son.' I told him what Dave Blount had called me and he says, 'You acted like a gentleman, Bob, with all them womenfolks about.”'

“You had a very good and sensible father, Mr. Yancy. How much better than if—” began Mrs. Ferris, who feared that the moral might elude him.

“Yes, ma'am, but along about day he come into the loft where I was sleeping and says to me, 'Sun-up, Bob—time fo' you to haul on yo' pants and go back yonder and fetch that Dave Blount a smack in the jaw.'” Mrs. Ferris moved uneasily in her chair: “I dressed and come here, but when I asked fo' Dave he wouldn't step outside, so I just lost patience with his foolishness and took a crack at him standing where I'm standing now, but he ducked and you can still see, ma'am”—turning to the embarrassed Mrs. Ferris—“where my knuckles made a dint in the door-jamb. I got him the next lick, though!”

Mr. Yancy's moral tale had reached its conclusion; it was not for him to boast unduly of his prowess.

“Uncle Bob, you lift me up and show me them dints!” and Hannibal slipped from his seat.

“Oh, no!” said Betty Malroy laughing. She captured the boy and drew him down beside her on a corner of her chair. “I am sure you don't want to see the dents—Mr. Yancy's story, children, is to teach us how important it is to guard our words—and not give way to hasty speech—”

“Betty!” cried Mrs. Ferris indignantly.

“Judith, the moral is as obvious as it is necessary.”

Mrs. Ferris gave her a reproachful look and turned to the children.

“You will all be here next Sunday, won't you?—and at the same hour?” she said, rising.

There was a sudden clatter of hoofs beyond the door. A man, well dressed and well mounted had ridden into the yard. As Mrs. Ferris came from the cabin he flung himself out of the saddle and, hat in hand, approached her.

“I am hunting a place called the Barony; can you tell me if I am on the right road?” he asked. He was a man in the early thirties, graceful and powerful of build, with a handsome face.

“It is my husband you wish to see? I am Mrs. Ferris.”

“Then General Quintard is dead?” His tone was one of surprise.

“His death occurred over a year ago, and my husband now owns the Barony; were you a friend of the general's?”

“No, Madam; he was my father's friend, but I had hoped to meet him.” His manner was adroit and plausible.

Mrs. Ferris hesitated. The stranger's dress and bearing was that of a gentleman, and he could boast of his father's friendship with General Quintard. Any doubts she may have had she put aside.

“Will you ride on with us to the Barony and meet my husband, Mr.—?” she paused.

“Murrell—Captain Murrell. Thank you; I should like to see the old place. I should highly value the privilege,” then his eyes rested on Miss Malroy.

“Betty, let me present Captain Murrell.”

The captain bowed, giving her a glance of bold admiration.

By this time the children had straggled off into the pine woods as silently as they had assembled; only Yancy and Hannibal remained. Mrs. Ferris turned to the former.

“If you will close the cabin door, Mr. Yancy, everything will be ready for next Sunday,” she said, and moved toward the horses, followed by Murrell. Betty Malroy lingered for a moment at Hannibal's side.

“Good-by, little boy; you must ask your Uncle Bob to bring you up to the big house to see me,” and stooping she kissed him. “Good-by, Mr. Yancy, I liked your story.”

Hannibal and Yancy watched them mount and ride away, then the boy said:

“Uncle Bob, now them ladies have gone, won't you please show me them dints you made in the doorjamb?”

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER III. TROUBLE AT SCRATCH HILL

Captain Murrell had established himself at Balaam's Cross Roads. He was supposed to be interested in the purchase of a plantation, and in company with Crenshaw visited the numerous tracts of land which the merchant owned; but though he professed delight with the country, he was plainly in no haste to become committed to any one of the several propositions Crenshaw was eager to submit. Later, and still in the guise of a prospective purchaser, he met Bladen, who also dealt extensively in land, and apparently if anything could have pleased him more than the region about the Cross Roads it was the country adjacent to Fayetteville.

From the first he had assiduously cultivated his acquaintance with the new owners of the Barony. He was now on the best of terms with Nat Ferris, and it was at the Barony that he lounged away his evenings, gossiping and smoking with the planter on the wide veranda.

“The Barony would have suited me,” he told Bladen one day. They had just returned from an excursion into the country and were seated in the lawyer's office.

“You say your father was a friend of the old general's?” said Bladen.

“Years ago, in the north—yes,” answered Murrell.

“Odd, isn't it, the way he chose to spend the last years of his life, shut off like that and seeing no one?”

Murrell regarded the lawyer in silence for a moment out of his deeply sunk eyes.

“Too bad about the boy,” he said at length slowly.

“How do you mean, Captain?” asked Bladen.

“I mean it's a pity he has no one except Yancy to look after him,” said Murrell, but Bladen showed no interest and Murrell went on. “Don't you reckon he must have touched General Quintard's life mighty close at some point?”

“Well, if so, it eluded me,” said Bladen. “I went through General Quintard's papers and they contained no clue to the boy's identity that I could discover. Fact is, the general didn't leave much beyond an old account-book or two; I imagine that before his death he destroyed the bulk of his private papers; it looked as if he'd wished to break with the past. His mind must have been affected.”

“Has Yancy any legal claim on the boy?” inquired Murrell.

“No, certainly not; the boy was merely left with Yancy because Crenshaw didn't know what else to do with him.”

“Get possession of him, and if I don't buy land here I'll take him West with me,” said Murrell quietly. Bladen gave him a swift, shrewd glance, but Murrell, smiling and easy, met it frankly. “Come,” he said, “it's a pity he should grow up wild in the pine woods—get him away from Yancy—I am' willing to spend five hundred dollars on this if necessary.”

“As a matter of sentiment?”

“As a matter of sentiment.”

Bladen considered. He was not averse to making five hundred dollars, but he was decidedly averse to letting slip any chance to secure a larger sum. It flashed in upon him that Murrell had uncovered the real purpose of his visit to North Carolina; his interest in land had been merely a subterfuge.

“Well?” said Murrell.

“I'll have to think your proposition over,” said Bladen.

The immediate result of this conversation was that within twenty-four hours a man driving two horses hitched to a light buggy arrived at Scratch Hill in quest of Bob Yancy, whom he found at dinner and to whom he delivered a letter. Mr. Yancy was profoundly impressed by the attention, for holding the letter at arm's length, he said,

“Well, sir, I've lived nigh on to forty years, but I never got a piece of writing befo'—never, sir. People, if they was close by, spoke to me, if at a distance they hollered, but none of 'em ever wrote.” After gazing at the written characters with satisfaction Mr. Yancy made a taper of the letter and lit his pipe, which he puffed meditatively. “Sonny, when you grow up you must learn so you can send writings to yo' Uncle Bob fo' him to light his pipe with.”

“What was in the paper, Uncle Bob?” asked Hannibal.

“Writin',” said Mr. Yancy, and smoked.

“What did the writin' say, Uncle Bob?” insisted the boy.

“It was private,” said Mr. Yancy, “very private.”

“What's your answer?” demanded the stranger.

“That's private, too,” said Mr. Yancy. “You tell him I'll be monstrous glad to talk it over with him any time he fancies to come out here.”

“He said something about some one I was to carry back with me,” objected the man.

“Who said that?” asked Mr. Yancy.

“Bladen did.”

“How's a body to know who yore talking about unless you name him?” said Yancy severely.

“Well, what am I to tell him?”

“It's a free country and I got no call to dictate. You-all can tell him whatever you like.” Further than this Mr. Yancy would not commit himself, and the man went as he came.

The next day Yancy had occasion to visit Balaam's Cross Roads. Ordinarily Hannibal would have gone with him, but he was engaged in digging out a groundhog's hole with Oglethorpe Bellamy, grandson of Uncle Sammy Bellamy, the patriarch of Scratch Hill. Mr. Yancy forbore to interrupt this enterprise which he considered of some educational value, since the ground-hog's hole was an old one and he was reasonably certain that a family of skunks had taken possession of it. When Yancy reached the Cross Roads, Crenshaw gave him a disquieting opinion as to the probable contents of his letter, for he himself had heard from Bladen that he had decided to assume the care of the boy.

“So you reckon it was that—” said Yancy, with a deep breath.

“It's a blame outrage, Bob, fo' him to act like this!” said the merchant with heat.

“When do you reckon he's going to send fo' him?” asked Yancy.

“Whenever the notion strikes him.”

“What about my having notions too?” inquired Yancy, flecked into passion, and bringing his fist down on the counter with a crash.

“You surely ain't going to oppose him, Bob?”

“Does he say when he's going to send fo' my nevvy?”

“He says it will be soon.”

“You take care of my mule, Mr. John,” said Yancy, and turned his back on his friend.

“I reckon Bladen will have the law on his side, Bob!”

“The law be damned—I got what's fair on mine, I don't wish fo' better than that,” exclaimed Yancy, over his shoulder. He strode from the store and started down the sandy road at a brisk run. Miserable forebodings of an impending tragedy leaped up within him, and the miles were many that lay between him and the Hill.

“He'll just naturally bust the face off the fellow Bladen sends!” thought Crenshaw, staring after his friend.

That run of Bob Yancy's was destined to become a classic in the annals of the neighborhood. Ordinarily a man walking briskly might cover the distance between the Cross Roads and the Hill in two hours. He accomplished it in less than an hour, and before he reached the branch that flowed a full quarter of a mile from his cabin he was shouting Hannibal's name as he ran. Then as he breasted the slope he came within sight of a little group in his own dooryard. Saving only Uncle Sammy Bellamy, the group resolved itself into the women and children of the Hill, but there was one small figure he missed, and the color faded from his cheeks while his heart stood still. The patriarch hurried toward him, leaning on his cane, while his grandson clung to the skirts of his coat, weeping bitterly.

“They've took your nevvy, Bob!” he cried, in a high, thin voice.

“Who's took him?” asked Yancy hoarsely. He paused and glanced from one to another of the little group.

“Hit were Dave Blount. Get your gun, Bob, and go after him—kill the miserable sneaking cuss!” cried Uncle Sammy, who believed in settling all difficulties by bloodshed as befitted a veteran of the first war with England, he having risen to the respectable rank of sergeant in a company of Morgan's riflemen; while at sixty-odd in '12, when there was recruiting at the Cross Roads, his son had only been able to prevent his tendering his services to his country by hiding his trousers. “Fetch his rifle, some of you fool women!” cried Uncle Sammy. “By the Fayetteville Road, Bob, not ten minutes ago—you can cut him off at Ox Road forks!”

Yancy breathed a sigh of relief. The situation was not entirely desperate, for, as Uncle Sammy said, he could reach the Ox Road forks before Blount possibly could, by going as the crow flies through the pine woods.

“Hit wouldn't have happened if there'd been a man on the Hill, but there was nothing but a passel of women about the place. I heard the boys crying when Dave Blount lifted your nevvy into the buggy,” said Uncle Sammy; “all I could do was to cuss him across two fields. I hope you blow his hide full of holes!” for a rifle had been placed in Yancy's hands.

“Thank you-all kindly,” said Yancy, and turning away he struck off through the pine woods. A brisk walk of twenty minutes brought him to the Ox Road forks, as it was called, where he could plainly distinguish the wheel and hoof marks left by the buggy and team as it went to Scratch Hill, but there was only the single track.

This important point being settled, sense of sweet peace stole in upon Yancy's spirit. He stood his rifle against a tree, lit his pipe with flint and steel, and rested comfortably by the wayside. He had not long to wait, for presently the buggy hove in sight; whereupon he coolly knocked the ashes from his pipe, pocketed it, and prepared for action. As the buggy came nearer he recognized his ancient enemy in the person of the man who sat at Hannibal's side, and stepping nimbly into the road seized the horses by their bits. At sight of him Hannibal shrieked his name in an ecstasy of delight.

“Uncle Bob—Uncle Bob—” he, cried.

“Yes, it's Uncle Bob. You can light down, Nevvy. I reckon you've rid far enough,” said Yancy pleasantly.

“Leggo them horses!” said Mr. Blount, recovering somewhat from the effect of Yancy's sudden appearance.

“Light down, Nevvy,” said Yancy, still pleasantly. Blount turned to the boy as if to interfere. “Don't you put the weight of yo' finger on the boy, Blount!” warned Yancy. “Light down, Hannibal!”

Hannibal instantly availed himself of the invitation. At the same moment Blount struck at Yancy with his whip and his horses reared wildly, thinking the blow meant for them. Seeing that the boy had reached the ground in safety, Yancy relaxed his hold on the team, which instantly plunged forward. Then as the buggy swept past him he made a dexterous grab at Blount and dragged him out over the wheels into the road, where, for the second time in his life, he proceeded to fetch Mr. Blount a smack in the jaw. This he followed up with other smacks variously distributed about his countenance.

“You'll sweat for this, Bob Yancy!” cried Blount, as he vainly sought to fend off the blows.

“I'm sweating now—scandalous,” said Mr. Yancy, taking his unhurried satisfaction of the other. Then with a final skilful kick he sent Mr. Blount sprawling. “Don't let me catch you around these diggings again, Dave Blount, or I swear to God I'll be the death of you!”

Hannibal rode home through the pine woods in triumph on his Uncle Bob's mighty shoulders.

“Did you get yo' ground-hog, Nevvy?” inquired Mr. Yancy presently when they had temporarily exhausted the excitement of Hannibal's capture and recovery.

“It weren't a ground-hog, Uncle Bob—it were a skunk!”

“Think of that!” murmured Mr. Yancy.

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER IV. LAW AT BALAAM'S CROSS-ROADS

But Mr. Yancy was only at the beginning of his trouble. Three days later there appeared on the borders of Scratch Hill a lank gentleman armed with a rifle, while the butts of two pistols protruded from the depths of his capacious coat pockets. He made his presence known by whooping from the edge of the branch, and his whoops shaped themselves into the name of Yancy. It was Charley Balaam, old Squire Balaam's nephew. The squire lived at the crossroads to which his family had given its name, and dispensed the little law that found its way into that part of the county. The whoops finally brought Yancy to his cabin door.

“Can I see you friendly, Bob Yancy?” Balaam demanded with the lungs of a stentor, sheltering himself behind the thick bole of a sweetgum, for he observed that Yancy held his rifle in the crook of his arm and had no wish to offer his person as a target to the deadly aim of the Scratch Hiller who was famous for his skill.

“I reckon you can, Charley Balaam, if you are friendly,” said Yancy.

“I'm a family man, Bob, and I ask you candid, do you feel peevish?”

“Not in particular,” and Yancy put aside his rifle.

“I'm a-going to trust you, Bob,” said Balaam. And forsaking the shelter of the sweetgum he shuffled up the slope.

“How are you, Charley?” asked Yancy, as they shook hands.

“Only just tolerable, Bob. You've been warranted—Dave Blount swore hit on to you.” He displayed a sheet of paper covered with much writing and decorated with a large seal. Yancy viewed this formidable document with respect, but did not offer to take it.

“Read it,” he said mildly. Balaam scratched his head.

“I don't know that hit's my duty to do that, Bob. Hit's my duty to serve it on to you. But I can tell you what's into hit, leavin' out the law—which don't matter nohow.”

At this juncture Uncle Sammy's bent form emerged from the path that led off through the woods in the direction of the Bellamy cabin. With the patriarch was a stranger. Now the presence of a stranger on Scratch Hill was an occurrence of such extraordinary rarity that the warrant instantly became a matter of secondary importance.

“Howdy, Charley. Here, Bob Yancy, you shake hands with Bruce Carrington,” commanded Uncle Sammy. At the name both Yancy and Balaam manifested a quickened interest. They saw a man in the early twenties, clean-limbed and broad-shouldered, with a handsome face and shapely head. “Yes, sir, hit's a grandson of Tom Carrington that used to own the grist-mill down at the Forks. Yo're some sort of wild-hog kin to him, Bob—yo' mother was a cousin to old Tom. Her family was powerful upset at her marrying a Yancy. They say Tom cussed himself into a 'pleptic fit when the news was fetched him.”

“Where you located at, Mr. Carrington?” asked Yancy. But Carrington was not given a chance to reply. Uncle Sammy saved him the trouble.

“Back in Kentucky. He tells me he's been follerin' the water. What's the name of that place where Andy Jackson fit the British?”

“New Orleans,” prompted Carrington good naturedly.

“That's hit—he takes rafts down the river to New Orleans, then he comes back on ships to Baltimore, or else he hoofs it no'th overland.” Uncle Sammy had acquired a general knowledge of the stranger's habits and pursuits in an incredibly brief space of time. “He wants to visit the Forks,” he added.

“I'm shortly goin' that way myself, Mr. Carrington, and I'll be pleased of your company—but first I got to get through with Bob Yancy,” said Balaam, and again he produced the warrant. “If agreeable to you, Bob, I'll ask Uncle Sammy, as a third party friendly to both, to read this here warrant,” he said.

“Who's been a-warrantin' Bob Yancy?” cried Uncle Sammy, with shrill interest.

“Dave Blount has.”

“I knowed hit—I knowed he'd try to get even!” And Uncle Sammy struck his walking-stick sharply on the packed earth of Yancy's dooryard. “What's the charge agin you, Bob?”

“Read hit,” said Balaam. “Why, sho'—can't you read plain writin', Uncle Sammy?” for the patriarch was showing signs of embarrassment.

“If you gentlemen will let me—” said Carrington pleasantly. Instantly there came a relieved chorus from the three in one breath.

“Why, sure!”

“Would my spectacles help you any, Mr. Carrington?” asked Uncle Sammy officiously.

“No, I guess not.”

“They air powerful seein' glasses, and I'm aweer some folks read a heap easier with spectacles than without 'em.” After a moment's scrutiny of the paper that Balaam had thrust in his hand, Carrington began:

“To the Sheriff of the County of Cumberland: Greetings.”

“He means me,” explained Balaam. “He always makes 'em out to the sheriff, but they are returned to me and I serve 'em.” Carrington resumed his reading,

“Whereas, It is alleged that a murderous assault has been committed on one David Blount, of Fayetteville, by Robert Yancy, of Scratch Hill, said Blount sustaining numerous bruises and contusions, to his great injury of body and mind; and, whereas, it is further alleged that said murderous assault was wholly unprovoked and without cause, you will forthwith take into custody the person of said Yancy, of Scratch Hill, charged with having inflicted the bruises and contusions herein set forth in the complaint of said Blount, and instantly bring him into our presence to answer to these various and several crimes and misdemeanors. You are empowered to seize said Yancy wherever he may be at; whether on the hillside or in the valley, eating or sleeping, or at rest.

“De Lancy Balaam, Magistrate.

“Fourth District, County of Cumberland, State of North Carolina. Done this twenty-fourth day of May, 1835.

“P.S. Dear Bob: Dave Blount says he ain't able to chew his meat. I thought you'd be glad to know.”

Smilingly Carrington folded the warrant and handed it to Yancy.

“Well, what are you goin' to do about hit, Bob?” inquired Balaam.

“Maybe I'd ought to go. I'd like to oblige the squire,” said Yancy.

“When does this here co't set?” demanded Uncle Sammy.

“Hit don't do much else since he's took with the lumbago,” answered Balaam somewhat obscurely.

“How are the squire, Charley?” asked Yancy with grave concern.

“Only just tolerable, Bob.”

“What did he tell you to do?” and Yancy knit his brows.

“Seems like he wanted me to find out what you'd do. He recommended I shouldn't use no violence.”

“I wouldn't recommend you did, either,” assented Yancy, but without heat.

“I'd get shut of this here law business, Bob,” advised Uncle Sammy.

“Suppose I come to the Cross Roads this evening?”

“That's agreeable,” said the deputy, who presently departed in company with Carrington.

Some hours later the male population of Scratch Hill, with a gravity befitting the occasion, prepared itself to descend on the Cross Roads and give its support to Mr. Yancy in his hour of need. To this end those respectable householders armed themselves, with the idea that it might perhaps be necessary to correct some miscarriage of justice. They were shy enough and timid enough, these remote dwellers in the pine woods, but, like all wild things, when they felt they were cornered they were prone to fight; and in this instance it was clearly iniquitous that Bob Yancy's right to smack Dave Blount should be questioned. That denied what was left of human liberty. But beyond this was a matter of even greater importance: they felt that Yancy's possession of the boy was somehow involved.

Yancy had declared himself simply but specifically on this point. Law or no law, he would kill whoever attempted to take the boy from him, and Scratch Hill believing to a man that in so doing he would be well within his rights, was prepared to join in the fray. Even Uncle Sammy, who had not been off the Hill in years, announced that no consideration of fatigue would keep him away from the scene of action and possible danger, and Yancy loaned him his mule and cart for the occasion. When the patriarch was helped to his seat in the ancient vehicle he called loudly for his rifle.

“Why, pap, what do you want with a weapon?” asked his son indulgently. “If there air shootin' I may take a hand in it. Now you-all give me a fair hour's start with this mule critter of Bob's, and if nothin' busts I'll be at the squire's as soon as the best of you.”

Uncle Sammy was given the time allowance he asked and then Scratch Hill wended its way down the path to the branch and the highroad. Yancy led the straggling procession, with the boy trotting by his side, his little sunburned fist clasped in the man's great hand. He, too, was armed. He carried the old spo'tin' rifle he had brought from the Barony, and suspended from his shoulder by a leather thong was the big horn flask with its hickory stopper his Uncle Bob had fashioned for him, while a deerskin pouch held his bullets and an extra flint or two. He understood that beyond those smacks he had seen his Uncle Bob fetch Mr. Blount, he himself was the real cause of this excitement, that somebody, it was not plain to his mind just who, was seeking to get him away from Scratch Hill, and that a mysterious power called the Law would sooner or later be invoked to this dread end. But he knew this much clearly, nothing would induce him to leave his Uncle Bob! And his thin little fingers nestled warmly against the man's hardened palm. Yancy looked down and gave him a sunny, reassuring smile.

“It'll be all right, Nevvy,” he said gently.

“You wouldn't let 'em take me, would you, Uncle Bob?” asked the child in a fearful whisper.

“Such an idea ain't entered my head. And this here warranting is just some of Dave Blount's cussedness.”

“Uncle Bob, what'll they do to you?”

“Well, I reckon the squire'll feel obliged to do one of two things. He'll either fine me or else he won't.”

“What'll you do if he fines you?”

“Why, pay the fine, Nevvy—and then lick Dave Blount again for stirring up trouble. That's the way we most in general do. I mean to say give him a good licking, and that'll make him stop his foolishness.”

“Wasn't that a good licking you gave him on the Ox Road, Uncle Bob?” asked Hannibal.

“It was pretty fair fo' a starter, but I'm capable of doing a better job,” responded Yancy.

They overtook Uncle Sammy as he turned in at the squire's.

“I thought I'd come and see what kind of law a body gets at this here co't of yours,” the patriarch explained to Mr. Balaam, who, forgetting his lumbago, had hurried forth to greet him.

“But why did you fetch your gun, Uncle Sammy?” asked the magistrate, laughing.

“Hit were to be on the safe side, Squire. Where air them Blounts?”

“Them Blounts don't need to bother you none. There air only Dave, and he can't more than half see out of one eye to-day.”

The squire's court held its infrequent sittings in the best room of the Balaam homestead, a double cabin of hewn logs. Here Scratch Hill was gratified with a view of Mr. Blount's battered visage, and it was conceded that his condition reflected creditably on Yancy's physical prowess and was of a character fully to sustain that gentleman's reputation; for while he was notoriously slow to begin a fight, he was reputed to be even more reluctant to leave off once he had become involved in one.

“What's all this here fuss between you and Bob Yancy?” demanded the squire when he had administered the oath to Blount. Mr. Blount's statement was brief and very much to the point. He had been hired by Mr. Bladen, of Fayetteville, to go to Scratch Hill and get the boy who had been temporarily placed in Yancy's custody at the time of General Quintard's death.

“Stop just there!” cried the magistrate, leveling a pudgy finger at Blount. “This here co't is already cognizant of certain facts bearing on that p'int. The boy was left with Bob Yancy mainly because nobody else would take him. Them's the facts. Now go on!” he finished sternly.

“I only know what Bladen told me,” said Blount sullenly.

“Well, I reckon Mr. Bladen ought to feel obliged to tell the truth,” said the squire.

“He done give me the order from the judge of the co't—I was to show it to Bob Yancy—”

“Got that order?” demanded the squire sharply. With a smile, damaged, but clearly a smile, Blount produced the order. “Hmm—app'inted guardeen of the boy—” the squire was presently heard to murmur. The crowded room was very still now, and more than one pair of eyes were turned pityingly in Yancy's direction. When the long arm of the law reached out from Fayetteville, where there was a real judge and a real sheriff, it clothed itself with very special terrors. The boy looked up into Yancy's face. That tense silence had struck a chill through his heart.

“It's all right,” whispered Yancy reassuringly, smiling down upon him. And Hannibal, comforted, smiled back, and nestled his head against his Uncle Bob's side.

“Well, Mr. Blount, what did you do with this here order?” asked the squire.

“I went with it to Scratch Hill,” said Blount.

“And showed it to Bob Yancy?” asked the squire.

“No, he wa'n't there. But the boy was, and I took him in my buggy and drove off. I'd got as far as the Ox Road forks when I met Yancy—”

“What happened then?—but a body don't need to ask! Looks like the law was all you had on your side!” and the squire glanced waggishly about the room.

“I showed Yancy the order—”

“You lie, Dave Blount; you didn't!” said Yancy. “But I can't say as it would have made no difference, Squire. He'd have taken his licking just the same and I'd have had my nevvy out of that buggy!”

“Didn't he say nothing about this here order from the colt, Bob?”

“There wa'n't much conversation, Squire. I invited my nevvy to light down, and then I snaked Dave Blount out over the wheel.”

“Who struck the first blow?”

“He did. He struck at me with his buggy whip.”

“What you got to say to this, Mr. Blount?” asked the squire.

“I say I showed him the order like I said,” answered Blount doggedly. Squire Balaam removed his spectacles and leaned back in his chair.

“It's the opinion of this here co't that the whole question of assault rests on whether Bob Yancy saw the order. Bob Yancy swears he didn't see it, while Dave Blount swears he showed it to him. If Bob Yancy didn't know of the existence of the order he was clearly actin' on the idea that Blount was stealin' his nevvy, and he done what any one would have done under the circumstances. If, on the other hand, he knowed of this order from the co't, he was not only guilty of assault, but he was guilty of resistin' an officer of the co't.” The squire paused impressively. His audience drew a long breath. The impression prevailed that the case was going against Yancy, and more than one face was turned scowlingly on the fat little justice.

“Can a body drap a word here?” It was Uncle Sammy's thin voice that cut into the silence.

“Certainly, Uncle Sammy. This here co't will always admire to listen to you.”

“Well, I'd like to say that I consider that Fayetteville co't mighty officious with its orders. This part of the county won't take nothin' off Fayetteville! We don't interfere with Fayetteville, and blamed if we'll let Fayetteville interfere with us!” There was a murmur of approval. Scratch Hill remembered the rifles in its hands and took comfort.

“The Fayetteville co't air a higher co't than this, Uncle Sammy,” explained the squire indulgently.

“I'm aweer of that,” snapped the patriarch. “I've seen hit's steeple.”

“Air you finished, Uncle Sammy?” asked the squire deferentially.

“I 'low I am. But I 'low that if this here case is goin' agin Bob Yancy I'd recommend him to go home and not listen to no mo' foolishness.”

“Mr. Yancy will oblige this co't by setting still while I finish this case,” said the squire with dignity. “As I've already p'inted out, the question of veracity presents itself strongly to the mind of this here colt. Mr. Yancy has sworn to one thing, Mr. Blount to another. Now the Yancys air an old family in these parts; Mr. Blount's folks air strangers, but we don't know nothing agin them—”

“And we don't know nothing in their favor,” Uncle Sammy interjected.

“Dave's grandfather came here from Virginia about fifty years back and settled near Scratch Hill—”

“We never knowed why he left Virginia or why he came here,” said Uncle Sammy, and knowing what local feeling was, was sure he had shot a telling bolt.

“Then, about twenty-five years ago Dave's father pulled up and went to Fayetteville. Nobody ever knowed why—and I don't remember that he ever offered any explanation—” continued the squire.

“He didn't—he just left,” said Uncle Sammy.

“Consequently,” pursued the squire, somewhat vindictively, “we ain't had any time in which to form an opinion of the Blounts; but for myself, I'm suspicious of folks that keep movin' about and who don't seem able to get located permanent nowheres, who air here to-day and away tomorrow. But you can't say that of the Yancys. They air an old family in the country, and naturally this co't feels obliged to accept a Yancy's word before the word of a stranger. And in view of the fact that the defendant did not seek litigation, but was perfectly satisfied to let matters rest where they was, it is right and just that all costs should fall on the plaintiff.”

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER V. THE ENCOUNTER

Betty Malroy had ridden into the squire's yard during the progress of the trial and when Yancy and Hannibal came from the house she beckoned the Scratch Hiller to her. She was aware that Mr. Yancy, moving along the line of least industrial resistance, might be counted of little worth in any broad scheme of life. Nat Ferris had strongly insisted on this point, as had Judith, who shared her husband's convictions; consequently, the rumors of his present difficulty had merely excited them to adverse criticism. They had been sure the best thing that could happen the boy would be his removal from Yancy's guardianship, but this was not at all her conclusion. She considered Mr. Bladen heartless and his course without justification, and she regarded Yancy's affection for the boy as in itself constituting a benefit that quite outweighed his unprogressive example.

“You are not going to lose your nephew, are you, Mr. Yancy?” she asked eagerly, when Yancy stood at her side.

“No, ma'am.” But his sense of elation was plainly tempered by the knowledge that for him the future held more than one knotty problem.

“I am very glad! I know Hannibal will be much happier with you than with any one else,” and she smiled brightly at the boy, whose small sunburned face was upturned to hers.

“I think that-a-ways myself, Miss Betty, but this trial was only for my smacking Dave Blount, who was trying to steal my nevvy,” explained Yancy.

“I hope you smacked him well and hard!” said the girl, whose mood was warlike.

“I ain't got no cause to complain, thank you,” returned Mr. Yancy pleasantly.

“I rode out to the Hill to say good-by to Hannibal and to you, but they said you were here and that the trial was today.”

Captain Murrell, with Crenshaw and the squire, came from the house, and Murrell's swarthy face lit up at sight of the girl. Yancy, sensible of the gulf that yawned between himself and what was known as “the quality,” would have yielded his place, but Betty detained him.

“Are you going away, ma'am?” he asked with concern.

“Yes—to my home in west Tennessee,” and a cloud crossed her smooth brow.

“That surely is a right big distance for you to travel, ma'am,” said Yancy, his mind opening to this fresh impression. “I reckon it's rising a hundred miles or mo',” he concluded, at a venture.

“It's almost a thousand.”

“Think of that! And you are that ca'm!” cried Yancy admiringly, as a picture of simply stupendous effort offered itself to his mind's eye. He added: “I am mighty sorry you are going. We-all here shall miss you—specially Hannibal. He just regularly pines for Sunday as it is.”

“I hope he will miss me a little—I'm afraid I want him to!” She glanced down at the boy as she spoke, and into her eyes, very clear and very blue and shaded by long dark lashes, stole a look of wistful tenderness. She noted how his little hand was clasped in Yancy's, she realized the perfect trust of his whole attitude toward this big bearded man, and she was conscious of a sudden feeling of profound respect for the Scratch Hiller.

“But ain't you ever coming back, Miss Betty?” asked Hannibal rather fearfully, smitten with the awesome sense of impermanence which dogs our footsteps.

“Oh, I hope so, dear—I wish to think so. But you see my home is not here.” She turned to Yancy, “So it is settled that he is to remain with you?”

“Not exactly, Miss Betty. You see, there's an order from the Fayetteville co't fo' me to give him up to this man Bladen.”

“But Uncle Bob says—” began Hannibal, who considered his Uncle Bob's remarks on this point worth quoting.

“Never mind what yo' Uncle Bob said,” interrupted Yancy hastily.

“Oh, Mr. Yancy, you are not going to surrender him—no matter what the court says!” cried Betty. The expression on Yancy's face was so grim and determined on the instant with the latent fire that was in him flashing from his eyes that she added quickly, “You know the law is for you as well as for Mr. Bladen!”

“I reckon I won't bother the law none,” responded Yancy briefly. “Me and my nevvy will go back to Scratch Hill and there won't be no trouble so long as they leave us be. But them Fayetteville folks want to keep away—” The fierce light slowly died out of his eyes. “It'll be all right, ma'am, and it's mighty good and kind of you fo' to feel the way you do. I'm obliged to you.”

But Betty was by no means sure of the outcome Yancy seemed to predict with such confidence. Unless Bladen abandoned his purpose, which he was not likely to do, a tragedy was clearly pending for Scratch Hill. She saw the boy left friendless, she saw Yancy the victim of his own primitive conception of justice. Therefore she said:

“I wonder you don't leave the Hill, Mr. Yancy. You could so easily go where Mr. Bladen would never find you. Haven't you thought of this?”

“That are a p'int,” agreed Yancy slowly. “Might I ask what parts you'd specially recommend?” lifting his grave eyes to hers.

“It would really be the sensible thing to do!” said Betty. “I am sure you would like West Tennessee—they say you are a great hunter.” Yancy smiled almost guiltily.

“I like a little spo't now and then yes, ma'am, I do hunt some,” he admitted.

“Miss Betty, Uncle Bob's the best shot we got! You had ought to see him shoot!” said Hannibal.

“Mr. Yancy, if you should cross the mountains, remember I live near Memphis. Belle Plain is the name of the plantation—it's not hard to find; just don't forget—Belle Plain.”

“I won't forget, and mebby you will see us there one of these days. Sho', I've seen mighty little of the world—about as far as a dog can trot it a couple of hours!”

“Just think what it will mean to Hannibal if you become involved further with Mr. Bladen.” Betty spoke earnestly, bending toward him, and Yancy understood the meaning that lay back of her words.

“I've thought of that, too,” the Scratch Hiller answered seriously. Betty glanced toward the squire and Mr. Crenshaw. They were standing near the bars that gave entrance to the lane. Murrell had left them and was walking briskly down the road toward Crenshaw's store where his horse was tied. She bent down and gave Yancy her slim white hand.

“Good-by, Mr. Yancy—lift Hannibal so that I can kiss him!” Yancy swung the child aloft. “I think you are such a nice little boy, Hannibal—you mustn't forget me!” And touching her horse lightly with the whip she rode away at a gallop.

“She sho'ly is a lady!” said Yancy, staring after her. “And we mustn't forget Memphis or Belle Plain, Nevvy.”

Crenshaw and the squire approached.

“Bob,” said the merchant, “Bladen's going to have the boy—but he made a mistake in putting this business in the hands of a fool like Dave Blount. I reckon he knows that now.”

“I reckon his next move will be to send a posse of gun-toters up from Fayetteville,” said the squire.

“That's just what he'll do,” agreed Crenshaw, and looked disturbed.

“They certainly air an unpeaceable lot—them Fayetteville folks! It's always seemed to me they had a positive spite agin this end of the county,” said the squire, and he pocketed his spectacles and refreshed himself with a chew of tobacco. “Bladen ain't actin' right, Bob. It's a year and upwards since the old general 'died. He let you go on thinking the boy was to stay with you and now he takes a notion to have him!”

“No, sir, it ain't right nor reasonable. And what's more, he shan't have him!” said Yancy, and his tone was final.

“I don't know what kind of a mess you're getting yourself into, Bob, I declare I don't!” cried Crenshaw, who felt that he was largely responsible for the whole situation.

“Looks like your neighbors would stand by you,” suggested the squire.

“I don't want them to stand by me. It'll only get them into trouble, and I ain't going to do that,” rejoined Yancy, and lapsed into momentary silence. Then he resumed meditatively, “There was old Baldy Ebersole who shot the sheriff when they tried to arrest him for getting drunk down in Fayetteville and licking the tavern-keeper—”

“Sho', there wa'n't no harm in Baldy!” said the squire, with heat. “When that sheriff come along here looking for him, I told him p'inted that Baldy said he wouldn't be arrested. A more truthful man I never knowed, and if the damn fool had taken my word he'd be living yet!”

“But you-all know what trouble killing that sheriff made fo' Baldy!” said Yancy. “He told me often he regretted it mo' than anything he'd ever done. He said it was most aggravatin' having to always lug a gun wherever he went. And what with being suspicious of strangers when he wa'n't suspicious by nature, he reckoned in time it would just naturally wear him out.”

“He stood it until he was risin' eighty,” said Crenshaw.

“His, father lived to be ninety, John, and as spry an old gentleman as a body'd wish to see. I don't uphold no man for committing murder, but I do consider the sheriff should have waited on Baldy to get mo' reasonable, like he'd done in time if they'd just let him alone—but no, sir, he reckoned the law wa'n't no respecter of persons. He was a fine-appearin' man, that sheriff, and just elected to office. I remember we had to leave off the tail-gate to my cart to accommodate him. Yes, sir, they pretty near pestered Baldy into his grave—and seein' that pore old fellow pottering around year after year always toting a gun was the patheticest sight I most ever seen, and I made up my mind then if it ever seemed necessary for me to kill a man, I'd leave the county or maybe the state,” concluded the squire.

“Don't you reckon it would be some better to leave the state afo' you. done the killing?” suggested Yancy.

“Well, a man might. I don't know but what he'd be justified in getting shut of his troubles like that.”

When Betty Malroy rode away from Squire Balaam's Murrell galloped after her. Presently she heard the beat of his horse's hoofs as he came pounding along the sandy road and glanced back over her shoulder. With an exclamation of displeasure she reined in her horse. She had not wished to ride to the Barony with him, yet she had no desire to treat him with discourtesy, especially as the Ferrises were disposed to like him. Murrell quickly gained a place at her side.

“I suppose Ferris is at the Barony?” he said, drawing his horse down to a walk.

“I believe he is,” said Betty with a curt little air.

“May I ride with you?” he gave her a swift glance. She nodded indifferently and would have urged her horse into a gallop again, but he made a gesture of protest. “Don't—or I shall think you are still running away from me,” he said with a short laugh.

“Were you at the trial?” she asked. “I am glad they didn't get Hannibal away from Yancy.”

“Oh, Yancy will have his hands full with that later—so will Bladen,” he added significantly. He studied her out of those deeply sunken eyes of his in which no shadow of youth lingered, for men such as he reached their prime early, and it was a swiftly passing splendor. “Ferris tells me you are going to West Tennessee?” he said at length.

“Yes.”

“I know your half-brother, Tom Ware—I know him very well.” There was another brief silence.

“So you know Tom?” she presently observed, and frowned slightly. Tom was her guardian, and her memories of him were not satisfactory. A burly, unshaven man with a queer streak of meanness through his character. She had not seen him since she had been sent north to Philadelphia, and their intercourse had been limited to infrequent letters. His always smelled of strong, stale tobacco, and the well-remembered whine in the man's voice ran through his written sentences.

“You've spent much of your time up North?” suggested Murrell.

“Four years. I've been at school, you know. That's where I met Judith.”

“I hope you'll like West Tennessee. It's still a bit raw compared with what you've been accustomed to in the North. You haven't been back in all those four years?” Betty shook her head. “Nor seen Tom—nor any one from out yonder?” For some reason a little tinge of color had crept into Betty's cheeks. “Will you let me renew our acquaintance at Belle Plain? I shall be in West Tennessee before the summer is over; probably I shall leave here within a week,” he said, bending toward her. His glance dwelt on her face and the pliant lines of her figure, and his sense swam. Since their first meeting the girl's beauty had haunted and allured him; with his passionate sense of life he was disposed to these violent fancies, and he had a masterful way with women just as he had a masterful way with men. Now, however, he was aware that he was viewed with entire indifference. His vanity, which was his whole inner self, was hurt, and from the black depths of his nature his towering egotism flashed out lawless and perverted impulses. “I must tell you that I am not of your sort, Miss Malroy—” he continued hurriedly. “My people were plain folk out of the mountains. For what I am I have no one to thank but myself. You must be aware of the prejudices of the planter class, for it is your class. Perhaps I haven't been quite frank at the Barony—I felt it was asking too much when you were there. That was a door I didn't want closed to me!”

“I imagine you will be welcome at Belle Plain. You are Tom's friend.” Murrell bit his lip, and then laughed as his mind conjured up a picture of the cherished Tom. Suddenly he reached out and rested his hand on hers. He lived in the shadow of chance not always kind, his pleasures were intoxicating drafts snatched in the midst of dangers, and here was youth, sweet and perfect, that only needed awakening.

“Betty—if I might think—” he began, but his tongue stumbled. His love-making was usually of a savage sort, but some quality in the girl held him in check. The words he had spoken many times before forsook him. Betty drew away from him, an angry color on her cheeks and an angry light in her eyes. “Forgive me, Betty!” muttered Murrell, but his heart beat against his ribs, and passion sent its surges through him. “Don't you know what I'm trying to tell you?” he whispered. Betty gathered up her reins. “Not yet—” he cried, and again he rested a heavy hand on hers. “Don't you know what's kept me here? It was to be near you—only that—I've been waiting for this chance to speak. It was long in coming, but it's here now—and it's mine!” he exulted. His eyes burned with a luminous fire, he urged his horse nearer and they came to a halt. “Look here—I'll follow you North—I swear I love you—say I may!”

“Let me go—let me go!” cried Betty indignantly.

“No—not yet!” he urged his horse still nearer and gathered her close. “You've got to hear me. I've loved you since the first moment I rested my eyes on you—and, by God, you shall love me in return!” He felt her struggle to free herself from his grasp with a sense of savage triumph. It was the brute force within him that conquered with women just as it conquered with men.

Bruce Carrington, on his way back to Fayetteville from the Forks, came about a turn in the road. Betty saw a tall, handsome fellow in the first flush of manhood; Carrington, an angry girl, very beautiful and very indignant, struggling in a man's grasp.

At sight of the new-comer, Murrell, with an oath, released Betty, who, striking her horse with the whip galloped down the road toward the Barony. As she fled past Carrington she bent low in her saddle.

“Don't let him follow me!” she gasped, and Carrington, striding forward, caught Murrell's horse by the bit.

“Not so fast, you!” he said coolly. The two men glared at each other for a brief instant.

“Take your hand off my horse!” exclaimed Murrell hoarsely, his mouth hot and dry with a sense of defeat.

“Can't you see she'd rather be alone?” said Carrington.

“Let go!” roared Murrell, and a murderous light shot from his eyes.

“I don't know but I should pull you out of that saddle and twist your neck!” said Carrington hotly. Murrell's face underwent a swift change.

“You're a bold fellow to force your way into a lover's quarrel,” he said quietly. Carrington's arm dropped at his side. Perhaps, after all, it was that. Murrell thrust his hand into his pocket. “I always give something to the boy who holds my horse,” he said, and tossed a coin in Carrington's direction. “There—take that for your pains!” he added. He pulled his horse about and rode back toward the cross-roads at an easy canter.

Carrington, with an angry flush on his sunburnt cheeks, stood staring down at the coin that glinted in the dusty road, but he was seeing the face of the girl, indignant, beautiful—then he glanced after Murrell.

“I reckon I ought to have twisted his neck,” he said with a deep breath.

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER VI. BETTY SETS OUT FOR TENNESSEE

Bruce Carrington came of a westward-looking race. From the low coast where they had first settled, those of his name had followed the rivers to their headwaters. The headwaters had sent them forth toward the foot-hills, where they made their, clearings and built their cabins in the shadow of the blue wall that for a time marked the furthest goal of their desires. But only for a time. Crossing the mountains they found the headwaters once more, and following the streams out of the hills saw the roaring torrents become great placid rivers.

Carrington's father had put the mountains at his back thirty years before. The Watauga settlements had furnished him a wife, and some four years later Bruce was born on the banks of the Ohio. The senior Carrington had appeared on horseback as a wooer, but had walked on foot as a married man, each shift of residence he made having represented a descent to a lower social level. On the death of his wife he had embarked in the river trade with all that enthusiasm and hope he had brought to half-a-dozen other occupations, for he was a gentleman of prodigious energy.

Bruce's first memories had to do with long nights when he perched beside his father on the cabin roof of their keel-boat and watched the stars, or the blurred line of the shore where it lay against the sky, or the lights on other barges and rafts drifting as they were drifting, with their wheat and corn and whisky to that common market at the river's mouth.

Sometimes they dragged their boat back up-stream, painfully, laboriously; three or four months of unremitting toil sufficed for this, when the crew sweated at the towing ropes from dawn until dark, that the rich planters in Kentucky and Tennessee might have tea and wine for their tables, and silks and laces for their womenfolk. More often they abandoned their boat and tramped north, armed and watchful, since cutthroats and robbers haunted the roads, and river-men, if they had not drunk away their last dollar in New Orleans, were worth spoiling. Or, if it offered, they took passage on some fast sailing clipper bound for Baltimore or Philadelphia, and crossed the mountains to the Ohio and were within a week or two of home.

Bruce Carrington had seen the day of barge and raft reach its zenith, had heard the first steam packet's shrieking whistle which sounded the death-knell of the ancient order, though the shifting of the trade was a slow matter and the glory of the old did not pass over to the new at once, but lingered still in mighty fleets of rafts and keel-boats and in the Homeric carousals of some ten thousand of the half-horse, half-alligator breed that nightly gathered in New Orleans. Broad-horns and mud-sills they were called in derision. A strange race of aquatic pioneers, jeans and leather clad, the rifle and the setting-pole equally theirs, they came out of every stream down which a scow could be thrust at flood-time; from tiny settlements far back among the hills; from those bustling sinks of iniquity, the river towns. But now, surely, yet almost imperceptibly, their commerce was slipping from them. At all the landings they were being elbowed by the newcomers—men who wore brass buttons and gold braid, and shiny leather shoes instead of moccasins; men with white hands and gold rings on their fingers and diamonds in their shirts—men whose hair and clothing kept the rancid smell of oil and smoke and machinery.

After the reading of the warrant that morning, Charley Balaam had shown Carrington the road to the Forks, assuring him when they separated that with a little care and decent use of his eyes it would be possible to fetch up there and not pass plumb through the settlement without knowing where he was. But Carrington had found the Forks without difficulty. He had seen the old mill his grandfather had built almost a hundred years before, and in the churchyard he had found the graves and read the inscriptions that recorded the virtues of certain dead and gone Carringtons. It had all seemed a very respectable link with the past.

He was on his way to Fayetteville, where he intended to spend the night, and perhaps a day or two in looking around, when the meeting with Betty and Murrell occurred. As Murrell disappeared in the direction of Balaam's, Carrington took a spiteful kick at the unoffending coin, and strode off down the Fayetteville pike. But the girl's face remained with him. It was a face he would like to see again. He wondered who she was, and if she lived in the big house on the other road, the house beyond the red gate which Charley Balaam had told him was called the Barony.

He was still thinking of the girl when he ate his supper that night at Cleggett's Tavern. Later, in the bar, he engaged his host in idle gossip. Mr. Cleggett knew all about the Barony and its owner, Nat Ferris. Ferris was a youngish man, just married. Carrington experienced a quick sinking of the heart. A fleeting sense of humor succeeded—had he interfered between man and wife? But surely if this had been the case the girl would not have spoken as she had.

He wound Mr. Cleggett up with sundry pegs of strong New England rum. He had met a gentleman and lady on the road that day; he wondered, as he toyed with his glass, if it could have been the Ferrises? Mounted? Yes, mounted. Then it was Ferris and his wife—or it might have been Captain Murrell and Miss Malroy the captain was a strapping, black-haired chap who rode a big bay horse. Miss Malroy did not live in that part of the country; she was a friend of Mrs. Ferris', belonged in Kentucky or Tennessee, or somewhere out yonder—at any rate she was bringing her visit to an end, for Ferris had instructed him to reserve a place for her in the north-bound stage on the morrow.

Carrington suddenly remembered that he had some thought of starting north in the morning himself, but he was still undecided. How about it if he deferred his decision until the stage was leaving? Mr. Cleggett consulted his bookings and was of the opinion that his chances would not be good; and Carrington hastily paid down his money. Later in the privacy of his own room he remarked meditatively, viewing his reflection in the mirror that hung above the chimneypiece, “I reckon you're plain crazy!” and seemed to free himself from all further responsibility for his own acts whatever they might be.

The stage left at six, and as Carrington climbed to his seat the next morning Mr. Cleggett was advising the driver to look sharp when he came to the Barony road, as he was to pick up a party there. It was Carrington who looked sharp, and almost at the spot where he had seen Betty Malroy the day before he saw her again, with Ferris and Judith and a pile of luggage bestowed by the wayside. Betty did not observe him as the coach stopped, for she was intent on her farewells with her friends. There were hasty words of advice from Ferris, prolonged good-byes to Judith, tears—kisses—while a place was being made for her many boxes and trunks. Carrington viewed the luggage with awe, and listened without shame. He gathered that she was going north to Washington; that her final destination was some point either on the Ohio or Mississippi, and that her name was Betty. Then the door slammed and the stage was in motion again.

Carrington felt sensibly enriched by the meager facts now in his possession. He was especially interested in her name. Be liked the sound of it. It suited her. He even tried it under his breath softly. Betty—Betty Malroy—next he fell to wondering if those few hurried words she had addressed to him could possibly be construed as forming a basis for a further acquaintance. Or wasn't it far more likely she would prefer to forget the episode of the previous day, which had clearly been anything but agreeable?

All through the morning they swung forward in the heat and dust and glare, with now and then a brief pause when they changed horses, and at midday rattled into the shaded main street of a sleepy village and drew up before the tavern where dinner was waiting them—a fact that was announced by a bare-legged colored boy armed with a club, who beat upon a suspended wagon tire.

Betty saw Carrington when she took her seat, and gave a scarcely perceptible start of surprise. Then her face was flooded with a rich color. This was the man who saw her with Captain Murrell yesterday I What must he think of her! There was a brief moment of irresolution and then she bowed coldly.

“You just barely managed it. I reckon nobody could misunderstand that. By no means cordial—but of course not!” Carrington reflected. His own handsome face had been expressionless when he returned her bow, and Betty could not have guessed how consoled and comforted he was by it. With great fortitude and self-denial he forbore to look in her direction again, but he lingered at the table until the last moment that he might watch her when she returned to the coach. Mr. Carrington entertained ideals where women were concerned, and even though he had been the one to profit by it he would not have had Betty depart in the minutest particular from those stringent rules he laid down for her sex. Consequently that distant air she bore toward him filled him with satisfaction. It was quite enough for the present—for the present—that three times each day his perseverance and determination were rewarded by that curt little acknowledgment of her indebtedness to him.

It was four days to Richmond. Four days of hot, dusty travel, four nights of uncomfortable cross-road stations, where Betty suffered sleepless nights and the unaccustomed pangs of early rising. She occasionally found herself wondering who Carrington was. She approved of the manner in which he conducted himself. She liked a man who could be unobtrusive. Traveling like that day after day it would have been so easy for him to be officious. But he never addressed her and refused to see any opportunity to assist her in entering or quitting the stage, leaving that to some one else. Presently she was sorry she had bowed to him that first day—so self-contained and unpresuming a person as he would evidently have been quite satisfied to overlook the omission. Then she began to be haunted by doubts. Perhaps, after all, he had not recognized her as the girl he had met in the road! This gave her a very queer feeling indeed—for what must he think of her? And the next time she bowed to this perfect stranger she threw a chilling austerity into the salutation quite at variance with her appearance, for the windy drive had tangled her hair and blown it in curling wisps about her face. This served to trouble Carrington excessively, and furnished him with food for reflection through all his waking moments for the succeeding eight and forty hours.

The next morning he found himself seated opposite her at breakfast. He received another curt little nod, cool and distant, as he took his seat, but he felt strongly that a mere bowing acquaintance would no longer suffice; so he passed her a number of things she didn't want, and presently ventured the opinion that she must find traveling as they were, day after day, very fatiguing. Surprised at the sound of his voice, before she knew what she was doing, Betty said, “Not at all,” closed her red lips, and was immediately dumb.

Carrington at once relapsed into silence and ventured no further opinion on any topic. Betty was left wondering whether she had been rude, and when they met again asked if the stage would reach Washington at the advertised hour. She had been consulting the copy of Badger's and Porter's Register which Ferris had thrust into her satchel the morning she left the Barony, and which, among a multiplicity of detail as to hotels and taverns, gave the runnings of all the regular stage lines, packets, canal-boats and steamers, by which one could travel over the length and breadth of the land. “You stop in Washington?” said Carrington.

Betty shook her head. “No, I am going on to Wheeling.”

“You're fortunate in being so nearly home,” he observed. “I am going on to Memphis.” He felt it was time she knew this, or else she might think his movements were dictated by her own.

Betty exclaimed: “Why, I am going to Memphis, too!”

“Are you? By canal to Cumberland, and then by stage over the National Road to Wheeling?”

Betty nodded. “It makes one wish they'd finish their railroads, doesn't it? Do you suppose they'll ever get as far west as Memphis?” she said.

“They say it's going to be bad for the river trade when they're built on something besides paper,” answered Carrington. “And I happen to be a flatboat-man, Miss Malroy.”

Betty gave him a glance of surprise.

“Why, how did you learn my name?” she asked.

“Oh, I heard your friends speak it,” he answered glibly. But Betty's smooth brow was puckered thoughtfully. She wondered if he had—and if he hadn't. It was very odd certainly that he should know it.

“So the railroads are going to hurt the steamboats?” she presently said.

“No, I didn't say that. I was thinking of the flatboats that have already been hurt by the steamers,” he replied. Now to the western mind the river-men typified all that was reckless and wild. It was their carousals that gave an evil repute to such towns as Natchez. But this particular river-man looked harmless. “Carrington is my name, Miss Malroy,” he added.

No more was said just then, for Betty became reserved and he did not attempt to resume the conversation. A day later they rumbled into Washington, and as Betty descended from the coach, Carrington stepped to her side.

“I suppose you'll stop here, Miss Malroy?” he said, indicating the tavern before which the stage had come to a stand. “Yes,” said Betty briefly.

“If I can be of any service to you—” he began, with just a touch of awkwardness in his manner.

“No, I thank you, Mr. Carrington,” said Betty quickly.

“Good night... good-by,” he turned away, and Betty saw his tall form disappear in the twilight.

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CHAPTER VII. THE FIGHT AT SLOSSON'S TAVERN

Murrell had ridden out of the hills some hours back. He now faced the flashing splendors of a June sunset, but along the eastern horizon the mountains rose against a somber sky. Night was creeping into their fastnesses. Already there was twilight in those cool valleys lying within the shadow of mighty hills. A month and more had elapsed since Bob Yancy's trial. Just two days later man and boy disappeared from Scratch Hill. This had served to rouse Murrell to the need of immediate action, but he found, where Yancy was concerned, Scratch Hill could keep a secret, while Crenshaw's mouth was closed on any word that might throw light on the plans of his friend.

“It's plain to my mind, Captain, that Bladen will never get the boy. I reckon Bob's gone into hiding with him,” said the merchant, with spacious candor.

The fugitives had not gone into hiding, however; they had traversed the state from east to west, and Murrell was soon on their trail and pressing forward in pursuit. Reaching the mountains, he heard of them first as ten days ahead of him and bound for west Tennessee, the ten days dwindled to a week, the week became five days, the five days three; and now as he emerged from the last range of hills he caught sight of them. They were half a mile distant perhaps, but he was certain that the man and boy he saw pass about a turn in the road were the man and boy he had been following for a month.

He was not mistaken. The man was Bob Yancy and the boy was Hannibal. Yancy had acted with extraordinary decision. He had sold his few acres at Scratch Hill for a lump sum to Crenshaw—it was to the latter's credit that the transaction was one in which he could feel no real pride as a man of business—and just a day later Yancy and the boy had quitted Scratch Hill in the gray dawn, and turned their faces westward. Tennessee had become their objective point, since here was a region to which they could fix a name, while the rest of the world was strange to them. As they passed the turn in the road where Murrell had caught his first sight of them, Yancy glanced back at the blue wall of the mountains where it lay along the horizon.

“Well, Nevvy,” he said, “we've put a heap of distance between us and old Scratch Hill; all I can say is, if there's as much the other side of the Hill as there is this side, the world's a monstrous big place fo' to ramble about in.” He carried his rifle and a heavy pack. Hannibal had a much smaller pack and his old sporting rifle, burdens of which his Uncle Bob relieved him at brief intervals.

For the past ten days their journey had been conducted in a leisurely fashion. As Yancy said, they were seeing the world, and it was well to take a good look at it while they had a chance. He was no longer fearful of pursuit and his temperament asserted itself—the minimum of activity sufficed. Usually they camped just where the night overtook them; now and then they varied this by lodging at some tavern, for since there was money in his pocket, Yancy was disposed to spend it. He could not conceive that it had any other possible use.

Suddenly out of the silence came the regular beat of hoofs. These grew nearer and nearer, and at last when they were quite close, Yancy faced about. He instantly recognized Murrell and dropped his rifle into the crook of his arm. The act was instinctive, since there was no reason to believe that the captain had the least interest in the boy. Smilingly Murrell reined in his horse.

“Why—Bob Yancy!” he cried, in apparent astonishment.

“Yes, sir—Bob Yancy. Does it happen you are looking fo' him, Captain?” inquired Yancy.

“No—no, Bob. I'm on my way West. Shake hands.” His manner was frank and winning, and Yancy met it with an equal frankness.

“Well, sir, me and my nevvy are glad to meet some one we've knowed afore. The world are a lonesome place once you get shut of yo'r own dooryard,” he said. Murrell slipped from his saddle and fell into step at Yancy's side as they moved forward.

“They were mightily stirred up at the Cross Roads when I left, wondering what had come of you,” he observed.

“When did you quit there?” asked Yancy.

“About a fortnight ago,” said Murrell. “Every one approves of your action in this matter, Yancy,” he went on.

“That's kind of them,” responded Yancy, a little dryly. There was no reason for it, but he was becoming distrustful of Murrell, and uneasy.

“Bladen's hurt himself by the stand he's taken it this matter,” Murrell added.

They went forward in silence, Yancy brooding and suspicious. For the last mile or so their way had led through an unbroken forest, but a sudden turn in the road brought them to the edge of an extensive clearing. Close to the road were several buildings, but not a tree had been spared to shelter them and they stood forth starkly, the completing touch to a civilization that was still in its youth, unkempt, rather savage, and ruthlessly utilitarian. A sign, the work of inexpert hands, announced the somewhat dingy structure of hewn logs that stood nearest the roadside a tavern. There was a horse rack in front of it and a trampled space. It was flanked by its several sheds and barns on one hand and a woodpile on the other. Beyond the woodpile a rail fence inclosed a corn-field, and beyond the barns and sheds a similar fence defined the bounds of a stumpy pasture-lot.

From the door of the tavern the figure of a man emerged. Pausing by the horse rack he surveyed the two men and boy, if not with indifference, at least with apathy. Just above his head swung the sign with its legend, “Slosson—Entertainment”; but if he were Slosson, one could take the last half of the sign either as a poetic rhapsody on the part of the painter, or the yielding to some meaningless convention, for in his person, Mr. Slosson suggested none of those qualities of brain or heart that trenched upon the lighter amenities of life. He was black-haired and bull-necked, and there was about him a certain shagginess which a recent toilet performed at the horse trough had not served to mitigate.

“Howdy?” he drawled.

“Howdy?” responded Mr. Yancy.

“Shall you stop here?” asked Murrell, sinking his voice. Yancy nodded. “Can you put us up?” inquired Murrell, turning to the tavern-keeper.

“I reckon that's what I'm here for,” said Slosson. Murrell glanced about the empty yard. “Slack,” observed Slosson languidly. “Yes, sir, slack's the only name for it.” It was understood he referred to the state of trade. He looked from one to the other of the two men. As his eyes rested on Murrell, that gentleman raised the first three fingers of his right hand. The gesture was ever so little, yet it seemed to have a tonic effect on Mr. Slosson. What might have developed into a smile had he not immediately suppressed it, twisted his bearded lips as he made an answering movement. “Eph, come here, you!” Slosson raised his voice. This call brought a half-grown black boy from about a corner of the tavern, to whom Murrell relinquished his horse.

“Let's liquor,” said the captain over his shoulder, moving off in the direction of the bar.

“Come on, Nevvy!” said Yancy following, and they all entered the tavern.

“Well, here's to the best of good luck!” said Murrell, as he raised his glass to his lips.

“Same here,” responded Yancy. Murrell pulled out a roll of bills, one of which he tossed on the bar. Then after a moment's hesitation he detached a second bill from the roll and turned to Hannibal.

“Here, youngster—a present for you;” he said good-naturedly. Hannibal, embarrassed by the unexpected gift, edged to his Uncle Bob's side.

“Ain't you-all got nothing to say to the gentleman?” asked Yancy.

“Thank you, sir,” said the boy.

“That sounds a heap better. Let's see—why, if it ain't ten dollars—think of that!” said Yancy, in surprise.

“Let's have another drink,” suggested Murrell.

Presently Hannibal stole out into the yard. He still held the bill in his hand, for he did not quite know how to dispose of his great wealth. After debating this matter for a moment he knotted it carefully in one corner of his handkerchief. But this did not quite suit him, for he untied the knot and looked at the bill again, turning it over and over in his hand. Then he folded it carefully into the smallest possible compass and once more tied a corner of his handkerchief about it, this time with two knots instead of one; these he afterward tested with his teeth.

“I 'low she won't come undone now!” he said, with satisfaction. He stowed the handkerchief away in his trousers pocket, ramming it very tight with his fist. He was much relieved when this was done, for wearing a care-free air he sauntered across the yard and established himself on the top rail of the corn-field fence.

The colored boy, armed with an ax, appeared at the woodpile and began to chop in the desultory fashion of his race, pausing every few seconds to stare in the direction of his white compatriot, who met his glance with reserve. Whereupon Mr. Slosson's male domestic indulged in certain strange antics that were not rightly any part of woodchopping. This yet further repelled Hannibal.

“The disgustin' chattel!” he muttered under his breath, quoting his Uncle Bob, with whom, in theory at least, race feeling was strong. Yancy appeared at the door of the bar and called to him, and as the boy slid from the fence and ran toward him across the yard, the Scratch Hiller sauntered forth to meet him.

“I reckon it's all right, Nevvy,” he said, “but we don't know nothing about this here Captain Murrell—as he calls himself—though he seems a right clever sort of gentleman; but we won't mention Belle Plain.” With this caution he led the way into the tavern and back through the bar to a low-ceilinged room where Murrell and Slosson were already at table. It was intolerably hot, and there lingered in the heavy atmosphere of the place stale and unappetizing odors. Only Murrell attempted conversation and he was not encouraged; and presently silence fell on the room except for the rattle of dishes and the buzzing of flies. When they had finished, the stale odors and the heat drove them quickly into the bar again, where for a little time Hannibal sat on Yancy's knee, by the door. Presently he slipped down and stole out into the yard.

The June night was pulsing with life. Above him bats darted in short circling flights. In the corn-field and pasture-lot the fireflies lifted from their day-long sleep, showing pale points of light in the half darkness, while from some distant pond or stagnant watercourse came the booming of frogs, presently to swell into a resonant chorus. These were the summer night sounds he had known as far back as his memory went.

In the tavern the three men were drinking—Murrell with the idea that the more Yancy came under the influence of Slosson's corn whisky the easier his speculation would be managed. Mr. Yancy on his part believed that if Murrell went to bed reasonably drunk he would sleep late and give him the opportunity he coveted, to quit the tavern unobserved at break of day. Gradually the ice of silence which had held them mute at supper, thawed. At first it was the broken lazy speech of men who were disposed to quiet, then the talk became brisk—a steady stream of rather dreary gossip of horses and lands and negroes, of speculations past and gone in these great staples.

Hannibal crossed to the corn-field. There, in the friendly gloom, he examined his handkerchief and felt of the rolled-up bill. Then he made count of certain silver and copper coins which he had in his other pocket. Satisfied that he had sustained no loss, he again climbed to the top rail of the fence where he seated himself with an elbow resting on one knee and his chin in the palm of his hand.

“I got ten dollars and seventy cents—yes, sir—and the clostest shooting rifle I ever tossed to my shoulder.” He seemed but small to have accomplished such a feat. He meditated for a little space. “I reckon when we strike the settlements again I should like to buy my Uncle Bob a present.” With knitted brows he considered what this should be, canvassing Yancy's needs. He had about decided on a ring such as Captain Murrell was wearing, when he heard the shuffling of bare feet over the ground and a voice spoke out of the darkness.

“When yo' get to feelin' like sleep, young boss, Mas'r Slosson he says I show yo' to yo' chamber.” It was Slosson's boy Eph.

“Did you-all happen to notice what they're doing in the tavern now?” asked Hannibal.

“I low they're makin' a regular hog-killin' of it,” said Eph smartly. Hannibal descended from the fence.

“Yes, you can show me my chamber,” he said, and his tone was severe. What a white man did was not a matter for a black man to criticize. They went toward the open door of the tavern. Mr. Slosson's corn whisky had already wrought a marked transformation in the case of Slosson himself. His usually terse speech was becoming diffuse and irrelevant, while vacant laughter issued from his lips. Yancy was apparently unaffected by the good cheer of which he had partaken, but Murrell's dark face was flushed. The Scratch Hiller's ability to carry his liquor exceeded anything he had anticipated.

“You-all run along to bed, Nevvy,” said Yancy, as Hannibal entered the room. “I'll mighty soon follow you.”

Eph secured a tin candle-stick with a half-burnt candle in it and led the way into the passage back of the bar.

“Mas'r Slosson's jus' mo' than layin' back!” he said, as he closed the door after them.

“I reckon you-all will lay back, too, when you get growed up,” retorted Hannibal.

“No, sir, I won't. White folks won't let a nigger lay back. Onliest time a nigger sees co'n whisky's when he's totin' it fo' some one else.”

“I reckon a nigger's fool enough without corn whisky,” said Hannibal. They mounted a flight of stairs and passed down a narrow hall. This brought them to the back of the building, and Eph pushed open the door on his right.

“This heah's yo' chamber,” he said, and preceding his companion into the room, placed the candle on a chair.

“Well—I low I clean forgot something!” cried Hannibal.

“If it's yo' bundle and yo' gun, I done fotched 'em up heah and laid 'em on yo' bed,” said Eph, preparing' to withdraw.

“I certainly am obliged to you,” said Hannibal, and with a good night, Eph retired, closing the door after him, and the boy heard the patter of his bare feet as he scuttled down the hall.

The moon was rising and Hannibal went to the open window and glanced out. His room overlooked the back yard of the inn and a neglected truck patch. Starting from a point beyond the truck patch and leading straight away to the woodland beyond was a fenced lane, with the corn-field and the pasture-lot on either hand. Immediately below his window was the steeply slanting roof of a shed. For a moment he considered the night, not unaffected by its beauty, then, turning from the window, he moved his bundle and rifle to the foot of the bed, where they would be out of his way, kicked off his trousers, blew out the candle and lay down. The gossip of the men in the bar ran like a whisper through the house, and with it came frequent bursts of noisy laughter. Listening for these sounds the boy dozed off.

Yancy had become more and more convinced as the evening passed that Murrell was bent on getting him drunk, and suspicion mounted darkly to his brain. He felt certain that he was Bladen's agent. Now, Mr. Yancy took an innocent pride in his ability to “cool off liquor.” Perhaps it was some heritage from a well living ancestry that had hardened its head with Port and Madeira in the days when the Yancys owned their acres and their slaves. Be that as it may, he was equal to the task he had set himself. He saw with satisfaction the flush mount to Murrell's swarthy cheeks, and felt that the limit of his capacity was being reached. Mr. Slosson had become a sort of Greek chorus. He anticipated all the possible phases of drunkenness that awaited his companions. He went from silence to noisy mirth, when his unmeaning laughter rang through the house; he told long witless stories as he leaned against the bar; he became melancholy and described the loss of his wife five years before. From melancholy he passed to sullenness and seemed ready to fasten a quarrel on Yancy, but the latter deftly evaded any such issue.

“What you-all want is another drink,” he said affably. “With all you been through you need a tonic, so shove along that extract of cornshucks and molasses!”

“I'm a rip-staver,” said Slosson thickly. “But I've knowed enough sorrow to kill a horse.”

“You have that look. Captain, will you join us?” asked Yancy. Murrell shook his head, but he made a significant gesture to Slosson as Yancy drained his glass.

“Have a drink with me!” cried Slosson, giving way to drunken laughter.

“Don't you reckon you'll spite yo' appetite fo' breakfast, neighbor?” suggested Yancy.

“Do you mean you won't drink with me?” roared Slosson.

“The captain's dropped out and I 'low it's about time fo' these here festivities to come to an end. I'm thinking some of going to bed myself,” said Yancy. He kept his eyes fixed on Murrell. He realized that if the latter could prevent it he was not to leave the bar. Murrell stood between him and the door; more than this, he stood between him and his rifle, which leaned against the wall in the far corner of the room. Slosson roared out a protest to his words. “That's all right, neighbor,” retorted Yancy over his shoulder, “but I'm going to bed.” He never shifted his glance from Murrell's face. Scowling now, the captain's eyes blazed back their challenge as he thrust his right hand under his coat. “Fair play—I don't know who you are, but I know what you want!” said Yancy, the light in his frank gray eyes deepening. Murrell laughed and took a forward step. At the same moment Slosson snatched up a heavy club from back of the bar and dealt Yancy a murderous blow. A single startled cry escaped the Scratch Hitler; he struck out wildly as he lurched toward Murrell, who drew his knife and drove it into his shoulder.

Groping wildly, Yancy reached his rifle and faced about. His scalp lay open where Slosson's treacherous blow had fallen and his face was covered with blood; even as his fingers stiffened they found the hammer, but Murrell, springing forward, kicked the gun out of his hands. Dashing the blood from his eyes, Yancy threw himself on Murrell. Then, as they staggered to and fro, Yancy dully bent on strangling his enemy, Slosson—whom the sight of blood had wonderfully sobered—rushed out from the bar and let loose a perfect torrent of blows with his club. Murrell felt the fingers that gripped him grow weak, and Yancy dropped heavily to the floor.

How long the boy slept he never knew, but he awoke with a start and a confused sense of things. He seemed to have heard a cry for help. But the tavern was very silent now. The distant murmur of voices and the shouts of laughter had ceased. He lifted himself up on his elbow and glanced from the window. The heavens were pale and gray. It was evidently very late, probably long after midnight but where was his Uncle Bob?

He sank back on his pillow intent and listening. What he had heard, what he still expected to hear, he could not have told, but he was sure he had been roused by a cry of some sort. A chilling terror that gripped him fast and would not let him go, mounted to his brain. Once he thought he heard cautious steps beyond his door. He could not be certain, yet he imagined the bull-necked landlord standing with his ear to some crack seeking to determine whether or not he slept. His thin little body grew rigid and a cold sweat started from him. He momentarily expected the latch to be lifted, then in the heavy silence he caught the sound of some stealthy movement beyond the lath and plaster partition, and an instant later an audible footfall. He heard the boards creak and give, as the person who had been standing before his door passed down the hall, down the stairs, and to the floor below.

Limp and shivering, he drew his scanty covering tight about him. In the silence that succeeded, he once more became aware of the tireless chorus of the frogs, the hooting of the owls, and the melancholy and oft-repeated call of the whippoorwill. But where was his Uncle Bob? Why didn't he come to bed? And whose was that cry for help he had heard? Memories of idle tales of men foully dealt with in these lonely taverns, of murderous landlords, and mysterious guests who were in league with them, flashed through his mind.

Murrell had followed them for this—and had killed his Uncle Bob, and he would be sent back to Bladen! The law had said that Bladen could have him and that his Uncle Bob must give him up. The law put men in prison—it hanged them sometimes—his Uncle Bob had told him all about it—by the neck with ropes until they were dead! Maybe they wouldn't send him back; maybe they would do with him what they had already done with his Uncle Bob; he wanted the open air, the earth under his feet, and the sky over his head. The four walls stifled him. He was not afraid of the night, he could run and hide in it—there were the woods and fields where he would be safe.

He slid from the bed, and for a long moment stood cold and shaking, his every sense on the alert. With infinite caution he got into his trousers and again paused to listen, since he feared his least movement might betray him. Reassured, he picked up his battered hat from the floor and inch by inch crept across the squeaking boards to the window. When the window was reached he paused once more to listen, but the quiet that was everywhere throughout the house gave him confidence. He straddled the low sill, and putting out his hand gripped the stock of his rifle and drew that ancient weapon toward him. Next he secured his pack, and was ready for flight.

Encumbered by his belongings, but with no mind to sacrifice them, he stepped out upon the shed and made his way down the slant of the roof to the eaves. He tossed his bundle to the ground and going down on his knees lowered his rifle, letting the muzzle fall lightly against the side of the shed as it left his hand, then he lay flat on his stomach and, feet first, wriggled out into space. When he could no longer preserve his balance, he gave himself a shove away from the eaves and dropped clear of the building.

As he recovered himself he was sure he heard a door open and close, and threw himself prone on the ground, where the black shadow cast by the tavern hid him. At the same moment two dark figures came from about a corner of the building. He could just distinguish that they carried some heavy burden between them and that they staggered as they moved. He heard Slosson curse drunkenly, and a whispered word from Murrell. The two men slowly crossed the truck patch, and the boy's glance followed them, his eyes starting from his head. Just at the mouth of the lane they paused and put down their burden; a few words spoken in a whisper passed between them and they began to drag some dark thing down the lane, their backs bent, their heads bowed and the thing they dragged bumping over the uneven ground.

They passed out of sight, and breathless and palsied, Hannibal crept about a corner of the tavern. He must be sure! The door of the bar stood open; the lamps were still burning, and the upturned chairs and a broken table told of the struggle that had taken place there. The boy rested his hand on the top step as he stared fearfully into the room. His palm came away with a great crimson splotch. But he was not satisfied yet. He must be sure—sure! He passed around the building as the men had done and crossed the truck patch to the mouth of the lane. Here he slid through the fence into the corn-field, and, well sheltered, worked his way down the rows. Presently he heard a distant sound—a splash—surely it was a splash—.

A little later the men came up the lane, to disappear in the direction of the tavern. Hannibal peered after them. His very terrors, while they wrenched and tortured him, gave him a desperate kind of courage. As the gloom hid the two men, he started forward again; he must know the meaning of that sound—that splash, if it was a splash. He reached the end of the cornfield, climbed the fence, and entered a deadening of slashed and mutilated timber. In the long wet grass he found where the men had dragged their burden. He reached down and swept his hand to and fro—once—twice—the third time his little palm came away red and discolored.

There was the first pale premonition of dawn in the sky, and as he hurried on the light grew, and the black trunks of trees detached themselves from the white mist that filled the woods and which the dawn made visible. There was light enough for him to see that he was following the trail left by the men; he could distinguish where the dew had been brushed from the long grass. Advancing still farther, he heard the clear splash of running water, an audible ripple that mounted into a silver cadence. Day was breaking now. The lifeless gray along the eastern horizon had changed to orange. Still following the trail, he emerged upon the bank of the Elk River, white like the woods with its ghostly night sweat.

The dull beat of the child's heart quickened as he gazed out on the swift current that was hurrying on with its dreadful secret. Then the full comprehension of his loss seemed to overwhelm him and he was utterly desolate. Sobs shook him, and he dropped on his knees, holding fast to the stock of his rifle.

“Uncle Bob—Uncle Bob, come back! Can't you come back!” he wailed miserably. Presently he staggered to his feet. Convulsive sobs still wrenched his little body. What was he to do? Those men—his Uncle Bob's murderers—would go to his room; they would find his empty bed and their search for him would begin! Not for anything would he have gone back through the corn-field or the lane to the road. He had the courage to go forward, but not to retrace his steps; and the river, deep and swift, barred his path. As he glanced about, he saw almost at his feet a dug-out, made from a single poplar log. It was secured to an overhanging branch by a length of wild grape-vine. With one last fearful look off across the deadening in the direction of the tavern, he crept down to the water's edge and entered the canoe. In a moment, he had it free from its lashing and the rude craft was bumping along the bank in spite of his best efforts with the paddle. Then a favoring current caught it and swept it out toward the center of the stream.

It was much too big and clumsy for him to control without the stream's help, though he labored doggedly with his paddle. Now he was broadside to the current, now he was being spun round and round, but always he was carried farther and farther from the spot where he had embarked. He passed about a bend; and a hundred yards beyond, about a second bend; then the stream opened up straight before him a half-mile of smooth running water. Far down it, at the point where the trees met in the unbroken line of the forest and the water seemed to vanish mysteriously, he could distinguish a black moving object; some ark or raft, doubtless.

In the smoother water of the long reach, Hannibal began to make head against the flood. The farther shore became the nearer, and finally he drove the bow of his canoe up on a bit of shelving bank, and seizing his pack and rifle, sprang ashore. Panting and exhausted, he paused just long enough to push the canoe out into the stream again, and then, with his rifle and pack in his hands, turned his small tear-stained face toward the wooded slope beyond. As he toiled up it in the wide silence of the dawn, a mournful wind burst out of the north, filling the air about him with withered leaves and the dead branches of trees.

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CHAPTER VIII. ON THE RIVER

Betty stood under a dripping umbrella in the midst of a drenching downpour, her boxes and trunks forming a neat pyramid of respectable size beside her. She was somewhat perturbed in spirit, since they contained much elaborate finery all in the very latest eastern fashion, spoils that were the fruit of a heated correspondence with Tom, who hadn't seemed at all alive to the fact that Betty was nearly eighteen and in her own right a young woman of property. A tarpaulin had been thrown over the heap, and with one eye on it and the other on the stretch of yellow canal up which they were bringing the fast packet Pioneer, she was waiting impatiently to see her belongings transferred to a place of safety.

Just arrived by the four-horse coach that plyed regularly between Washington and Georgetown, she had found the long board platform beside the canal crowded with her fellow passengers, their number augmented by those who delight to share vicariously in travel and to whom the departure of a stage or boat was a matter of urgent interest requiring their presence, rain or shine. Suddenly she became aware of a tall, familiar figure moving through the crowd. It was Bruce Carrington. At the same moment he saw her, and with a casual air that quite deceived her, approached; and Betty, who had been feeling very lonely and very homesick, was somehow instantly comforted at sight of him. She welcomed him almost as a friend.

“You're leaving to-night?” he asked.

“Yes—isn't it miserable the way it rains? And why are they so slow—why don't they hurry with that boat?”

“It's in the last lock now,” explained Carrington.

“My clothes will all be ruined,” said Betty. He regarded the dress she wore with instant concern. “No—I mean the things in my trunks; this doesn't matter,” and Betty nodded toward the pile under the steaming tarpaulin. Carrington's dark eyes opened with an expression of mild wonder. And so those trunks were full of clothes—Oh, Lord!—he looked down at the flushed, impatient face beside him with amusement.

“I'll see that they are taken care of,” he said, for the boat was alongside the platform now; and gathering up Betty's hand luggage, he helped her aboard.

By the time they had reached Wheeling, Betty had quite parted with whatever superficial prejudice she might have had concerning river-men. This particular one was evidently a very nice river-man, an exception to his kind. She permitted him to assume the burden of her plans, and no longer scanned the pages of her Badger's and Porter's with a puckered brow. It reposed at the bottom of her satchel. He made choice of the steamer on which she should continue her journey, and thoughtfully chose The Naiad—a slow boat, with no reputation for speed to sustain. It meant two or three days longer on the river, but what of that? There would be no temptation in the engine-room to attach a casual wrench or so to the safety-valve as an offset to the builder's lack of confidence in his own boilers. He saw to it that her state-room was well aft—steamers had a trick of blowing up forward.

Ne had now reached a state of the utmost satisfaction with himself and the situation. Betty was friendly and charming. He walked with her, and he talked with her by the hour; and always he was being entangled deeper and deeper in the web of her attraction. “When alone he would pace the deck recalling every word she had spoken. There was that little air of high breeding which was Betty's that fascinated him. He had known something of the other sort, those who had arrived at prosperity with manners and speech that still reflected the meaner condition from which they had risen.

“I haven't a thing to offer her—this is plain madness of mine!” he kept telling himself, and then the expression of his face would become grim and determined. No more of the river for him—he'd get hold of some land and go to raising cotton; that was the way money was made.

Slow as The Naiad was, the days passed much too swiftly for him. When Memphis was reached their friendly intercourse would come to an end. There would be her brother, of whom she had occasionally spoken—he would be pretty certain to have the ideas of his class.

As for Betty, she liked this tall fellow who helped her through the fatigue of those long days, when there was only the unbroken sweep of the forest on either hand, with here and there a clearing where some outrageous soul was making a home for himself. The shores became duller, wilder, more uninteresting as they advanced, and then at last they entered the Mississippi, and she was almost home.

Betty was not unexcited by the prospect. She would be the mistress of the most splendid place in West Tennessee. She secretly aspired to be a brilliant hostess. She could remember when the doors of Belle Plain were open to whoever had the least claim to distinction—statesmen and speculators in land; men who were promoting those great schemes of improvement, canals and railroads; hard-featured heroes of the two wars with England—a diminishing group; the men of the modern army, the pathfinders, and Indian fighters, and sometimes a titled foreigner. She wondered if Tom had maintained the traditions of the place. She found that Carrington had heard of Belle Plain. He spoke of it with respect, but with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, for how could he feel enthusiasm when he must begin his chase after fortune with bare hands?—he suffered acutely whenever it was mentioned. The days, like any other days, dwindled. The end of it all was close at hand. Another twenty-four hours and Carrington reflected there would only be good-by to say.

“We will reach New Madrid to-night,” he told her. They were watching the river, under a flood of yellow moonlight.

“And then just another day—Oh, I can hardly wait!” cried Betty delightedly. “Soon I shall hope to see you at Belle Plain, Mr. Carrington,” she added graciously.

“Thank you, your—your family—” he hesitated.

“There's only just Tom—he's my half-brother. My mother was left a widow when I was a baby. Later, some years after, she married Tom's father.”

“Oh—then he's not even your half-brother?”

“He's no relation at all—and much older. When Tom's father died my mother made Tom, manager, and still later he was appointed my guardian.”

“Then you own Belle Plain?” and Carrington sighed.

“Yes. You have never seen it?—it's right on the river, you know?” then Betty's face grew sober: “Tom's dreadfully queer—I expect he'll require a lot of managing!”

“I reckon you'll be equal to that!” said-Carrington, convinced of Betty's all-compelling charm.

“No, I'm not at all certain about Tom—I can see where we shall have serious differences; but then, I shan't have to struggle single-handed with him long; a cousin of my mother's is coming to Belle Plain to make her home with me—she'll make' him behave,” and Betty laughed maliciously. “It's a great nuisance being a girl!”

Then Betty fell to watching for the lights at New Madrid, her elbows resting on the rail against which she was leaning, and the soft curve of her chin sunk in the palms of her hands. She wondered absently what Judith would have said of this river-man. She smiled a little dubiously. Judith had certainly vindicated the sincerity of her convictions regarding the importance of family, inasmuch as in marrying Ferris she had married her own second cousin. She nestled her chin a little closer in her palms. She remembered that they had differed seriously over Mr. Yancy's defiance, of the law as it was supposed to be lodged in the sacred person of Mr. Bladen's agent, the unfortunate Blount. Carrington, with his back against a stanchion, watched her discontentedly.

“You'll be mighty glad to have this over with, Miss Malroy—” he said at length, with a comprehensive sweep toward the river.

“Yes—shan't you?” and she opened her eyes questioningly.

“No,” said Carrington with a short laugh, drawing a chair near hers and sitting down.

Betty, in surprise, gave him a quick look, and then as quickly glanced away from what she encountered in his eyes. Men were accustomed to talk sentiment to her, but she had hoped—well, she really had thought that he was, superior to this weakness. She had enjoyed the feeling that here was some one, big and strong and thoroughly masculine, with whom she could be friendly without—she took another look at him from under the fringe of her long lashes. He was so nice and considerate—and good looking—he was undeniably this last. It would be a pity! And she had already determined that Tom should invite him to Belle Plain. She didn't mind if he was a river-man—they could be friends, for clearly he was such an exception. Tom should be cordial to him. Betty stared before her, intently watching the river. As she looked, suddenly pale points of light appeared on a distant headland.

“Is that New Madrid?—Oh, is it, Mr. Carrington?”' she cried eagerly.

“I reckon so,” but he did not alter his position.

“But you're not looking!”

“Yes, I am—I'm looking at you. I reckon you'll think me crazy, Miss Malroy-presumptuous and all that but I wish Memphis could be wiped off the map and that we could go on like this for ever!—no, not like this but together—you and I,” he took a deep breath. Betty drew a little farther away, and looked at him reproachfully; and then she turned to the dancing lights far down the river. Finally she said slowly:

“I thought you were—different.”

“I'm not,” and Carrington's hand covered hers.

“Oh—you mustn't kiss my hand like that—”

“Dear—I'm just a man—and you didn't expect, did you, that I could see you this way day after day and not come to love you?” He rested his arm across the back of her chair and leaned toward her.

“No—no—” and Betty moved still farther away.

“Give me a chance to win your love, Betty!”

“You mustn't talk so—I am nothing to you—”

“Yes, you are. You're everything to me,” said Carrington doggedly.

“I'm not—I won't be!” and Betty stamped her foot.

“You can't help it. I love you and that's all there is about it. I know I'm a fool to tell you now, Betty, but years wouldn't make any difference in my feeling; and I can't have you go, and perhaps never see you again, if I can help it. Betty—give me a chance—you don't hate me—”

“But I do—yes, I do—indeed—”

“I know you don't. Let me see you again and do what I can to make you care for me!” he implored. But he had a very indignant little aristocrat to deal with. She was angry with him, and angry with herself that in spite of herself his words moved her. She wouldn't have it so! Why, he wasn't even of her class—her kind! “Betty, you don't mean—” he faltered.

“I mean—I am extremely annoyed. I mean just what I say.” Betty regarded him with wrathful blue eyes. It proved too much for Carrington. His arm, dropped about her shoulders.

“You shall love me—” She was powerless in his embrace. She felt his breath on her cheek, then he kissed her. Breathless and crimson, she struggled and pushed him from her. Suddenly his arms fell at his side; his face was white. “I was a brute to do that!—Betty, forgive me! I am sorry—no, I can't be sorry!”'

“How do you dare! I hope I may never see you again—I hate you—” said Betty furiously, tears in her eyes and her pulses still throbbing from his fierce caress.

“Do you mean that?” he asked slowly, rising.

“Yes—yes—a million times, yes!”

“I don't believe you—I can't—I won't!” They were alongside the New Madrid wharf now, and a certain young man who had been impatiently watching The Naiad's lights ever since they became visible crossed the gang-plank with a bound.

“Betty—why in the name of goodness did you ever, choose this tub?—everything on the river has passed it!” said the newcomer. Betty started up with a little cry of surprise and pleasure.

“Charley!”

Carrington stepped back. This must be the brother who had come up the river from Memphis to meet her—but her brother's name was Tom! He looked this stranger—this Charley—over with a hostile eye, offended by his good looks, his confident manner, in which he thought he detected an air of ownership, as if—certainly he was holding her hands longer than was necessary! Of course, other men were in love with her, such a radiant personality held its potent attraction for men, but for all that, she was going to belong to him—Carrington! She did like him; she had shown it in a hundred little ways during the last week, and he would give her up to no man—give her up?—there wasn't the least tie between them—except that kiss—and she was furious because of it. There was nothing for him to do but efface himself. He would go now, before the boat started—and an instant later, when Betty, remembering, turned to speak to him, his place by the rail was deserted.

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CHAPTER IX. JUDGE SLOCUM PRICE

On that day Hannibal was haunted by the memory of what he had heard and seen at Slosson's tavern. More than this, there was his terrible sense of loss, and the grief he could not master, when his thin, little body was shaken by sobs. Marking the course of the road westward, he clung to the woods, where his movements were as stealthy as the very shadows themselves. He shunned the scattered farms and the infrequent settlements, for the fear was strong with him that he might be followed either by Murrell or Slosson. But as the dusk of evening crept across the land, the great woods, now peopled by strange shadows, sent him forth into the highroad. He was beginning to be very tired, and hunger smote him with fierce pangs, but back of it all was his sense of bitter loss, his desolation, and his loneliness.

“I couldn't forget Uncle Bob if I tried—” he told himself, with quivering lips, as he limped wearily along the dusty road, and the tears welled up and streaked his pinched face. Now before him he saw the scattered lights of a settlement. All his terrors, the terrors that grouped themselves about the idea of pursuit and capture, rushed back upon him, and in a panic he plunged into the black woods again.

But the distant lights intensified his loneliness. He had lived a whole day without food, a whole day without speech. He began to skirt the settlement, keeping well within the thick gloom of the woods, and presently, as he stumbled forward, he came to a small clearing in the center of which stood a log dwelling. The place seemed deserted. There was no sign of life, no light shone from the window, no smoke issued from the stick-and-mud chimney.

Tilted back in a chair by the door of this house a man was sleeping. The hoot of an owl from a near-by oak roused him. He yawned and stretched himself, thrusting out his fat legs and extending his great arms. Then becoming aware of the small figure which had stolen up the path as he slept and now stood before him in the uncertain light, he fell to rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his plump hands. The pale night mist out of the silent depths of the forest had assumed shapes as strange.

“Who are you?” he demanded, and his voice rumbled thickly forth from his capacious chest. The very sound was sleek and unctuous.

“I'm Hannibal,” said the small figure. He was meditating flight; he glanced over his shoulder toward the woods.

“No, you ain't. He's been dead a thousand years, more or less. Try again,” recommended the man.

“I'm Hannibal Wayne Hazard,” said the boy. The man quitted his chair.

“Well—I am glad to know you, Hannibal Wayne Hazard. I am Slocum Price—Judge Slocum Price, sometime major-general of militia and ex-member of congress, to mention a few of those honors my fellow countrymen have thrust upon me.” He made a sweeping gesture with his two hands outspread and bowed ponderously.

The boy saw a man of sixty, whose gross and battered visage told its own story. There was a sparse white frost about his ears; and his eyes, pale blue and prominent, looked out from under beetling brows. He wore a shabby plum-colored coat and tight, drab breeches. About his fat neck was a black stock, with just a suggestion of soiled linen showing above it. His figure was corpulent and unwieldy.

The man saw a boy of perhaps ten, barefoot, and clothed in homespun shirt and trousers. On his head was a ruinous hat much too large for him, but which in some mysterious manner he contrived to keep from quite engulfing his small features, which were swollen and tear-stained. In his right hand he carried a bundle, while his left clutched the brown barrel of a long rifle.

“You don't belong in these parts, do you?” asked the judge, when he had completed his scrutiny.

“No, sir,” answered the boy. He glanced off down the road, where lights were visible among the trees. “What town is that?” he added.

“Pleasantville—which is a lie—but I am neither sufficiently drunk nor sufficiently sober to cope with the possibilities your question offers. It is a task one should approach only after extraordinary preparation,” and the sometime major-general of militia grinned benevolently.

“It's a town, ain't it?” asked Hannibal doubtfully. He scarcely understood this large, smiling gentleman who was so civilly given to speech with him, yet strangely enough he was not afraid of him, and his whole soul craved human companionship.

“It's got a name—but you'll excuse me, I'd much prefer not to tell you how I regard it—you're too young to hear. But stop a bit—have you so much as fifty cents about you?” and the judge's eyes narrowed to a slit above their folds of puffy flesh. Hannibal, keeping his glance fixed on the man's face, fell back a step. “I can't let you go if you are penniless—I can't do that!” cried the judge, with sudden vehemence. “You shall be my guest for the night. They're a pack of thieves at the tavern,” he lowered his voice. “I know 'em, for they've plucked me!” To make sure of his prey, he rested a fat hand on the boy's shoulder and drew him gently but firmly into the shanty. As they crossed the threshold he kicked the door shut, then with flint and steel he made a light, and presently a candle was sputtering in his hands. He fitted it into the neck of a tall bottle, and as the light flared up the boy glanced about him.

The interior was mean enough, with its rough walls, dirt floor and black, cavernous fireplace. A rude clapboard table did duty as a desk, a fact made plain by a horn ink-well, a notary's seal, and a rack with a half-dozen quill pens. Above the desk was a shelf of books in worn calf bindings, and before it a rickety chair. A shakedown bed in one corner of the room was tastefully screened from the public gaze by a tattered quilt.

“Boy, don't be afraid. Look on me as a friend,” urged the judge, who towered above him in the dim candle-light. “Here's comfort without ostentation. Don't tell me you prefer the tavern, with its corrupt associations!” Hannibal was silent, and the judge, after a brief moment of irresolution, threw open the door. Then he bent toward the small stranger, bringing his face close to the child's, while his thick lips wreathed themselves in a smile ingratiatingly genial. “You can't look me squarely in the eye and say you prefer the tavern to these scholarly surroundings?” he said banteringly.

“I reckon I'll be glad to stop,” answered Hannibal. The judge clapped him playfully on the back.

“Such confidence is inspiring! Make yourself perfectly at home. Are you hungry?”

“Yes, sir. I ain't had much to eat to-day,” replied Hannibal cautiously.

“I can offer you food then. What do you say to cold fish?” the judge smacked his lips to impart a relish to the idea. “I dare swear I can find you some corn bread into the bargain. Tea I haven't got. On the advice of my physician, I don't use it. What do you say—shall we light a fire and warm the fish?”

“I 'low I could eat it cold.”

“No trouble in the world to start a fire. All we got to do is to go out, and pull a few palings off the fence,” urged the judge.

“It will do all right just like it is,” said Hannibal.

“Very good, then!” cried the judge gaily, and he began to assemble the dainties he had enumerated. “Here you are!” he cleared his throat impressively, while benignity shone from every feature of his face. “A moment since you allowed me to think that you were solvent to the extent of fifty cents—” Hannibal looked puzzled. The judge dealt him a friendly blow on the back, then stood off and regarded him with a glance of great jocularity, his plump knuckles on his hips and his arms akimbo. “I wonder”—and his eyes assumed a speculative squint “I wonder if you could be induced to make a temporary loan of that fifty cents? The sum involved is really such a ridiculous trifle I don't need to point out to you the absolute moral certainty of my returning it at an early date—say to-morrow morning; say to-morrow afternoon at the latest; say even the day after at the very outside. Meantime, you shall be my guest. The landlady's son has found my notarial seal an admirable plaything—she has had to lick the little devil twice for hooking it—my pens and stationery are at your disposal, should you desire to communicate to absent friends; you can have the run of my library!” the judge fairly trembled in his eagerness. It was not the loss of his money that Hannibal most feared, and the coin passed from his possession into his host's custody. As it dropped into the latter's great palm he was visibly moved. His moist, blue eyes became yet more watery, while his battered old face assumed an expression indicating deep inward satisfaction. “Thank you, my boy! This is one of those intrinsically trifling benefits which, conferred at the moment of acute need, touch the heart and tap the unfailing springs of human gratitude—I must step down to the tavern—when I return, please God, we shall know more of each other.” While he was still speaking he had produced a jug from behind the quilt that screened his bed, and now, bareheaded, and with every indication of haste, took himself off into the night.

Left alone, Hannibal gravely seated himself at the table. What the judge's larder lacked in variety it more than made up for in quantity, and the boy was grateful for this fact. He was half famished, and the coarse, abundant food was of the sort to which he was accustomed. Presently he heard the judge's heavy, shuffling step as he came up the path from the road, and a moment later his gross bulk of body filled the doorway. Breathing hard and perspiring, the judge entered the shanty, but his eagerness, together with his shortness of breath, kept him silent until he had established himself in his chair beside the table, with the jug and a cracked glass at his elbow. Then, bland and smiling, he turned toward his guest.

“Will you join me?” he asked.

“No, sir. Please, I'd rather not,” said Hannibal.

“Do you mean that you don't like good liquor?” demanded the judge. “Not even with sugar and a dash of water?—say, now, don't you like it that way, my boy?”

“I ain't learned to like it no ways,” said Hannibal.

“You amaze me—well—well—the greater the joy to which you may reasonably aspire. The splendid possibilities of youth are yours. My tenderest regards, Hannibal!” and he nodded over the rim of the cracked glass his shaking hand had carried to his lips. Twice the glass was filled and emptied, and then again, his roving, watery eyes rested meditatively on the child, who sat very erect in his chair, with his brown hands crossed in his lap. “Personally, I can drink or not,” explained the judge. “But I hope I am too much a man of the world to indulge in any intemperate display of principle.” He proved the first clause of his proposition by again filling and emptying his glass. “Have you a father?” he asked suddenly. Hannibal shook his head. “A mother?” demanded the judge.

“They both of them done died years and years ago,” answered the boy. “I can't tell you how long back it was, but I reckon I don't know much about it. I must have been a small child.”

“Ho—a small child!” cried the judge, laughing. He cocked his head on one side and surveyed Hannibal Wayne Hazard with a glance of comic seriousness. “A small child and in God's name what do you call yourself now? To hear you talk one would think you had dabbled your feet in the Flood!”

“I'm most ten,” said Hannibal, with dignity.

“I can well believe it,” responded the judge. “And with this weight of years, where did you come from and how did you get here?”

“From across the mountains.”

“Alone?”

“No, sir. Mr. Yancy fetched me—part way.” The boy's voice broke when he spoke his Uncle Bob's name, and his eyes swam with tears, but the judge did not notice this.

“And where are you going?”

“To West Tennessee.”

“Have you any friends there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You've money enough to see you through?” and what the judge intended for a smile of fatherly affection became a leer of infinite cunning.

“I got ten dollars.”

“Ten dollars—” the judge smacked his lips once. “Ten dollars” he repeated, and smacked his lips twice. There was a brief silence, in which he seemed to give way to pleasant reveries.

From beyond the open door of the shanty came a multitude of night sounds. The moon had risen, and what had been a dusty country road was now a streak of silver in the hot light. The purple flush on the judge's face, where the dignity that belonged to age had gone down in wreck, deepened. The sparse, white frost above his ears was damp with sweat. He removed his stock, opened his shirt at the neck, and cast aside his coat; then he lighted a blackened pipe, filled his glass, and sank back in his chair. The long hours of darkness were all before him, and his senses clothed themselves in rich content. Once more his glance rested on the boy. Here, indeed, was a guest of whom one might make much and not err—he felt all the benevolence of his nature flow toward him. Ten dollars!

“Certainly the tavern would have been no place for you! Well, thank God, it wasn't necessary for you to go there. You are more than welcome here. I tell you, when you know this place as I know it, you'll regard every living soul here with suspicion. Keep 'em at arm's length!” he sank his voice to an impressive whisper. “In particular, I warn you against a certain Solomon Mahaffy. You'll see much of him; I haven't known how to rebuff the fellow without being rude—he sticks to me like my shadow. He's profited by my charity and he admires my conversation and affects my society, but don't tell him you have so much as a rusty copper, for he will neither rest nor eat nor sleep until he's plucked you—tell him nothing—leave him to me. I keep him—there—” the judge extended his fat hands, “at arm's length. I say to him metaphorically speaking—'so close, but no closer. I'll visit you when sick, I'll pray with you when dying, I'll chat with you, I'll eat with you, I'll smoke with you, and if need be, I'll drink with you—but be your intimate? Never! Why? Because be's a damned Yankee! These are the inextinguishable feelings of a gentleman. I am aware they are out of place in this age, but what's bred in the bone will show in the flesh. Who says it won't, is no gentleman himself and a liar as well! My place in the world was determined two or three hundred years ago, and my ancestors spat on such cattle as Mahaffy and they were flattered by the attention!” The judge, powerfully excited by his denunciation of the unfortunate Mahaffy, quitted his chair and, lurching somewhat as he did so, began to pace the floor.

“Take me for your example, boy! You may be poor, you may possibly be hungry you'll often be thirsty, but through it all you will remain that splendid thing—a gentleman! Lands, niggers, riches, luxury, I've had 'em all; I've sucked the good of 'em; they've colored my blood, they've gone into the fiber of my brain and body. Perhaps you'll contend that the old order is overthrown, that family has gone to the devil? You are right, and there's the pity of it! Where are the great names? A race of upstarts has taken their place—sons of nobody—nephews of nobody—cousins of nobody—I observe only deterioration in the trend of modern life. The social fabric is tottering—I can see it totter—” and he tottered himself as he said this.

The boy had watched him out of wide eyes, as ponderous and unwieldy he shuffled back and forth in the dim candlelight; now shaking his head and muttering, the judge dropped into his chair.

“Well, I'm an old man-the spectacle won't long offend me. I'll die presently. The Bench and Bar will review my services to the country, the militia will fire a few volleys at my graveside, here and there a flag will be at half-mast, and that will be the end—” He was so profoundly moved by the thought that he could not go on. His voice broke, and he buried his face in his arms. A sympathetic moisture had gathered in the child's eyes. He understood only a small part of what his host was saying, but realized that it had to do with death, and he had his own terrible acquaintance with death. He slipped from his chair and stole to the judge's side, and that gentleman felt a cool hand rest lightly on his arm.

“What?” he said, glancing up.

“I'm mighty sorry you're going to die,” said the boy softly.

“Bless you, Hannibal!” cried the judge, looking wonderfully cheerful, despite his recent bitterness of spirit. “I'm not experiencing any of the pangs of mortality now. My dissolution ain't a matter of to-night or to-morrow—there's some life in Slocum Price yet, for all the rough usage, eh? I've had my fun—I could tell you a thing or two about that, if you had hair on your chin!” and the selfish lines of his face twisted themselves into an exceedingly knowing grin.

“You talked like you thought you were going to die right off,” said Hannibal gravely, as he resumed his chair. The judge was touched. It had been more years than he cared to remember since he had launched a decent emotion in the breast of any human being. For a moment he was silent, struck with a sense of shame; then he said:

“You are sure you are not running away, Hannibal? I hope you know that boys should always tell the truth—that hell has its own especial terrors for the boy who lies? Now, if I thought the worst of you, I might esteem it my duty to investigate your story.” The judge laid a fat forefinger against the side of his nose, and regarded him with drunken gravity. Hannibal shook with terror. This was what he had feared. “That's one aspect of the case. Now, on the other hand, I might draw up a legal instrument which could not fail to be of use to you on your travois, and would stop all questions. As for my fee, it would be trifling, when compared with the benefits I can see accruing to you.”

“No, I ain't running away. I ain't got no one to run away from,” said the boy chokingly. He was showing signs of fatigue. His head drooped and he met the judge's glance with tired, sleepy eyes. The latter looked at him and then said suddenly:

“I think you'd better go to bed.”

“I reckon I had,” agreed Hannibal, slipping from his chair.

“Well, take my bed back of the quilt. You'll find a hoe there. You can dig up the dirt under the shuck tick with it—which helps astonishingly. What would the world say if it could know that judge Slocum Price makes his bed with a hoe! There's Spartan hardihood!” but the boy, not knowing what was meant by Spartan hardihood, remained silent. “Nearing threescore years and ten, the allotted span as set down by the Psalmist—once man of fashion, soldier, statesman and lawgiver—and makes his bed with a hoe! What a history!” muttered the judge with weary melancholy, as one groping hand found the jug while the other found the glass. There was a pause, while he profited by this fortunate chance. “Well, take the bed,” he resumed hospitably.

“I can sleep most anywhere. I ain't no ways particular,” said Hannibal.

“I say, take the bed!” commanded the judge sternly. And Hannibal quickly retired behind the quilt. “Do you find it comfortable?” the judge asked, when the rustling of the shuck tick informed him that the child had lain down.

“Yes, sir,” said the boy.

“Have you said your prayers?” inquired the judge.

“No, sir. I ain't said 'em yet.”

“Well, say them now. Religion is as becoming in the young as it is respectable in the aged. I'll not disturb you to-night, for it is God's will that I should stay up and get very drunk.”

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CHAPTER X. BOON COMPANIONS

Some time later the judge was aware of a step on the path beyond his door, and glancing up, saw the tall figure of a man pause on his threshold. A whispered curse slipped from between his lips. Aloud he said:

“Is that you, Mr. Mahaffy?” He got no reply, but the tall figure, propelled by very long legs, stalked into the shanty and a pair of keen, restless eyes deeply set under a high, bald head were bent curiously upon him.

“I take it I'm intruding,” the new-comer said sourly.

“Why should you think that, Solomon Mahaffy? When has my door been closed on you?” the judge asked, but there was a guilty deepening of the flush on his face. Mr. Mahaffy glanced at the jug, at the half-emptied glass within convenient reach of the judge's hand, lastly at the judge himself, on whose flame-colored visage his eyes rested longest.

“I've heard said there was honor among thieves,” he remarked.

“I know of no one better fitted to offer an opinion on so delicate a point than just yourself, Mahaffy,” said the judge, with a thick little ripple of laughter.

But Solomon Mahaffy's long face did not relax in its set expression.

“I saw your light,” he explained, “but you seem to be raising first-rate hell all by yourself.”

“Oh, be reasonable, Solomon. You'd gone down to the steamboat landing,” said the judge plaintively. By way of answer, Mahaffy shot him a contemptuous glance. “Take a chair—do, Solomon!” entreated the judge.

“I don't force my society on any man, Mr. Price,” said Mahaffy, with austere hostility of tone. The judge winced at the “Mr.” That registered the extreme of Mahaffy's disfavor.

“You feel bitter about this, Solomon?” he said.

“I do,” said Mahaffy, in a tone of utter finality.

“You'll feel better with three fingers of this trickling through your system,” observed the judge, pushing a glass toward him.

“When did I ever sneak a jug into my shanty?” asked Mahaffy sternly, evidently conscious of entire rectitude in this matter.

“I deplore your choice of words, Solomon,” said the judge. “You know damn well that if you'd been here I couldn't have got past your place with that jug! But let's deal with conditions. Here's the jug, with some liquor left in it—here's a glass. Now what more do you want?”

“Have I ever been caught like this?” demanded Mahaffy.

“No, you've invariably manifested the honorable disabilities of a gentleman. But don't set it all down to virtue. Maybe you haven't had the opportunity, maybe the temptation never came and found you weak and thirsty. Put away your sinful pride, Solomon—a sot like you has no business with the little niceties of selfrespect.”

“Do I drink alone?” insisted Mahaffy doggedly.

“I never give you the chance,” retorted his friend. Mr. Mahaffy drew near the table. “Sit down,” urged the judge.

“I hope you feel mean?” said Mahaffy.

“If it's any satisfaction to you, I do,” admitted the judge.

“You ought to.” Mahaffy drew forward a chair. The judge filled his glass. But Mr. Mahaffy's lean face, with its long jaws and high cheek-bones, over which the sallow skin was tightly drawn, did not relax in its forbidding expression, even when he had tossed off his first glass.

“I love to see you in a perfectly natural attitude like that, Solomon, with your arm crooked. What's the news from the landing?”

Mahaffy brought his fist down on the table.

“I heard the boat churning away round back of the bend, then I saw the lights, and she tied up and they tossed off the freight. Then she churned away again and her lights got back of the trees on the bank. There was the lap of waves on the shore, and I was left with the half-dozen miserable loafers who'd crawled out to see the boat come in. That's the news six days a week!”

By the river had come the judge, tentatively hopeful, but at heart expecting nothing, therefore immune to disappointment and equipped for failure. By the river had come Mr. Mahaffy, as unfit as the judge himself, and for the same reason, but sour and bitter with the world, believing always in the possibility of some miracle of regeneration.

Pleasantville's weekly paper, The Genius of Liberty, had dwelt at length upon those distinguished services judge Slocum Price had rendered the nation in war and peace, the judge having graciously furnished an array of facts otherwise difficult of access. That he was drunk at the time had but added to the splendor of the narrative. He had placed his ripe wisdom, the talents he had so assiduously cultivated, at the services of his fellow citizens. He was prepared to represent them in any or all the courts. But he had remained undisturbed in his condition of preparedness; that erudite brain was unconcerned with any problem beyond financing his thirst at the tavern, where presently ingenuity, though it expressed itself with a silver tongue, failed him, and he realized that the river's spent floods had left him stranded with those other odds and ends of worthless drift that cumbered its sun-scorched mud banks.

Something of all this passed through his mind as he sat there sodden and dreamy, with the one fierce need of his nature quieted for the moment. He had been stranded before, many times, in those long years during which he had moved steadily toward a diminishing heritage; indeed, nothing that was evil could contain the shock of a new experience. He had fought and lost all his battles—bitter struggles to think of even now, after the lapse of years, and the little he had to tell of himself was an intricate mingling of truth and falsehood, grotesque exaggeration, purposeless mendacity.

He and Mahaffy had met exactly one month before, on the deck of the steamer from which they had been put ashore at the river landing two miles from Pleasantville. Mahaffy's historic era had begun just there. Apparently he had no past of which he could be brought to speak. He admitted having been born in Boston some sixty years before, and was a printer by trade; further than this, he had not revealed himself, drunk or sober.

At the judge's elbow Mr. Mahaffy changed his position with nervous suddenness. Then he folded his long arms.

“You asked if there was any news, Price; while we were waiting for the boat a raft tied up to the bank; the fellow aboard of it had a man he'd fished up out of the river, a man who'd been pretty well cut to pieces.”

“Who was he?” asked the judge.

“Nobody knew, and he wasn't conscious. I shouldn't be surprised if he never opens his lips again. When the doctor had looked to his cuts, the fellow on the raft cast off and went on down the Elk.”

It occurred to the judge that he himself had news to impart. He must account for the boy's presence.

“While you've been taking your whiff of life down at the steamboat landing, Mahaffy, I've been experiencing a most extraordinary coincidence.” The judge paused. By a sullen glare in his deep-sunk eyes Mr. Mahaffy seemed to bid him go on. “Back east—” the judge jerked his thumb with an indefinite gesture “back east at my ancestral home—” Mahaffy snorted harshly. “You don't believe I had an ancestral home?—well, I had! It was of brick, sir, with eight Corinthian columns across the front, having a spacious paneled hall sixty feet long. I had the distinguished honor to entertain General Andrew Jackson there.”

“Did you get those dimensions out of the jug?” inquiry Mahaffy, with a frightful bark that was intended for a sarcastic laugh.

“Sir, it is not in your province to judge me by my present degraded associates. Near the house I have described—my father's and his father's before him, and mine now—but for the unparalleled misfortunes which have pursued me—lived a family by the name of Hazard. And when I went to the war of '12—”

“What were you in that bloody time, a sutler?” inquired Mahaffy insultingly.

“No, sir—a colonel of infantry!—I say, when I went to the war, one of these Hazards accompanied me as my orderly. His grandson is back of that curtain now—asleep—in my bed!” Mahaffy put down his glass.

“You were like this once before,” he said darkly. But at that instant the shuck tick rattled noisily at some movement of the sleeping boy. Mahaffy quitted his chair, and crossing the room, drew the quilt aside. A glance sufficed to assure him that in part, at least, the judge spoke the truth. He let the curtain fall into place and resumed his chair.

“He's an orphan, Solomon; a poor, friendless orphan. Another might have turned him away from his door—I didn't; I hadn't the heart to. I bespeak your sympathy for him.”

“Who is he?” asked Mahaffy.

“Haven't I just told you?” said the judge reproachfully. Mahaffy laughed.

“You've told me something. Who is he?”

“His name is Hannibal Wayne Hazard. Wait until he wakes up and see if it isn't.”

“Sure he isn't kin to you?” said Mahaffy.

“Not a drop of my blood flows in the veins of any living creature,” declared the judge with melancholy impressiveness. He continued with deepening feeling, “All I shall leave to posterity is my fame.”

“Speaking of posterity, which isn't present, Mr. Price, I'll say it is embarrassed by the attention,” observed Mahaffy.

There was a long silence between them. Mr. Mahaffy drank, and when he did not drink he bit his under lip and studied the judge. This was always distressing to the latter gentleman. Mahaffy's silence he could never penetrate. What was back of it—judgment, criticism, disbelief—what? Or was it the silence of emptiness? Was Mahaffy dumb merely because he could think of nothing to say, or did his silence cloak his feelings-and what were his feelings? Did his meditations outrun his habitually insulting speech as he bit his under lip and glared at him? The judge always felt impelled to talk at such times, while Mahaffy, by that silence of his, seemed to weigh and condemn whatever he said.

The moon had slipped below the horizon. Pleasantville had long since gone to bed; it was only the judge's window that gave its light to the blackness of the night. There was a hoofbeat on the road. It came nearer and nearer, and presently sounded just beyond the door. Then it ceased, and a voice said:

“Hullo, there!” The judge scrambled to his feet, and taking up the candle, stepped, or rather staggered, into the yard. Mahaffy followed him.

“What's wanted?” asked the judge, as he lurched up to horse and rider, holding his candle aloft. The light showed a tail fellow mounted on a handsome bay horse. It was Murrell.

“Is there an inn hereabouts?” he asked.

“You'll find one down the road a ways,” said Mahaffy. The judge said nothing. He was staring up at Murrell with drunken gravity.

“Have either of you gentlemen seen a boy go through here to-day? A boy about ten years old?” Murrell glanced from one to the other. Mr. Mahaffy's thin lips twisted themselves into a sarcastic smile. He turned to the judge, who spoke up quickly.

“Did he carry a bundle and rifle?” he asked. Murrell gave eager assent.

“Well,” said the judge, “he stopped here along about four o'clock and asked his way to the nearest river landing.” Murrell gathered up his reins, and then that fixed stare of the judge's seemed to arrest his attention.

“You'll know me again,” he observed.

“Anywhere,” said the judge.

“I hope that's a satisfaction to you,” said Murrell.

“It ain't—none whatever,” answered the judge promptly. “For I don't value you—I don't value you that much!” and he snapped his fingers to illustrate his meaning.

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CHAPTER XI. THE ORATOR Or THE DAY

“Hannibal!” the judge's voice and manner were rather stern. “Hannibal, a man rode by here last night on a big bay horse. He said he was looking for a boy about ten years old—a boy with a bundle and rifle.” There was an awful pause. Hannibal's heart stood still for a brief instant, then it began to beat with terrific thumps against his ribs. “Who was that man, Hannibal?”

“I—please, I don't know—” gasped the child.

“Hannibal, who was that man?” repeated the judge.

“It were Captain Murrell.” The judge regarded him with a look of great steadiness. He saw his small face go white, he saw the look of abject terror in his eyes. The judge raised his fist and brought it down with a great crash on the table, so that the breakfast dishes leaped and rattled. “We don't know any boy ten years old with a rifle and bundle!” he said.

“Please—you won't let him take me away, judge I want to stop with you!” cried Hannibal. He slipped from his chair, and passing about the table, seized the judge by the hand. The judge was visibly affected.

“No!” he roared, with a great oath. “He shan't have you—I'll see him in the farthest corner of hell first! Is he kin to you?”

“No,” said Hannibal.

“Took you to raise, did he—and abused you—infernal hypocrite!” cried the judge with righteous wrath.

“He tried to get me away from my Uncle Bob. He's been following us since we crossed the mountains.”

“Where is your Uncle Bob?”

“He's dead.” And the child began to weep bitterly. Much puzzled, the judge regarded him in silence for a moment, then bent and lifted him into his lap.

“There, my son—” he said soothingly. “Now you tell me when he died, and all about it.”

“He were killed. It were only yesterday, and I can't forget him! I don't want to—but it hurts—it hurts terrible!” Hannibal buried his head in the judge's shoulder and sobbed aloud. Presently his small hands stole about the judge's neck, and that gentleman experienced a strange thrill of pleasure.

“Tell me how he died, Hannibal,” he urged gently. In a voice broken by sobs the child began the story of their flight, a confused narrative, which the judge followed with many a puzzled shake of the head. But as he reached his climax—that cry he had heard at the tavern, the men in the lane with their burden—he became more and more coherent and his ideas clothed themselves in words of dreadful simplicity and directness. The judge shuddered. “Can such things be?” he murmured at last.

“You won't let him take me?”

“I never unsay my words,” said the judge grandly. “With God's help I'll be the instrument for their destruction.” He frowned with a preternatural severity. Eh—if he could turn a trick like that, it would pull him up! There would be no more jeers and laughter.

What credit and standing it would give him! His thoughts slipped along this fresh channel. What a prosecution he would conduct—what a whirlwind of eloquence he would loose! He began to breathe hard. His name should go from end to end of the state! No man could be great without opportunity—for years he had known this—but here was opportunity at last! Then he remembered what Mahaffy had told him of the man on the raft. This Slosson's tavern was probably on the upper waters of the Elk. Yancy had been thrown in the river and had been picked up in a dying condition. “Hannibal,” he said, “Solomon Mahaffy, who was here last night, told me he saw down at the river landing, a man who had been fished up out of the Elk—a man who had been roughly handled.”

“Were it my Uncle Bob?” cried Hannibal, lifting a swollen face to his.

“Dear lad, I don't know,” said the judge sympathetically. “Some people on a raft had picked him up out of the river. He was unconscious and no one knew him. He was apparently a stranger in these parts.”

“It were Uncle Bob! It were Uncle Bob—I know it were my Uncle Bob! I must go find him!” and Hannibal slipped from the judge's lap and ran for his rifle and bundle.

“Stop a bit!” cried the judge. “He was taken on past here, and he was badly injured. Now, if it was your Uncle Bob, he'll come back the moment he is able to travel. Meantime, you must remain under my protection while we investigate this man Slosson.”

But alas—that thoroughfare which is supposed to be paved exclusively with good resolutions, had benefited greatly by Slocum Price's labors in the past, and he was destined to toil still in its up-keep. He borrowed the child's money and spent it, and if any sense of shame smote his torpid conscience, he hid it manfully. Not so Mr. Mahaffy; for while he profited by his friend's act, he told that gentleman just what he thought of him with insulting candor. On the eighth day there was sobriety for the pair. Deep gloom visited Mr. Mahaffy, and the judge was a prey to melancholy.

It was Saturday, and in Pleasantville a jail-raising was in progress. During all the years of its corporate dignity the village had never boasted any building where the evil-doer could be placed under restraint; hence had arisen its peculiar habit of dealing with crime; but a leading citizen had donated half an acre of ground lying midway between the town and the river landing as a site for the proposed structure, and the scattered population of the region had assembled for the raising. Nor was Pleasantville unprepared to make immediate use of the jail, since the sheriff had in custody a free negro who had knifed another free negro and was awaiting trial at the next term of court.

“We don't want to get there too early,” explained the judge, as they quitted the cabin. “We want to miss the work, but be on hand for the celebration.”

“I suppose we may confidently look to you to favor us with a few eloquent words?” said Mr. Mahaffy.

“And why not, Solomon?” asked the judge.

“Why not, indeed!” echoed Mr. Mahaffy.

The opportunity he craved was not denied him. The crowd was like most southwestern crowds of the period, and no sooner did the judge appear than there were clamorous demands for a speech. He cast a glance of triumph at Mahaffy, and nimbly mounted a convenient stump. He extolled the climate of middle Tennessee, the unsurpassed fertility of the soil; he touched on the future that awaited Pleasantville; he apostrophized the jail; this simple structure of logs in the shadow of the primeval woods was significant of their love of justice and order; it was a suitable place for the detention of a citizen of a great republic; it was no mediaeval dungeon, but a forest-embowered retreat where, barring mosquitoes and malaria, the party under restraint would be put to no needless hardship; he would have the occasional companionship of the gentlemanly sheriff; his friends, with such wise and proper restrictions as the law saw fit to impose, could come and impart the news of the day to him through the chinks of the logs.

“I understand you have dealt in a hasty fashion with one or two horse-thieves,” he continued. “Also with a gambler who was put ashore here from a river packet and subsequently became involved in a dispute with a late citizen of this place touching the number of aces in a pack of cards. It is not for me to criticize! What I may term the spontaneous love of justice is the brightest heritage of a free people. It is this same commendable ability to acquit ourselves of our obligations that is making us the wonder of the world! But don't let us forget the law—of which it is an axiom, that it is not the severity of punishment, but the certainty of it, that holds the wrong-doer in check! With this safe and commodious asylum the plow line can remain the exclusive aid to agriculture. If a man murders, curb your natural impulse! Give him a fair trial, with eminent counsel!” The judge tried not to look self-conscious when he said this. “If he is found guilty, I still say, don't lynch him! Why? Because by your hasty act you deny the public the elevating and improving spectacle of a legal execution!” When the applause had died out, a lank countryman craning his neck for a sight of the sheriff, bawled out over the heads of the crowd:

“Where's your nigger? We want to put him in here!”

“I reckon he's gone fishin'. I never seen the beat of that nigger to go fishin',” said the sheriff.

“Whoop! Ain't you goin' to put him in here?” yelled the countryman.

“It's a mighty lonely spot for a nigger,” said the sheriff doubtingly.

“Lonely? Well, suppose he ups and lopes out of this?”

“You don't know that nigger,” rejoined the sheriff warmly. “He ain't missed a meal since I had him in custody. Just as regular as the clock strikes he's at the back door. Good habits—why, that darky is a lesson to most white folks!”

“I don't care a cuss about that nigger, but what's the use of building a jail if a body ain't goin' to use it?”

“Well, there's some sense in that,” agreed the sheriff.

“There's a whole heap of sense in it!”

“I suggest”—the speaker was a young lawyer from the next county—“I suggest that a committee be appointed to wait on the nigger at the steamboat landing and acquaint him with the fact that with his assistance we wish completely to furnish the jail.”

“I protest—” cried the judge. “I protest—” he repeated vigorously. “Pride of race forbids that I should be a party to the degradation of the best of civilization! Is your jail to be christened to its high office by a nigger? Is this to be the law's apotheosis? No, sir! No nigger is worthy the honor of being the first prisoner here!” This was a new and striking idea. The crowd regarded the judge admiringly. Certainly here was a man of refined feeling.

“That's just the way I feel about it,” said the sheriff. “If I'd athought there was any call for him I wouldn't have let him go fishing, I'd have kept him about.”

“Oh, let the nigger fish—he has powerful luck. What's he usin', Sheriff; worms or minnies?”

“Worms,” said the sheriff shortly.

Presently the crowd drifted away in the direction of the tavern. Hannibal meantime had gone down to the river. He haunted its banks as though he expected to see his Uncle Bob appear any moment. The judge and Mahaffy had mingled with the others in the hope of free drinks, but in this hope there lurked the germ of a bitter disappointment. There was plenty of drinking, but they were not invited to join in this pleasing rite, and after a period of great mental anguish Mahaffy parted with the last stray coin in the pocket of his respectable black trousers, and while his flask was being filled the judge indulged in certain winsome gallantries with the fat landlady.

“La, Judge Price, how you do run on!” she said with a coquettish toss of her curls.

“That's the charm of you, ma'am,” said the judge. He leaned across the bar and, sinking his voice to a husky whisper, asked, “Would it be perfectly convenient for you to extend me a limited credit?”

“Now, Judge Price, you know a heap better than to ask me that!” she answered, shaking her head.

“No offense, ma'am,” said the judge, hiding his disappointment, and with Mahaffy he quitted the bar.

“Why don't you marry the old girl? You could drink yourself to death in six months,” said Mahaffy. “That would be a speculation worth while—and while you live you could fondle those curls!”

“Maybe I'll be forced to it yet,” responded the judge with gloomy pessimism.

With the filling of Mahaffy's flask the important event of the day was past, and both knew it was likely to retain its preeminence for a terrible and indefinite period; a thought that enriched their thirst as it increased their gravity while they were traversing the stretch of dusty road that lay between the cavern and the judge's shanty. When they had settled themselves in their chairs before the door, Mahaffy, who was notably jealous of his privileges, drew the cork from the flask and took the first pull at its contents. The judge counted the swallows as registered by that useful portion of Mahaffy's anatomy known as his Adam's apple. After a breathless interval, Mahaffy detached himself from the flask and civilly passing the cuff of his coat about its neck, handed it over to the judge. In the unbroken silence that succeeded the flask passed swiftly from hand to hand, at length Mahaffy held it up to the light. It was two-thirds empty, and a sigh stole from between his thin lips. The judge reached out a tremulous hand. He was only too familiar with his friend's distressing peculiarities.

“Not yet!” he begged thickly.

“Why not?” demanded Mahaffy fiercely. “Is it your liquor or mine?” He quitted his chair end stalked to the well where he filled the flask with water. Infinitely disgusted, the judge watched the sacrilege. Mahaffy resumed his chair and again the flask went its rounds.

“It ain't so bad,” said the judge after a time, but with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

“Were you in shape to put anything better than water into it, Mr. Price?” The judge winced. He always winced at that “Mr.”

“Well, I wouldn't serve myself such a trick as that,” he said with decision. “When I take liquor, it's one thing; and when I want water, it's another.”

“It is, indeed,” agreed Mahaffy.

“I drink as much clear water as is good for a man of my constitution,” said the judge combatively. “My talents are wasted here,” he resumed, after a little pause. “I've brought them the blessings of the law, but what does it signify!”

“Why did you ever come here?” Mahaffy spoke sharply.

“I might ask the same question of you, and in the same offensive tone,” said the judge.

“May I ask, not wishing to take a liberty, were you always the same old pauper you've been since I've known you?” inquired Mahaffy. The judge maintained a stony silence.

The heat deepened in the heart of the afternoon. The sun, a ball of fire, slipped back of the tree-tops. Thick shadows stole across the stretch of dusty road. Off in the distance there was the sound of cowbell. Slowly these came nearer and nearer—as the golden light slanted, sifting deeper and deeper into the woods.

They could see the crowd that came and went about the tavern, they caught the distant echo of its mirth.

“Common—quite common,” said the judge with somber melancholy.

“I didn't see anything common,” said Mahaffy sourly. “The drinks weren't common by a long sight.”

“I referred to the gathering in its social aspect, Solomon,” explained the judge; “the illiberal spirit that prevailed, which, I observe, did not escape you.”

“Skunks!” said Mahaffy.

“Not a man present had the public spirit to set 'em up,” lamented the judge. “They drank in pairs, and I'd blistered my throat at their damn jail-raising! What sort of a fizzle would it have been if I hadn't been on hand to impart distinction to the occasion?”

“I don't begrudge 'em their liquor,” said Mahaffy with acid dignity.

“I do,” interrupted the judge. “I hope it's poison to 'em.

“It will be in the long run, if it's any comfort to you to know it.”

“It's no comfort, it's not near quick enough,” said the judge relentlessly. The sudden noisy clamor of many voices, highpitched and excited, floated out to them under the hot sky. “I wonder—” began the judge, and paused as he saw the crowd stream into the road before the tavern. Then a cloud of dust enveloped it, a cloud of dust that came from the trampling of many pairs of feet, and that swept toward them, thick and impenetrable, and no higher than a tall man's head in the lifeless air. “I wonder if we missed anything,” continued the judge, finishing what he had started to say.

The score or more of men were quite near, and the judge and Mahaffy made out the tall figure of the sheriff in the lead. And then the crowd, very excited, very dusty, very noisy and very hot, flowed into the judge's front yard. For a brief moment that gentleman fancied Pleasantville had awakened to a fitting sense of its obligation to him and that it was about to make amends for its churlish lack of hospitality. He rose from his chair, and with a splendid florid gesture, swept off his hat.

“It's the pussy fellow!” cried a voice.

“Oh, shut up—don't you think I know him?” retorted the sheriff tartly.

“Gentlemen—” began the judge blandly.

“Get the well-rope!”

The judge was rather at loss properly to interpret these varied remarks. He was not long left in doubt. The sheriff stepped to his side and dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Mr. Slocum Price, or whatever your name is, your little game is up!”

“Get the well-rope! Oh, hell—won't some one get the well-rope?” The voice rose into a wail of entreaty.

The judge's eyes, rather startled, slid around in their sockets. Clearly something was wrong—but what—what?

“Ain't he bold?” it was a woman's voice this time, and the fat landlady, her curls awry and her plump breast heaving tumultuously, gained a place in the forefront of the crowd.

“Dear madam, this is an unexpected pleasure!” said the judge, with his hand upon his heart.

“Don't you make your wicked old sheep's eyes at me, you brazen thing!” cried the lady.

“You're wanted,” said the sheriff grimly, still keeping his hand on the judge's shoulder.

“For what?” demanded the judge thickly. The sheriff had no time in which to answer.

“I want my money!” shrieked the landlady.

“Your money—Mrs. Walker, you amaze me!” The judge drew himself up haughtily, in genuine astonishment.

“I want my money!” repeated Mrs. Walker in even more piercing tones.

“I am not aware that I owe you anything, madam. Thank God, I hold your receipted bill of recent date,” answered the judge with chilling dignity.

“Good money—not this worthless trash!” she shook a bill under his nose. The judge recognized it as the one of which he had despoiled Hannibal.

“You have been catched passing counterfeit,” said the sheriff. A light broke on the judge, a light that dazzled and stunned. An officious and impatient gentleman tossed a looped end of the well-rope about his neck and the crowd yelled excitedly. This was something like—it had a taste for the man-hunt! The sheriff snatched away the rope and dealt the officious gentleman a savage blow on the chin that sent him staggering backward into the arms of his friends.

“Now, see here, now—I'm going to arrest this old faller! I am going to put him in jail, and I ain't going to have no nonsense—do you hear me?” he expostulated.

“I can explain—” cried the judge.

“Make him give me my money!” wailed Mrs Walker.

“Jezebel!” roared the judge, in a passion of rage.

“Ca'm's the word, or you'll get 'em started!” whispered the sheriff. The judge looked fearfully around. At his side stood Mahaffy, a yellow pallor splotching his thin cheeks. He seemed to be holding himself there by an effort.

“Speak to them, Solomon—speak to them—you know how I came by the money! Speak to them—you know I am innocent!” cried the judge, clutching his friend by the arm. Mahaffy opened his thin lips, but the crowd drowned his voice in a roar.

“He's his partner—”

“There's no evidence against him,” said the sheriff.

A tall fellow, in a fringed hunting-shirt, shook a long finger under Mahaffy's aquiline nose.

“You scoot—that's what—you make tracks! And if we ever see your ugly face about here again, we'll—”

“You'll what?” inquired Mahaffy.

“We'll fix you out with feathers that won't molt, that's what!”

Mr. Mahaffy seemed to hesitate. His lean hands opened and closed, and he met the eyes of the crowd with a bitter, venomous stare. Some one gave him a shove and he staggered forward a step, snapping out a curse. Before he could recover himself the shove was repeated.

“Lope on out of here!” yelled the tall fellow, who had first challenged his right to remain in Pleasantville or its environs. As the crowd fell apart to make way for him, willing hands were extended to give him the needed impetus, and without special volition of his own.

Mahaffy was hurried toward the road. His hat was knocked flat on his head—he turned with an angry snarl, the very embodiment of hate—but again he was thrust forward. And then, somehow, his walk became a run and the crowd started after him with delighted whoopings. Once more, and for the last time, he faced about, giving the judge a hopeless, despairing glance. His tormentors were snatching up sods and stones and he had no choice. He turned, his long strides taking him swiftly over the ground, with the air full of missiles at his back.

Before he had gone a hundred yards he abandoned the road and, turning off across an unfenced field, ran toward the woods and swampy bottom. Twenty men were in chase behind him. The judge was the sheriff's prisoner—that official had settled that point—but Mr. Mahaffy was common property, it was his cruel privilege to furnish excitement; his keen rage was almost equal to the fear that urged him on. Then the woods closed about him. His long legs, working tirelessly, carried him over fallen logs and through tall tangled thickets, the voices behind him growing more and more distant as he ran.

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CHAPTER XII. THE FAMILY ON THE RAFT

That would unquestionably have been the end of Bob Yancy when he was shot out into the muddy waters of the Elk River, had not Mr. Richard Keppel Cavendish, variously known as Long-Legged Dick, and Chills-and-Fever Cavendish, of Lincoln County, in the state of Tennessee, some months previously and after unprecedented mental effort on his part, decided that Lincoln County was no place for him. When he had established this idea firmly in his own mind and in the mind of Polly, his wife, he set about solving the problem of transportation.

Mr. Cavendish's paternal grandparent had drifted down the Holston and Tennessee; and Mr. Cavendish's father, in his son's youth, had poled up the Elk. Mr. Cavendish now determined to float down the Elk to its juncture with the Tennessee, down the Tennessee to the Ohio, and if need be, down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and keep drifting until he found some spot exactly suited to his taste. Temperamentally, he was well adapted to drifting. No conception of vicarious activity could have been more congenial.

With this end in view he had toiled through late winter and early spring, building himself a raft on which to transport his few belongings and his numerous family; there were six little Cavendishes, and they ranged in years from four to eleven; there was in addition the baby, who was always enumerated separately. This particular infant Mr. Cavendish said he wouldn't take a million dollars for. He usually added feelingly that he wouldn't give a piece of chalk for another one.

June found him aboard his raft with all his earthly possessions bestowed about him, awaiting the rains and freshets that were to waft him effortless into a newer country where he should have a white man's chance. At last the rains came, and he cast off from the bank at that unsalubrious spot where his father had elected to build his cabin on a strip of level bottom subject to periodic inundation. Wishing fully to profit by the floods and reach the big water without delay, Cavendish ran the raft twenty-four hours at a stretch, sleeping by day while Polly managed the great sweep, only calling him when some dangerous bit of the river was to be navigated. Thus it happened that as Murrell and Slosson were dragging Yancy down the lane, Cavendish was just rounding a bend in the Elk, a quarter of a mile distant. Leaning loosely against the long handle of his sweep, he was watching the lane of bright water that ran between the black shadows cast by the trees on either bank. He was in shirt and trousers, barefoot and bareheaded, and his face, mild and contemplative, wore an expression of dreamy contentment.

Suddenly its expression changed. He became alert and watchful. He had heard a dull splash. Thinking that some tree had been swept into the flood, he sought to pierce the darkness that lay along the shore. Five or six minutes passed as the raft glided along without sound. He was about to relapse into his former attitude of listless ease when he caught sight of some object in the eddy that swept alongside. Mr. Cavendish promptly detached himself from the handle of the sweep and ran to the edge of the raft.

“Good Lord—what's that!” he gasped, but he already knew it was a face, livid and blood-streaked. Dropping on his knees he reached out a pair of long arms and made a dexterous grab, and his fingers closed on the collar of Yancy's shirt. “Neighbor, I certainly have got you!” said Cavendish, between his teeth. He drew Yancy close alongside the raft, and, slipping a hand under each arm, pulled him clear of the water. The swift current swept the raft on down the stream. It rode fairly in the center of the lane of light, but no eye had observed its passing. Mr. Cavendish stood erect and stared down at the blood-stained face, then he dropped on his knees again and began a hurried examination of the still figure. “There's a little life here—not much, but some—you was well worth fishing up!” he said approvingly, after a brief interval. “Polly!” he called, raising his voice.

This brought Mrs. Cavendish from one of the two cabins that occupied the center of the raft. She was a young woman, still very comely, though of a matronly plumpness. She was in her nightgown, and when she caught sight of Yancy she uttered a shriek and fled back into the shanty.

“I declare, Dick, you might ha' told a body you wa'n't alone!” she said reproachfully.

Her cry had aroused the other denizens of the raft. The tow heads of the six little Cavendishes rose promptly from a long bolster in the smaller of the two shanties, and as promptly six little Cavendishes, each draped in a single non-committal garment, apparently cut by one pattern and not at all according to the wearer's years or length of limb, tumbled forth from their shelter.

“Sho', Polly, he's senseless! But you dress and come here quick. Now, you young folks, don't you tetch him!” for the six small Cavendishes, excited beyond measure, were crowding and shoving for a nearer sight of Yancy. They began to pelt their father with questions. Who was it? Sho', in the river? Sho', all cut up like that—who'd cut him? Had he hurt himself? Was he throwed in? When did pop fish him out? Was he dead? Why did he lay like that and not move or speak—sho'! This and much more was flung at Mr. Cavendish all in one breath, and each eager questioner seized him by the hand, the dangling sleeve of his shirt, or his trousers—they clutched him from all sides. “I never seen such a family!” said Mr. Cavendish helplessly. “Now, you-all shut up, or I 'low I'll lay into you!”

Mrs. Cavendish's appearance created a diversion in his favor. The six rushed on her tumultously. They seized her hands or struggled for a fragment of her skirt to hold while they poured out their tale. Pop had fished up a man—he'd been throwed in the river! Pop didn't know if he was dead or not—he was all cut and bloody.

“I declare, I've a mind to skin you if you don't keep still! Miss Constance,” Polly addressed her eldest child, “I'm surprised at you! You might be a heathen savage for all you got on your back—get into some duds this instant!” Cavendish was on his knees again beside Yancy, and Polly, by a determined effort, rid herself of the children. “Why, he's a grand-looking man, ain't he?” she cried. “La, what a pity!”

“You can feel his heart beat, and he's bleeding some,” said Cavendish.

“Let me see—just barely flutters, don't it? Henry, go mind the sweep and see we don't get aground! Keppel, you start a fire and warm some water! Connie, you tear up my other petticoat for bandages now, stir around, all of you!” And then began a period of breathless activity. They first lifted Yancy into the circle of illumination cast by the fire Keppel had started on the hearth of flat stones before the shanties. Then, with Constance to hold a pan of warm water, Mrs. Cavendish deftly bathed the gaping wound in Yancy's shoulder where Murrell had driven his knife. This she bandaged with strips torn from her petticoat. Next she began on the ragged cut left by Slosson's club.

“He's got a right to be dead!” said Cavendish.

“Get the shears, Dick—I must snip away some of his hair.”

All this while the four half-naked youngest Cavendishes, very still now, stood about the stone hearth in the chill dawn and watched their mother's surgery with a breathless interest. Only the outcast Henry at the sweep ever and anon lifted his voice between sobs of mingled rage and disappointment, and demanded what was doing.

“Think he is going to die, Polly?” whispered Cavendish at length. Their heads, hers very black and glossy, his very blond, were close together as they bent above the injured man.

“I never say a body's going to die until he's dead,” said Polly. “He's still breathing, and a Christian has got to do what they can. Don't you think you ought to tie up?”

“The freshet's leaving us. I'll run until we hit the big water down by Pleasantville, and then tie up,” said Cavendish.

“I reckon we'd better lift him on to one of the beds—get his wet clothes off and wrap him up warm,” said Polly.

“Oh, put him in our bed!” cried all the little Cavendishes.

And Yancy was borne into the smaller of the two shanties, where presently his bandaged head rested on the long communal pillow. Then his wet clothes were hung up to dry along with a portion of the family wash which fluttered on a rope stretched between the two shanties.

The raft had all the appearance of a cabin dooryard. There was, in addition to the two shelters of bark built over a light framework of poles, a pen which housed a highly domestic family of pigs, while half a dozen chickens enjoyed a restricted liberty. With Yancy disposed of, the regular family life was resumed. It was sun-up now. The little Cavendishes, reluctant but overpersuaded, had their faces washed alongside and were dressed by Connie, while Mrs. Cavendish performed the same offices for the baby. Then there was breakfast, from which Mr. Cavendish rose yawning to go to bed, where, before dropping off to sleep, he played with the baby. This left Mrs. Cavendish in full command of her floating dooryard. She smoked a reflective pipe, watching the river between puffs, and occasionally lending a hand at the sweeps. Later the family wash engaged her. It had neither beginning nor end, but serialized itself from day to day. Connie was already proficient at the tubs. It was a knack she was in no danger of losing.

Keppel and Henry took turns at the sweeps, while the three smaller children began to manifest a love for the water they had not seemed to possess earlier in the day. They played along the edge of the raft, always in imminent danger of falling in, always being called back, or seized, just in time to prevent a catastrophe. This ceaseless activity on their part earned them much in the way of cuffings, chastisements which Mrs. Cavendish administered with no great spirit.

“Drat you, why don't you go look at the pore gentleman instead of posterin' a body 'most to death!” she demanded at length, and they stole off on tiptoe to stare at Yancy. Presently Richard ran to his mother's side.

“Come quick—he's mutterin' and mumblin' and moving his head!” he cried. It was as the child said. Yancy had roused from his heavy stupor. Words almost inaudible and quite inarticulate were issuing from his lips and there was a restless movement of his head on the pillow.

“He 'pears powerful distressed about something,” said Mrs. Cavendish. “I reckon I'd better give him a little stimulant now.”

While she was gone for the whisky, Connie, who had squatted down beside the bed, touched Yancy's hand which lay open. Instantly his fingers closed about hers and he was silent; the movement of his head ceased abruptly; but when she sought to withdraw her hand he began to murmur again.

“I declare, what he wants is some one to sit beside him!” said Mrs. Cavendish, who had returned with the whisky, a few drops of which she managed to force between Yancy's lips. All the rest of that day some one of the children sat beside the wounded man, who was quiet and satisfied just as long as there was a small hand for him to hold.

“He must be a family man,” observed Mr. Cavendish when Polly told him of this. “We'll tie up at Pleasantville landing and learn who he is.”

“He had ought to have a doctor to look at them cuts of his,” said Mrs. Cavendish.

It was late afternoon when the landing was reached. Half a score of men were loafing about the woodyard on shore. Mr. Cavendish made fast to a blasted tree, then he climbed the bank; the men regarding him incuriously as he approached.

“Howdy,” said Cavendish genially.

“Howdy,” they answered.

“Where might I find the nearest doctor?” inquired Cavendish.

“Within about six foot of you,” said one of the group.

“Meaning yourself?”

“Meaning myself.”

Briefly Cavendish told the story of Yancy's rescue.

“Now, Doc, I want you should cast an eye over the way we've dressed his cuts, and I want the rest of you to come and take a look at him and tell who he is and where he belongs,” he said in conclusion.

“I'll know him if he belongs within forty miles of here in any direction,” said the doctor. But he shook his head when his eye rested on Yancy. “Never saw him,” he said briefly.

“How about them bandages, Doc?” demanded Cavendish.

“Oh, I reckon they'll do,” replied the doctor indifferently.

“Will he live?”

“I can't say. You'll know all about that inside the next forty-eight hours. Better let the rest have a look.”

“Just feel of them bandages—sho', I got money in my pants!” Mr. Cavendish was rapidly losing his temper, yet he controlled himself until each man had taken a look at Yancy; but always with the same result—a shake of the head. “I reckon I can leave him here?” Cavendish asked, when the last man had looked and turned away.

“Leave him here—why?” demanded the doctor slowly.

“Because I'm going on, that's why. I'm headed for downstream, and he ain't in any sort of shape to say whether he wants to go or stop,” explained Cavendish.

“You picked him up, didn't you?” asked one of the men.

“I certainly did,” said Cavendish.

“Well, I reckon if you're so anxious for him to stay hereabout, you'd better stop, yourself,” said the owner of the woodyard. “There ain't a house within two miles of here but mine, and he don't go there!”

“You're a healthy lot, you are!” said Cavendish. “I wonder your largeness of heart ain't ruptured your wishbones long ago!” So saying, he retired to the stern of his raft and leaned against the sweep-handle, apparently lost in thought. His visitors climbed the bank and reestablished themselves on the wood-ranks.

Presently Mr. Cavendish lifted his voice and addressed Polly and the six little Cavendishes at the other end of the raft. He asserted that he was the only well-born man within a radius of perhaps a hundred miles—he excepted no one. He knew who his father and mother were, and they had been legally married—he seemed to infer that this was not always the case. Mr. Cavendish glanced toward the shore, then he lifted his voice again, giving it as his opinion that he was the only Christian seen in those parts in the last fifty years. He offered to fight any gentleman who felt disposed to challenge this assertion. He sprang suddenly aloft, knocked his bare heels together and uttered an ear-piercing whoop. He subsided and gazed off into the red eye of the sun which was slipping back of the trees. Presently he spoke again. He offered to lick any gentleman who felt aggrieved by his previous remarks, for fifty cents, for a drink of whisky, for a chew of tobacco, for nothing—with one hand tied behind him! He sprang aloft, cracked his heels together as before and crowed insultingly; then he subsided into silence. An instant later he appeared stung by the acutest pangs of remorse. In a cringing tone he begged Polly to forgive him for bringing her to such a place. He bewailed that they had risked pollution by allowing any inhabitant of that region to set foot on the raft—he feared for the innocent minds of their children, and he implored her pardon. Perhaps it was better that they should cast off at once—unless one of the gentlemen on shore felt himself insulted, in which event he would remain to fight.

Then as he slowly worked the raft out toward the middle of the stream, he repeated all his former remarks, punctuating them with frequent whoops. He recapitulated the terms on which he could be induced to fight-fifty cents, a drink of liquor, a chew of tobacco, nothing! His shouts became fainter and fainter as the raft was swept down-stream, and finally died away in the distance.

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER XIII. THE JUDGE BREAKS JAIL

The sheriff had brought the judge's supper. He reported that the crowd was dispersing, and that on the whole public sentiment was not particularly hostile; indeed, he went so far as to say there existed a strong undercurrent of satisfaction that the jail should have so speedily justified itself. Moreover, there was a disposition to exalt the judge as having furnished the crowning touch to the day's pleasure.

“I reckon, sir, they'd have felt obliged to string you up if there wa'n't no jail,” continued the sheriff lazily from the open door where he had seated himself. “I don't say there ain't them who don't maintain you had ought to be strung up as it is, but people are funny, sir; the majority talk like they might wish to keep you here indefinite. There's no telling when we'll get another prisoner. Tomorrow the blacksmith will fix some iron bars to your window so folks can look in and see you. It will give a heap more air to the place—”

“Unless I do get more air, you will not be troubled long by me!” declared the judge in a tone of melancholy conviction.

The building was intolerably hot, the advantages of ventilation having been a thing the citizens of Pleasantville had overlooked. But the judge was a reasonable soul; he was disposed to accept his immediate personal discomfort with a fine true philosophy; also, hope was stirring in his heart. Hope was second nature with him, for had he not lived all these years with the odds against him?

“You do sweat some, don't you? Oh, well, a man can stand a right smart suffering from heat like this and not die. It's the sun that's dangerous,” remarked the sheriff consolingly. “And you had ought to suffer, sir! that's what folks are sent to jail for,” he added.

“You will kindly bear in mind, sir, that I have been convicted of no crime!” retorted the judge.

“If you hadn't been so blamed particular you might have had company; politest darky you would meet anywhere. Well, sir, I didn't think the boss orator of the day would be the first prisoner—the joke certainly is on you!”

“I never saw such bloody-minded ruffians! Keep them out and keep me in—all I ask is to vindicate myself in the eyes of the world,” said the judge.

“Well,” began the sheriff severely, “ain't it enough to make 'em bloody-minded? Any one of 'em might have taken your money and got stuck. Just to think of that is what hets them up.” He regarded the judge with a glance of displeasure. “I hate to see a man so durn unreasonable in his p'int of view. And you picked a lady—a widow-lady—say, ain't you ashamed?”

“Well, sir, what's going to happen to me?” demanded the judge angrily.

“I reckon you'll be tried. I reckon the law will deal with you—that is, if the public remains ca'm. Maybe it will come to the conclusion that it'd prefer a lynching—people are funny.” He seemed to detach himself from the possible current of events.

“And, waking and sleeping, I have that before me!” cried the judge bitterly.

“You had ought to have thought of that sooner, when you was unloading that money. Why, it ain't even good counterfeit! I wonder a man of your years wa'n't slicker.”

“Have you taken steps to find the boy, or Solomon Mahaffy?” inquired the judge.

“For what?”

“How is my innocence going to be established—how am I going to clear myself if my witnesses are hounded out of the county?”

“I love to hear you talk, sir. I told 'em at the raising to-day that I considered you one of the most eloquent minds I had ever listened to—but naturally, sir, you are too smart to be honest. You say you ain't been convicted yet; but you're going to be! There's quite a scramble for places on the jury already. There was pistols drawed up at the tavern by some of our best people, sir, who got het up disputin' who was eligible to serve.” The judge groaned. “You should be thankful them pistols wasn't drawed on you, sir,” said the sheriff amiably. “You've got a heap to be grateful about; for we've had one lynching, and we've rid one or two parties on a rail after giving 'em a coat of tar and feathers.”

The judge shuddered. The sheriff continued placidly:

“I'll take it you'll get all that's coming to you, sir, say about twenty years—that had ought to let you out easy. Sort of round out your earthly career, and leave something due you t'other side of Jordan.”

“I suppose there is no use in my pointing out to you that I did not know the money was counterfeit, and that I was quite innocent of any intention to defraud Mrs. Walker?” said the judge, with a weary, exasperated air.

“It don't make no difference where you got the money; you know that, for you set up to be some sort of a lawyer.”

Presently the sheriff went his way into the dusk of the evening, and night came swiftly to fellowship the judge's fears. A single moonbeam found its way into the place, making a thin rift in the darkness. The judge sat down on the three-legged stool, which, with a shake-down bed, furnished the jail. His loneliness was a great wave of misery that engulfed him.

“Well, just so my life ain't cut short!” he whispered.

He had known a varied career, and what he was pleased to call his unparalleled misfortunes had reduced him to all kinds of desperate shifts to live, but never before had the law laid its hands on him. True, there had been times and seasons when he had been grateful for the gloom of the dark ways he trod, for echoes had taken the place of the living voice that had once spoken to his soul; but he could still rest his hand upon his heart and say that the law had always nodded to him to pass on.

Where was Solomon Mahaffy, and where Hannibal? He felt that Mahaffy could fend for himself, but he experienced a moment of genuine concern when he thought of the child. In spite of himself, his thoughts returned to him again and again. But surely some one would shelter and care for him!

“Yes—and work him like a horse, and probably abuse him into the bargain—”

Then there was a scarcely audible rustle on the margin of the woods, a dry branch snapped loudly. A little pause succeeded in which the judge's heart stood still. Next a stealthy step sounded in the clearing. The judge had an agonized vision of regulators and lynchers. The beat of his pulse quickened. He knew something of the boisterous horseplay of the frontier. The sheriff had spoken of tar and feathers—very quietly he stood erect and picked up the stool.

“Heaven helping me, I'll brain a citizen or two before it comes to that!” he told himself.

The cautious steps continued to approach. Some one paused below the closely shuttered window, and a hand struck the boards sharply. A whisper stole into the jail.

“Are you awake, Price?” It was Mahaffy who spoke.

“God bless you, Solomon Mahaffy!” cried the judge unsteadily.

“I've got the boy—he's with me,” said Mahaffy.

“God bless you both!” repeated the judge brokenly. “Take care of him, Solomon. I feel better now, knowing he's in good hands.”

“Please, Judge—” it was Hannibal

“Yes, dear lad?”

“I'm mighty sorry that ten dollars I loaned you was bad—but you don't need ever to pay it back!”

Mahaffy gave way to mirth.

“Never mind!” said the judge indulgently. “It performed all the essential functions of a perfectly legal currency. Just suppose we had discovered it was counterfeit before I took it to the tavern—that would have been a hardship!”

“It were Captain Murrell gave it to me,” explained Hannibal.

“I consecrate myself to his destruction! Judge Slocum Price can not be humiliated with impunity!”

“I should think you would save your wind, Price, until you'd waddled out of danger!” Mahaffy spoke, gruffly.

“How are you going to get me out of this, Solomon—for I suppose you are here to break jail for me,” said the judge.

Mahaffy inspected the building. He found that the door was secured by two ponderous hasps to which were fitted heavy padlocks, but the solid wooden shutter which closed the square hole in the gable that served as a window was fastened by a hasp and peg. He withdrew the peg, opened the shutter, and the judge's face, wreathed in smiles, appeared at the aperture.

“The blessed sky and air!” he murmured, breathing deep. “A week of this would have broken my spirit!”

“If you can, Price, you'd better come feet first,” suggested Mahaffy.

“Not sufficiently acrobatic, Solomon—it's heads or I lose!” said the judge.

He thrust his shoulders into the opening and wriggled outward. Suddenly his forward movement was arrested.

“I was afraid of that!” he said, with a rather piteous smile. “It's my stomach, Solomon!” Mahaffy seized him by the shoulders with lean muscular hands. “Pull!” cried the judge hoarsely. But Mahaffy's vigorous efforts failed to move him.

“I guess you're stuck, Price!”

“Get your wind, Solomon,” urged the judge, “and then, if Hannibal will reach up and work about my middle with his knuckles while you pull, I may get through.” But even this expedient failed.

“Do you reckon you can get me back? I should not care to spend the night so!” said the judge. He was purple and panting.

“Let's try you edgewise!” And Mahaffy pushed the judge into the jail again.

“No,” said the judge, after another period of resolute effort on his part and on the part of Mahaffy. “Providence has been kind to me in the past, but it's clear she didn't have me in mind when they cut this hole.”

“Well, Price, I guess all we can do is to go back to town and see if I can get into my cabin—I've got an old saw there. If I can find it, I can come again to-morrow night and cut away one of the logs, or the cleats of the door.”

“In Heaven's name, do that to-night, Solomon!” implored the judge. “Why procrastinate?”

“Price, there's a pack of dogs in this neighborhood, and we must have a full night to move in, or they'll pull us down before we've gone ten miles!”

The judge groaned.

“You're right, Solomon; I'd forgotten the dogs,” and he groaned again.

Mahaffy closed and fastened the shutter, then he and Hannibal stole across the clearing and entered the woods. The judge flung off his clothes and went to bed, determined to sleep away as many hours as possible. He was only aroused by the arrival of his breakfast, which the sheriff brought about eight o'clock.

“Well, if I was in your boots I couldn't sleep like you!” remarked that official admiringly. “But I reckon, sir, this ain't the first time the penitentiary has stared you in the face.”

“Then you reckon wrong,” said the judge sententiously, as he hauled on his trousers.

“No?—you needn't hurry none. I'll get them dishes when I fetch your dinner,” he added, as he took his leave.

A little later the blacksmith appeared and fitted three iron bars to the window.

“I reckon that'll hold you, old feller!” he observed pleasantly.

He was disposed to linger, since he was interested in the mechanical means employed in the making of counterfeit money and thirsted for knowledge at first hand. Also, he had in his possession a one-dollar bill which had come to him in the way of trade and which local experts had declared to be a spurious production. He passed it in between the bars and demanded the judge's opinion of it as though he were the first authority in the land. But he went no wiser than he came.

It was nearing the noon hour when the judge's solitude was again invaded. He first heard the distant murmur of voices on the road and passed an uneasy and restless ten minutes, with his eye to a crack in the door. He was soothed and reassured, however, when at last he caught sight of the sheriff.

“Well, judge, I got company for you,” cried the sheriff cheerfully, as he threw open the door. “A hoss-thief!”

He pushed into the building a man, hatless and coatless, with a pair of pale villainous eyes and a tobacco-stained chin. The judge viewed the new-comer with disfavor. As for the horse-thief, he gave his companion in misery a coldly critical stare, seated himself on the stool, and with quite a fierce air devoted all his energy to mastication. He neither altered his position nor changed his expression until he and the judge were alone, then, catching the judge's eye, he made what seemed a casual movement with his hand, the three fingers raised; but to the judge this clearly was without significance, and the horse-thief manifested no further interest where he was concerned. He did not even condescend to answer the one or two civil remarks the judge addressed to him.

As the long afternoon wore itself away, the judge lived through the many stages of doubt and uncertainty, for suppose anything had happened to Mahaffy! When the sheriff came with his supper he asked him if he had seen or heard of his friend.

“Judge, I reckon he's lopin' on yet. I never seen a man of his years run as well as he done—it was inspirin' how he got over the ground!” answered the sheriff. Then he attempted conversation with the horse-thief, but was savagely cursed for his pains. “Well, I don't envy you your company none, sir,” he remarked as he took leave of the judge.

Standing before the window, the judge watched the last vestige of light fade from the sky and the stars appear. Would Mahaffy come? The suspense was intolerable. It was possibly eight o'clock. He could not reasonably expect Mahaffy until nine or half past; to come earlier would be too great a risk. Suddenly out of the silence sounded a long-drawn whistle. Three times it was repeated. The horse-thief leaped to his feet.

“Neighbor, that means me!” he cried.

The moon was rising now, and by its light the judge saw a number of horsemen appear on the edge of the woods. They entered the clearing, picking their way among the stumps without haste or confusion. When quite close, five of the band dismounted; the rest continued on about the jail or cantered off toward the road. By this time the judge's teeth were chattering and he was dripping cold sweat at every pore. He prayed earnestly that they might hang the horsethief and spare him. The dismounted men took up a stick of timber that had been cut for the jail and not used.

“Look out inside, there!” cried a voice, and the log was dashed against the door; once—twice—it rose and fell on the clapboards, and under those mighty thuds grew up a wide gap through which the moonlight streamed splendidly. The horse-thief stepped between the dangling cleats and vanished. The judge, armed with the stool, stood at bay.

“What next?” a voice asked.

“Get dry brush—these are green logs—we'll burn this jail!”

“Hold on!” the judge recognized the horse-thief as the speaker. “There's an old party in there! No need to singe him!”

“Friend?”

“No, I tried him.”

The judge tossed away the stool. He understood now that these men were neither lynchers nor regulators. With a confident, not to say jaunty step, he emerged from the jail.

“Your servant, gentlemen!” he said, lifting his hat.

“Git!” said one of the men briefly, and the judge moved nimbly away toward the woods. He had gained its shelter when the jail began to glow redly.

Now to find Solomon and the boy, and then to put the miles between himself and Pleasantville with all diligence. As he thought this, almost at his elbow Mahaffy and Hannibal rose from behind a fallen log. The Yankee motioned for silence and pointed west.

“Yes,” breathed the judge. He noted that Mahaffy had a heavy pack, and the boy his long rifle. For a mile or two they moved forward without speech, the boy in the lead; while at his heels strode Mahaffy, with the judge bringing up the rear.

“How do you feel, Price?” asked Mahaffy at length, over his shoulder.

“Like one come into a fortune! Those horse-thieves gave me a fine scare, but did me a good turn.”

Hannibal kept to the woods by a kind of instinct, and the two men yielded themselves to his guidance; but there was no speech between them. Mahaffy trod in the boy's steps, and the judge, puffing like an overworked engine, came close upon his heels. In this way they continued to advance for an hour or more, then the boy paused.

“Go on!” commanded Mahaffy.