IX

September in the Blue-grass. The earth cooling from the summer's heat,

the nights vigorous and chill, the fields greening with a second

spring. Skies long, low, hazy, and gently arched over rolling field and

meadow and woodland. The trees gray with the dust that had sifted all

summer long from the limestone turnpikes. The streams shrunken to

rivulets that trickled through crevices between broad flat stones and

oozed through beds of water-cress and crow-foot, horse-mint and

pickerel-weed, the wells low, cisterns empty, and recourse for water to

barrels and the sunken ponds. The farmers cutting corn, still green,

for stock, and ploughing ragweed strongholds for the sowing of wheat.

The hemp an Indian village of gray wigwams. And a time of weeds--indeed

the heyday of weeds of every kind, and the harvest time for the king

weed of them all. Everywhere his yellow robes were hanging to poles and

drying in the warm sun. Everywhere led the conquering war trail of the

unkingly usurper, everywhere in his wake was devastation. The iron-weed

had given up his purple crown, and yellow wheat, silver-gray oats, and

rippling barley had fled at the sight of his banner to the open sunny

spaces as though to make their last stand an indignant appeal that all

might see. Even the proud woodlands looked ragged and drooping, for

here and there the ruthless marauder had flanked one and driven a

battalion into its very heart, and here and there charred stumps told

plainly how he had overrun, destroyed, and ravished the virgin soil

beneath. A fuzzy little parasite was throttling the life of the

Kentuckians' hemp. A bewhiskered moralist in a far northern State would

one day try to drive the kings of his racing-stable to the plough. A

meddling band of fanatical teetotalers would overthrow his merry

monarch, King Barleycorn, and the harassed son of the Blue-grass,

whether he would or not, must turn to the new pretender who was in the

Kentuckians' midst, uninvited and self-throned.

And with King Tobacco were coming his own human vassals that were to

prove a new social discord in the land--up from the river-bottoms of

the Ohio and down from the foot-hills of the Cumberland--to plant,

worm, tend, and fit those yellow robes to be stuffed into the mouth of

the world and spat back again into the helpless face of the earth. And

these vassals were supplanting native humanity as the plant was

supplanting the native products of the soil. And with them and the new

king were due in time a train of evils to that native humanity,

creating disaffection, dividing households against themselves, and

threatening with ruin the lordly social structure itself.

But, for all this, the land that early September morning was a land of

peace and plenty, and in field, meadow, and woodland the most foreign

note of the landscape was a spot of crimson in the crotch of a high

staked and ridered fence on the summit of a little hill, and that spot

was a little girl. She had on an old-fashioned poke-bonnet of deep

pink, her red dress was of old-fashioned homespun, her stockings were

of yarn, and her rough shoes should have been on the feet of a boy. Had

the vanished forests and cane-brakes of the eighteenth century covered

the land, had the wild beasts and wild men come back to roam them, had

the little girl's home been a stockade on the edge of the wilderness,

she would have fitted perfectly to the time and the scene, as a little

daughter of Daniel Boone. As it was, she felt no less foreign than she

looked, for the strangeness of the land and of the people still

possessed her so that her native shyness had sunk to depths that were

painful. She had a new ordeal before her now, for in her sinewy little

hands were a paper bag, a first reader, and a spelling-book, and she

was on her way to school. Beneath her the white turnpike wound around

the hill and down into a little hollow, and on the crest of the next

low hill was a little frame house with a belfry on top. Even while she

sat there with parted lips, her face in a tense dream and her eyes dark

with dread and indecision, the bell from the little school-house

clanged through the still air with a sudden, sharp summons that was so

peremptory and personal that she was almost startled from her perch.

Not daring to loiter any longer, she leaped lightly to the ground and

started in breathless haste up and over the hill. As she went down it,

she could see horses hitched to the fence around the yard and

school-children crowding upon the porch and filing into the door. The

last one had gone in before she reached the school-house gate, and she

stopped with a thumping heart that quite failed her then and there, for

she retreated backward through the gate, to be sure that no one saw

her, crept along the stone wall, turned into a lane, and climbed a worm

fence into the woods behind the school-house. There she sat down on a

log, miserably alone, and over the sunny strange slopes of this new

world, on over the foothills, her mind flashed to the big far-away

mountains and, dropping her face into her hands, she began to sob out

her loneliness and sorrow. The cry did her good, and by and by she

lifted her head, rubbed her reddened eyes with the back of one hand,

half rose to go to the school-house, and sank helplessly down on the

thick grass by the side of the log. The sun beat warmly and soothingly

down on her. The grass and even the log against her shoulders were warm

and comforting, and the hum of insects about her was so drowsy that she

yawned and settled deeper into the grass, and presently she passed into

sleep and dreams of Jason. Jason was in the feud. She could see him

crouched in some bushes and peering through them on the lookout

evidently for some Honeycutt; and slipping up the other side of the

hill was a Honeycutt looking for Jason. Somehow she knew it was the

Honeycutt who had slain the boy's father, and she saw the man creep

through the brush and worm his way on his belly to a stump above where

Jason sat. She saw him thrust his Winchester through the leaves, she

tried to shriek a warning to Jason, and she awoke so weak with terror

that she could hardly scramble to her feet. Just then the air was rent

with shrill cries, she saw school-boys piling over a fence and rushing

toward her hiding-place, and, her wits yet ungathered, she turned and

fled in terror down the hill, nor did she stop until the cries behind

her grew faint; and then she was much ashamed of herself. Nobody was in

pursuit of her--it was the dream that had frightened her. She could

almost step on the head of her own shadow now, and that fact and a pang

of hunger told her it was noon. It was noon recess back at the school

and those school-boys were on their way to a playground. She had left

her lunch at the log where she slept, and so she made her way back to

it, just in time to see two boys pounce on the little paper bag lying

in the grass. There was no shyness about her then--that bag was

hers--and she flashed forward.

"Gimme that poke!"

The wrestling stopped and, startled by the cry and the apparition, the

two boys fell apart.

"What?" said the one with the bag in his hand, while the other stared

at Mavis with puzzled amazement.

"Gimme that poke!" blazed the girl, and the boy laughed, for the word

has almost passed from the vocabulary of the Blue-grass. He held it

high.

"Jump for it!" he teased.

"I hain't goin' to jump fer it--hit's mine."

Her hands clenched and she started slowly toward him.

"Give her the bag," said the other boy so imperatively that the little

girl stopped with a quick and trustful shift of her own burden to him.

"She's got to jump for it!"

The other boy smiled, and it strangely seemed to Mavis that she had

seen that smile before.

"Oh, I reckon not," he said quietly, and in a trice the two boys in a

close, fierce grapple were rocking before her and the boy with the bag

went to the earth first.

"Gouge him!" shrieked the mountain girl, and she rushed to them while

they were struggling, snatched the bag from the loosened fingers, and,

seeing the other boys on a run for the scene, fled for the lane. From

the other side of the fence she saw the two lads rise, one still

smiling, the other crying with anger; the school-bell clanged and she

was again alone. Hurriedly she ate the bacon and corn-bread in the bag

and then she made her way back along the lane, by the stone wall,

through the school-house gate, and gathering her courage with one deep

breath, she climbed the steps resolutely and stood before the open door.

The teacher, a tall man in a long black frock-coat, had his back to

her, the room was crowded, and she saw no vacant seat. Every pair of

eyes within was raised to her, and instantly she caught another

surprised and puzzled stare from the boy who had taken her part a

little while before. The teacher, seeing the attention of his pupils

fixed somewhere behind him, turned to see the quaint figure, dismayed

and helpless, in the doorway, and he went quickly toward her.

"This way," he said kindly, and pointing to a seat, he turned again to

his pupils.

Still they stared toward the new-comer, and he turned again. The little

girl's flushed face was still hidden by her bonnet, but before he

reached her to tell her quietly she must take it off, she had seen that

all the heads about her were bare and was pulling it off

herself--disclosing a riotous mass of black hair, combed straight back

from her forehead and gathered into a Psyche knot at the back of her

head. Slowly the flush passed, but not for some time did she lift the

extraordinary lashes that veiled her eyes to take a furtive glance

about her. But, as the pupils bent more to their books, she grew bolder

and looked about oftener and keenly, and she saw with her own eyes and

in every pair of eyes whose glance she met, how different she was from

all the other girls. For it was a look of wonder and amusement that she

encountered each time, and sometimes two girls would whisper behind

their hands and laugh, or one would nudge her desk-mate to look around

at the stranger, so that the flush came back to Mavis's face and stayed

there. The tall teacher saw, too, and understood, and, to draw no more

attention to her than was necessary, he did not go near her until

little recess. As he expected, she did not move from her seat when the

other pupils trooped out, and when the room was empty he beckoned her

to come to his desk, and in a moment, with her two books clasped in her

hands, she stood shyly before him, meeting his kind gray searching eyes

with unwavering directness.

"You were rather late coming to school."

"I was afeerd." The teacher smiled, for her eyes were fearless.

"What is your name?"

"Mavis Hawn."

Her voice was slow, low, and rich, and in some wonder he half

unconsciously repeated the unusual name.

"Where do you live?"

"Down the road a piece--'bout a whoop an' a holler."

"What? Oh, I see."

He smiled, for she meant to measure distance by sound, and she had used

merely a variation of the "far cry" of Elizabethan days.

"Your father works in tobacco?" She nodded.

"You come from near the Ohio River?"

She looked puzzled.

"I come from the mountains."

"Oh!"

He understood now her dress and speech, and he was not surprised at the

answer to his next question.

"I hain't nuver been to school. Pap couldn't spare me."

"Can you read and write?"

"No," she said, but she flushed, and he knew straightway the

sensitiveness and pride with which he would have to deal.

"Well," he said kindly, "we will begin now."

And he took the alphabet and told her the names of several letters and

had her try to make them with a lead pencil, which she did with such

uncanny seriousness and quickness that the pity of it, that in his own

State such intelligence should be going to such broadcast waste for the

want of such elemental opportunities, struck him deeply. The general

movement to save that waste was only just beginning, and in that

movement he meant to play his part. He was glad now to have under his

own supervision one of those mountaineers of whom, but for one summer,

he had known so little and heard so much--chiefly to their

discredit--and he determined then and there to do all he could for her.

So he took her back to her seat with a copy-book and pencil and told

her to go on with her work, and that he would go to see her father and

mother as soon as possible.

"I hain't got no mammy--hit's a step-mammy," she said, and she spoke of

the woman as of a horse or a cow, and again he smiled. Then as he

turned away he repeated her name to himself and with a sudden wonder

turned quickly back.

"I used to know some Hawns down in your mountains. A little fellow

named Jason Hawn used to go around with me all the time."

Her eyes filled and then flashed happily.

"Why, mebbe you air the rock-pecker?"

"The what?"

"The jologist. Jason's my cousin. I wasn't thar that summer. Jason's

always talkin' 'bout you."

"Well, well--I guess I am. That is curious."

"Jason's mammy was a Honeycutt an' she married my daddy an' they run

away," she went on eagerly, "an' I had to foller 'em."

"Where's Jason?" Again her eyes filled.

"I don't know."

John Burnham put his hand on her head gently and turned to his desk. He

rang the bell and when the pupils trooped back she was hard at work,

and she felt proud when she observed several girls looking back to see

what she was doing, and again she was mystified that each face showed

the same expression of wonder and of something else that curiously

displeased her, and she wondered afresh why it was that everything in

that strange land held always something that she could never

understand. But a disdainful whisper came back to her that explained it

all.

"Why, that new girl is only learning her a-b-c's," said a girl, and her

desk-mate turned to her with a quick rebuke.

"Don't--she'll hear you."

Mavis caught the latter's eyes that instant, and with a warm glow at

her heart looked her gratitude, and then she almost cried her surprise

aloud--it was the stranger-girl who had been in the

mountains--Marjorie. The girl looked back in a puzzled way, and a

moment later Mavis saw her turn to look again. This time the mountain

girl answered with a shy smile, and Marjorie knew her, nodded in a gay,

friendly way, and bent her head to her book.

Presently she ran her eyes down the benches where the boys sat, and

there was Gray waiting apparently for her to look around, for he too

nodded gayly to her, as though he had known her from the start. The

teacher saw the exchange of little civilities and he was much puzzled,

especially when, the moment school was over, he saw the lad hurry to

catch Marjorie, and the two then turn together toward the little

stranger. Both thrust out their hands, and the little mountain girl, so

unaccustomed to polite formalities, was quite helpless with

embarrassment, so the teacher went over to help her out and Gray

explained:

"Marjorie and I stayed with her grandfather, and didn't we have a good

time, Marjorie?"

Marjorie nodded with some hesitation, and Gray went on:

"How--how is he now?"

"Grandpap's right peart now."

"And how's your cousin--Jason?"

The question sent such a sudden wave of homesickness through Mavis that

her answer was choked, and Marjorie understood and put her arm around

Mavis's shoulder.

"You must be lonely up here. Where do you live?" And when she tried to

explain Gray broke in.

"Why, you must be one of our ten--you must live on our farm. Isn't that

funny?"

"And I live further down the road across the pike," said Marjorie.

"In that great big house in the woods?"

"Yes," nodded Marjorie, "and you must come to see me."

Mavis's eyes had the light of gladness in them now, and through them

looked a grateful heart. Outside, Gray got Marjorie's pony for her, the

two mounted, rode out the gate and went down the pike at a gallop, and

Marjorie whirled in her saddle to wave her bonnet back at the little

mountaineer. The teacher, who stood near watching them, turned to go

back and close up the school-house.

"I'm coming to see your father, and we'll get some books, and you are

going to study so hard that you won't have time to get homesick any

more," he said kindly, and Mavis started down the road, climbed the

staked and ridered fence, and made her way across the fields. She had

been lonely, and now homesickness came back to her worse than ever. She

wondered about Jason--where he was and what he was doing and whether

she would ever see him again. The memory of her parting with him came

back to her--how he looked as she saw him for the last time sitting on

his old nag, sturdy and apparently unmoved, and riding out of her sight

in just that way; and she heard again his last words as though they

were sounding then in her ears:

"I'm a-goin' to come an' git you--some day."

Since that day she had heard of him but once, and that was lately, when

Arch Hawn had come to see her father and the two had talked a long

time. They were all well, Arch said, down in the mountains. Jason had

come back from the settlement school. Little Aaron Honeycutt had

bantered him in the road and Jason had gone wild. He had galloped down

to town, bought a Colt's forty-five and a pint of whiskey, had ridden

right up to old Aaron Honeycutt's gate, shot off his pistol, and dared

little Aaron to come out and fight. Little Aaron wanted to go, but old

Aaron held him back, and Jason sat on his nag at the gate and "cussed

out" the whole tribe, and swore "he'd kill every dad-blasted one of 'em

if only to git the feller who shot his daddy." Old Aaron had behaved

mighty well, and he and old Jason had sent each other word that they

would keep both the boys out of the trouble. Then Arch had brought

about another truce and little Jason had worked his crop and was making

a man of himself. It was Archer Hawn who had insisted that Mavis

herself should go to school and had agreed to pay all her expenses, but

in spite of her joy at that, she was heart-broken when he was gone, and

when she caught her step-mother weeping in the kitchen a vague sympathy

had drawn them for the first time a little nearer together.

From the top of the little hill her new home was visible across a creek

and by the edge of a lane. As she crossed a foot-bridge and made her

way noiselessly along the dirt road she heard voices around a curve of

the lane and she came upon a group of men leaning against a fence. In

the midst of them was her father, and they were arguing with him

earnestly and he was shaking his head.

"Them toll-gates hain't a-hurtin' me none," she heard him drawl. "I

don't understand this business, an' I hain't goin' to git mixed up in

hit."

Then he saw her coming and he stopped, and the others looked at her

uneasily, she thought, as if wondering what she might have heard.

"Go on home, Mavis," he said shortly, and as she passed on no one spoke

until she was out of hearing. Some mischief was afoot, but she was not

worried, nor was her interest aroused at all.

A moment later she could see her step-mother seated on her porch and

idling in the warm sun. The new home was a little frame house, neat and

well built. There was a good fence around the yard and the garden, and

behind the garden was an orchard of peach-trees and apple-trees. The

house was guttered and behind the kitchen was a tiny grape-arbor, a

hen-house, and a cistern--all strange appurtenances to Mavis. The two

spoke only with a meeting of the eyes, and while the woman looked her

curiosity she asked no questions, and Mavis volunteered no information.

"Did you see Steve a-talkin' to some fellers down the road?"

Mavis nodded.

"Did ye hear whut they was talkin' about?"

"Somethin' about the toll-gates."

A long silence followed.

"The teacher said he was comin' over to see you and pap."

"Whut fer?"

"I dunno."

After another silence Mavis went on:

"The teacher is that rock-pecker Jason was always a-talkin' 'bout."

The woman's interest was aroused now, for she wondered if he were

coming over to ask her any troublesome questions.

"Well, ain't that queer!"

"An' that boy an' gal who was a-stayin' with grandpap was thar at

school too, an' she axed me to come over an' see her." This the

step-mother was not surprised to hear, for she knew on whose farm they

were living and why they were there, and she had her own reasons for

keeping the facts from Mavis.

"Well, you oughter go."

"I am a-goin'."

Mavis missed the mountains miserably when she went to bed that

night--missed the gloom and lift of them through her window, and the

rolling sweep of the land under the moon looked desolate and lonely and

more than ever strange. A loping horse passed on the turnpike, and she

could hear it coming on the hard road far away and going far away; then

a buggy and then a clattering group of horsemen, and indeed everything

heralded its approach at a great distance. She missed the stillness of

the hills, for on the night air were the barking of dogs, whinny of

horses, lowing of cattle, the song of a night-prowling negro, and now

and then the screech of a peacock. She missed Jason wretchedly, too,

for there had been so much talk of him during the day, and she went to

sleep with her lashes wet with tears. Some time during the night she

was awakened by pistol-shots, and her dream of Jason made her think

that she was at home again. But no mountains met her startled eyes

through the window. Instead a red glare hung above the woods, there was

the clatter of hoofs on the pike, and flames shot above the tops of the

trees. Nor could it be a forest fire such as was common at home, for

the woods were not thick enough. This land, it seemed, had troubles of

its own, as did her mountains, but at least folks did not burn folks'

houses in the hills.

X

On the top of a bushy foot-hill the old nag stopped, lifted her head,

and threw her ears forward as though to gaze, like any traveller to a

strange land, upon the rolling expanse beneath, and the lad on her back

voiced her surprise and his own with a long, low whistle of amazement.

He folded his hands on the pommel of his saddle and the two searched

the plains below long and hard, for neither knew so much level land was

spread out anywhere on the face of the earth. The lad had a huge pistol

buckled around him; he looked half dead with sleeplessness and the old

nag was weary and sore, for Jason was in flight from trouble back in

those hills. He had kept his promise to his grandfather that summer, as

little Aaron Honeycutt had kept his. Neither had taken part in the

feud, and even after the truce came, each had kept out of the other's

way. When Jason's corn was gathered there was nothing for him to do and

the lad had grown restless. While roaming the woods one day, a pheasant

had hurtled over his head. He had followed it, sighted it, and was

sinking down behind a bowlder to get a rest for his pistol when the

voices of two Honeycutts who had met in the road just under him stopped

his finger on the trigger.

"That boy's a-goin' to bust loose some day," said one voice. "I've

heerd him a-shootin' at a tree every day for a month up thar above his

corn-field."

"Oh, no, he ain't," said the other. "He's just gittin' ready fer the

man who shot his daddy."

"Well, who the hell WAS the feller?"

The other man laughed, lowered his voice, and the heart of the

listening lad thumped painfully against the bowlder under him.

"Well, I hain't nuver told hit afore, but I seed with my own eyes a

feller sneakin' outen the bushes ten minutes atter the shot was fired,

an' hit was Babe Honeycutt."

A low whistle followed and the two rode on. The pheasant squatted to

his limb undisturbed, and the lad lay gripping the bowlder with both

hands. He rose presently, his face sick but resolute, slipped down into

the road, and, swaying his head with rage, started up the hill toward

the Honeycutt cove. On top of the hill the road made a sharp curve and

around that curve, as fate would have it, slouched the giant figure of

his mother's brother. Babe shouted pleasantly, stopped in sheer

amazement when he saw Jason whip his revolver from his holster, and,

with no movement to draw his own, leaped for the bushes. Coolly the lad

levelled, and when his pistol spoke, Babe's mighty arms flew above his

head and the boy heard his heavy body crash down into the undergrowth.

In the terrible stillness that followed the boy stood shaking in his

tracks--stood until he heard the clatter of horses' hoofs in the

creek-bed far below. The two Honeycutts had heard the shot, they were

coming back to see what the matter was, and Jason sped as if winged

back down the creek. He had broken the truce, his grandfather would be

in a rage, the Honeycutts would be after him, and those hills were no

place for him. So all that day and through all that night he fled for

the big settlements of the Blue-grass and but half consciously toward

his mother and Mavis Hawn. The fact that Babe was his mother's brother

weighed on his mind but little, for the webs of kinship get strangely

tangled in a mountain feud and his mother could not and would not blame

him. Nor was there remorse or even regret in his heart, but rather the

peace of an oath fulfilled--a duty done.

The sun was just coming up over the great black bulks which had given

the boy forth that morning to a new world. Back there its mighty rays

were shattered against them, and routed by their shadows had fought

helplessly on against the gloom of deep ravines--those fortresses of

perpetual night--but, once they cleared the eminence where Jason sat,

the golden arrows took level flight, it seemed, for the very end of the

world. This was the land of the Blue-grass--the home of the

rock-pecker, home of the men who had robbed him of his land, the refuge

to his Cousin Steve, his mother, and little Mavis, and now their home.

He could see no end of the land, for on and on it rolled, and on and on

as far as it rolled were the low woodlands, the fields of cut

corn--more corn than he knew the whole world held--and pastures and

sheep and cattle and horses, and houses and white fences and big white

barns. Little Jason gazed but he could not get his fill. Perhaps the

old nag, too, knew those distant fields for corn, for with a whisk of

her stubby tail she started of her own accord before the lad could dig

his bare heels into her bony sides, and went slowly down. The log

cabins had disappeared one by one, and most of the houses he now saw

were framed. One, however, a relic of pioneer times, was of stone, and

at that the boy looked curiously. Several were of red brick and one had

a massive portico with great towering columns, and at that he looked

more curiously still. Darkies were at work in the fields. He had seen

only two or three in his life, he did not know there were so many in

the world as he saw that morning, and now his skin ruffled with some

antagonism ages deep. Everybody he met in the road or passed working in

the fields gave him a nod and looked curiously at his big pistol, but

nobody asked him his name or where he was going or what his business

was; at that he wondered, for everybody in the mountains asked those

questions of the stranger, and he had all the lies he meant to tell,

ready for any emergency to cover his tracks from any possible pursuers.

By and by he came to a road that stunned him. It was level and smooth

and made, as he saw, of rocks pounded fine, and the old nag lifted her

feet and put them down gingerly. And this road never stopped, and there

was no more dirt road at all. By and by he noticed running parallel

with the turnpike two shining lines of iron, and his curiosity so got

the better of him that he finally got off his old nag and climbed the

fence to get a better look at them. They were about four feet apart,

fastened to thick pieces of timber, and they, too, like everything

else, ran on and on, and he mounted and rode along them much puzzled.

Presently far ahead of him there was a sudden, unearthly shriek, the

rumbling sound of a coming storm, rolling black smoke beyond the crest

of a little hill, and a swift huge mass swept into sight and, with

another fearful blast, bore straight at him. The old nag snorted with

terror, and in terror dashed up the hill, while the boy lay back and

pulled helplessly on the reins. When he got her halted the thing had

disappeared, and both boy and beast turned heads toward the still

terrible sounds of its going. It was the first time either had ever

seen a railroad train, and the lad, with a sickly smile that even he

had shared the old nag's terror, got her back into the road. At the

gate sat a farmer in his wagon and he was smiling.

"Did she come purty near throwin' you?"

"Huh!" grunted Jason contemptuously. "Whut was that?"

The farmer looked incredulous, but the lad was serious.

"That was a railroad train."

"Danged if I didn't think hit was a saw-mill comin' atter me."

The farmer laughed and looked as though he were going to ask questions,

but he clucked to his horses and drove on, and Jason then and there

swore a mighty oath to himself never again to be surprised by anything

else he might see in this new land. All that day he rode slowly, giving

his old nag two hours' rest at noon, and long before sundown he pulled

up before a house in a cross-roads settlement, for the mountaineer does

not travel much after nightfall.

"I want to git to stay all night," he said.

The man smiled and understood, for no mountaineer's door is ever closed

to the passing stranger and he cannot understand that any door can be

closed to him. Jason told the truth that night, for he had to ask

questions himself--he was on his way to see his mother and his

step-father and his cousin, who had moved down from the mountains, and

to his great satisfaction he learned that it was a ride of but three

hours more to Colonel Pendleton's.

When his host showed him to his room, the boy examined his pistol with

such care while he was unbuckling it, that, looking up, he found a

half-smile, half-frown, and no little suspicion, in his host's face;

but he made no explanation, and he slept that night with one ear open,

for he was not sure yet that no Honeycutt might be following him.

Toward morning he sprang from bed wide-awake, alert, caught up his

pistol and crept to the window. Two horsemen were at the gate. The door

opened below him, his host went out, and the three talked in whispers

for a while. Then the horsemen rode away, his host came back into the

house, and all was still again. For half an hour the boy waited, his

every nerve alive with suspicion. Then he quietly dressed, left half a

dollar on the washstand, crept stealthily down the stairs and out to

the stable, and was soon pushing his old nag at a weary gallop through

the dark.