THE TEMPERING

BY

CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK

FRONTISPIECE BY

RALPH FALLEN COLElfAN

GARDEN Cmr NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1920

Copyright, 1920, by

Doubled AY, Pagk & Company

AH rights r&aerved, including that of

translatwn intoforngn lcmguag§$

inrluding th$ Seandineurian

Coprriffht. IQIO. by The Ridrwar Companr

THE TEMPERING

CHAPTER I

NOTHIN' don't nuver come ter pass hyarabouts!"

The boy perched disconsolately on the rotting

fence threw forth his lament aloud to the laurelled

silences of the mountain sides and the emptiness of space.

''Every doggone day's jest identical with all ther bal-

ance — save only thet hit's wuss!"

He sat with his back turned on the only signs of human

life within the circle of his vision; unless one called the

twisting creek-bed at his front, which served that pocket of

the Kentucky Cumberlands as a high-way, a human mani-

festation.

There behind him a log-cabin breathed smoMly through

its mud-daubed chimney; a pioneer habitation in every

crude line and characteristic. On the door hung, drying,

the odorous pelt of a ''varmint." Against the wall leaned

a rickety spinning wheel.

To all that, which he hated, he kept his stiff back turned,

but his ears had no defence against the cracked falsetto of

an aged voice crooning a ballad that the pioneers had

brought across the ridges from tide-water ... a ballad

whose phrasing was quaintly redolent of antiquity.

The boy kicked his broganned heels and snorted. His

clothes were home-spun and home sewed and his touselled

shock of red-brown hair cropped out from under a coon

skin cap. His given name was Boone and his life was as

hobbled by pioneer restrictions as was that of the greater

Boone — ^but with a difference.

The overland argonauts who had set their feet and faces

westward across these same mountains bore on their mem-

ories the stimulating image of all that they had left behind

and carried before their eyes the alluring hope of what they

were to find.

This Boone, whose eyes, set in a freckled face, were as

blue as overhead skies and deep with a fathomless discon-

tent, had neither past nor future to contemplate — only a

consuming hunger for a life less desolate. That of his

people was unaltered — save for a lapse into piteous human

lethargy — from the days when the other Boone had come

on moccasined feet to win the West — ^for they were the off-

spring of the stranded; the heirs of the lost.

Over all the high, hunched steepness of the ranges, Au-

tumn had wandered with a palette of high colour and a

brush of frost, splashing out the summer's sun-burned

green with champagne yellow, burgundy-red and claret-

crimson. To the nostrils, too, there floated with the thistle-

down, hints of bursting ripe fox-grapes and apples ready

for the cider press.

Countless other times Boone had sat here on this top-rail

in his hodden-gray clothes and his slate-gray despair, mak-

ing the same plaint, and knowing that only a miracle would

ever bring around the road's turning anything less com-

monplace than a yoke of oxen or a native as drab as the

mule he straddled.

Yet as the boy capped his lamentation with a sigh that

seemed to struggle up from the depths of his being, a

breeze whispered along the mountain sides ; the crisp leaves

stirred to a tinkle like low laughter and there materialized

a horseman who was in no wise to be confused with ordi-

nary travellers in these parts. Boone Wellver caught his

breath in a gasp of surprise and interest, and a low whistle

sounded between his white teeth.

**Lord o' Mercy," breathed the urchin, ** hit's a furri-

ner! Now I wonder who « he?"

The stranger was mounted on a mule whose long ears

flapped dejectedly and whose shamble had in it the flinch

of galled withers, but the man in the saddle sat as if he

had a eharger under him — and it was this indefinable dec-

laration of bearing that the boy saw and which, at first

glance, fired his imagination.

The traveller's face was bronssed and the moustache and

imperial, trimmed in the fashion of the Third Napoleon's

court, were only beginning to lose their sandy colour under

a dominance of gray.

The eyes — ^though now they were weary with travel and

something more fundamental, too, than physical fatigue —

were luminous of quality and a singularly dear gray of

colour. They were such eyes as could be dogged and stem

as flint or deep and bafflingly gentle like mossy waters.

Covering the bony flanks of the mule and bulging gro-

tesquely to port and starboard, hung capacious canvas

saddle pockets — ^and as the stranger drew rein the boy's

eyes dwelt with candid inquisitiveness upon them. Out

of the cavernous maw of one of these receptacles protruded

the comer of a tin dispatch box and fastened to a cantle

ring behind the saddle was a long, slender object in a

water-proof covering laced at the top.

At sight of .that, Boone's eyes livened yet more, for he

recognized the shrouded shape though it was a thing al-

most as foreign to his world as starlight is to the floor of

the sea. Once he had been to Marlin Town on a troubled

Court day when a detachment of militia had stood guard

in the square to overawe warring factions and avert blood-

shed. Their failure to do so is another story, but their

commanding ofiicer had worn a sabre, and now with a

stirring excitement the boy divined that this **qu'ar con-

traption" dangling at the newcomer's back was nothing

less portentous than a sword !

Straightway the drab curtain of life's unrelief was rent

for Boone Wellver, and shot through with gleaming fila-

ments of wonderment and imaginative speculation. Here,

of a sudden, came Romance on horseback, and what matter

that the horse was a mulct

Son/' he said in a kindly manner, **I'm bound for

C3mLS Spradling's house, and I begin to suspect that I

must have lost my way. How about itt"

Boone did not immediately reply. He merely poured

out of his wide and innocent blue eyes a scrutiny as in-

quisitorial as though he had been stationed here on picket

duty and were vested with full authority to halt whom-

soever approached.

While the newcomer sat, waiting in his saddle, Boone

Wellver vaulted lightly down from fence rail to gravel

roadway and, standing there as slim yet as sturdy as a

hickory sapling, raised one hand towards the mule's flank,

but arrested it midway as he inquired, '*Thet critter o'

youm — ^hit don't f oiler kickin', does hit!"

''Stand clear of its heels," cautioned the man hastily.

''I've known this beast only since morning — ^but as

acquaintance ripens, admiration wanes. What's your

name?"

“Boone Wellver. What 's yourn?”

"Mine is Victor McCalloway. Does your father live

near here!"

"Hain't got no daddy."

"Your mother, then!"

"Hain't got no mammy nuther."

The stranger gazed down from his saddle with interested

eyes, and under the steadiness of his scrutiny Boone was

smitten with an abrupt self -consciousness.

"Don't you belong to any one at all?" The question

was put slowly, but the reply came with prompt and pride-

ful certitude.

"I'm my own man. I dwells with a passel of old granny

folks an' gray-heads, though." Having so enlightened

his questioner, he added with a ring of pride, as though

having confessed the unflattering truth about his immedi-

ate household, he was entitled to boast a little of more dis-

tant connections:

''Asa Gregory's my fust cousin by blood. I reckon

yeVe done heered tell of him, hain't ye!"

Across the face of Victor McCalloway flitted the ghost

of a satirical smile, which he speedily repressed.

**Yes," he said briefly with non-committal gravity, ''I've

heard of him. ' '

To the outer world from which McCalloway came few

mountain names had percolated, attended by notability.

A hermit people they are and unheralded beyond their own

environment — ^yet now and then the reputation of one of

them will not be denied. So the newspaper columns had

given Asa Gregory space, headlines even, linking to his

name such appositives as "mountain desperado" and

"feud-killer."

When he had shot old John Carr to death in the high-

way, such unstinted publicity had been accorded to his

acts — such shudder-provoking fulness of detail — that Asa

had found in it a very embarrassment of fame.

But the boy spoke the name of his kinsman in accents of

unquestioning admiration, and Victor McCalloway only

nodded as he repeated,

"Yes, I've heard of him."

Then as the traveller gathered up his reins to start on-

ward, a tall young man came, with the swing of an elastic

stride, around the next turn and, nodding to the boy, halted

at the mule's head. He was an upstanding fellow, of

commanding height, and the tapering staunchness of a

timber wedge. He carried a rifle upon his shoulder and his

clear-chiselled face bore the pleasant recommendation of

straight-gazing candour. His clothing was rough, yet es-

caped the seeming of roughness, because it sat upon his

splendid body and limbs as if a part of them — ^like a

hawk's plumage. But it was the eyes under a broad fore-

head that were most notable. They were unusually fine

and frank; dark and full of an almost gentle meditative-

nesB. Here was a native, thought the man on the mule,

whose gaze, unlike that of many of his fellows, was neither

sinister nor furtive. Here was one who seemed to have

escaped the baleful heritage of grudge-bearing.

Then McCalloway's thought was interrupted by the

voice of the boy declaring eagerly: "This hyar furriner

lows ter ride over ter Cyrus Spradlin's dwellin' house.

We've jest been talkin' erbout ye — an' he's already done

heered of ye, Asa!"

The tall man on foot stiffened, at the announcement, into

something like hostile rigidity, and the velvet softness of

eye which, a moment ago, a woman might have envied,

flashed into the hard agate of suspicion.

He stood measuring the stranger for an uncompromising

matter of moments before he spoke, and when words came

they were couched in a steely evenness of tone. **So ye've

heerd of me — ^hev ye!"

He paused a moment after that, his face remaining mask-

like, then he went on:

**I reckon whatever ye heered tell of me war either right

favourable or right scandalous — dependin' on whether ye

hed speech with my friends — or my enemies. I've got a

lavish of both sorts. ' '

McCalloway also stiffened at the note of challenge.

*'I never talked to any one about you," he rejoined

crisply. '*I read your name in newspapers — as did many

others, I dare say."

'*Yes. I reckon ye read in them papers thet I kilt Old

Idjan Carr. Wa'al, thet war es true es text. I kilt him

whilst he was aimin' ter lay-way me. He'd done a 'ready

kilt my daddy an' I was ridin' inter Marlin Town ter buy

buryin' clothes — ^when we met up in ther highway. Thet's

ther whole hist 'ry of hit. ' '

''Mr. Gregory," the older man said slowly with an even

courtesy that carried a note of aloofness, **I've neither

the right nor the disposition to question you on personal

matters. I reserve the privilege of discussing my own

affairs only so far as I choose, and I recognize the same

right in others. My final opinions, however, are not formed

on hearsay."

The brown eyes softened again and the features relaxed.

''I reckon," commented Asa with a touch of shame-faced

apology in his tone, ''thar wam't no proper call fer me

ter start in straightway talMn' erbout myself nohow — ^but

when a man's enemies air a'seekin' ter git him hung, hit's

liable ter make him touchy an' mincy-like. Hit don't take

no hard bite ter hurt a sore tooth, noways."

Victor McCalloway inclined his head. ''I stopped

here," he explained, **to ask directions of this lad. These

infernal roads confuse me."

**I reckon they do be sort o' mystifyin' ter a furriner,"

assented the mountaineer, who stood charged with mur-

der, then he added with grave courtesy: "I'll go back ter

ther fork of ther high-road with ye an' sot ye on yore way

ef so be hit would convenience ye any. ' '

As mounted traveller and unmounted guide went on

toward the rounded cone of Cinder Knob it seemed to

loom as far away as ever, masking behind its timbered dis-

tances the unseen trickle of Hominy Mill Creek, where

Cyrus Spradling dwelt.

But to right and left, ever the same, yet ever changing ;

sombre in shadowed gorge and bright of sunlit crest, lay

the broken, forested hills. Their horizons gathered in tan-

gled depths of timber — shadowed hiding places of chasms —

silences and a brooding spirit of mystery.

At length a sudden elbow in the twisting way brought

them face to face with two rifle-bearing men. They were

gaunt fellows, tall but slouching and loose of joint. Their

thin faces, too, were saturnine and ugly with the cast of

vindictiveness.

"Howdy, Asa," accosted one and, with a casual nod, the

guide responded, "Howdy, Jett," but in the brief silence

that followed, broken by the wheezy panting of the mule,

McCalloway fancied he could discern an undemote of

tension.

' ' This here man, ' * went on Asa Gregory, jerking his head

backward, as if in answer to an unuttered query, 'Ogives

ther name of MeCalloway. I hain't never seed him afore

this day, but he's farin' over ter Spradling's an' I prof-

fered ter kinderly sot him on ais way. I couldn't skeercely

do no less fer him."

The two nodded and when some further exchange of

civilities had followed, passed on and out of sight. But

for a while after their departure Asa stood unmoving with

his head intently bent in an attitude of listening — and

though his rifle still nestled unshifted in its cradling elbow,

the fingers of the trigger hand twitched a little and the

brown eyes were again agate-hard. Finally the guide's

mouth line relaxed from the straight tautness of whatever

emotion had caused that stiffening of posture, and the lips

moved in low speech — almost drawlingly soft of cadence.

"I reckon they've done gone on," he said, as if speaking

to himself; then lifting his eyes to his companion, he ex-

plained briefly. **Not meanin' no offence, I 'lowed hit war

kinderly charitable ter ye ter let them fellers know ye jest

fell in with me accidental like. They wouldn't favour ye

no great degree ef they figgered me an' you was close

friends. * '

''And yet," hazarded MeCalloway, groping in the bewil-

derment of this strange environment, **you greeted each

other amicably enough."

Gregory's lips twisted at the comers into a satirical

smile.

''When they comes face ter face with me in ther high-

road," he answered calmly, "we meets an' makes our man-

ners ther same es anybody else — a man's got ter be civil.

But we keeps a'watchin' one another outen ther tails of our

eyes, jest ther same. Them two fellers air Blairs an ' them

an' ther Carrs is married in an' out an' back an' fo'th

twell they 're all as thick tergether as pigs outen ther same

litter."

The traveller's question came a little incredulously.

''You mean — ^that those men are your actual enemies?"

^^I'd call 'em enemies. I knows thet they aims ter git

me some day — ef so be they're able."

"And you— ?"

The taU man in the road looked steadily into the face of

his companion for a moment, then said deliberately, ''Mef

Oh, of course, I aims ter carcumvent 'em — ef so be /'m

able."

When the newcomer had reached a point from which he

no longer needed guidance Asa Gregory wheeled and began

to back-track on his steps, but before he had covered a

half mile he turned abruptly from the road and was swal-

lowed in the thicket where the waxen confusion of rhodo-

dendron and laurel, the tangle of holly and thorn seemed

solid and impenetrable. He went with head bent and

noiseless footfall — ^though the sifting leaves were crisp — but

with eye, ear and nostril delicately alert and receptive.

As Asa Gregory slipped, shadow like, among the shift-

ing lights of the late afternoon, his face wore a grim smile,

and when he had come to a point determined by some sys-

tem of his own, he dropped to a low-crouching posture and

continued his journey a step or two at a time, with a per-

fection of caution, and with eyes and ears strained in

expectancy.

Across a gray-green hummock of sandstone, so villain-

ously matted with blackberry briars that a pointer-dog

would have balked at its edge, he hitched himself forward

on his beUy. From there he could look down on the road

he had abandoned — and the thick bushes that fringed it,

and there he lay, silent and flat as a lizard, scanning the

lower ground.

A less acute and instinctive eye would have made little

of it all, save the variegated colours of the foliage, but

after a while he picked out a scrap of grey-brown buried

deep and motionless under the leafage, much like the hue

of the earth itself. His smile became more sardonically set

and his muscles tensed as his rifle barrel was thrust for-

ward. But he still sprawled there hugging the earth, and

finally hushed voices stole up to him.

**. . . He's got ter pass by hyar ef he holds ter ther

highway. . . . I reckon he don't hardly suspicion nothin'.'*

Then a second voice spoke Asa's name and linked it with

foul expletives, yet save for the gray patches in the brush

almost as hard to see as a rabbit crouched in dry grass

there was no visible sign ... no warning.

Asa's face blackened. His thumb lay on the hammer of

his rifle and his thoughts ran to bitter turmoil.

''I *lov>ed them Blairia hed hit in head ter lay-way me

this evenin'," he mused. ''I jest feU hit in my bones,

somehow."

The hatred in his veins pulsed and simmered. Here he

lay behind them and above them, while they lurked in am-

bush waiting for him to pass in front and below. One shot

from his rifle and Jett Blair would never rise. His face

would sag forward — that was all — and as his companion

scrambled up in dismay, he too would fall back. Asa

could picture the expression of astonished panic that would

gleam in his eyes for the one brief moment before he too

crumpled. Asa's finger tingled with an itch which only

trigger-pressure could cool and appease.

Yet slowly and resolutely he shook his head. * ' No, ' ' he

told himself, '* no, hit won't hardly do. Thar's one mur-

der charge a'hangin' over me now — ^an' es fer thenij

thar's time a 'plenty. I hain't no-ways liable ter fergit!"

CHAPTER II

BACKWARD he edged to the far side of the rock,

and on he went by a detour which, in due course,

brought him out to the road once more at that panel

of fence where Boone Wellver still sat perched in the deep

preoccupation of his thoughts. These reflections focussed

about the stranger who had lately ridden by, and as Greg-

ory paused, with no revealing sign in his face of the events

of the past half -hour, the boy blurted out the fulness of

his interest.

''Asa, did ye find out who is he? Did ye see thet stoard

he hed hangin ' ter his saddle, an ' did ye note all them qu 'ar

contraptions he was totin' along with him?"

"I didn't hev overly much speech with him," was the

grave response. '*But he 'lowed he'd done come from

acrost ther waters — ^from somewhars in t'other world. I

reckon he's done travelled ¥dde."

''His looks hain't none common nuther!" Boone's eyes

were sparkling; his imagination galloping free and un-

curbed. "I've done read stories about kings an' sich-like,

travellin' hither an' yon unbeknownst ter common folks.

What does ye reckon, Asa, mout he be su'thin' like thet!

A king or su'thin!"

"Ef so be he's a king," opined Asa Gregory drily, "he's

shore done picked him out a €k)d-fersaken place ter go

a 'travellin ' in. " The dark eyes riffled for a moment into a

hint of covert raillery. "Te didn't chanst ter discam no

crown, did ye, Booney, pokin ' a gold prong or two up outen

them saddle pockets f"

Boone Wellver flushed brick-red and straightway his

words fell into a hot disclaimer of gullibility. "I hain't

no plum, daft id jit I didn't, ter say, really think he was

a king — ^but his looks wasnH none common."

The older kinsman granted that contention and for a

while they talked of Victor McCalloway, but at length Asa

shifted the subject.

*'A week come Monday,'' he informed the boy, **thar's

a'goin' ter be a monstrous big speakin' at Marlin Town.

Ther Democrat esndidaie fer Gh)yemor aims ter speechify

an' I 'lowed mebby ye'd love ter go along with me an' lis-

ten at him."

Whenever Asa yielded to the temptation of teasing his

young cousin he hastened to make amends for the indul-

gence and now the boy's face was ashine with anticipa-

tion.

Customarily in Kentucky from the opening of the cam-

paign to the day of election the tide and sweep of political

battle runs hot and high. But in that autumn of 1899

all precedents of party feeling were engulfed in a tidal

wave of bitterness and endowed with a new ferocity omi-

nously akin to war. The gathering storm centred and beat

about the head of one man whose ambition for gubernato-

rial honours was the core and essence of the strife. He

was, in the confident estimate of his admirers, a giant whose

shoulders towered above the heads of his lesser compa-

triots. An election law bore his name — and his adver-

saries gave insistent warning that it surrendered the state,

bound hand and foot, to a triumvirate of his own choos-

ing.

Into the wolf -like battle-royal of his party's convention

he had gone seemingly the weakest of three aspirants for

the Democratic nomination. Out of it, over disrupted

party-elements, he had emerged — ^triumphant.

Whether one called him righteous crusader or self-seek-

ing demagogue, the fact stood baldly clear that his name

with an ''ism" attached had become the single issue in that

State, and that hero-worship and hatred attended upon its

mention.

Back to the people of the inaccessible hills, living apart,

aloof and neglected, came some of the murmurs of the

tempest that shook the lowlands. Here at the edge of Sk

normally Democratic State which had in earlier times held

slaves and established an aristocracy, the hillsmen living

by the moil of their own sweat had hated alike slave and

slave-holder and had remained solidly Republican. For

them it was enough that William Goebel was not of their

party. Basing their judgment on that premise, they passed

on with an uncomplicated directness to the conclusion that

the deleterious things said of him by envenomed orators

were assertions of gospel truth.

Now that man was carrying his campaign into the en-

emy 's country. Realizing without illusion the temper of

the audience which would troop in from creek-bed and

cove and the branch-waters '*back of beyond," he was to

speak in Marlin Town where theLc&rdinal faith of the

mountains is, **hate thine enemy!'.

In the court-house square of Marlin Town, under the

shadow of high-flung hills, had gathered dose-packed bat-

talions of listeners. Some there were who carried with

them their rifles and some who looked as foreign to even

these rude streets as nomads ridden in from the desert.

A brass band had come with the candidate's special train

and blared out its stirring message. There was a flutter-

ing of flags and a brave showing of transparencies, and to

Boone Wellver, aged fifteen, as he hung shadow-close at

Asa Gregory's elbow, it all seemed the splendour of pan-

oply and the height of pageantry.

From the hotel door, as the man and boy passed it,

emerged two gentlemen who were clothed in the smoother

raiment of **Down below," and Boone pointed them out to

his companion.

''Who air they, Asat" he whispered, and his kinsman

carelessly responded:

**One of 'em's named Masters. He's a coal-mine boss — r

but I hain't never seed t'other one, afore now."

Strolling along the narrow plank runway that did serv-

ice as a sidewalk, the boy glimpsed also the mysterious

stranger who had ridden in on a mule, with a canvas-cov-

ered sword at his saddle ring.

Then the fanfare of the band fell silent and a thin figure

in an ancient frock coat stepped forward on the platform

itself and raised its hands to shout : ' ' Fellow Citizens and

Kentuckians of Marlin County ! ' '

Ranged importantly behind the draped bunting stood

the corporal's guard of native Democratic leaders — ^leaders

who were well-nigh without followers — and who now stood

as local sponsors for the Candidate himself.

Boone caught his breath and listened, his eager eyes con-

spicuous among the immobile and stolid faces of the unre-

sponsive throng as the speaker let flow his words of en-

comium.

Seeking to compensate by his own vehemence for the

unreeeptiveness of his audience, the thin master of cere-

monies heaped the Ossa of fulsomeness upon the Pelion of

praise. ''And now, men of Marlin," he shouted in his

memorized peroration, ''now I have the distinguished hon-

our of presenting to you the man whose loins are girt in

the people's fight — the — ^the — ahem, — ^unterrified champeen

of the Commonwealth's yeomanry — . Gentlemen, the next

Governor of Kentucky!"

A peroration without applause is like a quick-step beat

upon a loose drum-head, and as the local sponsor stood

back in the dispiriting emptiness of dead silence — ^unbroken

by a single hand-dap — ^his face fell. For several moments

that quiet hung like a paralyzing rebuff, then from the out-

skirts of the crowd a liquor-thickened voice bellowed —

*'Next gov'nor— of heU!"

To the front of the platform, with that derisive intro*

duction, calmly — even coldly, stepped a dark, smooth-

shaven man, over whose stocky shoulders and well-rounded

chest a frock coat was tightly buttoned.

For a while the Candidate stood looking out, gauging his

audience, and from him there seemed to emanate an assur-

ance of power before his lips parted. A heavy lock of

coal-black hair fell over his forehead, across almost disdidn-

f uUy cold eyea went sooty lashes, and dark brows met above

the prominent nose* The whole face seemed drawn in bold

charcoal strokes, uncompromising of line and feature — a

iwrtrayal of force.

Then the resonant voice broke silence, and though it

came calmly and moderately pitched, it went out clarion-

dear over the crowd like the note of a fox horn.

"Some one out there shouted — ^*Next governor of hell !' "

he began without preamble. "I grant you that if any re-

gion needs improved government it is hell, and if there is

a state on this earth where a man might hope to qualify

himself for that task, it is this state. Let me try that first,

my friend. I believe in myself, but I am only human."

He launched forthright into arraignment of his enemies

with sledge-blows of denunciation untempered by any con-

cession to time, place or condition, and though scowls grew

vindictively black about him, he knew that he was holding

his audience.

He was a Vulcan forging thunders with words and de-

structive batteries of bolts with phrases, and Boone WcUver

— ^trembling with excitement as a pointer puppy trembles

with the young eagerness of the covey-scent in his nostrils

— seemed to be in the presence of a miracle; the miracle of

eloquence.

"My Ood," breathed the less impressionable Asa Greg-

ory under his breath, "but thet feller hes a master gift fer

lyinM"

At the end, with one clenched fist raised high, the speaker

thundered out his final words of defiance: "The fight is

on, and I believe in fighting. I ask no quarter and I fear

no foe!"

Again he paused, and again save for the valiant enthusi-

asm on the platform at his back, he met with no re8i>onse

except a grim and negative silence.

But this disconcerting stillness was abruptly ripped

asunder by a pistol shot and a commotion of confused

voices, rising where figures began to eddy and mill at the

outskirts. The reception committee closed hastily and pro-

tectingly about the candidate, whose challenge seemed to

have been accepted by some irresponsible gun-fighter, but

he thrust them back with a face of unaltered and stony

calmness. Though he had finished, he continued to stand

at the front with hands idly resting on the platform rail

as if meaning to demonstrate his contempt for anything like

retreat.

While he still tarried there a tall figure elbowed its way

through the crowd until it stood near. It was the figure

of Asa Gregory, and, raising a hand for recognition, it

called out in a full-chested voice : ' * Thet shot war fired by

a feller thet war full of white licker — ^an' they're takin'

him ter ther jail-house now. I reckon yore doctrine hain't

hardly converted nobody hyarabouts--but we don't aim

ter insult no visitor."

Victor McCalloway had come to Cyrus Spradling's house

to remain until he could arrange a more permanent resi-

dence. The purpose that lay behind his coming was one

which he had not felt called upon to explain, and though

he had much to learn of this new place of abode, still he

had come forearmed with some of the cardinals of a neces-

sary understanding.

They were an incurious people with whom he had cast his

lot, content with their remoteness, and it was something

that here a man could lose himself from questions touching

the past, so long as he answered frankly those of the pres-

ent. It suited McCalloway to seal the back pages and the

bearded men evinced no wish to penetrate them.

Before the snow fiew the newcomer was to be housed

under his own roof -tree, and today in answer to the verbal

announcement that he was to have a ''working" on the

land he had bought, the community was present, armed

with hammer and saw, with adze and plane, mobilized under

the auspices of Cyrus Spradling who moved, like a shaggy

patron saint, among them.

There were men, working shoulder to shoulder, whose

enmities were deep and ancient, but who today were re-

strained by the common spirit of volunteer service to a

neighbour. Cyrus had seen to it that the gathering at Mc-

Calloway's "house-raising" should not bear the prejudicial

colour of partisanship, but that Carrs and Oregories alike

should have a hand in the activities which were going ro-

bustly forward at the head of Snag Ridge.

Back of Cedar Mountain no architect was available and

no builders' union afforded or withheld labour, but every

man was carpenter and artisan in his own right, and some

were ** practiced comer-men" as well.

Through the sun-flooded day with its Indian summer

dream along the sky-line their axes rang in accompaniment

to their homely jests, and the earnest whine of their saws

went up with the minors of voices raised in the plaintive

strains of folk-lore ballads.

The only wage accepted was food and drink. They

would have thought as readily of asking payment for par-

ticipation in the rough festivities of the **infare" with

which the mountain groom brings his bride from her wed-

ding to his own house on a pillion at the back of his

saddle.

Tomorrow some of these same men, meeting in the road-

way, would perhaps eye each other with suspicion. Riding

on, after greetings, they would go with craned necks,

neither trusting the other to depart unwatched, but today

the rude sanctuary of hospitality to the stranger rested over

them and the timbers that went up were raised by the

hands of friends and enemies alike.

But toward sunset the newcomer chanced upon a fight

that the simple code had not safeguarded and that had

gained headway before his interference.

Down by the creek-bed, with no audience, he found two

boys rolling in a smother of dust and, until he remembered

that the hill eode of 'fist and skull" bars neither shod-toe

nor bared tooth, he was shocked at the unmitigated sav-

agery of the combat.

The strenuous pair rolled in a mad embrace, and as he

approached, one of the boys — ^whose back alone he could see

— «ame to the top of the writhing heap. While this one

gouged, left handed, at eyes which the other attempted to

cover, his right hand whipped out a jack-knife which he

sought to open with his teeth. Out of the commotion came

an animal-like incoherence of snarls and panting profanity,

and Victor McCalloway caught the top boy by his shoulder

and dragged him forcibly away from what threatened to

be maiming or worse.

So pried from his victim, on the verge of victory, the

boy with a bloody and unrecognized face stood for an in-

stant heaving of breast and infuriated, then wrenching him-

self free from the detaining hand, he gave a leap as sudden

as that of a frightened buck and disappeared behind the

screen of the laurel.

The other figure, with an eye blackened and bleeding

from the raw scratches of finger-nails about the lids, came

more slowly to his feet, his breath rasping with passion

and exhaustion. He stood there before his would-be res-

cuer — and McCalloway recognized Boone Wellver.

**I'd hev licked him — so his own mammy wouldn't

'a' knowed him ef ye hadn't 'a' bust in on me," he panted.

''I'd done had him down oncet afore an' I war jest erbout

ter turn him under ergin."

A light of suppressed drollery glinted into the eyes of

the man whose ruddy face remained otherwise unsmiling.

"It looked to me as though you were in a situation where

nothing could save you but reinforcements— or surrender,"

he commented, and the heaving body of the rescued boy

grew rigid while his begrimed face fiamed with chagrin.

''Surrender — ^knock under — ^ter him I" He spat out the

words with a venomous disgust. "Thet feller war a Blair I

Did ye ever heer of a Gregory hollerin' 'enough!* ter

a Blair, yitt"

McCalloway stood looking down with an amusement

which he was considerate enough to mask. He knew that

Boone, though his surname was Wellver, was still in all

the meaning of feud parlance a Gregory and that in the

bitterness of his speech spoke not only individual animosity

but generations of vendetta. So he let the lad have his

say uninterrupted, and Boone's words ran freshet-like with

the chum and tumble of his anger. ''Ye jest misjudged

he war alickin' me, because ye seed him on top an' a'goug-

in' at my eye. But I'd done been on top o' him — ^an' I'd

a got thar ergin. Ef you'd noted whar I'd done chawed

his ear at he wouldn't 'a' looked so good ter ye, I reckon."

"Suppose he had gotten that knife open." The man

still spoke with that unpatronizing gravity which carries

an untold weight of conviction to a boy's mind. "What

would he have donet"

**I reckon he'd a 'gutted me — ^but I didn't nuver aim ter

let him git hit open. "

"Are you a fighter by habit, Boone t"

Something in the intonation caused the lad to flush

afresh, this time with the feeling that he had been unduly

bragging, and he responded in a lowered voice. "I hain't

nuver tuck part in no gun-battles yit — but when hit comes

ter fist an' skull, I'm accounted ter be a right practiced

knocker an' I kin rassle right good. What made ye ask

me thet question t"

McCaUoway held the angelic blue eyes, so paradoxically

set in that wrath-enflamed face, with his own steady gray

ones, and spoke quietly :

"Because if you are going to be a fighting man, it's im-

portant that you should fight properly. I thought perhaps

you'd like to talk to me about it sometime. You see, I've

been fighting all my life. It's been my profession."

Over the freckled face surged a wave of captivated in-

terest. The Blair boy was forgotten and the voice thrilled

into earnest solicitation. ''Would ye I'am me more about

hit some time? What style of fightin' does ye follerf"

'*The fair kind, I trust. Civilized warfare. The trade

of soldiering."

'*I hain't nuver foUered no unfa'r sort nuther," dis-

claimed Boone, and his companion smiled enigmatically

while he replied meditatively,

'*What is fair or unfair — ^what is courageous or cowardly

— ^is largely a matter of viewpoint. Some day I dare say

you'll go out into the world beyond the hills and out there

you'll find that gouging eyes and chewing ears isn't called

fair — ^that shooting an enemy from ambush isn't called

courageous."

That was a doctrine, Boone felt, which savoured of sacri-

lege. If it were categorically true then his own people

were cowards — and to his ardent hero worship the Qreg-

ories and the Wellvers were exemplars of high bravery, yet

this man was no ordinary individual, and he spoke from a

wisdom and experience based on a lifetime of soldiering.

A seed of dilemma had fallen into the fallow soil of the

lad's questioning mind, and as he stood there in a swirl of

perplexity he heard the other voice explaining with a sort

of comforting reassurance, ''As I said, notions of right and

wrong vary with locality and custom — but it's good for a

man to know more than one standard — one set of ideas. If

you ever go out in the world you'll need that knowledge."

After a period of reflection the boy demanded bluntly,

"Whar-at war ye a'soldierin'f"

For the first time, McCalloway's glance hardened and his

tone sharpened. He had not meant to throw open the dis-

cussion to a wide review of his own past.

"If you and I are going to be good friends, you mustn't

ask too many questions, ' ' he said curtly. ' ' It doesn 't make

a boy popular. ' '

"I axes yore pardon; I didn't aim at no oflfence." The

apology was prompt, yet puzzled, and carried with it a note

of injured dignity. "I 'lowed ye proffered ter tell me

things — an' even ef ye told me all ye knowed, I wouldn't go

'round blabbin' no-whars. I knows how ter hold my own

eounsel."

This time it was the seasoned man of experience who

flushed. He felt that he had first invited and then rebuffed

a natural inquiry, and so he, in turn, spoke apologetically:

''I shall tell you things that may be useful — ^but I sha'n't

answer every question."

After a long silence Boone spoke again, with the altered

voice of dilKdence :

''I reckon I hain't got nothin' more ter say," he con-

tributed. * * I reckon I H be f arin ' on. "

"You looked as if you were spilling over with things to

say."

''I had hit in head ter say some sev'ral things," admitted

the youthful clansman, ''but they was all in ther manner of

axin' more questions, so I reckon I'll be farin' on."

Victor McCalloway caught the deep hunger for infor-

mation that showed out of those independent young eyes,

and he caught too the untutored instinct of politeness, as

genuine and unaffected as that of a desert Sheik, which

forced repression. He laid a kindly hand on the boy's

shoulder.

''60 ahead and ask your questions, then," he directed,

''and 111 answer what I like and refuse to answer the rest.

Is that a fair arrangement?"

The brown face glowed. "Thet's es fa'r es airy thing

kin be," was the eager response. "I hain't nuver seed

nothin' but jest these hyar hills — an' sometimes hit kinderly

seems like ter me thet ef I kain't light out an' see all ther

balance, I'll jest plain swell up an' bust with ther cravin'."

* ' You study history — and geography, don 't you, Boone f ' '

' ' Huh-huh. ' ' The tousled head nodded. ' ' But thar 's a

passel of thet book stuff thet a man kain't believe nohow.

Hit ain't reasonable.*'

"What books have you readf "

"Every single damn one thet I could git my hands on —

but thet hain't been no lavish plenty." With a manner

of groping for some point of contact with the outer world,

he added, ''I've got a cousin thet's in ther army, though;

He 's in ther Philippines right now. Did you soldier in ther

Philippines f ' ' Abruptly Boone broke off, and then hastily

he prompted as he raised a hand in a gesture of caution,

''Don't answer thet thar question ef ye hain't got a mind

ter! I jest axed hit heedless-like without studyin' what I

war a'doin'."

McCalloway laughed aloud. **I'll answer it. No, I've

never soldiered in the Philippines nor anywhere under the

American flag. My fighting has all been with what you call

the * outlanders. ' ' '

CHAPTER III

McCALLO WAY'S house had been chinked and sealed

within a few weeks and now he was living under

its roof. Boone had been out there often, and

one day when he went on to Asa Gregory's cabin his mind

was unsettled with the ferment of conflicting standards.

Heretofore Asa had been his sole and sufficient hero. Now

there were two, and it was dawning upon him, with a tra-

vail of dilemma, that between the essentials of their creeds

lay an irreconcilable divergence.

As the boy reached his kinsman's doorstep in the length-

ening shadows of late afternoon, Asa's ''woman" came out

and hung a freshly scoured dish-pan on a peg. In her

cheeks bloomed a colour and maturity somewhat too full-

blown for her twenty years. Asa had married the **purti-

est gal" on five creeks, but the gipsy charm of her dark,

provocative eyes would die. Her lithe curves would flatten

to angularity and the lustre fade out of her hair's bur-

nished masses with a few seasons of drudgery and child-

bearing.

** Howdy, Booney," she said in greeting, and, without

removing his hat, he demanded curtly, **Whar's Asa att"

''He ain't come in yit." A suggestion of anxiety

sounded through the voice of Araminta Gregory. It was

an apprehension which experience failed to mitigate. She

had married Asa while he stood charged with homicide.

The threat of lurking enemies had shadowed the celebration

of wedding and infare. She had borne his child while he

sat in the prisoner's dock. Now she was weaning it while

he went abroad under bond. One at least knew when the

High Court sat, but one could neither gauge nor calculate

the less formal menace that lurked always in the laurel —

one could only wait and endeavour to remain clear eyed.

It was twilight before the man himself came in, and he

slipped so quietly across the threshold into the uncertain

light of the room that Boone, who sat hunched before the

unkindled hearth, did not hear his entrance. But in the

door-frame of the shed kitchen the wife's taut sense of

waiting relaxed in a sigh of relief. Until tomorrow at

least the silent fear was leashed.

An hour later, with the heavy doors protectingly barred,

the man and the boy who considered himself a man took

their seats at the rough table in the lean-to kitchen, but

Araminta Gregory did not sit down to meat with them.

She would take her place at table when the lordlier sex

had risen from it, satisfied, since she was only a woman.

She did not even know that the custom whose decree she

followed lacked universal sanction, and, not knowing it,

she suffered no discontent.

From the hearth where the woman bent over crane and

frying-pan, her face hot and crimson, the red and yellow

light spilled out into the primitive room, catching, here, the

bright colour of drying pepper-pods strung along the raf-

ters — ^there the duller glint of the house-holder's rifle lean-

ing not far from his hand. With the flare, the shadows of

the corners played a wavering hide-and-seek.

Asa ate in abstracted silence, intent upon his side-meat

and **shucky-beans,'' but the boy, who was ordinarily rav-

enous, only dallied with his food and his freckled face wore

the set of a preternatural solemnity.

** Don't ye love these hyar molasses no more, Booney!"

inquired Araminta, to whose mind such an unaccustomed

abstinence required explanation, and the boy started with

the shock of a broken revery and shook his head.

"I don't crave no more of 'em," he replied shortly.

Once again his thoughts enveloped him in a silence which

he Anally broke with a vehement interrogation.

''Asa, did ye ever heer anybody norrate thet hit's cow-

ardly ter shoot an enemy from ther bresh f ' '

Asa paused, his laden knife suspended midway twixt

platter and mouth. For an instant his clear-chiseled feat-

ures pictured only surprise for the unexpected question —

then they hardened as Athenian faces hardened when Plato

*' corrupted the youth with the raising up of new gods."

"Who's been a'talkin' blamed nonsense ter ye, Boone f

he demanded in a terse manner tinctured with sharpness.

The boy felt his cheeks grow suddenly hot with a quan-

dary of embarrassment. To McCalloway he stood pledged

to keep inviolate the confidence of their conversations, and

it was only after an awkward pause that he replied with a

halting lameness :

"Hit hain't jist p'intedly what nobody's been a'tellin'

me. I • . . I seed in a book whar hit said somethin' ter

thet amount." Suddenly with an inspirational light of

augmented authority, he added, "The Circuit-rider hisself

read outen ther Scriptures suthln' 'bout not doin' no mur-

der/'

: Asa carried the knife up to his lips and emptied its blade.

Having done so, he spoke with a deliberate and humourless

sincerity.

"Murder's a right ugly word, Boone, an' one a feller

ought ter be kinderly heedful erbout usin'. Barrin' ther

Carrs an' Blairs an' sich-like, I don't know nobody mean

enough ter f oiler murderin'. Sometimes a man's p'intedly

fo'ced into a kUlin', but thar's a heap of differ betwixt them

two things."

The grave face of the boy was still clouded with his new-

bom misgivings, and reading that perplexity, his kinsman

went on :

"Myself I've done been obleeged ter kill some sev'ral

men* I plum deplores hit. I wouldn't hold no high notion

of anybody thet tuck ther life of a feller-bein' without he

was plum obleeged ter do hit — ner of no man thet didn't

ef hit war his d'ar duty. Hit's done been ther rise of

fifty y'ars now since ther war first started up betwixt us

an' ther Carrs. Hit wam't none of my doin', but ever

since then— off an' on — -my kinsfolk an' yoom hes done

been shot down from ther la'rel — an' we've done hit back

an' sought ter hold ther score even— or a leetle mite better.

I've got my choice atween bein' run away from ther land

whar I was bom at or else" — ^he let his hand drop back

with a simple gesture of rude eloquence until its fingers

rested on the leaning rifle — ^**or else I hev need ter give my

enemies ther only style of flghtin' thet will avail. Seems

like ter me hit 'd be right cowardly ter run away. ' '

To the boy these principles had never before needed de-

fence. They had been axioms, yet now he parried with a

faltering demurrer :

''Ther books says that, down*below, when fellers fights,

they does hit in ther open."

''Alright. Thet's ther best way so long as both of 'em

air in ther open. But ef one stands out in ther highway

an' tother lays back in ther timber, how long does ye reckon

ther fight's a'goin' ter last f A man may love ter be above-

board — ^but he's got ter be practical."

It was the man now who sat forgetful of his food, relaps-

ing into a meditative silence. The leaping fire threw dashes

of orange high-lights on his temple and jaw angle and in

neither pattern of feature nor quality of eye was there that

degenerate vacuity which one associates with barbarous

cruelty.

His wife, turning just then from the hearth, saw his ab-

straction — and understood. She knew what tides of anx-

ious thought and bitter reminiscence had been loosed by

the boy's questioning, and her own face too stiffened. Asa

was thinking of the malign warp and woof which had been

woven into the destiny of his blood and of the uncertain

tenure it imposed upon his own life-span. He was medi-

tating perhaps upon the wrinkled crone who had been his

mother; "fittified" and mumbling inarticulate and unlovely

vagaries over her widowed hearth.

But Araminta herself thought of Asa : of the dual men-

ace of assassination and the gallows, and a wave of nause-

ating terror assailed her. She shook the hair resolutely

out of her eyes and spoke casually :

*'La! Asa, ye 're lettin' yore vittles git plum cold whilst

ye sets ther in a brown study." Inwardly she added with

a white-hot ferocity of passion, ' ' Ef they lay-ways him, or

hangs him, thank Qod his baby's a man-child — an' 111

know how ter raise hit up ter take a full accountin'!"

But as the man's face relaxed and he reached toward the

biscuit plate his posture froze into an unmoving one — for

just an instant. From the darkness outside came a long-

drawn halloo^ and the poised hand swept smoothly side-

wise until it had grasped the rifle and swung it dear of

the floor. The eye could hardly have followed Asa's rise

from his chair. It seemed only that one moment found him

seated and the next standing with his body warily inclined

and his ^es flxed on the door, while his voice demanded :

"Who's out thart"

"Hit's me— Saul Fulton. I wants ter have speech with

ye."

As the householder stepped forward, Araminta blocked

his way, and spoke in hurried syllables, with her hands on

his two shoulders. "Hit hain't sca'cely heedful fer ye ter

show yoreself in no lighted doorway in tiier night time, Asa.

Thet's how yore uncle died! Ill open hit an' hev a look,

flrst, my own self . "

The husband nodded and stood with the cocked rifle ex-

tended, while the wife let down the bar and ushered in a

visitor who entered with something of a swagger and the

air of one endowed with a worldly wisdom beyond the

ordinary.

In raw-boned wiriness and in feature, Saul Fulton was

typically a mountaineer, but in dress and affectation of

manner he was a nondescript aping the tawdrily and

cheaply urban. Has dusty hat sat with an impudent tilt

on crisp curls glossed with pomade and his stale cigar-butt

tipped upward, under a rakish moustache.

Fulton was the sort of mountaineer by whom the outer

world misjudges and condemns his race. He had left the

backwoods to dwell among ''furriners" as a tobacco-rais-

ing tenant on a Bluegrass farm, and there he had been

mongrelized until he was neither wolf nor house-dog but a

thing characterized by the vices of each and the virtues of

neither. In him highland shrewdness had deteriorated

into furtive cunning, and mountain self-respect had tar-

nished into the dull discontent of class hatred. But when

he came to the hills, clad in shoddy finery to visit men in

honest home-spun, he bore himself with a cocksure dare-

deviltry and malapert condescension. Saul was Asa Greg-

ory's cousin, and since Asa's family sidll held to the innate

courtesies of the barbarian, they received him unquestion-

ingly, fed him, and bade him **Set ye a che^r in front of

the chimley-place."

**I heer tell," suggested Asa with casual interest, '*thet

politics is waxin' middlin' hot down thar in ther settle-

mints."

After the mountain fashion the host and Boone had

kicked off their heavy shoes and spread their bare toes to

the warmth of the blaze. Saul, as a man of the world, re-

frained from this gaucherie.

** Hell's red fire an' Hell's black smoke — hit hain't only

ter say politics this time." The response came with orac-

ular impressiveness while the speaker twirled his black

moustache. ^^Hit savours a damn sight more of civil

war!"

'^I heered ther Democrat candidate speak at Marlin

Town," contributed Asa with tepid interest. **I 'lowed he

hed a right hateful countenance — cruel-like, thet is ter

say."

Here spoke the estimate of partisanship, but Saul

straightened in his chair and his eyes took on a sinister

glitter.

**Thet's ther identical thing thet brought me hyar ter

ther hills. I come ter bear tidin's ter upstandin' men like

you. We're goin' ter need ye, an' onlessen we all acts

tergether our rights air goin' ter be everlastingly trompled

in ther dust."

Gregory crumpled a handful of ''natural leaf" and filled

his pipe-bowl. His gesture was as lazy and easy as that

of a purring cat. **0h, pshaw, Saul," he deprecated, **I

don't take no master interest in politics nohow. I always

votes ther Republican ticket because I was raised up ter do

thet — ^like most everybody else in these mountings."

'*But I'm a'tellin' ye this time thet hain't agoin' ter be

enough ter do!" The visitor leaned forward and spoke

with impassioned tenseness. '*I've been dwellin' down

thar amongst rich folks in ther flat Bluegrass country an'

I knows what I'm sayin'. Ther Democrat air es smart es

Satan's circuit-rider. Y'ars back he jammed a crooked law

through ther legislater jest a'lookin' forward ter this time

an' day. Now he's cocked an' primed ter steal ther oflBce,

like he stole ther nomination, an' human freedom will be

dead an' buried for all time in ther State of old Kaintuck."

Into Gregory's eyes as he listened stole an awakening

light of interest and indignation. Up here among the

eyries of eagles the threat of tyranny is hateful beyond

words, and its invocation is a conjure spell of incitement.

But at once Asa's face cleared to an amused smile as he

inquired, **How does he aim ter compass all thet deviltry —

ef ther people votes in ther other feller?"

The momentum of his own philippics had brought Saul

Fulton to his feet. Down there where one party had been

split in twain and the other had slipped all leash of de-

corum's restraint, he had been virulently inoculated with

the virus of hate, and now, since his memory was tenacious,

he swept, without crediting quotations, into a freshet of

argument that echoed every accusation and exaggerated

every warning of that merciless campaign.

For a half hour he talked, with the fiery volubility of a

prophet inciting fanatics to a holy war, while his simple

audienoe listened, yielding by subconscious stages to his

bitter text. At last he came to the point toward which he

had been progressing.

''Down thar ther purse-proud Demmycrats calls us folks

blood-thirsty barbarians. Ter th'ar high-falutin' fashion

o' thinkin' we're meaner than ther very dirt under th'ar

feet. Even ther niggers scorns us an' calls us 'pore white

trash.' When this man once gits in power he aims ter

make us feel ther weight of his disgust an' ter rule us

henceforth with bayonets an' milishy muskets. Afore this

matter ends up thar's liable ter be some shovellin' of grave-

yard dirt."

"Looks right smart like hit mout be needful," acquiesced

Gregory; and Saul knew that he had won a convert to

action.

The insidious force of the visitor's appeal to mountain

passion had stolen into the veins of his hearers until it was

not strange that their eyes narrowed and their lips com-

pressed into lines of ominous straightness.

"Now this air what I come hyar ter name ter ye, Asa."

Saul reseated himself and waved his cigar stub impres-

sively. "Troublesome days air a'comin' on an' us moun-

tain men hev need ter lay by our own private grievances

an' stand tergether fer a spell."

Asa's face darkened, with the air of a man who has dis-

covered the catch in an outwardly fair proposition.

"What air ye a'drivin' at?" he demanded shortly, and

his visitor hastened to explain.

"I wants thet all ther good Republicans in this deestrict

shell send a telegram ter our candidate thet we've done

made a truce to our enmities hyar at home, an ' thet we all

stands shoulder ter shoulder, Gregories an' Carrs, Fultons

an' Blairs alike, ter defend our rights es freemen."

Asa Gregory rose slowly and stood on his hearth with his

feet wide apart and his head thrown back. From straight

shoulders to straight legs he was as unmoving, for a space,

as bronze, but when he spoke his voice came out of his

deep chest with the resonance of low and far-reaching

thunder.

**Saul,*' he began, with a guarded deliberation, **i stands

indicted before ther High Co'te fer ther killin* of old man

Carr. Ther full four seasons of ther year hain't rolled

round yit sence I buried my daddy out thar with a Carr

bullet drilled through his heart. Ther last time any man

preached a truce ter us Gregorys we agreed ter hit — an' my

daddy was lay-wayed an' shot ter death whilest we war

still a'keepin' hit plum faithful. Ther man thet seeks ter

beguile me now with thet same fashion of talk comes askin'

me ter trust my life an' ther welfare of my woman an'

child ter ther faithless word of liars ! ' '

His voice leaped suddenly out of its difficult timbre of

restraint and rang echoing against the chinked timbers of

the waUs.

* * I 've done suffered grievously enough already by trustin '

ter infamy. From now on I'll watch them enemies thet's

nighest me fust — an' them thet's further off atterwards.

My God A 'mighty, ef ye wam't my own blood kin, I

couldn't hardly suffer ye ter tarry under my roof atter

ye'd give voice ter sjch a proffer!"

Araminta Gregory had listened from the kitchen door

but now she swept to her husband's side and turned upon

her visitor the wrath of blazing eyes and a heaving bosom.

''We hain't askin' no odds of nobody," she flared in a

panting transport of fury. ''Asa kin safeguard his own

80 long es he hain't misled with lyin' an' false pledges."

"Don't fret yoreself none, Araminty," said the man, re-

assuring her with a brusque but not ungentle hand on her

trembling arm. Then he turned with regained composure

to Saul, as he inquired : ' ' Does ther Carrs proffer ter drap

tha'r hell-bent detarmination ter penitenshery me or hang

mef"

Somewhat dubiously Fulton shook his head in negation.

"I reckon they low ye'd only mistrust 'em ef they prof-

fered thet. All they proposes is thet ontil this election's

over an' settled — not jest at ther polls, but sottled fer good

an' all — ^thar won't be no hand raised erginst you ner

youm. I reckon ye kin bide yore time thet long, an' when

this racket's over ye '11 be plum free ter settle yore own

scores." He paused, then added insinuatingly, ''Every

week a trial's put off hit gits harder fer ther prosecution*

Witnesses gits scattered like an' men kinderly disremem-

bers things."

Asa Gregory, confronted with a new and complicated

problem, sank back into his seat and his attitude became one

of deep meditation. He glanced at the bowl of his dead

pipe, leaned forward and drew a burning fagot from the

fire for its relighting; then, at length, he spoke with a ju-

dicial deliberation.

''This hyar's a solid Bepublican deestrick. We don't

need no truce ter make us vote ther ticket."

The messenger from the outer world shook a dubious

head. "Votin' ther ticket hain't enough. Thar's ergoin'

ter be a heap of fancy mathematics in tallyin' thet vote all

over ther State. Up hyar we've got ter make up fer any

deeihult down below. We kain't do thet without we all

stands solid. Ef thar's any bickerin' them crooks '11 turn

hit ter account, but ef we elects our man he hain't ergoin'

ter f ergit us. ' '

"So fur es thet goes," mused Asa, "I hain't a'seekin'

no favours from ther Governor."

"Why hain't yet" Saul lowered his voice a little for

added effect. "Ye faces a murder trial, don't yet I

reckon a Bepublican Gh>vemor, next time, mout be right

willin' ter grant ye a pardon ef ye laid by yore own griev-

ances fer ther good of ther party — ^hit wouldn't be no

more'n fa'r jestice."

"What guaranty does these enemies of mine offer met"

inquired Asa coolly. "Does they aim ter meet me half

wayt"

"Hit's like this," Saul spoke now with undisguised ex-

citement: "Ther boys air holdin' a rally temight over at

ther incline. ... A big lawyer from Loueyville is makin' a

speech thar. . . . They wants thet I shell fotch ye back

along with me — an' thet ye shan't tote no rifle — gun ner no

weepin' of airy sort. Tom Carr'U be thar too— unarmed. '*

At the name Asa Gregory flinched as if he had been

smitten in the face, but the messenger went persuasively on :

'* Thar 11 be es many of our folks thar es his'n. They'll

be consortin' tergither plum peaceable — twell ye walks inter

ther room. Them Gregories an' them Carrs air all armed.

Hit's jest you an' Tom thet hain't. When we comes inter

ther place, Tom'U start down ther aisle to'rds ye — an'

you'll start up to'rds Tom." The speaker paused, and

Asa prompted in a low, restrained voice, though his face

was chalky pale with smothered emotion :

"Go on! I'm hearkenin'."

Saul shrugged his shoulders. "Wa'al, thet's all. Ye

knows ther rest es well es I does. Them fellers on both

sides air trustin' their lives ter ther two of ye. Ef you

an' Tom shakes hands they'll all ride home quiet as turtle-

doves — an' take oflf th'ar coats ter beat this man fer Gov-

ernor. Ef you an' Tom don't shake hands — or ef one or

t'other of ye makes a single fightin' move, every gun under

thet roof 11 start poppin' an ther place '11 be a slaughter

house. They all knows thet full well. Ther lawyer knows

hit, too— an' he's a'riskin' hit fer ther sake of his party."

The indicted man took a step forward. ''Stand up hyar

an' look me in ther eyes," he commanded shortly, and,

when Fulton rose, they stood, face to face, so close that

each could feel the breath of the other's lips.

The steady brown eyes bored into the shiftier pupils of

greenish-gray with an implacable searching, and Asa's voice

came in an uncompromising hardness :

"Saul, ye 're askin' me ter trust ye right far. I hain't

got nothin' but yore word fer hit thet thar 11 be airy man

over thar at thet meetin' but them thet seeks my life. This

may be what ye says hit is or hit may be a trap — ^but ye 're

a kinsman of mine, an' I've got a license ter believe ye —

oncet Ef ye 're lyin* ter me, ye 're mighty apt ter hev ter

pay ferhit."

"Ef I'm lyin' ter ye, Asa," came the prompt response,

''I'm ready ter pay fer hit."

Gregory drew on his coarse socks and heavy shoes. ' ' Al-

right," he acceded curtly, ''I'm a'goin' along with ye now,

an' I reckon we'd better hasten."

"Don't go, Asa," pleaded Araminta. "Don't take no

sich chanst." But as her husband looked into her eyes she

slowly nodded her head. "Ye 're right," she said falter-

ingly. "I was jest skeered because I'm so worrited. Of

course ye've got ter go. Hit's fer yore country."

When the door had closed the woman dropped limply

into a chair. Her pupils were distended and her fingers

twisted in aimless gropings. After a while she looked

about a little wildly for Boone Wellver. It was something

to have his companionship during the hours of suspense —

but the boy's chair, too, was empty. His rifle was missing

from its comer.

She knew now what had happened. Boone had slipped

uninvited and secretly out into the night. He had said

nothing, but he meant to follow the pair unseen, and if he

found his hero threatened, there would be one armed fol-

lower at his back.

From the crib in one comer rose an uneasy whimper and

Araminta went to soothe her baby at her breast.

CHAPTEE IV

WHEN Boone surreptitiously slipped out of the

house he had plunged recklessly into the thorn-

tangle for a shorter cut than the two men would

take : a road of precipitous peril but of moments saved.

If the i)0ssibility which Saul had admitted came to fru-

ition and the guns started popping, the peril lay not in the

course of subsequent minutes but at the pregnant instant

when Asa Gregory's face was first seen in the door. It

would be in that breathing-space that the issue would find

settlement, and it would hang, hair-balanced, on the self-

restraint of two men whose hard-held hatred might break

bounds and overwhelm them as each thought of the father

slain by violence. It would be a parlous moment when

their eyes, full of stored-up and long-curbed rancour, first

engaged and their hostile palms were required to meet and

clasp.

Toung as he was, Boone understood these matters. He

knew how the resolve which each had undertaken might

collapse into swift destruction as the hot tides rushed into

their temples. If their mutual concession of manner was

not balanced to exact nicety — if either Tom or Asa seemed

to hold back and throw upon the other the brunt of the

difficult conciliation by so much as a faltering stride —

there would be chaos — and Boone meant to be there in

time.

In this pocketed bit of wilderness, the incline had been

built years ago, and it had been a challenge to Nature's

mandate of isolation.

As the crow flew, the railroad that might afford an out-

let to market was not so many miles away, but it might as

well have been ten times as distant. Between lay a wall of

hills interposing its grim prohibition with a timbered cor-

nice lifted twenty-five hundred feet towards the sky and

more than a day's journey separated those gaps where

wheels could scale and cross. Long ago local and visionary

enthusiasts had built a huge warehouse on a towering pin-

nacle with an incline of track dropping dizzily down from

it to the creek far below. Its crazy little cars had been

hauled up by a cable wound on a drum with the motive

force of a straining donkey-engine. But so ambitious an

enterprise had not survived the vicissitudes of hard times.

Its simple machinery had rusted ; its tracks ran askew with

decay upon their warped underpinning of teetering struts.

Now the warehouse stood dry-rotting and unkempt, its

spaces regularly tenanted only by the owl and bat.

Through its unpatched roof one caught, at night, the peep

of stars and its hulking sides leaned under the buffet of

the winds which raced, screaming, around the shoulder of

the mountain.

Towards this goal Boone was hurrying, forgetful now of

any divided standards of thought, thinking only of the

kinsman whom his boyhood had exalted with ardent hero-

worship — and of that kinsman's danger. A rowelling

pressure of haste drove him, while snares of trailing creep-

ers, pitfalls blotted into darkness and the thickness of

jungle-like undergrowth handicapped him with many stub-

bom difficulties.

Sometimes he fell and scrambled up again, bruised and

growling but undiscouraged. Sometimes he forsook even

the steep grade of the foot trail for shorter cut-oflEs where

he pulled himself up semi-perpendicular walls of cliff,

trusting to a hand-grip on hanging root or branch and a

foothold on almost nothing.

But when he was still a long way off he saw a pale flare

against the sky which he knew was a bonfire outside the

warehouse, and by the brightening of that beacon from

pallor to crimson glow he measured his progress.

Inside the building itself another battle against time was

being fought : a battle to hold the attention of a crowd in

the background of whose minds lurked the distrait sus-

pense of waiting for a graver climax than that of oratorical

peroration. About the interior blazed pine torches and

occasional lanterns with tin reflectors. Even this unac-

customed effort at illumination failed to penetrate the ob-

scurity of the comers or to carry its ragged brightness

aloft into the rafters. Beyond the sooty formlessness of

encroaching shadows one felt rather than saw the walls,

with their rifts through which gusty draught caused the

torches to flare and gutter, sending out the incense of their

resin.

Between the Circuit Judge, before whom Asa must face

trial and the County Judge, sat Basil Prince, the principal

speaker of the evening, and his quiet eyes were missing

nothing of the mediaevalism of the picture.

Yet one might have inferred from his tranquillity of ex-

pression that he had never addressed a gathering where the

fitful glare of torches had not shone upon repeating rifles

and coon skin caps : where the faces had not been set and

grim as though keyed to an ordeal of fire and lead.

He was noting how every fresh arrival hesitated near the

door and glanced about him. In that brief pause and scru-

tiny he recognized the purx)ort of a division, for as each

newcomer stej)ped to the left or the right of the centre

aisle he thereby proclaimed himself a Carr or a Gregory —

taking shrewd thought of dan-mobilization. Then as a

low drone of talk went up from the body of the house and

a restless shuffling of feet, the speaker and his reception

committee could not escape the realization of an ugly ten-

sion ; of an undertow of anxiety moving deep beneath the

surface affectation of calm. A precarious spirit brooded

there.

The Circuit Judge leaned over toward Prince, whispering

nervously through a smile of courteous commonplace:

''Maybe we've made a mistake to attempt it. General.

They seem dangerously restless and tight-strung, and

they've got to be so gripped that they'll foi^t everytMog

but yonr words for & spell!" The speaker, in his abstrac-

tion, relapsed abruptly out of judicial dignity into moun-

tain crudity of speech. "Hit's ergoin' ter be like holdin'

back a fiood tide with a splash-dam. Thank G!od ef any

man kin do thet, I reckon hit's you."

The Louisville lawyer nodded. "I'll try, sir," was his

brief response.

As the speaker of the moment dropped back, (General

Prince came to hia feet and with him rose the Circuit Judge

who was to introduce him. That prefatory address was

brief, for the infection of restiveness was spreadii^ and

loosely held interests were gravitating to mischief.

Yet as General Prince stood quietly waiting, with his

slender and elderly figure straight poised and his fine face,

for all its intellectuality, remaining the steel-jawed face of

a fighter, the shuffling feet quieted and straying glances

came to focoa. There was a commanding light in the iin-

qnailing eyes and these men who knew few celebrities from

the world without, knew both his name and his record.

They gazed steadfastly at him because, though he came now

as a friend he had in another day come as a foe, and the

weight of his inimical hand had come down to them through

the mists of the past as word-of-mouth. In the days of the

war between the States, the mountains had thrust their

wedge of rock and granite-loyal Unionism through the vi-

tals of Confederate territory, 'While the mobility of the

gray forces were balked there to a heavy congestion, one

command, bitterly hated and grudgingly admired, had

seemed capable of defying mountain ranges and of laugh-

ing at torrents. Like a scathe that admitted no gainsaying,

it came from nowhere, struck, without warning, and was

gone again unpunished. Its name had been a metaphor for

terror.

Morgan's Men! That brilliant organization of partisan

raiders who slept in their saddles and smote VuIcan-Iike.

The world tmew of them and the Cumberlaods had felt their

blows. General Basil Prince had been one of their com-

manders. Now, a recognized authority on the use of cav-

alry, a lawyer of distinction, a life-long Democrat, he stood

before Republicans pouring out the vials of his wrath upon

the head of the man whom he charged with having be-

trayed and disrupted his own parly and with attempting

to yoke freedom into bondage.

Faces bent forward with eyes lighting into an altered

mood, and the grimness which spelled danger relaxed

grudgingly into attention.

The speaker did not underestimate his task. It was not

enough to play the spell-binder for a definite period. He

must unflaggingly hold them vassals to his voice until the

entrance of Asa Gregory gave him pause.

Never had Basil Prince spoken with a more compelling

force or a fierier power of invective, and his voice had rung

like a bugle for perhaps three-quarters of an hour when in

the shadowed darkness beyond the walls the figure of a boy

halted, heavily panting.

Boone paused only for a little, testing the condition of

his rifle's breech and bolt, recovering his spent breath.

Then he slipped nearer and peered through the slit where

a board had been broken away in the wall itself. Within

he saw figures bending forward and intent — and his brow

knit into furrows as he took in at a glance the division of

the clans, each to its separate side of the house. They had

come, Saul said, to bring peace out of dissension, but they

had paradoxically arranged themselves in readiness for

conflict.

Through a gaping door at the rear, of which he knew,

and which lay as invisible as a rent in a black curtain, be-

cause the shadows held undisputed sway back there, the

boy made a noiseless entrance. Up a ladder, for the rungs

of iwhich he had to feel blindly, he climbed to a perch on

the cross-beams, under the eaves, and still he was as blank-

eted from view as a bat in an unlighted cavern. The only

dimi ghost of glow that went with him were two faint phos-

phorescent points where he had rubbed the sights of his

rifle with the moistened heads of matches.

For the eloquen<5e of the speaker, which would at another

time have enthralled him, he had now no thought, because

lying flattened on a great square-hewn timber, he was

searching the crowd for the face of Tom Carr.

Soon he made it out below him, to his right, and slowly

he trained his rifle upon the breast beneath the face.

That was all he had to do for the present— except to wait.

When Asa came in, if matters went badly and if Tom

made a motion to his holster or a gesture to his minions,

there would be one thing more, but it involved only the

crooking of a finger which snuggled ready in the trigger-

guard.

The boy's muscles were badly cramped up there as the

minutes lengthened and multiplied. The timber was hard

and the air chill, but he dared not invite discovery by free

movement.

Then suddenly with a short and incisive sentence follow-

ing on longer and more rounded phrases, the speaker fell

silent. Boone could not properly appreciate the ready

adroitness with which Qeneral Prince had clipped his ora^

tory short without the seeming of a marred effect. He

only knew that the voice spoke crisply and halted and that

the speaker was reaching out his hand, with matter-of-fact

gesture, toward the gourd in the water bucket on the table.

Instantly the shuffling of feet grated its signal of an

awakening apprehension — an uneasiness which had been

temporarily lulled. There was an instant, after that, of

dead hush, and then a twisting of necks as all eyes went to

the door.

The men on each side of the house drew a little closer

and more compactly together, widening and emphasizing

the line of the aisle between ; becoming two distinct crowds

where there had been one, loosely joined. Hands gestured

instinctively toward guns laid by, and halted in cautious

abeyance. Through the cobwebbed spaciousness and

breathless quiet of the place sounded the ill-omened quaver

of a bam owl.

In the door stood Asa Gregory, his hands hanging at his

sides with a studied inertness as his eyes travelled slowly,

appraisingly, about the place. His attitude and expression

alike were schooled into passiveness, but as he saw another

figure rise from just in front of the stage and stand in mo-

mentary irresolution, the muscles of his jaw hardened and

into his eyes flashed a defiant gleam. His lids contracted

to the narrowness of slits, as though struggling to shut out

some sudden and insufferable glare. His chest heaved in

a gasp-like breath and the hands which he sought to keep

hanging, slowly closed and clenched as muscles tauten un-

der an electric shock. Then, as if in obedience to impulses

beyond volition, the right hand came upward toward the

left arm-pit — ^where his pistol holster should have been.

At the sight of his enemy rising there before him, Asa

Gregory had seen red, and the length of the aisle away,

Tom Carr stood struggling with an identical transport of

reeling self-control. Like a reflection in a mirror his face

too blackened in sinister hatred and his hand too moved

toward the empty holster.

The strained tableau held only for a breathing space, but

it was long enough for acceptance as a signal. It was long

enough to afford the orator of the evening a swift, photo-

graphic impression of flambeaux giving back the glint of

drawn pistols to right and left of the aisle ; of the ducking

of timid heads; of a crowd holding a pose as tense and

ready as runners set on their marks — ^yet breathlessly

awaiting the overt signal.

It was long enough, too, for Boone Wellver, crouched in

the rafters, to close one eye and sight his rifle on the back

of Tom Carr — and to draw a shallow breath of nerve-ten-

sion and resolution as his finger balanced the trigger — a

finger which sheer strain was perilously contracting.

In that same instant Asa Gregory and Tom Carr were

brought back to themselves by the feel of emptiness where

there should have been the bulge of concealed weapons —

and by all the resolution for which that disarmament stood.

With a convulsiye bracing of his shoulders, Gregory re-

laxed again, throwing out his arms wide of his body, and

Carr echoed the peace gesture. «

As his deep-held breath came with long exhalation from

his chest, Asa walked steadily down the aisle — ^while Tom

Carr went to meet him half way.

Standing face to face, the two enemies lifted stubbornly

unwilling hands for the consummation of the peace-pact.

Their palms touched and fell swiftly apart as though each

had been scorched. Their faces were the stoic faces of two

men undergoing a necessary torture. But the thing was

done and the rafters rocked with an uproar of applause.

That clamour killed out a lesser sound, as the held breath

in Boone Wellver's chest hissed out between teeth that

suddenly fell to chattering. His body, for just a moment,

shook so that he almost lost his balance on his precarious

perch, as the flexed emotions that had keyed him to the

point of homicide burst into relief like a released spring

. . . and with shaken but careful fingers he let down the

cocked rifle hammer.

Then with a voice of smooth and quieting satisfaction

the orator from Louisville raised his hands.

''I've just seen a big thing done," he said, ''and now I

move that you instruct your chairman to send a telegram

of announcement to the next (Governor of Kentucky."

He had to pause there until order could be restored out

of a bedlam of yelling, laughing and handshaking. When

there was a possibility of being heard again he held up a

message which he had scribbled during that noisy interval.

"I move you that you say this to our standard-bearer:

'Here in the hills of Marlin we have laid aside feudism to

rescue our State from an even more dangerous thing. Here

old enmities have been buried in an alliance against

tyranny.' "

Boone had not recognized the face of Victor McGalloway

in the audience, because that i^ntleman had been sitting

quietly back in the shadows with the detachment of a looker-

on among strangers, but now as the boy stood outside the

door, he saw the Scot shaking hands with the speaker of

the evening and heard him saying:

''Oeneral Prince, it has long been my ambition to meet

you, Sir. I have soldiered a bit myself and I know your

record. The committee has paid me the honour of per-

mitting me to play your host for the night. ' '

There was no moon and the heavens were like a high-

hung curtain of purple-black plush, spangled with the glit-

ter of cold stars. A breeze harping softly through the

tree-tops carried a touch of frost, but Boone Wellver sat

cm a rounded hump of rock, well back from the road, with

eyes that were wide and themselves starry under the spell

of his reflections.

Since the coming of McGalloway Boone had been living

in a world of fantasy. He had been seeing himself as no

longer an ignorant lad, sleeping on a husk-pallet, in the

oock-loft of a cabin, but as a personality of greater majesty

and spaciousness of being. Tonight he had heard General

Prince speak and under the fanning of oratory his dream-

fires were hotly aglow. As he sat on the rock with the soft

minstrelsy of the wind crooning overhead, a score of hearth-

atone recitals came back to memory; all saga-like stories of

the prowess of Morgan's men. It seemed that he could al-

most hear the strain of stirrup leathers and the creak of

cavalry-gear; the drum-beat of many hoofs.

This great man who had ridden at the head of that com-

mand was even now on his way to Victor McGalloway 's

house and there he would remain until tomorrow morning.

What marvellous stories those two veterans would furnish

forth from their own treasuries of reminiscence!

Suddenly Boone rose with an abrupt but fixed resolve.

**By Godelmighty!'* he exclaimed. '*I reckon I'll jest

kinderly sa'anter over thar and stay all night, too. I'd

love ter listen at 'em talk."

Here in the hills where the very meagreness makes a lav

of hospitalil? he had never heard of a traveller who asked

a night's lodging being turned away. Yet when he ar-

rived and lifted his hand to knock he hesitated for a space,

gulping his heart oat of his throat, suddenly stricken with

the enormity of intruding himself, unbidden, upon such

notable presences.

Then the door swung open, and the boy fonnd himself

stammering with a tongue that had become painfully and

ineptly stiff:

"I've done got belated on ther highway — an' I'm leg-

weary," he prevaricated. "I lowed mebby ye'd suffer me

ter come in an' tarry till momin*."

Over the preoccupation of MeCalloway's face broke an

amused smile, and he stepped aside, waving his hand in-

ward with a gesture of welcome.

' ' General Prince, permit me to present my young

friend, Boone Wellver," he announced, stifling the twin-

kle of his eyes, and speaking with ceremonial gravi^.

"He is a neighbour of mine — who tells me he has dropped

in for the night,"

The seated gentleman with the gray moustache and

beard came to his feet, extending his hand, and under

the overwhelming innovation of such courtesy, Boone was

even more palpably and painfully abashed. But as vaguely

comprehended etiquette, he recognized its importance and

accordingly came forward with the stiffness of an autom-

aton.

"Howdy," he said with a stupendous solemnity. "I've

done heerd tell of ye right often, an' hit pleasures me ter

strike hands with ye. Folks says ye osed ter be one of ther

greatest horse-thievin' raiders thet ever drawed breath."

When the roar of Qeneral Prince's laughter subsided —

a laughter for which Boone eoold see no reason, the boy

drew a chair to the comer of the hearth and sat as one

m^ sit in the wings of a theatre, his breath coming with

the palpitation of simmering excitement. Soon the elders

seemed to have forgotten him in the heated absorption of

their debate. They were threshing over the campaigns

of the war between the States and measuring the calibre

of commanders as a back-woods man might estimate the

girth and footage of timber.

Boone narsed contented knees between locked fingers

while the debate waxed warm«

Not only were battles refought there in retrospect, with

such illuminating vividness as seemed to dissolve the narrow

waUs into a panoramic breadth of smoking, thunderous

fields, but motive and intent were developed back of the

engagements.

Boone in the chimney comer sat mouse-quiet. He

seemed to be rapturously floating through untried spaces

on a magic carpet.

McCalloway replenished the fire from time to time, and

though midnight came and passed, neither thought of

sleep. It was as if men who had dwelt long in civilian

inertia, were wassailling deep again in the heady wine of

a martial past, and were not yet ready to set aside their

goblets of memory.

The forgotten boy, electrically wakeful, huddled bcwk,

almost stifling his breath lest he should be remembered and

sent to bed.

The speakers fell eventually into a silence which held

long and was complete save for the light hiss and crackle

of the logs, until Basil Prince's voice broke it with a low-

pitched and musing interrogation. ''I sometimes wonder

whether the chemistry of a great war today would bring

forth mightier or lesser reactions. Would the need call

into evidence men of giant stature ? Have we, in our time,

greater potential geniuses than Qrant and Leef"

McCalloway shook his head. **I question it,'' he de-

clared. **I question it most gravely. I am myself a re-

tired soldier. I have met most of tiie European comman-

ders of my day. I have campaigned with not a few. Sev-

eral have demonstrated this or that element of greatness^

but not one the sheer pre-eminence of genius.''

"And yet — " General Prince rose abruptly from his

chair, under the impulse of his engrossed interest. "And

yet, liiere was quite recently, in the British Army, one fig-

ure that to my mind demonstrated true genius, sir, — ^posi-

tive and undeniable genius. Tragedy claimed him before

his life rounded to fulfilment. Not the tragedy of the

field — ^which is rather gold than black — ^but the unholy

and — I must believe — Uie undeserved tragedy of unwar-

rantable slander. If General Hector Dinwiddle had not

died by his own hand in Paris, two years ago, he would

have compelled recognition — and history's grudging acco-

lade. It is my belief, sir, that he was of that mighty hand-

ful — the military masters."

For a while, McCalloway offered neither assent nor de-

nial. His eyes held, as if by some hypnotic influence in

the coals, were like those of the crystal gazer who sees

shadowy and troubling pictures, and even in the hearth-

flare the usually high-colour of his Celtic cheeks appeared

faded into a sort of parchment dulness. Such a tide of

enthusiasm was sweeping the other along, though, that his

host's detachment and taciturnity went unobserved.

"Dinwiddle was not the man to have been guilty of those

things, which scandal whispered of him," persisted Prince,

with such spirited animation as might have characterized

him had he been confronting a jury box, summing up for

the defence, "but he could not brook calumny." The

speaker paused to shake his head sadly, and added, "So

he made the mad mistake of self-destruction — and robbed

Great Britain of her ablest and most brilliant officer."

"Perhaps," MoCalloway suggested in a speculative and

far-away voice, "perhaps he felt that his usefulness to

his country was ended when his name was dragged into the

mire."

"And in that he erred. Such a man would have

emerged, oiean-shriven, from the smirching of slander.

His detractors would have stood damned by their own in-

ffunons falsity — ^had he only faced them out and given

them the lie/'

"Then you believe — in spite of the seemingly overpower-

ing evidence which they produced against him — ^that the

charges were falset"

McGalloway put the question slowly. ''May I ask upon

what you base your opinion! You know all they said of

liim: personal dishonesty and even ugly immorality t"

CHAPTER V

THE one-time cavalry leader caught up the challenge

of the question.

''Upon what do I base my opinion, sirt I base

it upon all the experience of my life and all my conceptions

of personal honour. For such a man as Dinwiddie had

proven himself to be under a score of reliable tests, the

thing was a sheer impossibility. It was a contradiction in

the terms of nature. His was the soul of a Knight, sir!

Such a man could not cheat and steal and delight in low

vices. ' '

**Yet,'' came the somewhat dubious observation, *'even

Arthur's table had its caitiff knights, if you remember."

The Eentuckian's exclamation was almost a snort.

*' Dinwiddie was no such renegade," he protested. "At

least I can't believe it. Glance at his record, man! The

son of an Edinburgh tradesman, who forced his way up

from the ranks to pre-eminence. He did it, too, in an army

where caste and birth defend their messes against inva-

sion, and, as he came from the ranks to a commission, so

he went on to the head. There must have been a great-

ness of soul there that could hardly care to wallow in vi-

ciousness." As Prince paused, a spasm of emotion

twitched the lips of his host, and McCalloway's pipe died

in fingers that clutched hard upon its stem.

But because McCalloway sat unmoving, making no com-

ment of any sort, the Eentuckian continued. It was as

though he must have his argument acknowledged.

''I can see the tradesman's son, Sir Hector Dinwiddie,

D.S.O., E.G.B., Major Qeneral, Aide de Camp to the

Queen, promising Britain another glorious name — but as

God in heaven is my judge, I cannot see him soiling his

character, or degrading the uniform he wore!"

A moment of dead silence hung heavily between the

walls of the room. Boone Wellver saw Victor McCalloway

pass an uncertain hand across his eyes, and move his lips

without speech, and then he heard Prince demand almost

impatiently,

**But you say you have served in the British Army.

Surely you do not believe that he was guilty t ' '

McCalloway, called out of his detached quiet by a direct

question, raised his head and nodded it in a fashion of

heavy inertia.

"General Prince," he replied with an eflEort, ** there are

two reasons why I should be the last man alive to add a

syllable of corroboration to the evil things that were said

of Dinwiddie. I myself have been a soldier and am a

civilian. You may guess that a man whose career has been

active would not be living the petty life of a hermit if

fortune had dealt kindly with him. The officer who has

suffered from a warrantless disgrace — ^which he cannot dis-

prove — is hardly the judge to condemn another similarly

charged.

*'That, sir, is one reason why I should not contradict

your view."

McCalloway rose slowly from his chair and, after stand-

ing for a moment with Moulders that drooped from their

military erectness, went with an inelastic step to the comer

of the room and came back, carrying a sword.

"There is also another reason based on personal paiv

tiality," he added. "I knew him so well that after the

world heard of his suicide — and after my own misfortunes

forced me into retirement, I might often have hired my

sword because of my familiarity with his military thought."

Boone Wellver saw the throat work spasmodically, and

wondered what it all meant as the carefully schooled words

went on agaia, with a gauged steadiness.

**I have admired your own record. General Prince. I

owe you frankness, but I have chapters in my life which

I cannot confide to you. Nevertheless, I am glad we have

met Look at that blade." He held out the sword. In

the leap and flicker of the firelight Boone could catch the

glint of a hilt that sent out the sparkle of jewelry and in-

laid enamel. Slowly General Prince slid the sabre from

the scabbard, and bent forward, studying an inscription

upon the damascened steel itself. For a moment he held

it reverently before him, then straightened up and his

voice trembled with a note of mystified wonderment.

'*But this — '* he said incredulously, **this is Dinwiddle's

sabre — ^presented by — '*

McCalloway smiled stiffly, but he held up a hand as if

entreating silence.

''It is his sword, '* he answered, but dully and without

ardour, ''and, if it means anything to you — ^he knew the

facts of my own life, both the open and the hidden — and

he trusted me enough to leave that blade in my keeping."

"To me, you required no recommendation, sir," said

Basil Prince slowly. "If you had needed it, this would

be sufficient. You had the confidence, even the love it

seems, of the greatest military genius of our age."

On the following morning, Boone made his farewells,

reluctantly as one who has glimpsed magic and who sets

his face again to dull realities.

The Southerner, who had laid down his sword when

its cause was lost and the Celt who had sheathed his, when

his name was tarnished, stood together in the crystal-dear

air of the heights, looking down from a summit over crags

and valleys that sparkled with the rime of frost.

Undulating like a succession of arrested waves, were

the ramparts of the ridg^ stretching into immeasurable

distances. They were almost leafless now, but they

wrapped themselves in colour tones that touched them into

purple and blue. They wore atmospheric veils, mist-

woven, and sun-dyed into evanescent and delicate effects

of colour, but the cardinal note which lay upon them, as

an ezpression rests upon a human face, was their declara-

tion of wildness; their primitive note of brooding aloof-

^'They are unchanged," declared Oeneral Prince in a

low voice. ''The west has gone under the plough. The

prairies are fenced. Alaska even is won — . These hills

alone stand unamended. Here at the very heart of our

civilization is the last frontier, and the last home of the

trail-blazer." His eyes glistened as he pointed to a wisp

of smoke that rose in a cove far under them, straight and

blue from its day-daubed chimney.

'^^ There bums the hearth fire of our contemporary an-

cestors, the stranded wagon voyagers who have changed

no whit from the pioneers of two hundred years ago."

Victor McGalloway nodded gravely, and his companion

went on.

''With one exception this range was the first to which

the earth, in the travail of her youth, gave birth. Com-

pared with the Appalachians, the Himalayas and the Alps

are young things, new to life. On either side of where

we stand a youthful civilization has grown up, but these

ridges have frowned on, unaltered. Their people still live

two centuries behind us."

McCalloway swept out his hands in a comprehensive

gesture.

"When you leave this spot, sir, for your return, you

travel not only some two hundred miles, but also from the

infancy of Americanism to its present big-boyhood. Par-

don me, if that term seems disrespectful," he hastened to

add. "But it is so that I always think of your nation, as

the big growing lad of the world family. Titanically

strong, astonishingly vigorous of resource, but, as yet,

hardly adult"

The Eentuckian, standing spare and erect, typical of

that old South which has caught step with the present, yet

which has not outgrown the gracious touch of a more

courtly past, smiled thoughtfully while his younger com-

panion, who had known the life of court and camp, in the

elder hemisphere, puffed at his blackened pipe: ''Adult

or adolescent, we are altering fast, casting aside today the

garments of yesterday," admitted Prince. *'In my own

youth a gentleman felt the call of honour to meet his per-

sonal enemy on the duelling field. I have, myself, an-

swered that call. In my young manhood I donned the

gray, with a crusader's ardent sincerity, to fight for the

institution of human slavery. Today we think in different

terms."

Upon them both had fallen a mood ; the mood of gazing

far backward and perhaps also of adventuring as far for-

ward in the forecasting of human transition.

Such a spirit may come to men who have, in effect,

stepped aside from the march of their own day, into an

elder regime — a pioneer setting.

To Basil Prince, in the fore-shortening of retrospect, all

the gradual amendments of life, as he had known them in

their enactment, stood forth at once in a gigantic composi-

tion of contrasts ; heroically pictured on a single canvas.

**Now," he reflected, *'we hear the younger generation

speak with a pitying indulgence of the archaic stodginess

of mid- Victorian ideas — and, my Gtod, sir, that was all

only yesterday, and this mid-Victorian thought was revo-

lutionary in its newness and its advancement! I can re-

member when it startled the world: when Tennyson was

accounted a wild radical, and Darwin a voice savouring

strongly of heresy."

McCalloway filled a fresh pipe. He sent out a cloud oi

tobacco smoke and set back his shoulders.

"In my belief, your radical poet said one true thing at

least," he observed.

'* . . . I doubt not through the ages, one increasing

purpose runs.

''That purpose lies towards the swallowing of the local,

and the individualistic, the national even into the interna-

tional. It lies toward the broadest federation of ideals

that can exist in harmony." He paused there, and in the

Toice of one expecting contradiction, added: ''And that

end will not be attained in parliaments, but on the battle-

field."

''The creed of Americanism," Prince reminded him,

"rests on the pillars of non-interference with other states

and of a minimum of meddling among our own."

"So far, yes," admitted the Scot, but his eyes held a

stubborn light of argument. "Yet I predict that when

the whole story of Americanism is written, it will be cast

to a broader plot."

On General Prince's lips flickered a quiet smile.

"Is there a broader thing than independence I" he in-

quired, and the answer came back with a quick uptake.

"At least a bigger thing, sir. Breadth is only one di-

mension, after all. A larger concept, perhaps, comes by

adding one syllable to your word and making it inter-

dependence. Inexorably you must follow the human cycle

and some day, sir, your country must stand with its elder

brethren, grappled in the last crusade. Then only will

the word Americanism be completely spelled."

The Kentuckian's eyes kindled responsively to the anima-

tion of his companion's words, his manner. It was a phase

of this interesting man that he had not before seen, but his

own response was gravely calm.

"I am thinking," he said whimsically, "that this wine-

like air has gone to our heads. We are standing in a high

place, dreaming large dreams."

The Scot nodded energetically.

' ' I dare say, ' ' he acceded. "After all a hermit is thrown

back on dreaming for want of action." He broke off and

when he spoke again it was with a trace of embarrassment,

almost of shyness which brought a flush to his cheeks.

"I've been living here close to the life that was the in-

fancy of your nation, and I 've been imagining the wonder

of a life that could start as did that of these hardy settlers

and pass, in a single generation, along the stages that the

country, itself, has marched to this day. It would mean

birth in pioneer strength and simplicity, and fulfilment

in the present and future. It would mean ten years lived

in one!"

* * It would have had to begin two eenturies ago, ' ' Prince

reminded him, ''and to run, who can say, how far for-

ward!"

Half diffidently, half stubbornly, McCalloway shook his

head.

''You saw that boy last night who called you a 'great

horse-thievin' raider 'f The gray eyes twinkled with

reminiscence. "In every essential respect he is a lad of

two hundred years ago. He is a pioneer boy, crude as pig-

iron, unlettered and half barbaric. Yet his stuff is the

raw material of which your people is made. It needs only

fire, water, oil and work to convert pig-iron into tempered

steeL"

Prince looked into his companion's eyes and found them

serious.

"You mean to try," he sceptically inquired, "to make

the complete American out of that lad in whose veins fiows

the blood of the vendetta!"

"I told you that we hermits were dreamers," answered

McCalloway. "I've never had a son of my own. I think

it would be a pretty experiment, sir, to see how far this

young back-woodsman could go.

Strange indeed would have seemed to any pr3ring eye

the occurrences within the walls of McCalloway 's cabin

on those many evenings which Boone Wellver spent there.

But of what took place the boy breathed no word, despite

the almost feverish eagerness that glowed constantly in his

blue eyes. His natural taciturnity would have sealed his

lips had he given the "furriner" no pledge of confidence,

and even McCalloway never guessed how strict was the

censorship of that promise as Boone constraed its mean*

ing. Inasmuch as he could not be sure just what details,

out of the summary of their conversations, fell under the

restrictive ban, he set upon the whole association a seal

of Masonic silence. And Victor McCalloway, recognizing

that dependable discretion, talked with a freedom which he

would have permitted himself with few other companions.

Sometimes he read aloud from books whose pages were,

to the young listener, gates swinging open upon gilded

glimpses of chivalry, heroism and those thoughts which are

not groundling but winged and splendid. Sometimes

through the hills where the distances shimmered with an

ashen ghost of brilliance, they tramped together, a peripa-

tetic philosopher and his devoted disciple.

But strangest' and most fantastical of all, were the hours

they spent before McCalloway 's hearth when the man threw

off his coat and rolled his sleeves high over scarred fore*

arms while the boy's eyes sparkled with anticipation.

And at outside mention of these sessions, McCalloway him*

self might have reddened to the cheekbones, for then it

was that the man produced improvised wooden swords and

placed himself, feet wide apart and left hand elevated in

the attitude of the fencer's salute. Facing him was a sol-

emn, burning-eyed pupil and adversary of fifteen in a

lins^-woolsey diirt and jeans overalls. The lad with his

freckled face and his red-brown shock of hair made an

absurd contrast with the gentleman whose sword play

possessed the exquisite grace and deft elegance of a Parisian

fencing master — ^but Boone had the astonishing swiftness

of a panther cub, and a lightning play of wrist and agility

of limb. How rapidly he was gaining mastery over his

foil he could not, himself, realize because standing over

against him was one of the best swords of Europe, but this

enthusiasm, which was a very passion to learn, was also a

thing of which he never spoke outside.

CHAPTER VI

WITH winter came desolation. The sumac no

longer flared vermilion and the flaming torches

of the maples were quenched.

Boads were quagmires where travellers slipped and la-

boured through viscid mud and over icy fords. The hills

were scowling ranks of slate gray. A tarnished sun

paraded murky skies from its pallid dawn to its setting

in a bed of inflamed and angry clouds.

And as the sullen spirit of winter came to this isola-

tion, another spirit came with it— equally grim.

The campaign had progressed with torrential bitterness

to its inevitable culmination. Exhausted invective had, like

a jaded thing, sought greater lengths — ^when already the

superlative was reached. Each side shrieked loud and

blatant warnings of an attempt at rape upon the ballot.

There was irresponsible talk of the freeman's final recourse

to arms and of blood-letting in the name of liberty. At

last had come the day of election itself with howls of fraud

and claims of victory ringing from both camps : then a lull,

like that in which two bleeding and exhausted dogs draw

off from the clamp of locked jaws to pant at each other with

weltering fangs and blood-shot eyes.

As Saul Fulton had predicted, the gaze of the State

turned anxiously to the hills. There, remote and slow to

give its election returns, lay the Eleventh Congressional

District with all its counties solidly Republican. Already

the margin was recognized as narrow enough, perhaps, to

hinge on the ''Bloody Eleventh.'* While the State waited,

the Democrats asseverated that the ' ' Bloody Eleventh ' ' was

marking time, awaiting a response to the query it had

wired to its state headquarters :

**How much do you needT'

Those were days of tension and rumblings in the craters,

and one day the rumour was bom that the vote of Marlin

County was to be counted out.

In an hour after that whisper mysteriously originated,

thirty horsemen were riding faster than road conditions

warranted, by every crooked creek-bed and trail that de-

bouched from the county seat. They made light of quick-

sand and flooded ford. They laughed at shelving precipice

brinks. Each of them shouted inflammatory words at every

cabin and dwelling house along his way ; each of them kin-

dled signal flres atop the ridges, and when the first pallid

light of dawn crept into the fog reek of the hillsides an

army was on the march to Marlin Town.

That evening, in a grimly beleaguered court house, the

commissioners certified the ballots as cast, and the cloud

of black hats melted as quietly as it had formed.

In the state courts, on points of legal technicality, with

mandamus and injunction, the fight went on bitterly and

slowly. The narrow margin fluctuated: the outcome wav-

ered.

When Saul Fulton returned to his birthplace in Decem-

ber, his face was sinister with forebodings. But his object

in coming was not ostensibly political. He meant to drive

down, from the creeks and valleys of Marlin County, a

herd of cattle collected from scattered sources for market-

ing in the bluegrass. It was an undertaking that a man

could hardly manage single handed, and since a boy would

work for small wages he offered to make Boone his assistant.

To Boone, who had never seen a metalled road, it meant

adventuring forth into the world of his dreams.

He would see the theatre where this stupendous political

war was being waged — he would be only a few miles from

the state capitol itself, where these two men, each of whom

caUed himself the Governor of Kentucky, pulled the wires,

directed the forces and shifted the pawns.

Victor McCalloway smiled when Boone told him, in a

voice shaken with emotion, that the day had come when he

could go out and see the world.

Boone and Saul slept, that night, in a mining town witli

the glare of coke furnaces biting red holes through the

surrounding blackness of the ridges.

To Boone Wellver, this journey was as full of mystify-

ing and alluringly colourful events as a mandarin's cloak

is crusted with the richness of embroidery. Save for his

ingrained sense of a man's obligation to maintain always

an incurious dignity, he would have looked through wid-

ened eyes of amazement from the first miles of his travel-

ling. When the broken raggedness of peaks began to flat-

ten toward the billowing bluegrass, his wonder grew.

There at home the world stood erect and lofty. Here it

seemed to lie prone. The very air tasted flat in his nos-

trils and, missing the screens of forested peaks, he felt

a painful want of privacy — ^like a turtle deprived of its

shell, or a man suddenly stripped naked.

Upon his ears a thousand sounds seemed to beat in tumult

— and dissonance. Men no longer walked with a soundless

f ootf allj or spoke in lowered voices.

In the county seat to which they brought their gaunt

cattle, his bewilderment mounted almost to vertigo, for

about the court house square were congregated men and

beasts — all unfamiliar to the standards of his experience.

The native beef here was fat, corn-fed stock, and the

hogs were rounder and squatter than the mast-nourished

razor-4)acks he had known at home. The men, too, who

bought and sold them, were fuller nourished and fuller

voiced. It was as if they never whispered and had never

had to talk in soft caution. Upon himself from time to

time he felt amused glances, as though he, like his bony

steers, stood branded to the eye with the ineradicable mark

of something strayed in from a land of poverty.

But when eventually the cattle had been sold, Saul took

him on to the capitol of the State, and there, on the twelfth

of December, he stood, with a heart that hammered his

ribs, in a great crowd before the state Lonse and gazed

up at the platform upon which the choice of his own people

was being inaugurated as Oovemor.

Boone was dazzled by the gold-laced uniforms of all the

colonels on the retiring executive's staflE, and as he turned

away, in the amber light of the winter afternoon, his soul

was all but satiated with the heady intoxication of full

living.

On a brilliantly frosted morning, when the weed stalks

by the roadside were crystal-rimmed, and the sky was an

illimitable arch of blue sparkle, he trudged at Saul's side

along a white turnpike between smooth stone walls and

well-kept fences. Yet for all his enthusiasm of admira-

tion, a new sense of misgiving and vague trouble began to

settle heavily at his heart.

No one, along the way, halted to '*meet an' make their

manners." Vehicles, drawn by horses that lifted their

hocks and knees high, passed swiftly and without greeting.

The threadbare poorness of his clothes, a thing of which

he had never before been conscious, now uncomfortably

obtruded itself upon realization. At home, where every

man was poor, there had been no sense of inferiority, but

here was a regime of disquieting contrasts.

When they at last turned through a gate with stone

pillars, he caught sight of a long maple and oak-flanked

avenue, and at its end a great brick house. Against the

age-tempered facade stood out the trim of white paint and

the dignity of tall, fluted columns. lie marvelled that Saul

Pulton had been able in so short a time to buy himself such

a palace.

But while he still mulled over his wonderment in si-

lenee, Saul led him by a detour around the mansion and

its ivory-white out-buildings, and continued through back

pastures and fields, disfigured by black and sharp tobacco

stubble. Boone followed past fodder-racks and pig-sties,

until they brought up at a square, two-roomed Jiouse with

blank, unpainted walls, set in a small yard as barren as

those of the hills, but unrelieved by any background of

laurel or forest. About this untempered starkness of habi-

tation stretched empty fields, snow-patched and desolate,

and the boy's face dropped as he heard his kinsman's an-

nouncement, **This hyar's whar I dwells at."

*'Who — ^who dwells over yon at t'other house?" came

Boone's rather timid query. **Ther huge .brick one, with

them big white poles runnin ' up in front. ' '

Saul laughed with a rasping note in his voice. ''Hit

b longs ter Colonel Tom Wallifarro, ther lawyer, but he

don't dwell thar hisself, save only now an' then."

Fulton paused, and his face took on the unpleasant

churlishness of class hatred. ' ' Ther whole kit and kaboodle

of 'em will be hyar soon, though. They all comes back fer

Christmas, an' holds dancin' parties, and carousin's, damn

em!

A seriously puzzled expression clouded the boy's eyes,

and he asked simply, ** Hain't ye friendly with 'em, Sault"

"No," was the short rejoinder, *'I hain't friendly with

no rich lowlander that holds scorn fer an honest man jest

because he's poor."

On subsequent occasions when Boqne passed the ''great

house" it seemed almost as quiet as though it were totally

untenanted, but with the approach of Christmas it awoke

from its sleep of inactivity.

The young mountaineer was trudging along one day

through a gracious woodland, which even, in the starkness

of winter, hinted at the nobility that summer leafage must

give to its parklike spaces. His way carried him close to

the paddocks flanking the ample barns, and he could see

that the house windows were ruddy from inner hearth fires,

and decked with holly wreaths.

In the paddocks themselves were a dozen persons, all

opulent of seeming, and what interested the passer-by, even

more than the people, were the high-headed, gingerly step-

ping horses that were being led out by negro boys for their

inspection.

In the group Boone recognized the man whom Asa had

identified that day in Marlin as Mr. Masters, a ''mine

boss," and the gentleman who had come with him out of

the mountain hotel. The boy surmised that this latter must

be Colonel Tom Wallifarro himself, the owner of all these

acres.

There was a small girl too, whom Masters called ''daugh-

ter." Boone had for girls the fine disdain of his age, and

this one he guessed to be some four or five years younger

than himself. But she was unlike any other he had ever

seen, and it puzzled him that so much attention should be

squandered on a "gal-child," though he acknowledged to

himself — "but she's plum purty." He went by with a

casual glance and a high chin, but in his brain whirled

many puzzling thoughts, springing from a first glimpse

of wealth.

CHAPTER VII

IT was Christmas eve night, and General Basil Prince,

who had hurriedly changed to evening dress after his

arrival by a late train, halted for a moment at the

stair-head to look down. On his distinguished face played

a quiet smile. In these rapidly changing times, pride of

lineage and deference for tradition were things less openly

voiced than in other days which he could remember.

Probably that was as it should be, he reflected, yet an

elderly fellow might enjoy the fragrance of old lavender

or the bouquet of memory's vintage.

When he came here to the country house of his friend

Wallifarro, it seemed to him that he stepped back into

those days when gracious ceremonies held and dancers trod

the measured figures of the minuet.

He wondered if in many places one could find just such

another coterie of intimates as the little group of older

men who gathered here: men who had been boyhood com-

rades in the Orphan Brigade, or Morgan's Cavalry: men

who had, since the reconstruction, distinguished themselves

in civilian life, weaving into a new pattern the regathered

threads of fortune.

Gazing down upon the broad hall, with the parquetry

of its floors clear^ for dancing, Basil Prince warmed to

a glow of pride in these people who were his people. Aris-

tocracies had risen and tottered since history had kept its

score, but here, surviving all change, remained a simple

graciousness, and a stamina of great heartedness like that

which royal breeding had instilled into those satin-coated

horses out there in their barns; steadfastness of courage

and a high spirit.

Holly and mistletoe festooned the doorways, logs roared

on brass andirons, and.8ilyer-sconced candles glowed against

an ivory softness of white wainscoting and the waxed dark-

ness of mahogany. He loved it all; the simple uncrowded'

elegance ; the chaste designs of silver, upon which the tem-

pered lights found rebirth ; the ripe age of the family por-

traits. It stood for a worthy part of America — a culture

that had ripened in the early wilderness.

Morgan Wallif arro was home from Harvard for his first

vacation, and as General Prince eyed the boy his brows

puckered in the momentary ghost of a frown. This lad,

alone of all the young folk in the laughing groups, struck

him as one to whom he could not accord an unreserved ap-

proval — as one whose dress and manner grated ever so

slightly with their marring suspicion of pose. But this,

he told himself, was only the conceit of extreme youth.

Morgan was named for his old chieftain of the partisan

cavalry. He was Tom Wallif arro 's boy, and if there was

anything in blood he must ultimately develop into worthi-

**He's the best stock in the world," mused the General.

**He's like a fractious colt just now — but when he's had a

bit of gruelling, he '11 run true to form. ' '

The fiddles swung into a Sousa march, and couples

drifted out upon the floor. General Prince stood against

the wall, teasing and delighting a small girl with short

skirts and beribboned hair. It was Anne Masters, that be-

witching child who in a few years more would have little

leisure for gray-heads when the violins sang to waltz-time.

The music ran its course and stopped, as all music must,

and the couples stood encoring. Some one, flushed with

dancing, threw open the front door, and a chilly gust swept

in from the night. Then quite suddenly General Prince

heard Morgan Wallif arro 's laugh break out over the hum

of conversation.

**Well, in Heaven's name," satirically inquired that

young gentleman, **what have we here?"

It was a strange picture for such a framing, yet into

the eyes of (General Prince flashed a quick indignant light

and under his breath he muttered, ' ' That young cub, Mor-

gan! He disappoints me."

Seen across the sparkling shoulders and the filmy party

gowns of the girls, beyond the black and white of the men 's

evening dress, was the parallelogram of the wide entrance-

door, and centred on its threshold, against the night-

curtain, bulked a figure which hesitated there in momentary*'

indecision and grotesque inappropriateness.

It was a boy, whose long mop of red-brown hair was un-

trimmed and whose eyes were just now dazzled by the un-

accustomed light and sparkle upon which they looked. His

shirt was of blue cotton, his clothes patched and shoddy,

but under a battery of amused glances he sensed a spirit

of ridicule and stiffened like a ramrod. A drifting peal

of laughter from somewhere brought his chin up, and a

red tide flooded into his cheeks. The soft and dusty hat

which he clasped in his hand was crumpled under the

pressure of his tightening fingers.

Then Boone Wellver's voice carried audibly over the

hall and into the rooms at the side.

**I heered tell thet thar war a dancin' party goin' for-

ward hyar," he announced simply, **an' I lowed I'd jest

as lieve as not fare over fer a spell."

Boone had intended no comedy effect. He spoke in

decorous gravity, and he knew of no reason why an out-

burst of laughter should sweep the place as he finished.

Prince caught an unidentified voice from his back. It

was low pitched, but it fell on the silence that succeeded

the laugh, and he feared that the boy must have caught

it too.

''One of the tobacco-yaps from the back of the place, I

expect."

At once (Jeneral Prince stepped forward and laid his

hand on Boone's shoulder. Under his palm he felt a tre-

mor of anger and hurt pride, and he spoke clearly.

*'This yonng gentleman," he said — and though his eyes

were twinkling with a whimsical light, his voice carried

entire and calculated gravity — **is a friend of mine, Mr.

Boone Wellver of Marlin County. I've enjoyed the hos-

pitality of his people." There was a puzzled pause, and

the General, whose standing here was as secure as that of

Petronius at Nero's court, continued.

**In the mountains when a party is given no invitations

are issued. Word simply goes out as to time and location,

and whoever cares to come — comes."

The explanation was meant for those inside, but the boy

in the doorway caught from it a clarifying of matters for

his own understanding as well. Obviously*here one did not

come without being bidden, and that left him in the morti-

fying attitude of a trespasser. It came with a flash of

realization and chagrin.

He yearned to blot himself into the kindly void of the

night behind him — yet that rude type of dignity which

was bred in him forbade the humiliation of unexplained

flight. Such a course would indeed stamp him as a ''yap,"

and however shaggy and unkempt his appearance might be

in this ensemble of silk and broad-cloth he was as proud as

Lucifer.

Heretofore a *' dancing-party" had meant to him, shuf-

fling brogans where shadows leaped with firelight and

strings of fiddle and ^'dulcimore" quavered out the strains

of '*Turkey-in-the-straw" or *'IVe got a gal at the head

of the hollow."

He had expected this to be different, but not so different,

and he had need to blink back tears of shame.

But, all the more for that, he drew himself straight and

stiff and spoke resolutely, though his voice carried the sus-

picion of a tremor.

''I fear me I've done made a fool mistake an' I reckon

ni say farewell ter you-all, now."

Even then he did not wheel precipitately, under the

urge of his anxiety to be gone, but paused with a forced

deliberation, and, as he tarried, little Anne Masters stepped

impulsively forward.

Anne had reigned with a captivating absolutism from her

cradle on. Swift impulses and ready sympathies governed

much of her conduct, and they governed her now.

**This is my party," she declared. ** Uncle Tom told

me so at dinner, and I specially invite you to come in."

She spoke with the haste of one wishing to forestall the

possible thwarting of elderly objection, and ended with a

danciiig-school curtsey before the boy in hodden gray.

Then the music started up again, and she added, '*If you

like, I '11 give you this waltz. ' '

But Boone Wellver only shifted from one uneasy foot

to the other, fingering his hat brim and blinking owlishly.

**I'm obleeged ter ye," he stammered with a sudden access

of awkwardness, **but I hain't never run a set in my life.

My folks don't hold hit ter be godly. I jest came ter

kinderly look on."

**Anne, dear," translated Basil Prince, '*in the mountains

they know only the square dances. Isn't that correct!"

The boy nodded his head.

**Thet's what I aimed ter say," he corroborated. **An'

I'm beholden ter ye, little gal, none-the-less. "

**And now, come with me, Boone," suggested the old

soldier, diplomatically steering the unbidden guest across

the hall and into the library where over their cigars and

their politics sat the circle of devoted veterans.

Colonel Tom Wallif arro was standing before the fire with

his hands clasped at his back. * * I had hoped against hope, ' '

he was indignantly asserting, **that when the man's own

hand-made triumvirate denied him endorsement, he would

end his reign of terror and acknowledge defeat."

**A knowledge of the candidate should have sufficed to

refute that idea," came the musical voice of a gentleman,

whose snow-white hair was like a shock of spun silver.

**I was in Frankfort some days ago when Mr. Ooebel

sat there in conference with his favoured lieutenants. It

was reported that he declared himself indifferent as to the

outcome, but that he would abide by the decision of his

party whips. The reporters were besieging those closed

doors, and at the end you all know what verdict went over

the wires: 'Being a loyal Democrat I shall obey the man-

date of my party — and make a contest before the legisla-

ture for the office of governor, to which I was legally

elected.'"

Just then Basil Prince came forward, leading his pro-

tege. Possibly a wink passed over Boone Wellver's head.

At all events the circle of gentlemen rose and shook hands

as sedately as though they had been awaiting him — and

Boone, hearing the titles, colonel, senator, governor, was

enthralled beyond measure.

A half hour later, Morgan Wallifarro burst tempest-

uously in, carrying a large package, and wearing an ex-

pression of excited enthusiasm.

"(Jeneral,'* he exclaimed, **I have disobeyed orders and

opened one Christmas gift before tomorrow. I suspected

what it was, sir — ^and I couldn't wait."

Forgetful of the pretty girls in the rooms beyond, he

ripped open the parcel and laid on the centre table a pair

of beautifully chased and engraved fencing foils, and the

masks that went with them.

"I simply had to come in and thank you at once, sir,"

he added delightedly. '* Father, bend that blade and feel

the temper! Look at the engraving too! My monogram

is on the guard."

While his elders looked indulgently on, the lad made a

pass or two at an imagined adversary, and then he laughed

again.

*'By George, I wish I had one of the fencing-class fel-

lows here now."

Boone bent forward in his chair, his eyes eagerly fixed

on the glittering beauty of the slender, rubber-tipped

blades. His lips parted to speak, but closed again with-

out sound, while Morgan lunged and parried at nothing

on the hearth-rug. ** 'We're the cadets of Gascogny/ '*

the son of the house quoted lightly. ** 'At the envoy's end

I touch.' " Then regretfully he added, **I wish there was

some one to have a go with. Are there any challengers,

gentlemen t"

The boy in hodden-gray slipped from his chair.

'*I reckon ef ye 're honin' fer a little sward-fightin' I'll

aim ter convenience ye," he quietly invited.

For an instant Morgan gazed at him in silence. With-

out discourtesy, it was difScult to reply to such an absurd

invitation, and even the older men felt their reserve of

dignity taxed with the repression of mirth as they con-

templated the volunteer.

'*I'm sorry," apologized Morgan, when the silence had

become oppressive, **but these foils are delicate things.

For all their temper, they snap like glass in hands that

aren't accustomed to them. It takes a bit of practice, you

know.

The note of condescension stung Boone painfully and

his eyes narrowed. **A11 right. Hev hit yore own way,"

he replied curtly. *'I thought ye wanted some sward-

practice."

With a sudden flash of memory there came back to

Basil Prince's mind the picture of Victor McCalloway's

cabin and Dinwiddle's sword — and, with the memory, an

idea. ** Morgan," he suavely suggested, **your challenge

was general, as I understood it, and I don't see how you

can gracefully decline. If a blade breaks, I '11 see that it 's

replaced."

The young college man could hesitate no longer, though

he felt that he was being forced into a ludicrous position,

as he bowed his unwilling acquiescence.

But when the two adversaries took their places where

the furniture had been hastily cleared away, the men

widened their eyes and bent forward absorbed. The moun-

tain lad had suddenly shed his grotesqueness. He dropped

his blade and lifted it in salute, not like a bumpkin but

with the finished grace of familiarity — the sweeping con-

fidence of perfect ease. As he stepped back, saying ''On

guard/' his left hand came up at balance and his poise

was as light as though he had been reared in the class-

room of a fencing-school.

Morgan went into that contest with the disadvantage

of utter astonishment. He had received some expensive

instruction and was on the way toward becoming a skilled

hand with the rapier, but the ''tobacco yap" had been

schooled by one of the first swords of Europe.

At the first sharp ring of steel on steel one or two per-

sons materialized in the library door, and they were speed-

ily augmented by fresh arrivals, until the circle of bare-

shouldered girls and attendant cavaliers pressed close on

the area of combat. Backward and forward, warily circling

with a delicate and musical clatter of engaging steel be-

tween them, went the lad in broadcloth and the boy in

homespun.

It was, at best, unequal, but Morgan gave the most that

he had, and against a lesser skill he would have acquitted

himself with credit.

After a little there came a lunge, a hilt pressed to lower

blade, a swift twist of a wrist, and young Wallifarro's

foil flew dear of his hand and clattered to the floor. He

had been cleanly disarmed.

Boone drew the mask from his tousled head and shuf-

fled his feet. That awkwardness which had been so absent

from his moments of action descended upon him afresh

as he awoke to the many watching eyes. Morgan held out

a hand, which was diffidently received, and acknowledged

frankly, "You're much the better man — ^but where in Heav-

en's name did you learn to fence like thatt"

The mountain boy flushed, suddenly realizing that this

too was a matter included in his pledge of confidence to

Victor McCalloway.

**0h," he evasively responded, **I jest kinderly picked

hit up— hyar an' thar as I went along."

As soon as possible after that, Boone made his escape,

and it was characteristic of his close-mouthed self -contain-

ment that at Saul Fulton's cabin he said nothing as to

where he had spent his Christmas eve.

CHAPTER VIII

ON the afternoon of Christmas day, as Boone stood

by the gate of Saul's rented patch, looking off

across the wet bareness of the fields to the gray

and shallow skyline, he was more than a little homesick

for the accustomed thickness of forest and peak. He at

last saw two mounted figures coming toward him, and

recognized General Prince and Anne Masters.

**We rode by to wish you a very merry Christmas," an-

nounced the girl, and the General added his smile and

greeting.

**I'm — I'm obleeged ter both of you-all," stammered

Boone as Anne, leaning over, handed him a package.

**I thought maybe you'd like that. It's a fruit-cake,'*

she informed him. **I brought it because we think our

cook piakes it just a little bit better than anybody else."

Something told Boone Wellver that the girl, despite her

fine clothes and manners, was almost as shy with him as he

felt toward her, and in the thought was a sort of reassur-

ance.

** Hit's right charitable-like of ye ter fotch hit ter me,"

he responded, slowly, and the child hastened to make a

denial.

**0h, no, please don't think that. It wasn't charity

at all. It was just — " But as she paused. General Prince

interrupted her with a hearty laugh.

**Yes, it was, Anne," he announced. **The word is like

the dances. It has a different significance in the hills.

For instance when you go to visit your father in Marlin

County, Boone will be charitable to you too— or, as we

would say, courteous."

**Be ye comin' ter ther mountains t" demanded Boone,

and the sudden interest which rang in his voice surprised

himself.

Fearful lest he had displayed too much enthusiasm, he

withdrew cautiously into his almost stolid manner again.

**I'm beholden ter ye fer this hyar sweet cake," he said.

"Hit's ther fust Christmas gift I ever got.''

The house party ended a few days after that, so the

mansion became again a building of shuttered windows

and closed doors, and as the old year died and the new one

dawned, Saul himself was frequently absent on mysterious

journeys to Frankfort.

Sometimes he returned home with a smoulder in his eyes,

and once or twice he brought with him a companion, who

sat broodingly across the hearth from him and discussed

politics, not after the fashion of frank debate but in the

sinister undertones of furtiveness. On one particular night

in the first week of January, while Saul was entertaining

such a visitor, a knock sounded on the door, and when it

was opened a man entered, whose dress and bearing were

of the more prosperous strata and who seemed to be ex-

pected.

Boone overheard the conversation which followed from

the obscurity of the chimney corner, where he appeared to

be napping and was overlooked.

'*I'm right sorry you was called on to journey all the

way here from Frankfort," began Saul apologetically, but

the other cut him short with a crisp response,

** Don't let that worry you. There are too many eyes

and ears in Frankfort. You know what the situation is

now, don't you?"

**I knows right well thet ther Democrat aims ter hev

ther legislater seat him. He's been balked by ther people

an' his own commission — an' now thet's his only chanst."

**The Governor says that if he leaves the state house it

will be on a stretcher," announced the visitor defiantly.

''But there are more conspiracies against us on foot than

I have leisure to explain. The time has come for you

mountain men to make good."

Saul rose and paced the floor for a minute, then halted

and jerked his head toward the companion whom he had

brought home with him that evening.

''Shake hands with Jim Hollins of Clay County," he

said briefly. ** We've done talked it all over and he un-

derstands."

"All right. It's agreed then that you take Marlin and

Mr. Hollins takes Clay. I have representatives in the

other counties arranged for. These men who come will

be fed and housed all right. There'll be special trains to

bring them, and ahead of each section will be a pilot en-

gine, in case the news leaks out and anybody tries to use

dynamite."

"All right, then. We'll round ye up ther proper kind

of men — ^upstandin' boys thet ain't none timorous."

The man in good clothes dropped his voice to an im-

pressive undemote.

"Have them understand clearly that if they are asked

why they come, they shall all make the same response :

that in accordance with their constitutional rights, they

are in Frankfort to petition the legislature — ^but above all

have them well armed."

Saul scratched his chin with a new doubt. "Most moun-

tain men hev guns, but some of 'em air mighty ancient.

I misdoubts ef I kin arm all ther fellers I kin bring on."

"Then don't bring them." The man, issuing instruc-

tions, raspingly barked out his mandate. "Unarmed men

aren't worth a damn to us. If anybody wants to hedge or

back down, let him stay at home. After they get to Frank-

fort, it will be too late."

"And when they does git thar," inquired the man from

Clay County incisively, "what then?"

"They will receive their instructions in due time — ^and

don't bring any quitters," was the sharply snapped re-

sponse.

• •••••••

Bev. Jett was the High Sheriff of Marlin County, for

in unaltered Appalaehia, with its quaint survivals of Eliza-

bethan speeoh, where jails are jail-houses and dolls are

puppets, the sheriff is still the High Sheriff.

Now on a bleak January day, when snow-freighted elouds

obscured the higher reaches of the hills, he was riding^

along sloppy ways, cut off from outer life by the steep

barrier of Cedar Mountain.

Eventually he swung himself down from his saddle be-

fore Asa Gregory's door and tossed his bridle-rein over

a picket of the fence, shouting, according to custom, his

name and the assurance that he came upon a mission of

friendliness.

Bev. Jett remembered that when last he had dismounted

at this door there had been in his mind some apprehension

as to the spirit of his reception. On that occasion he had

been the bearer of an indictment which, in the prolix

phrases of the law, made allegation that the householder

had '*with rifle or pistol or other deadly weapon loaded

with powder and leaden bullet or other hard and combus-

tible substance, wilfully, feloniously and against the peace

and dignity of the Commonwealth of Kentucky," accom-

plished a murder. Now his mission was more diplomatic^

and Asa promptly threw open the door and invited him

to ** light down and enter in."

'*Asa," said the oflBcer, when he had paid his compli-

ments to the wife and admired the baby, ** Jedge Beard sent

me over hyar ter hev speech with ye. Hit hes ?er do with

ther matter of yore askin' fer a pardon. Of course, though,

hit's a right mincy business an' must be undertook in heed-

ful fashion."

Judge Baird, whose name the Sheriff pronounced other-

wise, had occupied the bench when Asa had been less ad-

vantageously seated in the prisoner's dock.

Reflecting now upon the devious methods and motives

of mountain intrigue, Gregory's eyes grew somewhat flinty

as he bluntly inquired, **How does ye mean hit's a mincy

business t"

** Hit's like this. Jedge Beard figgers thet atter all this

trouble in Frankfort, with you an' ther Carr boys both

interested in ther same proposition, they mout be willin'

ter drap yore prosecution of thar own will."

Asa Gregory broke into a low laugh and a bitter one.

' * So thet 's how ther land lays, air hit t He 'lows they '11

feel friendly ter me, does het Did ye ever see a rattle-

snake thet could be gentled inter a petf

"Ye've got ther wrong slant on ther question, Asa,"

the sheriff hastened to explain. *'The Jedge don't low

thet ye ought ter depend on no sich an outcome — an' he

hain't dodgin'. None-the-less while he's on ther bench he's

obleeged ter seem impartial. His idee is ter try ter git ye

thet pardon right now if so be hit 's feasible — ^but he coun-

sels thet if ye does git hit ye'd better jest fold hit up an'

stick hit in yore pants pocket an' keep yore mouth tight.

If ther Carrs draps ther prosecution, then ye won't hev

ter show hit at all, an' they won't be affronted neither.

Ef they does start doggin' ye afresh, ye kin jest flash hit

when ye comes ter co'te, an' thet'd be ther end of ther mat-

ter. Don't thet strike ye as right sensible?"

*'Thet suits me all right," acceded the indicted man

slowly, "provided I've got a pardon ter flash."

Once more the sheriff's head nodded in reflective acquies-

cence.

**Thet's why ye'd better hasten like es if ye war goin'

down ter Frankfort ter borry fire. They're liable ter

throw our man out — an' then hit '11 be too late." After a

pause for impressiveness, the Sheriff continued,

**Hyar's a letter of introduction from ther Jedge ter

ther Governor, an' another one from ther Commonwealth's

attorney. They both commends ye ter his clemency."

"I'd heered tell thet Saul Fulton an' one or two other

fellers aimed ter take a passel of men ter Frankfort, ter

petition ther legislater, ' ' suggested Asa thoughtfully. ' ' I 'd

done studied some erbout goin' along with 'em."

** Don't do hit," came the quick and positive reply.

**Ef them fellers gits inter any manner of trouble down

thar ther Governor couldn't hardly pardon ye without

seemin' ter be rewardin' lawlessness. Go by yoreself —

an' keep away from them others."

On the evening of the twenty-fifth of January Colonel

Tom Wallif arro stepped from the Louisville train at Prank-

fort and turned his steps toward the stone-pillared front

of the Capitol Hotel. Across the width of Main Street,

behind its iron fence, loomed the ancient pile of the state

house with its twilight frown of gray stone. The three-

storied executive building lay close at its side. Over the

place, he fancied, gloomed a heavy spirit of suspense. The

hills that fringed the city were ragged in their wintriness,

and ash-dark with the thickening dusk.

Bearing a somewhat heavy heart, the Colonel registered

and went direct to his room. Like drift on a freshet, ele-

ments of irreconcilable diflference were dashing pell-mell

toward catastrophe. Colonel Wallif arro 's mission here was

a conference with several cool hands of both political creeds,

actuated by an earnest eflfort to forestall any such overt

act as might end in chaos.

But the spirit of foreboding lay onerously upon him,

and he slept so fitfully that the first gray of dawn found

him up and abroad. River mists still held the town, fog-

wrapped and spectral of contour, and the Colonel strolled

aimlessly toward the station. As he drew near, he heard

the whistle of a locomotive beyond the tunnel, and knowing

of no train due of arrival at that hour, he paused in his

walk in time to see an engine thunder through the station

without stopping. It carried neither freight cars nor

coaches, but it was followed after a five-minute interval

by a second locomotive, which panted and hissed to a grind-

ing stop, with the solid curve of a long train strong out

behind it — a special.

Vestibule doors began straightway to vomit a gushing,

elbowing multitude of dark figures to the station platform,

where the red and green lanterns still shone with feeble

sickliness, catching the dull glint of rifles, and the high

lights on faces that were fixed and sinister of expression.

The dark stream of figures flowed along with a grim

monotony and an almost spectral silence across the street

and into the state house grounds.

There was a steadiness in that detraining suggestive of

a matter well rehearsed and completely understood, and

as the light grew clearer on gaunt cheekbones and swing-

ing guns an almost terrified voice exclaimed from some-

where, **The mountaineers have come!"

CHAPTER IX

WHEN the senate convened that day, strange and

uncouth lookers-on stood ranged about the state

house corridors, and their unblinking eyes took

account of their chief adversary as he entered.

Upon his dark face, with its overhanging forelock, flick-

ered no ghost of misgiving; no hint of any weakening or

excitement. His gaze betrayed no interest beyond the

casual for the men along the walls, whom report credited

with a murderous hatred of himself.

Boone was fretting his heart out at the cabin of Saul

Fulton while he knew that history was in the making at

Frankfort, and on the evening of the twenty-ninth an

eagerness to be near the focus of activity mastered him.

The elements of right and wrong involved in this battle

of political giants were, to his untrained mind, academic,

but the drama of conflict was like a bugle-call — clear, di-

rect and urgent.

He would not be immediately needed on the farm, and

Frankfort was only flfteen miles away. If he set out at

once and walked most of the night, he could reach the

Mecca of his pilgrimage by tomorrow morning, and in his

pocket was the sum of ** two-bits'' to defray the expenses

of ** snacks an' sich-like needcessities. " For the avoidance

of possible discussion, he slipped quietly out of the back

door with no announcement to Saul's wife. With soft

snowflakes drifting into his face and melting on his eye-

lashes, he began his march, and for four hours swung along

at a steady three-and-a-half mile gait. At last he stole

into a barn and huddled down upon a straw pile, but before

dawn he was on the way again, and in the early light he

turned into the main street of the state capital. His pur-

pose was to view one day of life in a city and then to slip

back to his uneventful duties.

• •••••••

The town had outgrown its first indignant surprise over

the invasion of the ** mountain army," and the senator from

Kenton had passed boldly through its unordered ranks,

as need suggested. The hill men had fallen sullenly back

and made a path for his going.

This morning he walked with a close friend, who had

constituted himself a bodyguard of one. The upper house

was to meet at ten, and it was five minutes short of the

hour when the man, with preoccupied and resolute features,

swung through the gate of the state house grounds. The

way lay from there around the fountain to the door set

within the columned portico.

In circling the fountain, the companion dropped a space

to the rear and glanced about him with a hasty scrutiny,

and as he did so a sharp report ripped the quietness of

the place, speedily followed by the more mufSed sound of

pistol shots.

The gentleman in the rear froze in his tracks, glancing

this way and that in a bewildered effort to locate the

sound. The senator halted too, but after a moment he

wavered a little, lifted one hand with a gesture rather of

weariness than of pain, and, buckling at the knees, sagged

down slowly until he lay on the fiag-stoned walk, with one

hand pressed to the bosom of his buttoned overcoat.

Figures were already running up from here and there.

As the dismayed friend locked his arms under the prone

shoulders, he heard words faintly enunciated — not dra-

matically declaimed, but in strangely matter-of-fact tone

and measure — ^*'I guess they've — got me."

Boone Wellver saw a throng of tight-wedged humanity

pressing along with eyes turned inward toward some core

of excited interest, and heard the words that ran every-

where, * * Goebel has been shot ! ' '

He felt a sudden nausea as he followed the crowd at

whose centre was borne a helpless body, until it jammed

about the door of a doctor's office, and after that, for a long

while, he wandered absently over the town.

Turning the comer of an empty side street in the late

afternoon he came face to face with Asa Gregory, and his

perplexed unrest gave way to comfort.

Asa was tranquilly studying a theatrical poster dis-

played on a wall. His face was composed and lit with a

smile of quiet amusement, but before Boone reached his

side, or accosted him, another figure rounded the comer,

walking with agitated haste, and the boy ducked hastily

back, recognizing Saul Pulton, who might tax him with

truancy.

Yet when he saw Saul's almost insanely excited gaze

meet Asa's quiet eyes, curiosity overcame caution and he

came boldly forward.

**Ye'd better not tarry in town over-long, Asa," Saul

was advising in the high voice of alarm. ''I'm dismayed

ter find ye hyar now."

**Why be ye?" demanded Asa, and his unruffled utter-

ance was velvet smooth. ''Hain't I got a license ter go

wharsoever hit pleasures me?"

**This hain't no safe time ner place fer us mountain

fellers," came the anxiety-freighted reply. **An' you've

done been writ up too much in ther newspapers a 'ready.

You've got a lawless repute, an' atter this mornin' Frank-

fort-town hain't no safe place fer ye."

**I come down hyar," announced Asa, still with an

imperturbable suavity, **ter try an' git me a pardon. I

hain't got hit yit an* tharfore I hain't ready ter turn

away."

Gregory began a deliberate ransacking of his pockets,

in search of his tobacco plug, and in doing so he hauled

out miscellaneous odds and ends before he found what he

was seeking.

In his hands materialized a corn-cob pipe, some loose

coins and matches, and then — as Saul's voice broke into

frightened exclamation — several rifle and pistol cartridges.

**Good Qod, man," exploded the other mountaineer,

*' ain't ye got no more common sense than ter be totin'

them things 'round in this town — terday?"

Asa raised his brows, and smiled indulgently upon his

kinsman. "Why, ginrally, I've got a few ca'tridges and

pistol hulls in my pockets," he drawled. **Why shouldn't

I?"

**Well, git rid of 'em, an' be speedy about it! Don't ye

know full well thet every mountain man in town's goin'

ter be suspicioned, an' thet ther legislater'U vote more

money than ye ever dreamed of to stretch mountain necks t

Give them things ter the boy, thar."

Fulton had not had time to feel surprise at seeing Boone,

whom he had left on the farm, confronting him here on the

sidewalk of a Frankfort street. Now as the boy reached

up his hand and Asa carelessly dropped the cartridges into

it, Saul rushed vehemently on.

** Boone, don't make no mention of this hyar talk ter

nobody. Take yore foot in yore hand an' light out fer

my house — an' ther fust spring-branch ye comes ter, stop

an' fling them damn things into ther water."

When the wires gave to the world the appalling climax

of that savagely acrimonious campaign, a breathlessness of

shock settled upon the State where passion had run its in-

flammatory course. The reiteration of Cassandra's pre-

diction had failed to discount the staggering reality, and

for a brief moment animosities were silenced.

But that was not for long. Yesterday the lieutenants

of an iron-strong leader had bowed to his dominant will.

Today they stood dedicated to reprisal behind a martyr

— exalted by his mortal hurt.

It appeared certain that the rifle had barked from a

window of the executive building itself — ^and when police

and posses hastily summoned had hurried to its doors, a

grimly unyielding cordon of mountaineers had spelled, in

human type, the words **no admission."

The Secretary of State, who was a mountain man, was

among the first to fall under accusation, and had the city's

police oflScers been able to seize the Governor, he too would

doubtless have been thrown into a cell. But the Governor

still held the disputed credentials of ofiSce, and he sat at

his desk, haggard of feature, yet at bay and momentarily

secure behind a circle of bayonets.

Just wrath would not, and could not, long remain only

righteous indignation. Out of its inflammation would

spring a hundred injustices, and so in opposition to the

mounting clamour for extreme penalties arose thundering

the counter-voice of protest against a swift and ruthless

sacrifice of conspicuous scapegoats.

To the aid of those first caught in the drag-net of venge-

ful accusation, came a handful of volunteer defence attor-

neys, and among them was Colonel Wallifarro.

The leader with the bullet-pierced breast was dying, and

in the legislature the contest must be settled, if at all, while

there was yet strength enough in his ebbing life currents

to take the oath of ofiSce.

His last fight was in keeping with his life — the persist-

ence of sheer resolution that held death in abeyance and

refused surrender.

But when the Democratic majority of the assembly gath-

ered at their chambers, they encountered muskets; when,

casting dignity to the snowy winds, they raced toward an

opera house, the soldiers raced with them, and arrived first.

When they doubled like pursued hares toward the Odd

Fellows' Hall, they found its door likewise barred by blade

and muzzle.

Among the first men thrown into jail were Saul Pulton

and his friend HoUins of Clay County. Their connection

with the arrival of the mountaineers was not difiScult to

establish — ^and for the oflScers charged with ferreting out

the ugly responsibility, it made a plausible beginning.

Meanwhile, the majority legislature, thwarted of open

meeting, caucussed in hotel bedrooms, and gave decision

for the dying candidate. A hectic and grotesque rumour

even whispered that Mr. Ooebel's gallant hold on life had

slipped before the credentials could be placed in his weak-

ened hand — and that the oath was solemnly administered

to a dead body.

Boone had gone back to Saul's farm house, and on the

way he had tossed the cartridges into a brook that flowed

along the road, but his brain was in a swirl of perplexity

and in his blood was an inoculation. He would never

know content again unless, in the theatre of public affairs,

he might be an onlooker or an actor.

CHAPTER X

A FEW days after that, he started back again to his

mountains. With Saul in jail and his wife return-

ing to her people, there was nothing further to hold

him here. Indeed, he was anxious now to get home. Like

one who has been bewildered by a plethora of new experi-

ences, he needed time to digest them, and above all he

wanted to talk with Victor McCalloway, whose wisdom was,

to his thinking, as that of a second Solomon. There, too,

was his other hero, Asa, who had returned to the hills as

quietly as he had left them. Boone was burning to know

whether, in the whirlpool of excitement there at Frankfort,

his efforts to secure executive clemency had met with suc-

cess or failure.

When, immediately upon crossing Cedar Mountain, he

presented himself at McCalloway 's house, he was somewhat

nonplussed at the grave, almost accusing, eyes which the

hermit gentleman bent upon him.

**IVe jest got back hyar from ther big world down be-

low," announced the boy, **an' I fared straight over hyar

ter see ye fust thing.*' He paused, a little crestfallen, to

note that reserve of silence where he had anticipated a

warmth of welcome, and then he went on shyly: **Thar

was hell ter pay down thar at Frankfort town — an' I seed

a good part of ther b'ilin' with my own eyes."

Very slowly Victor McCalloway made response. **You

have witnessed a tragedy — a crime for which the guilty

parties should pay with their lives. Even then a scar will

be left on the honour of your State. ' '

Boone crowded his hands into his coat pockets and shiv-

ered in the wet wind, for as yet he had not been invited

across the threshold.

**I don't know nothin' about who done hit/' he made

calm assertion. '*But fellers like Saul Fulton 'peared ter

'low he plum needed killin."

'* Fellows like Saul Fulton!"

The retired soldier drew a long breath, and his eyes nar-

rowed. **You went down there, Boone, with a kinsman

who now stands accused of complicity. The law presumes

his innocence until it proves him guilty, but I!m not think-

ing of him much, just now. I'm thinking of you/' He

paused as if in deep anxiety, then added: **A boy may be

led by reckless and wilful men into— well — grave mis-

takes. ... I believe in you, but you must answer me one

question, and you must answer it on your word of honour —

as a gentleman."

The boy's pupils widened interrogatively, and held those

older eyes with an unfaltering steadiness. In their frank

and engaging depths of blue, as open as the sky, Victor

McCalloway read the answer to his question, and something

like a sigh of relief shook him; something spasmodic that

elutched at his throat and his well-seasoned reserve. He

had dreaded that Boone might, in that fanatically bitter

association, have brushed shoulders with some guilty knowl-

edge. He had refused that fear lodgment in his thoughts

as an ungenerous suspicion, but a lurking realization had

persisted. It might need only a short lapse from a new

concept to an inherited and ancient code to make heroes of

** killers" for this stripling.

Slowly and candidly the boy spoke.

**0n my word of honour as a gentleman — " His utter-

ance hung hesitantly on that final word. It was a new

thought that it might be applicable to himself, yet this man

was a better and more exacting judge of its meaning than

he, and his heart leaped to the quickened tempo of a new

pride.

**I don't know nothin' — save thet I heered hit named

aforehand thet men war acomin' from ther mountings ter

see justice done, an' didn't aim ter be gainsaid ner

thwarted. I 'lowed, though, hit would come about in fa'r

fight — ef so-be hit bred trouble/'

That same afternoon Asa Gregory happened by, and

because McCalloway had come to recognize, in his influence,

the most powerful feudal force operating upon the boy's

thought, he waited somewhat anxiously to hear whether the

man would express himself on the topic of the assassina-

tion. Since it was no part of wisdom to assail deep-rooted

ferocities of thought in minds already matured beyond

plasticity, he did not himself broach the matter, but he was

pleased when Asa spoke gravely, and of his own volition.

^'I done hed hit in head ter go along down thar ter

Frankfort with them boys thet Saul gathered tergetber,

but now I'm right glad I went by myself. Thet war a

mighty troublous matter thet came ter pass thar."

**Did ye git yore pardon, Asa?" asked Boone, and the

older kinsman hesitated, then made a frank reply.

**I hain't talkin' much erbout thet, son. Ther Gov-

ernor war hevin' a right stressful time, an' any favours he

showed ter mountain men war bein' held up ergainst him

by his enemies. But I reckon I kin trust both of ye. . . .

Yes, I got ther pardon. ' '

Late in February an item of news filtered in through the

ravines of the hills which elicited bitter comment. The

legislature had voted a reward fund of $100,000 for the

apprehension and conviction of those guilty of the assassi-

nation of Senator Goebel, and, heartened by this spurring,

the pack of detectives, professional and amateur, had east

oflf full-cry.

Saul Fulton lay in jail all that winter without trial.

Upon the motion of the Commonwealth, his day in court

was postponed by continuance after continuance.

**I reckon," suggested Asa bluntly, **they aims ter let

him suiter in jail long enough ter kinderly fo'ce him ter

drag in a few more fellers besides himself — ^but hit won't

profit 'em none."

That winter spent its dreary monotony, and through its

months Boone Wellver was growing in mind and character,

as well as in bone and muscle. McCalloway began to see

the blossoming of his Quixotically fantastic idea into some

hope and semblance of reality. The boy's brain was ac-

quisitive and flaming with ambition, and Victor McCallo-

way was no routine schoolmaster but an experimenter in

the laboratory of human elements. He was working with

a character which he sought to bring by forced marches

from the America of a quaint, broad-hearted past to the

America of the present — and future. Under his hand the

pupil was responding.

The slate-gray ramparts of the hills reeked with the wet

of thawing snows. Watercourses swelled into the freshet-

volume of the ** spring-tide." Into the breezes crept a

touch of softer promise, and in sheltered spots buds began

to redden and swell. Then came the pale tenderness of

greens, and the first shy music of bird-notes. The sodden

and threadbare neutrality of winter was flung aside for

the white blossoming of dogwood, and in its wake came

the pink foam of laurel blossom.

On one of those tuneful days, while Boone sat on the

doorstep of Victor McCalloway 's house, listening to a story

of a campaign far up the Nile, Asa Gregory came along

the road, with his long elastic stride, and halted there. He

smiled infectiously as he took the proffered chair and crum-

bled leaf tobacco between his fingers for the filling of his

cob pipe.

For a while the talk ran in simple neighbourhood chan-

nels. They spoke of **drappin* an' kiverin' " in the corn

fields, and the uncomplicated activities of farm life. But,

after a time, Asa reached into his hip pocket and drew out

a rumpled newspaper, which he tendered to Victor McCal-

loway.

**Mr. McCalloway," he said quietly, **ye're a friend of

mine, an' right now I have sore need of counsel with a man

of wisdom. I'd be beholden ter ye ef so be ye'd read thet

thar printed piece out loud. ' '

The retired soldier took the sheet, several days old, and

with the first glance at its headlines, his features stiffened

and his eyes blazed into indignation.

**This is a slander!'* he exploded. **It's an infamous

libel. Do you actually want me to read it aloud?"

Asa nodded, and, in a voice of protest, McCalloway gave

audible repetition to a matter to which he refused the sanc-

tion of belief.

**New Murders for Old." That was the first headline,

and the subheads and the item itself followed in due order :

''Commonwealth uncovers startling evidence. . . . Asa

Gregory indicted for firing fatal shot at Gtoebel. . . . Al-

leged he received a pardon for prior offence as price of

fresh infamy."

** Perhaps the most astounding chapter in a long serial

of the bizarre and melodramatic came to light today when

the Franklin Grand Jury returned a true bill against Asa

Gregory, a notorious mountain feudist, charging him with

the assassination of Governor Goebel. In the general ex-

citement of those days, the presence of Gregory in the state

capitol escaped notice. Now it develops, from sources which

the Commonwealth declines at this time to divulge, that on

the day of the tragedy Gregory, who already stands charged

with the murder from ambush of several enemies, came cold-

bloodedly to town to seek a pardon for one of these of-

fences, and that in payment for that favour he agreed to

accept unholy appointment as executioner of Governor

Goebel. Gregory is now in hiding in the thicketed country

of his native hills, and it is foreseen that before he is taken

he may invoke the aid of his clansmen, and precipitate

further bloodshed."

McCalloway laid down the paper and stared at the blos-

som-burgeoning slopes. It was strange, he reflected, that

one could so swiftly yield to the instincts of these high, wild

places. For just now it was in his heart to advise resist-

ance. He thought that trial down there, before partisan

juries and biased judges, would be a farce which vitiated

the whole spirit of justice.

It might almost have been his own sentiments that he

beard shrilled out from the excited lips of the boy; a boy

whose cheeks had gone pale and whose eyes had turned

from sky-blue to flame blue.

''They're jest a'seekin' ter git ye thar an' hang ye out

of hand, Asa. Tell 'em all ter go everlastin'ly ter hell!

Ye kin hide out hyar in ther mountains an' five hundred

soldiers couldn't never run ye down. Ye kin cross over

inter Virginny an' go wharsoever ye likes — but ef ye suf-

fers yoreself ter be took, they'll hang ye outen pure dis-

gust f er ther hills ! ' '

Yes, thought Victor McCalloway, that was just about

what would happen. The boy whom he had been educat-

ing to a new viewpoint had, at a stride, gone back to all

the primitive sources of his nature, yet he spoke the truth.

Then the voice of Asa Gregory sounded again with a meas-

ured evenness.

**What does ye think, Mr. McCalloway t I was thar on

thet day. I kin hide out hyar an' resist arrest, like ther

boy says, an' I misdoubts ef I could git any lavish of jus-

tice down thar."

**I doubt it gravely, sir," snorted McCalloway. **By

Gad, I doubt it most gravely."

"An' yit," went on the other voice slowly, somewhat

heavily, **ef I did f oiler thet course hit mout mean a heap

of bloodshed, I reckon. Hit'd be mightily like admittin'

them charges they're amakin' too." He paused a mo-

ment, then rose abruptly from his chair. **I come ter ask

counsel," he said, **but afore I come my mind was already

done made up. I'm agoin' over ter Marlin Town termor-

rer momin' an' I'm agoin' ter surrender ter Be v. Jett,

ther High SheriflE."

** Don't ye never do hit, Asa," shouted the boy. ** Don't

ye never do hit! " but McCalloway had risen and in his

eyes gleamed an enthusiastic light.

**It's a thing I couldn't have advised, Mr. Gregory," he

said, in a shaken voice. '^It's a thing that may lead — God

knows where — and yet it's the only decent thing to do."

CHAPTER XI

AT the edge of Marlin Town stood the bungalow of

the coal company's superintendent, and in its living-

room, on either side of a document-littered table,

sat two men. One of them, silvered of temple and some-

what portly of stature, leaned back with the tranquillity of

complete relaxation after his day's work. His face wore

the urbanity of well-being and prosperity, but the man

across from him leaned forward with an attitude of nerv-

ous tension.

To Larry Masters there was something nettling in the

very repose with which his visitor from Louisville crossed

his stout and well-tailored legs. This feeling manifested

itself in the jerky quickness of hand with which the mine

superintendent poured whiskey into his glass and hissed

soda after it from the syphon.

** Won't you fill up, Tom," he invited shortly. **The

entertainment I can offer you is limited enough — ^but at

least we have the peg at our disposal."

* * Thank you — ^no more. ' ' Colonel Wallif arro spoke with

a pleasingly modulated voice, trained into effectiveness by

years of jury elocution. '*I've had my evening's allow-

ance, except for a night-cap."

Masters rose abruptly from his chair. He tossed down

half the contents of his glass and paced the floor with a

restless stride, gnawing at his close-cropped and sandy

moustache. His tall, well-knit figure moved with a cer-

tain athletic vitality, and his fiorid face was tanned like a

pig-skin saddle-skirt. But his brow was corrugated in a

frown of discontent, and his pale blue eyes were almost

truculent.

'*By Gad, Tom," he flared out with choleric impetuosity,

**you can put more righteous rebuke into a polite refusal

of liquor than most men could crowd into a whole damned

temperance lecture. I dare say, however, you're quite

right. Life spells something for you. It*s worth conserv-

ing. You've got assured position, an adoring family,

money, success, hosts of friends. You'd be a blithering

fool, I grant you, to waste yourself in indulgence, but I 'm

not so ideally situated. I ' take the cash and let the credit

go.'"

**Yet you have, ahead of you, some ten or twelve years

more of life than I can reasonably expect," was the quiet

response. *'You still have youth — or youth's fulfilment —

early middle-age."

*'And a jolly lot that means to me," retorted Masters,

with acerbity. **I live here among illiterates, working for

a corporation on a salary pared to the bone. At the time

of life when one ought to be at the top of one's abilities,

I'm the most pathetic human thing under God's arching

sky— a man who started out with big promise— and fell by

the wayside. Heaven help the man who fires and falls

back — and if he can retrieve a bit of temporary solace from

that poor substitute" — ^he jerked a forefinger toward the

bottle — **then I say for Heaven's sake let him poison him-

fy

-V

self comfortably and welcome.

Colonel Wallifarro studied the darkened scowl of his

companion for a moment before he replied, and when he

spoke his own manner retained its imperturbability.

**I didn't offer gratuitous criticism, Larry," he sug-

gested. **I merely declined another toddy."

**You know my case, Tom" — the younger of the two

caught him up quickly; **you know that no younger son

ever came out from England with fairer expectations of

succeeding on his own. I've been neither the fool nor the

shirk — and yet — " A shrug of disgust finished the sen-

tence.

Colonel Wallifarro studied his cigar ash without re-

joinder, and when Larry Masters failed to draw a return

fire of argument, he sat for a minute or two glumly silent.

Then, as his thoughts coursed back into other years, a slow

light kindled in his eyes, as if for a dead dream.

**You were always sceptical about Middlesboro, even

when others were full of faith — ^but whyf he demanded.

**To you, with your Bluegrass ideas of fat acres, these hills

must always be the ragged fringes of things, a meagre land

without a future. It was only that you lacked imagina-

tion."

The speaker swept torrentially on with as much of argu-

mentative warmth as though he had not just confessed him-

self ruined by reason of his own former confidence.

** Where the Gap came through lay the natural gateway

of the hills, hewn out in readiness by the hand of the Al-

mighty. There was water-power — ore. There was coal, for

smelter and market, timber awaiting the axe and the saw-

mill — the whole tremendous treasure house of a natural

Eldorado."

** Perhaps," observed the Colonel, **and yet, when all is

said and done, it was only a boom — and it collapsed.

Whatever the causes, the results are definite."

**Yes, it collapsed, and we went with it." Masters

paused to take up and empty the glass which had started

the discussion, then with a heightened excitement he swept

on afresh:

** Yet how near we came ! Gad, man, your own eyes saw

our conception grow! You saw lots along what had been

creek-bed trails sell at a footage-price that rivalled New

York's best avenues, and you yourself recognized in me, for

all your scepticism, a man with a golden future. Then —

after all that — ^you saw me jolly well ruined — and yet you

prate of what life may hold for me in the vigour of my

middle-age. ' '

**A11 that happened ten years back, however," the elder

man equably reminded his companion. ^^It was the old

story of a boom and a collapse — and one misfortune — even

one disaster — ^need not break a man's spirit. You might

have come back."

The eyes of the portly gentleman rested in a momentary

glance on the bottle and glass, but that may have been

chance. At least he did not mention them.

**You think I might have come back, do you!" The

voice of the Englishman had hardened. * * I don 't want to

be nasty or say disagreeable things. You've been a staunch

friend to me — even when Anne found herself growing bit-

ter against me. Well, I don 't blame her. Her people had

been leaders always. She had the divine right to an as-

sured place in society, and I had failed. I suppose it was

natural enough for her to feel that shie'd been done in —

but it happened to be the finish of me. I 'd sweated blood

to make Middlesboro — and I didn't have the grit left to

commence over."

For the first time Colonel Wallifarro's attitude stiffened,

bringing up his silver-crowned head defensively.

**Anne didn't leave you for financial reasons, Larry,"

he asserted steadily. ** She's my kinswoman, and you are

my friend, but no purpose is to be served by my listening to

ex parte grievances from either of you."

Masters shrugged his shoulders. ''I dare say you're

quite right," he admitted. ''But be that as it may, she did

leave me — left me flat. If she didn't divorce me, it wasn't

out of consideration for my feelings. It would almost have

been better if she had. All I ever succeeded in doing for

her was to make her the poor member of a rich family —

and that's not enviable by half. And yet if I'd been a

sheer rotter, I could scarcely have fared worse."

'*If it wasn't consideration for you, at least it was for

some one who should be important to you. As it is, your

little girl isn't growing up under the shadow of a sensa-

tional divorce record. ' '

The pale blue eyes of the Englishman softened abruptly,

and the lips under the short-clipped moustache changed

from their stiffness to the curvature of something like a

smile. Into his expression came a lurking, half-shy ghost

of .winsomeness. **Yes, yes," he muttered, **the kiddie.

God bless her little heart!''

After a moment, though, he drew back his shoulders with

a jerk and spoke again in a harsher timbre.

**Anne has been fair enough with me about the child,

though I'm bound to say I've been jolly well made to un-

derstand that it was only a chivalrous and undeserved sort

of generosity. Well, the kiddie's almost twelve now, and

before long she'll be a belle, too — poor, but related to all

the first families. ' '

Masters paused, and when he went on again it was still

with the air of a repressed chafing of spirit.

**I dare say her mother will see to it that she doesn't

repeat the mistake of the previous generation — marrying a

man with only a splendid expectancy. Her heart will be

schooled to demand the assured thing. That pointing with

pride — a gesture which you Kentuckians so enjoy — well,

with my little girl, it will all be done toward the distaff

branch. There won't be much said about the wastrel

father."

"Perhaps," suggested the other, **you are a little less

than just."

* * I dare say. She '11 be a heart-breaker before long now —

and listen, man" — Masters came a step nearer — ** don't

make any mistake about me either. When she's here, the

bottle goes under lock and key. I play the game where

she's concerned."

Colonel Wallifarro nodded slowly. **I know that,

Larry, ' ' he hastily answered. * * I know that. If the breach

hadn't widened too far, I'd go as far as a man could to

bring your family together again under one roof -tree. ' '

'^That's no use, of course," admitted Masters with a dead

intonation. **Only remember that down here where I'm

chained to my little job, life ain't so damned gay and sunny

at best — and don't begrudge me my liquor."

CHAPTER XII

DURING those following months, when Asa Gregory'

lay in jail, first in Frankfort, then in Louisville,

as a prisoner of state, who had been denied bail, the

boy back in the laurel-mantled hills smouldered with pas-

sionate resentment for what he believed to be a monstrous

injustice. In his quest of education he sought refuge from

the bitter brooding that had begun to mar his young feat-

ures with its stamp of sullenness. Asa had killed men be-

fore, but it had been in that feud warfare which was sanc-

tioned by his own conscience. Now he stood charged with

a murder done for hire, the mercenary taking off of a man

for whom he had no enmity save that of the abstract and

political. Upon his kinsman's innocence the boy would

have staked his life, and yet he must look helplessly on and

see him thrown to the lions of public indignation.

Of Saul, he hardly thought at all. Saul was small-fry.

The Commonwealth would treat him as such, but upon Asa

it would wreak a surcharged anger, because to send Asa

Gregory to the gallows would be to establish a direct link

between the Governor who had pardoned him and moun-

tain murder-lust.

Already the Secretary of State had been disposed of with

a promptitude which, his friends asserted, savoured rather

of the wolf pack than the courtroom. The verdict had

been guilty, and his case was now pending on a motion for

rehearing.