In dark silence Judith made ready a late breakfast for the boys, leaving her coffee-pot as of custom on its bed of coals in the ashes, hot bread in the Dutch oven, and a platter of meat on the table. Jeff and Andy straggled in and ate, helping themselves mutely, with sidelong glances at her stormy face.

During the entire forenoon Wade was off the place, but the twins put in their time at the pasture over the breaking of a colt to harness. Old Jephthah was in his room with the door shut. Jim Cal, almost immediately on Creed’s departure, had retired to the shelter of his own four walls, and, sick and trembling, taken to his bed, after his usual custom when the skies of life darkened.

Dinner was got ready with the same fury of mechanical energy. During its preparation Iley stole to the door and looked in. The only women on the place, held outside the councils of the men, she longed to make some unformulated appeal to Judith, to have at least such help and comfort as might come from talking over the situation with her. But when the desolate dark eyes looked full into hers, and uttered as plainly as words the question that the sister dreaded, Jim Cal’s wife turned and fled.

“She might as well ’a’ said ‘Huldy,’” whimpered the vixen, plucking at her lip and hurrying back, head down, to her own cabin.

The day dragged its slow length. The sun in the doorway had crept to the noon-mark, and away again. Flies buzzed. A cicada droned without. The old hound padded in to lie down under the bed.

After dinner Jephthah went away somewhere, and the boys gathered in their room, whence Judith could hear the clink and snap which advised her that the guns were having a thorough overhauling, cleaning, and oiling. She looked helplessly at the door. What could she do? Follow Creed as Huldah had done? At the thought, all her bitterness surged back upon her. What had she been able to accomplish when she stood face to face alone with him on the woods-path? Nothing. She turned and addressed herself once more savagely to her tasks. That was what women were for—women and mules. Men had the say-so in this world. She—she the owner of this house, its real mistress—was to cook three meals a day for the men folks, and see nothing and say nothing.

Supper was the only meal at which the entire family gathered that day. It was eaten in an almost unbroken silence, the younger boys plainly hesitating to speak to either Judith or their father. Save for elliptical requests for food, the only conversation was when Wade offered the opinion that it looked like it might rain before morning, and his father replied that he did not think it would. Leaving the table without further word, Jephthah returned to his own quarters; the boys drifted away one by one giving no destination.

The light that used to wink out in friendly fashion from the smaller cabin across the slope was darkened. Jim Cal had crawled out of bed after a somewhat prolonged conversation with Wade. A little later he had sullenly harnessed up a mule of Blatch’s and, with Iley and the children, started for old Jesse Spiller’s, out at Big Buck Gap, the sister maintaining to the last that Huldah must certainly have gone out to pap’s, and would be found waiting for them at the old home.

There was nobody left on the place but Judith and her uncle. The girl went automatically about her Saturday evening duties, working doggedly, trying to tire herself out so that she might sleep when the time came that there was nothing to do but go to bed. As she passed from her storeroom, which she had got Wade to build in the back end of the threshing-floor porch, to the great open fireplace where a kettle hung with white beans boiling that would be served with dumplings for the Sunday dinner, as she took down and sorted over towels and cloths that were not needed, but which made a pretext for activity, her mind ground steadily upon the happenings of the past days. She could see Creed’s face before her as he had looked the night of the play-party. What coarse, crude animals the other men were beside him! She could hear his voice as it spoke to her in the dark yard at the Bonbright place, and her breath caught in her throat.

She must be up and away; she must go to him and warn him, protect him against these her fierce kindred.

Then suddenly came the vision of Creed’s laughing mouth as he bent to claim the forfeited kiss when Huldah Spiller had openly pushed herself across the line “and mighty nigh into his arms.” Huldah had run hot-foot to warn him. Arley Kittridge brought word of having seen her dodge into the Card orchard on her way to the house on the evening before, and nobody had had sight of her since.

Judith’s was a nature swayed by impulse, more capable than she herself was aware of noble action, but capable also of sudden, irrational cruelty. Just now her soul was at war with itself, embittered by rage, by what she had done, by what she had left undone, by her helplessness, by what she desired to do. Finally, despairing of any weariness bringing sleep—she had tried that the night before and failed—she put by her work and went up to her room, undressed and lay down in the dark.

For a long time she interrogated the blackness about her with wide open eyes. The house was strangely still. She could hear the movement and squawk of a chicken in one of the trees in the side yard when some fellow lodger disturbed it, or a sudden breeze shook the limb upon which it roosted. She wondered if the boys had come back yet and slipped in quietly. Had she slept at all? About eleven o’clock there arose an unquiet, gusty, yet persistent wind, that moved the cedar tree against the edge of the porch roof and set it complaining. For a time it moaned and protested like a man under the knife. Then its deep baritone voice began to cry out as though it were calling upon her. The tree had long ceased to mean anything other than Creed to Judith, and now its outcry aroused her to an absolute terror. Again and again as the wind the tree, so those tones shook her heart with their pain and love and anguish of entreaty.

Finally she arose in a kind of torture, slipped on her clothes and went through all the rooms. They were silent and empty. Not a bed had been disturbed. She breathed loud and short in irrepressible excitement.

“They’re all over at the still,” she whispered, clutching at the breast of her dress, and shivering. But the old man never went near the still, she knew that. For a while she struggled with herself, and then she said, “I’ll just go and listen outside of Uncle Jep’s door. That won’t do any harm. Ef so be he’s thar, then the boys is shore at the still. Ef he ain’t——”

She left her mentally formed sentence unfinished and, on feet that fear winged, stole through the side yard, across the long, lush, uncut grass to her uncle’s door.

The old man must have been a light sleeper, or perhaps he was awake before she approached, for he called out while she yet stood irresolute, her hand stretched toward the big wooden latch.

“Who’s thar?”

Startled, abashed, she replied in a choked, hesitating tone.

“It’s only me—Jude. I reckon I’m a fool, Uncle Jep. I know in reason there ain’t nothin’ the matter. But I jest couldn’t sleep, and I got up and looked through the house, and the boys is all gone, and I got sorter scared.”

He was with her almost instantly.

“I reckon they’re all over ’crost the gulch,” he said in his usual unexcited fashion, though she noted that he did not go back into his room, but joined her where she lingered in the dark outside.

“Of course they air,” she reassured herself and him. “Whar else could they be?”

“Now I’m up, I reckon I mought go over yon myself,” the old man said finally. “My foot hurts me this evening; I believe I’ll ride Pete. I took notice the boys had all the critters up for an early start in the mornin’.”

Both knew that this was a device for investigating the stables, and together they hurried to the huddle of low log buildings which served to house forage and animals on the Turrentine place. Not a hoof of anything to ride had been left. The boys would not have taken mules or horse to go to the still—so much was certain. In the light of the lantern which Jephthah lit the two stood and looked at each other with a sort of consternation. Then the old man fetched a long breath.

“Go back to the house, Jude,” he said not unkindly, putting the lantern into her hand; and without another word he set off down the road running hard.

Earlier that same Saturday evening, while Judith Barrier was fighting out her battle, and trying to tire down the restless spirit that wrung and punished her, Nancy Card, mindful of earlier experiences in feud times, was getting her cabin in a state of defence.

“You know in reason them thar Turrentines ain’t a-goin’ to hold off long,” she told Creed. “They’re pizen fighters, and they allus aim to hit fust. No, you don’t stay out in that thar office,” as Creed made this proffer, stating that it would leave her and her family safer. “I say stay in the office! Why, them Turrentines would ask no better than one feller for the lot of ’em to jump on—they could make their brags about it the longest day they live of how they done him up.”

So it came to pass that Creed was sitting in the big kitchen of the Nancy Card cabin while Judith wrought at her fruitless labours in her own home. Despite the time of year, Nancy insisted on shutting the doors and closing the battened shutters at the windows.

“A body gets a lot of good air by the chimney drawin’ up when ye have a bit of fire smokin’,” she said. “I’d ruther be smothered as to be shot, anyhow.”

Little Buck and Beezy, infected by the excitement of their elders, refused peremptorily to go to bed. “Let me take the baby,” said Creed holding out his arms. “She’s always good with me. She can go to sleep in my lap.”

“Beezy won’t go to sleep in nobody’s lap,” that young lady announced with great finality. “Beezy never go to sleep no time—nowhere.”

“All right,” agreed the young fellow easily, cutting short a futile argument upon the grandmother’s part. “You needn’t go to sleep if you can stay awake, honey. You sit right here in Creed’s lap and stay awake till morning and keep him good company, won’t you?”

The red head nodded till its flying frazzles quivered like tongues of flame. Then it snuggled down on the broad breast, that moved rhythmically under it, and very soon the long lashes drooped to the flushed cheeks and Beezy was asleep.

Aunt Nancy had picked up Little Buck, but that young man had the limitations of his virtues. Being silent by nature he had not so much to keep him awake as the loquacious Beezy, and by the time his father on the other side of the hearth had dropped asleep and nearly fallen into the fire a couple of times, been sternly admonished by the grandmother, and gone to fling himself face down upon a bed in the corner, Little Buck was sounder asleep than his sister.

The old woman got up and carried her grandson to the bed, laid him down upon it and, taking basin and towel, proceeded to wipe the dusty small feet before she took off his minimum of clothing and pushed him in between the sheets.

“Minds me of a foot-washin’ at Little Shiloh,” she ruminated. “Here’s me jest like the preacher and here’s Little Buck gettin’ all the sins of the day washed off at once.”

She completed her task, and was taking Beezy from Creed’s arms to lay her beside her brother on the bed, when a tap—tap—tapping, apparently upon the window shutter, brought them both to their feet, staring at each other with pale faces.

“What’s that?” breathed Nancy. “Hush—hit’ll come again. Don’t you answer for your life, Creed. Ef anybody speaks, let it be me.”

Again the measured rap—rap—rap!

“You let my Nick in,” murmured Beezy sleepily, and Creed laughed out in sudden relief. It was the wooden-legged rooster, coming across the little side porch and making his plea for admission as he stepped.

Something in the incident brought the situation of affairs home to Creed Bonbright as it had not been before.

“Aunt Nancy,” he said resolutely, “I’m going to leave right now and walk down to the settlement. I’ve got no business to be here putting you and the children in danger. It’s a case of fool pride. They told me down at Hepzibah that I’d be run out of the Turkey Tracks inside of three months if I tried to set up a justice’s office here. I felt sort of ashamed to go back and face them and own up that they were right—that I had been run out. I ought to have been too much of a man to feel that way. It makes no difference what they say—the only thing that counts is that I have failed.”

“You let me catch you openin’ that do’ or steppin’ yo’ foot on the road to-night!” snorted Nancy belligerently. “Why, you fool boy, don’t you know all the roads has been guarded by the Turrentines ever since they fell out with ye? They ’lowed ye would run of course, and they aimed to layway ye as ye went. I could have told ’em ye wasn’t the runnin’ kind; but thar, what do they know about——”

She broke off suddenly, her mouth open, and stood staring with fear-dilated eyes at Creed.

“Hello!” came the hail from outside.

Nancy let the baby slip from her arms to the floor, and the little thing stood whimpering and rubbing her eyes, clinging to her grandmother’s skirts.

“Hush—hush!” cautioned the old woman, barely above her breath.

“Hello! Hello in thar! You better answer—we see yo’ light. Hello in thar!”

“Whose—voice—is that?” breathed old Nancy.

“It sounded like Blatch Turrentine’s,” Creed whispered back as softly.

“Hit do,” she agreed with conviction.

Suddenly a shot rang out, and Doss Provine sat up on the edge of the bed with a gurgle of terror. Little Buck wakened at the same instant, and ran to his grandmother.

“I ain’t scared, Granny,” he asseverated, “I kin fight fer ye.”

“Hush—hush!” cautioned Nancy, bending to gather in the sun-burned tow head at her knee.

Another shot followed, and after it a voice crying,

“You’ve got Creed Bonbright in thar. You let him come out and talk to us, or we’ll batter yo’ do’ in.”

“You Andy—you Jeff!” shouted the old woman in sudden rage. “Ef you want Creed Bonbright you know whar to find him. You go away and let my do’ alone.”

“You quit callin’ out names, Nancy Cyard,” responded the first, menacing voice out of the darkness. “We know Bonbright’s in thar, and we aim to have him out—or burn yo’ house—accordin’ to yo’ ruthers.”

Creed had parted his lips to answer them, when old Nancy sprang at him and set her hand over his open mouth.

“You hush—and keep hushed!” she whispered urgently.

“I just wanted to call to the boys and tell them I’m here,” Creed whispered to her. “Aunt Nancy, I’m bound to go out there and talk to them fellows. I cain’t stay in here and let you and the children suffer for it.”

“Aw, big-mouthed, big-talkin’ brood—what do I keer for them?” demanded Nancy, tossing her head with a characteristic motion to get the grey curls away from her fearless blue eyes; whereupon the tucking comb slipped down and had to be replaced, “You ain’t a-goin’ out thar,” she whispered vehemently from under her raised arm, as she redded back the straying locks with it. Nancy had the reckless, dare-devil courage those blue eyes bespoke. Presuming a bit, perhaps, on her age and sex, she yet ran risks that many men would have shunned without deeming themselves cowards. “You ain’t a-goin’ out thar, I tell ye,” she reiterated. “I wouldn’t let ye ef they burnt the house down over our heads. Pony’ll be along pretty shortly from Hepzibah, and when he sees ’em I reckon he’s got sense enough to git behind a bush and fire at ’em—that’ll scatter ’em.”

As if inspired to destroy this one slender hope, the voice outside spoke again, tauntingly.

“Nancy Cyard, we’ve got yo’ son Pony here—picked him up on the road—an’ ef yo’r a mind to trade Creed Bonbright for him, we’ll trade even. Better dicker with us. Somepin’ bad might happen this young ’un.”

At the words, Creed wheeled and made for the door, Nancy gripping him frantically but mutely.

“Creed—boy—honey!”—she breathed at last, “they’s mo’ than one kind o’ courage. This is jest fool courage—to go an’ git yo’se’f killed up. Them Turrentines won’t hurt Pone. But you—oh, my Lord!”

“I reckon ye better let him go, maw,” Doss Provine chattered from the bed’s edge where he still crouched. “Hit’s best that it should be one, ruther than all of us.”

Old Nancy flung him a glance of wordless contempt. Beezy ran and tangled herself in the tall young fellow’s legs, halting him.

“Creed,” the old woman urged, still below her breath, holding to his arm. “Creed, honey, as soon as you open that do’ and stand in the light, yo’r no better than a dead man. Listen!”

All caution had been thrown aside by the besiegers. Hoarse voices questioned and answered outside, sounds of stumbling footsteps surrounded the house.

“Boys,” called Creed in that clear, ringing voice of his that held neither fear nor great excitement, “I’m coming out to talk to you. Aunt Nancy, take the children away. You’ve got it to do.”

“Well, come on,” replied the voice without. “Talk—that’s all we want. You’ll be as safe outside as in—and a damn’ sight safer.”

Nancy gathered up her youngsters, flung them in a heap into their father’s lap, and, overturning and putting out the candle as she went, sprang to the hearth to quench a small flame which had risen among the embers there.

“Ye might have some sense!” she panted angrily. “The idea of walkin’ yo’se’f into a lighted doorway for them fellers to shoot at! For God’s sake don’t open that do’ till I get the lights out!”

But Creed was not listening. He had pulled the big pine bar that held the battened door in place, and now flung it wide, stepping to the threshold and beginning again,

“Boys——”

He uttered no further word. A rifle spoke, a bullet sang, passed through the cabin and buried itself in the old-fashioned chimneypiece. Creed fell where he stood. As he went down across the threshold, Nancy whirling around to the door, bent over his prostrate form.

Outside, the ruddy, shaken shine from a couple of lightwood torches which stood alone, where they had been thrust deep into the garden mould made strange gouts and blotches of colour on Nancy’s flower beds. A group of men halted, drawn together, muttering, just beyond the palings. Each had a handkerchief tied across the lower part of his face, a simple but effectual disguise.

Her groping hand came away from the prostrate man, red with blood; she dashed it across her brow to clear her eyes of blowing hair. At the moment a figure burst through the grove of saplings by the roadside, a tall old man whose long black beard blew across his mighty chest that laboured as he ran. His hat was off in his hand, his face raised; he had no weapon. With a gasp of relief Nancy recognised him, yet rage mounted in her, too.

“Yes—come a-runnin’,” she muttered fiercely. “Come look at what you and yo’rn have done!”

As he leaped into the clearing the old man’s great black eyes, full of sombre fire, swept the scene. They took in the prone figure across the threshold, the blood upon the doorstone, and on Nancy’s brow and hair.

“Air ye hurt? Nancy, air ye hurt?” he cried, in such a tone as none there had ever heard from him.

“Am I hurt?—No!” choked the old woman, trying to get a hold on Creed’s broad shoulders and drag him back into the room. “I ain’t hurt, but it’s no credit to them wolves that you call sons of yo’rn. They’ve got Pone out thar, ef they hain’t shot him yit. And they’ve killed the best man that ever come on this here mountain. Oh, Creed—my pore boy! You Doss Provine! Come here an’ he’p me lift him.” She reared herself on her knees and glared at the group by the gate. “He had no better sense than to take ye for men—to trust the word ye give, that he was safe when he opened the do’. Don’t you come a step nearer, Jep Turrentine,” she railed out at him suddenly, as the old man drew toward the gate. “I’ve had a plenty o’ you an’ yo’ sons this night. They’re jest about good enough to shoot me while I’m a-tryin’ to git this po’ dead boy drug in the house, an’ then burn the roof down over me an’ my baby chil’en. You Doss Provine, walk yo’se’f here an’ he’p me.”

Doss, who found the presence of Jephthah Turrentine reassuring, whatever his mother-in-law might say, slouched forward, and between them they lifted the limp figure.

“God knows I don’t blame ye, Nancy,” muttered the old man in his beard, as the heavy door was dragged shut, and the bar dropped into place. Then he advanced upon the men at the palings.

At Jephthah’s first appearance the tallest of these had dropped swiftly back into the shadows on the other side of the road and was gone. Unsupported, the four or five who were left shuffled uneasily, beneath the old man’s fierce eye.

“Where’s Pone Cyard?” he demanded.

“We hain’t tetched him, pap. We never seed him. We said that to draw ’em.”

“Huh!” ejaculated Jephthah, as though further comment were beyond him. “Git yo’ ridin’ critters,” he gave the short, sharp order. “Fetch Pete to me.” And he whirled his back, and stalked out into the main road.

A hundred yards or so up, there was a sound of hoofs and tearing bushes, as the boys came through the greenery with their mules. Pete was led up and the bridle-rein presented in meek silence. By the dim, presaging light of the little waning moon, delaying somewhere down below the shoulder of Big Turkey Track, old Jephthah took it, set foot in stirrup, and made ready to swing to saddle. Then he slowly withdrew the foot and turned back.

“Take them cussed rags off o’ yo’ faces!” he burst out in a fury of contempt. “Now. Who laid out this night’s work? Well, speak up—how come it?”

Dead silence answered. Of the three who faced him not one—lacking the leader who had skulked away at Jephthah’s approach—could have explained just why he was there. And none of them would betray the man who had led them there and left them to answer as best they might for their actions to the head of the tribe.

“Uh-huh, I thort so,” nodded the old man bitterly, as they yet stood mute. “Ain’t got a word to say for yo’selves. No, and they ain’t a word to be said. Yo’ sons in my house. I was thar—I was standin’ with ye about this business. Why couldn’t this be named to me? What call had ye to sneak around me—to make a fool o’ me, an’ shame me?”

He waited. Receiving no response, he concluded as he got to the mule’s back,

“You do me thisaway once mo’—jest once mo’—and hit will be a plenty.”

With that he gave Pete the rein, and the mule’s receding heels flung dust in the dismayed countenances he left behind him.

The Turrentine clan was gathering for consultation, Judith knew that. It was Sunday, and much of this unwonted activity passed as the ordinary Sabbath day coming and going. But there was a steady tendency of tall, soft-stepping, slow-spoken, keen-eyed males toward old Jephthah’s quarters, and Judith had got dinner for the two long-limbed, black-avised Turrentine brothers, Hawk and Chantry, from over in Rainy Gap; and old Turrentine Broyles, a man of Jephthah’s age, had ridden in from Broyles’s Mill that morning.

With the natural freedom of movement that Sunday offers, information from the Card neighbourhood came in easily. Inevitably Judith learned all the details of last night’s raid; and everybody on the place knew that Creed Bonbright was alive, and that he was not even seriously wounded. He had been observed through the open door of Nancy’s cabin moving about the rooms inside. Arley Kittridge declared that he had seen Bonbright, in the grey of early morning, his head bound up and his left arm in a sling, cross from Nancy’s house to his office and back again, alone.

Sunday brought the Jim Cals home, too. Iley, humiliated and savage, bearing in her breast galling secret recollections of Pap Spiller’s animadversions on her management of Huldah, raged all day with the toothache, and a pariah dog might have pitied the lot of the fat man.

All day, as Judith cooked, and washed her dishes, and entertained her visitors, the events of last night’s raid were present with her. When at the table one of the boys stretched a hand to receive the food she had prepared, she looked at it with an inward shuddering, wondering, was this the hand that fired the shot?

All day as she talked to her women visitors of patchwork patterns, or the making of lye soap, as she admired their babies and sympathised with their ailments, her mind was busy with the inquiry what part she should take in the final inevitable crisis. She remembered with a remorse that was almost shame how, at their last interview, she had plucked back from Creed her rescuing hand in jealous anger. That big mother kindness that there was in her spoke for him, pleaded loud for his life, when her hot passionate heart would have had revenge for his slight.

Yes, she had to save Creed Bonbright if she could, and to be of any use to him she must know what was planned against him. It was dark by the time the women-folk had gone their ways and the men remaining had assembled definitely in old Jephthah’s separate cabin. No gleam of light shone from its one window. Judith watched for some time, then taking a bucket as a pretext walked down the path to the cow-lot, which led her close in to the cabin. She could hear as she approached the murmur of masculine voices. Secure from observation in the darkness, she crept to the window and listened, her head leaned against the wooden shutter. Old Jephthah was speaking, and she realised from his words that she had chanced upon the close of their council.

The big voice came out to her in carefully lowered tones.

“Well, Broyles, yo’ the oldest, an that’s yo’ opinion. Hawk an’ Chantry says the same. Now as far as I’m concerned—” the commanding accents faltered a little—“I’m obliged to agree with you. The matter has got where we cain’t do no other than run him out. I admit it. I’ll say yes to that.”

Judith trembled, for she knew they spoke of Creed.

“Well, Jep, you better not put too many things in the way,” came accents she recognised as Turrentine Broyles’s, “or looks like these-here boys is liable to find theirselves behind bars befo’ snow flies.”

“Huh-uh,” agreed the old man’s voice. “I know whar I’m at. I ain’t lived this long and got through without disgrace or jailin’ to take up with it at my age; but they don’t raid no more cabins. I freed my mind on that last night; I made myself cl’ar; an’ that’s the one pledge I ax for. Toll him away from the place and layway him, if you must, to run him out. But they’s to be no killin’, an’ no mo’ shootin’ up houses whar they is women and chil’en. This ain’t no feud.”

“All right—we’ve got yo’ word for it, have we?” inquired Buck Shalliday eagerly. “You’ll stand by us?”

Suddenly a brand on the hearth flamed up, and Judith peering through a crack of the board shutter had sight of her uncle standing, his height exaggerated by the flickering illumination, tall and black on the hearthstone. About him the faint light fell on a circle of eager, drawn faces, all set toward him. As she looked he raised his hand above his head and shook the clenched fist.

“I’ve got obliged to,” he groaned. “God knows I had nothing against Creed Bonbright. And I can’t say as I’ve got anything against him yit. But I’ve got a-plenty against rottin’ in jail. I’d ruther die.”

“Will ye come with us, pap?” Jim Cal instantly put the question, and as he spoke the light went suddenly out.

“No,” returned old Jephthah doggedly. “I won’t make nor meddle. I’ve give you my best advice; I sont for Hawk an’ Chantry, here, an’ for Turn Broyles, to do the same. We’ve talked it over fa’r an’ squar’, aimin’ to have ye do this thing right—” He broke off, and then amended sombrely, “—As near right as sech a thing can be did. But you-all boys run into this here agin’ my ruthers, an’ you’ll jest have to git out yo’selves. All I say is, no killin’, and no raidin’ of folks’ homes.”

“No mo’ killin’, ye mean,—don’t ye?” asked Jim Cal. The fat man, goaded beyond reason, was ready to turn and fight at last.

“No, I don’t,” answered his father. “When I mean a thing I can find the words to say it without any advice. As for Blatch bein’ killed—you boys think yo’ mighty smart, but you’d show yo’ sense to tote fair with me and tell me all that’s goin’ on. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve seen interruptions and killin’s befo’ I seen any of you. An’ I’ll say right here in front o’ yo’ kinfolks that’s come to he’p you out with their counsels—an’ could do a sight better ef you’d tell ’em the truth—that I never did think it was likely that Creed Bonbright made away with a body inside of fifteen minutes. That tale’s too big for me—but I’m askin’ no questions. Settle it your own way—but for God’s sake settle it. Him knowin’ what he does an’ havin’ been did the way you boys have done him, he’s got to go. Run him out—an’ run him out quick. Don’t you dare tell me how, nor when, nor what!”

Judith started back as the sounds within told her that the men were groping their way to the door. As she stood concealed by darkness, they issued, made their quiet adieux, and went over to the fence where she could hear the stamping of the tethered animals. Cut off from the house, she retreated swiftly down the path toward the stable and would have entered, but some instinct warned her back. As she paused uncertain, hearing footsteps approaching from behind, indefinably sure that there was danger in front, there sounded a cautious low whistle. Those who came from the cabin answered it. She drew back beneath one of the peach-trees by the milking-pen—the very one from which Creed had broken the blossoming switch, with which she reproached him. Flat against its trunk she crouched, as six men went past her in the gloom.

“Who’s here?” demanded a voice like Blatch Turrentine’s, and at the sound she began suddenly to shudder from head to foot. Then she pulled herself together. This was no ghost talking. It was the man himself.

“Me,” answered Jim Cal’s unmistakable tones, “an’ Wade, an’ Jeff, an’ Andy. Buck and Taylor’s both with us—and that’s all.”

The man within opened the grain-room door, and the six newcomers entered.

“Whar’s old man Broyles, an’ Hawk an’ Chantry?” questioned Blatch.

“They rid off home,” said Shalliday.

“Well, what does Unc’ Jep say?” demanded Blatch, plainly not without some anxiety.

Before anyone could answer,

“Hark ye!” came Jim Cal’s tones tremulously. “Didn’t I hear somebody outside? Thar—what was that?”

In her excitement and interest Judith had moved nearer with some noise.

“I vow, podner,” came Blatch’s rich, rasping tones. “Ef I didn’t know it was you I’d be liable to think they was a shiverin’ squinch-owl in here with us. Buck, step out and scout, will ye? Git back as soon as ye can, ’caze we’re goin’ to have a drink.”

She heard the rattle of a tin cup against the jug. As she moved carefully down the way toward the spring, Blatch’s voice followed her, saying unctuously:

“Had to go through hell to get this stuff—spies a-follerin’ ye about, an’ U.S. marshals a-threatenin’ ye with jail—might as well enjoy it.”

She dipped her bucket in the spring branch, and bore it dripping up the path a short way. If Buck Shalliday met her, she had an errand and an excuse for her presence which might deceive him. When she came within sight of the stables once more she set down her bucket and stood listening long. Something moved outside the logs. They had posted their sentry then. She groaned as she realised that what she had heard was inadequate and insufficient. The knowledge was there to be had for a little daring, a little cunning.

Just as she had become almost desperate enough to walk up to the place and make pretence of being one with them, a stamp from the figure outside the corner told her that it was a tethered mule instead of a man. Emboldened she stole nearer, and found a spot where she could crouch by the wall so hidden among some disused implements that she might even have dared to let them emerge from their hiding-place and pass her. Again Blatch was speaking.

Blatchley Turrentine had come to his uncle’s house, a youth of seventeen—a man, as mountain society reckons things. At that time Andy and Jeff were seven-year-olds, Wade a big boy of thirteen; and even Jim Cal, of the same years but less adventurous in nature, had been so thoroughly dominated by the newcomer that the leadership then established had never been relinquished. And now the artfully introduced whiskey had done its work; these boys were quite other than those who had gone in sober and grave less than half an hour before, their father’s admonitions and the counsels of old man Broyles and their Turrentine kindred lying strongly upon them.

Judith heard no demur as Blatch detailed their plans.

“They’s no use to go to Unc’ Jep with what I’ve been a-tellin’ ye,” the voice of natural authority proclaimed. “I tell ye Polk Sayles says he’s seen Bonbright meet Dan Haley about half way down the Side—thar whar Big Rock Creek crosses the corner of the Sayles place—mo’ than once sense he’s been on the mountain. Now with what that man knows, and with the grudges he’s got, you let him live to meet Dan Haley once mo’ and even Unc’ Jep is liable to the penitentiary—but tell it to Unc’ Jep an’ he won’t believe ye. He’s got a sort of likin’ for the feller.”

“That’s what I say,” Jim Cal seconded in a voice which had become pot-valiant. “Pap is a old man, and we-all that air younger have obliged to take care on him.”

At any other time these pious sentiments would have brought a volley of laughter from Blatchley, but this evening Judith judged from the sounds that he clapped the fat man on the shoulder as he said heartily:

“Mighty right you air, James Calhoun. Unc’ Jep is one of the finest men that ever ate bread, but his day is pretty well over. Ef we went by him and old man Broyles and Hawk and Chantry, we’d find ourselves in trouble mighty shortly. They’s but one way to toll Bonbright out to whar we want him. We’ve got to send word that Unc’ Jep will meet him at moonrise and talk to him. The fool is plumb crazy about talkin’ to folks, and looks like he cain’t get it through his head that Unc’ Jep ain’t his best friend. It’ll fetch him whar nothin’ else will.”

“And we’ve got to hunt up something else for you to ride, Blatch, ef Jim Cal an’ me takes the mules,” Jeff remarked. “Jude mighty nigh tore up the ground when she found we’d had Selim last night. She give it out to each and every that nobody is to lay a hand on him day or night from this on.”

The girl outside heard Blatch’s hateful laugh, and knew with a great throb of rage who had ridden her horse the night before.

There was a stir among the men seated, Judith conjectured, on the grain-room floor, and a little clinking, as the jug of corn whiskey was once more brought into play by Blatch. Presently,

“All right,” said Buck Shalliday. “I’ll bring Lige’s mule. And I’ll have a message got to Bonbright that Jephthah Turrentine wants to see and talk with him out at Todd’s corner at moonrise a-Monday night. Will that suit ye?”

“Hit’ll answer,” returned Blatch. “Let’s see,” he calculated; “that’ll be about two o’clock. Ef he comes up to the scratch we’ll git Mr. Man as he goes by the big rock in the holler acrosst from the spring. That rock and the bushes by it gives plenty of cover. They’s bound to be light enough to see him by, with the moon jest coming up, and I want to hear from every man present that he’ll shoot at the word. I don’t want any feller in the crowd that’ll say he didn’t pull trigger on Bonbright. Ef we all aim and shoot, nary a one of us can say who killed him—and killed he’s got to be.”

The listening girl hoped for some demur, but Blatch Turrentine and his potent counsellor, the jug, dominated the assembly, and there came a striking of hands on this, a hoarse murmuring growl of agreement. She doubled low to avoid being seen against the sky and hurried back toward the cabin as she heard the men preparing to leave the grain-room.

Brave as any one of them there, enterprising and full of the spirit of leadership, Judith addressed herself promptly to saving Creed Bonbright. She went straight to her uncle’s cabin. No mountaineer ever raps on a door. Judith shook the latch, at first gently, then, getting no response, more and more imperatively, at length opening and walking in, with a questioning, “Uncle Jep?”

There was no answer, no sound or movement. With hasty fingers she raked together the brands of the fire; they flickered up and showed her an untenanted room. The bed was untouched, the old man’s hat and coat were gone. The pegs above the door where Old Sister always rested were empty.

Instantly there flashed upon Judith the intuition that her uncle, heartsick and ill-affected toward the quarrel, had silently withdrawn until it should have been settled one way or another. Well, she must work alone.

When Judith stole noiselessly into the house and up to her room, she could hear the boys preparing for bed in their own quarters, with unwonted jesting and laughter, and even some occasional stamping about which suggested horse-play; and her lip curled angrily as she recalled Blatch’s jug of corn whiskey.

She lay thinking, thinking; and at length there evolved itself in her mind a plan for getting Creed safely out of the mountains by way of an ancient Cherokee trail that ran down the gulch through a distant corner of the old Turrentine place. By this route they would reach the railroad town of Garyville, quite around the flank of Big Turkey Track from Hepzibah. She could do that. She knew every step of the way. The trail was a disused, forgotten route of travel, long fenced across in several places, and scoured out of existence at certain points by mountain streams; but she had known every foot of it in years past; she could travel it the darkest night; and Selim was her own horse; she need ask nobody.

When she got so far, came the pressing question of how to send word to Creed. She must see and warn him before the men put their plan into practice. But she was well aware that she herself was under fairly close espionage, and that her first move in the direction of Nancy Card’s cabin would bring the vague suspicions of her household to a certainty. Where to find a messenger? How to so word a message that Creed would answer it? These were the questions that drove sleep from her pillow till almost morning.

She rose and faced the dawn with haggard eyes. Unless she could do something this was the last day of Creed’s life. In a tremor of apprehension she got through her morning duties, cooking and serving a breakfast to the three boys, who made no comment on their father’s absence, and whose curious looks she was aware of upon her averted face, her down-dropped eyelids. She felt alone indeed, with her uncle gone, and the boys who had been as brothers to her almost since babyhood suddenly become strangers, their interests and hers hostile, destructive to each other.

Woman will go to woman in a pinch like this, and in spite of her repugnance at the thought of Huldah, Judith late in the afternoon made her way over to the Jim Cal cabin and asked concerning its mistress’ toothache.

“Hit’s better,” said Iley briefly. Her head was tied up in a medley of cloths and smelled loud of turpentine, camphor, and a lingering bouquet of assafœtida. She was not a hopeful individual to enlist in a chivalrous enterprise.

“Huldy git back yet?” Judith asked finally.

“No, an’ she needn’t never git back,” snapped Iley. “Her and Creed Bonbright kin make out best they may. I don’t know as I mind her bein’ broke off with Wade. One Turrentine in the fambly’s enough fer me.”

“Air her and Creed Bonbright goin’ to be wedded?” inquired Judith scarcely above her breath.

“Air they?” echoed Xantippe, settling her hands on her hips and surveying Judith with an angry stare, the dignity of which was sadly impaired by a yellow flannel cloth-end which persisted in dabbling in her eye. “Well, I should hope so! I don’t know what gals is comin’ to in this day an’ time—follerin’ ’round after the young men like you do. Ef I’d a’ done so when I was a gal my mammy’d have took a hickory to me. That’s what she would. Here’s Jim Cal be’n rarin’ around here like a chicken with its head off ’caze Huldy run away with Creed Bonbright, and here you air askin’ me do I think Creed and Huldy is apt to marry. What kind of women do ye ’low the Spiller gals is, anyhow?”

Judith turned away from so unpromising an ally. She was accused of running after Creed Bonbright. When he got her message it would be with Huldah Spiller beside him to help him read it. The thought was bitter. It gave that passionate heart of hers a deadly qualm; but she put it down and rose above it. Huldah or no Huldah, she could not let him die and make no effort.

Leaving Jim Cal’s cabin she walked out into the woods, and only as she turned at the edge of the clearing and looked back to find Iley furtively peering after her from the corner of the house did she realise that the woman’s words had been dictated because she had been taken into the confidence of the men and set to keep an eye on Judith.

At the conviction a feeling of terror began to gain ground. She was like a creature enmeshed in a net weak in its cordage, but many-stranded and hampering; turn whichever way she would some petty restriction met her. She moved aimlessly forward, reasonably sure that she was not followed or observed, since she was going away from rather than toward the Card place. About a mile from the cabin of old Hannah Updegrove, a weaver of rag carpet, she suddenly came upon two little creatures sitting at a tree-foot playing about one of those druidical-looking structures that the childhood of the man and the childhood of the race alike produce. It was Little Buck and Beezy come to spend the day with old Hannah who, on their father’s side, was kin of theirs, and making rock play-houses in the tree-roots to put over the time. Judith ran to the children, gathered them close, and hugged them to her with whispered endearments in which some tears mingled.

Then for half an hour followed the schooling of Little Buck for the message which he was to carry, and which Beezy must be so diverted that she would not even hear.

Judith plaited grass bracelets for the fat little wrists, fashioned bonnets of oak leaves, pinning them together with grass stems, and then sending Beezy far afield to gather flowers for their trimming. On long journeys the little feet trudged, to where the beautiful, frail, white meadow lilies rose in clumps from the lush grass of the lowlands. She fetched cardinal flowers from the mud and shallow water beyond them, or brought black-eyed Susans from the sun of open spaces. And during these expeditions Judith’s catechism of the boy went on.

“How you goin’ to git home, Little Buck?”

“Pappy’s a-comin’ by to fetch us.”

“When?”

“A little befo’ sundown?”

“You goin’ straight home?”

“Yes, Jude, we’ goin’ straight home to Granny, why?”

“Never mind, honey. Is Creed there at yo’ house?”

A silent nod.

“Is—honey, tell Jude the truth—is it true that he ain’t bad hurt? Could he ride a nag?”

Little Buck looked all around him, drew close to his big sweetheart, and pulled her down that he might whisper in her ear.

“I know somethin’ that Granny and Creed don’t know I know, but I mus’n’t tell it to anybody—only thest you. Creed—no, he ain’t so awful bad hurt—he walks everywheres most—he’s a-goin’ to take the old nag and go over to Todd’s corner to see yo’ Unc’ Jep, about moonrise to-night. They said that—Granny an’ Creed. An’ they fussed. Granny, she don’t want him to go; but Creed, he thest will—he’s bull-headed, Creed is.”

Judith caught her breath. They had got the message to him then, and he was going. Well, her appointment with him must be first.

“Little Buck, honey, ef you love me don’t you forget one word I say to you now,” she whispered chokingly, holding the child by both hands.

He rounded eyes of solemn adoration and acquiescence upon her.

“You say to Creed Bonbright that Judith Barrier says he must come to her at the foot of Foeman’s Bluff—on yon side—as soon after dark as he can git there. Tell him to come straight through by the short cut; hit’ll be safe; nobody’ll ever study about him comin’ in this direction. As soon after hit’s plumb dark as he can git there—will ye say that? Will ye shore tell Creed an’ never tell nobody but Creed?”

“But he won’t go,” said Little Buck wisely. “Granny’s scared to have him go to talk to yo’ Unc’ Jep, but she’d be a heap scareder to have him come to you, ’caze you’ one o’ the Turrentines too—ain’t ye, Judith?”

Judith’s face whitened at the weakness of her position.

“I would come, Judith, becaze I love you an’ you love me—but Creed, he won’t,” said the boy.

“You tell him Little Buck,” she whispered huskily, terror and shame warring in her face, “tell him that I do love him. Tell him I said for God’s sake to come—if he loves me.”

The child’s eyes slowly filled. He dropped them and stood staring at the ground, saying nothing because of the blur. Finally:

“I’ll tell him that—ef you say I must,” he whispered. And loving, tender Judith, in her desperate preoccupation, never noted what she had done to her little sweetheart.