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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Westerfelt, by Will N. Harben
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Westerfelt
+
+
+Author: Will N. Harben
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 28, 2005  [eBook #17178]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESTERFELT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+WESTERFELT
+
+A Novel
+
+by
+
+WILL N. HARBEN
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York and London
+Harper & Brothers Publishers
+1901
+Copyright, 1901, by Harper & Brothers.
+All rights reserved.
+
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY WIFE
+
+
+
+
+Westerfelt
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+They had had a quilting at the house of the two sisters that day.  Six
+or seven women of the neighborhood, of middle age or older, had been in
+to sew on the glaring, varicolored square.  All day long they had
+thrust their needles up and down and gossiped in their slow,
+insinuating way, pausing only at noon to move their chairs to the
+dinner-table, where they sat with the same set curves to their backs.
+
+The sun had gone down behind the mountain and the workers had departed,
+some traversing the fields and others disappearing by invisible paths
+in the near-by wood.  The two sisters had taken the finished quilt from
+its wooden frame, and were carefully ironing out the wrinkles
+preparatory to adding it to the useless stack of its kind in the corner
+of the room.
+
+"I believe, as I'm alive, that it's the purtiest one yet," remarked
+Mrs. Slogan.  "Leastwise, I hain't seed narry one to beat it.  Folks
+talks mightily about Mis' Lithicum's last one, but I never did have any
+use fer yaller buff, spliced in with indigo an' deep red.  I wisht they
+was goin' to have the Fair this year; ef I didn't send this un I'm a
+liar."
+
+Mrs. Slogan was a childless married woman of past sixty.  Her sister,
+Mrs. Dawson, had the softer face of the two, which, perhaps, was due to
+her having suffered much and to the companionship of a daughter whom
+she loved.  She was shorter than her sister by several inches, and had
+a small, wrinkled face, thin, gray hair, and a decided stoop.  Some
+people said she had acquired the stoop in bending so constantly over
+her husband's bed during his last protracted illness.  Others affirmed
+that her sister was slowly nagging the life out of her, and simply
+because she had been blessed with that which had been denied her--a
+daughter.  Be this as it may, everybody who knew Mrs. Slogan knew that
+she never lost an opportunity to find fault with the girl, who was
+considered quite pretty and had really a gentle, lovable disposition.
+
+"Whar's Sally?" asked Mrs. Slogan, when she had laid the quilt away.
+
+"I don't know whar she is," answered Mrs. Dawson.  "I reckon she'll be
+in directly."
+
+"I'll be bound you don't know whar she is," retorted the other, with
+asperity; "you never keep a eye on 'er.  Ef you'd a-watched 'er better
+an' kept 'er more at home thar never would 'a' been the talk that's now
+goin' about an' makin' you an' her the laughin'-stock of the
+settlement.  I told you all along that John Westerfelt never had
+marryin' in the back o' his head, an' only come to see her beca'se she
+was sech a fool about 'im."
+
+"I seed 'er down the meadow branch just now," broke in her husband, who
+sat smoking his clay pipe on the door-step.  "She was hard at it,
+pickin' flowers as usual.  I swear I never seed the like.  That gal
+certainly takes the rag off'n the bush.  I believe she'd let 'possum
+an' taters git cold to pick a daisy.  But what's the talk?" he ended,
+as he turned his head and looked at his wife, who really was the source
+of all his information.
+
+"Why," replied Mrs. Slogan, with undisguised satisfaction in her tone,
+"Mis' Simpkins says Westerfelt is goin' with Ab Lithicum's daughter
+Lizzie."
+
+"Well," said Slogan, with a short, gurgling laugh, "what's wrong with
+that?  A feller as well fixed as Westerfelt is ort to be allowed to
+look around a little, as folks say in town when they are a-tradin'.
+Lord, sometimes I lie awake at night thinkin' what a good time I mought
+'a' had an' what I mought 'a' run across ef I hadn't been in sech a
+blamed fool hurry!  Lawsy me, I seed a deef an' dumb woman in town
+t'other day, and, for a wonder, she wasn't married, nur never had been!
+I jest looked at that woman an' my mouth fairly watered."
+
+"Yo're a born fool," snorted Mrs. Slogan.
+
+"What's that got to do with John Wester--"
+
+"Sh--" broke in Mrs. Dawson.  "I heer Sally a-comin'."
+
+"But I _want_ 'er to heer me," cried the woman appealed to, just as the
+subject of the conversation entered the room from the passage which
+connected the two parts of the house.  "It'll do 'er good, I hope, to
+know folks think she has made sech a goose of 'erse'f."
+
+"What have I done now, Aunt Clarissa?" sighed the frail-looking girl,
+as she took off her sun-bonnet and stood in the centre of the room,
+holding a bunch of wild flowers and delicate maiden-hair fern leaves in
+her hand.
+
+"Why, John Westerfelt has done you exactly as he has many a other gal,"
+was the bolt the woman hurled.  "He's settin' up to Lizzie Lithicum
+like a house afire.  I don't know but I'm glad of it, too, fer I've
+told you time an' time agin that he didn't care a hill o' beans fer no
+gal, but was out o' sight out o' mind with one as soon as another un
+struck his fancy."
+
+Sally became deathly pale as she turned to the bed in one of the
+corners of the room and laid her flowers down.  She was silent for
+several minutes.  All the others were watching her.  Even her mother
+seemed to have resigned her to the rude method of awakening which
+suited her sister's heartless mood.  At first it looked as if Sally
+were going to ignore the thrust, but they soon discovered their
+mistake, for she suddenly turned upon them with a look on her rigid
+face they had never seen there before.  It was as if youth had gone
+from it, leaving only its ashes.
+
+"I don't believe one word of it," she said, firmly.  "I don't believe
+it.  I wouldn't believe it was anything but your mean meddling if you
+swore it."
+
+"Did you ever!" gasped Mrs. Slogan; "after all the advice I've give the
+foolish girl!"
+
+"Well, I reckon that's beca'se you don't want to believe it, Sally,"
+said Slogan, without any intention of abetting his wife.  "I don't want
+to take sides in yore disputes, but Westerfelt certainly is settin'
+square up to Ab's daughter.  I seed 'em takin' a ride in his new
+hug-me-tight buggy yesterday.  She's been off to Cartersville, you
+know, an' has come back with dead loads o' finery.  They say she's
+l'arned to play 'Dixie' on a pyanner an' reads a new novel every week.
+Ab's awfully tickled about it.  Down at the store t'other day, when
+Westerfelt rid by on his prancin' hoss, Clem Dill said: 'Ab, I reckon
+it won't be long 'fore you move over on yore son-in-law's big farm,'
+an' Ab laughed so hard he let the tobacco juice run down on his shirt.
+
+"'Liz 'll manage his case,' sez he.  'Westerfelt may fly around the
+whole caboodle of 'em, but when Liz gits 'er head set she cuts a wide
+swathe an' never strikes a snag ur stump, an' cleans out the
+fence-corners as smooth as a parlor floor.'"
+
+Sally bent down over her uncle; her face was slowly hardening into
+conviction.  When she spoke her voice had lost its ring of defiance and
+got its strength of utterance only from sheer despair.
+
+"You saw them in his new buggy, Uncle Peter," she asked, "taking a
+ride--are you sure?"
+
+Peter Slogan dropped his eyes; he seemed to realize the force of the
+blow he had helped to deal, and made no answer.
+
+Mrs. Slogan laughed out triumphantly as she stooped to put her
+smoothing-iron down on the hearth.
+
+"Ride together!" she exclaimed.  "As ef that was all!  Why, he's been
+goin' thar twice an' three times a week regular.  Jest as he begun
+taperin' off with you he tapered on with her.  I don't reckon you
+hardly remember when he come heer last, do you?  Ab Lithicum's as big a
+fool as yore mother was in not callin' a halt.  Jest let a man have a
+little property, an' be a peg or two higher as to family connections,
+an' he kin ride dry-shod over a whole community.  He's goin' thar
+to-night.  Mis' Simpkins was at Lithicum's when a nigger fetched the
+note.  Lizzie was axin' 'er what to put on.  She's got a sight o' duds.
+They say it's jest old dresses that her cousins in town got tired o'
+wearin', but they are ahead o' anything in the finery line out heer."
+
+A look of wretched conviction stamped itself on the girl's delicate
+features.  Slowly she turned to pick up her flowers, and went with them
+to the mantel-piece.  There was an empty vase half filled with water,
+and into it she tried to place the stems, but they seemed hard to
+manage in her quivering fingers, and she finally took the flowers to
+her own room across the passage.  They heard the sagging door scrape
+the floor as she closed it after her.
+
+"Now, I reckon you two are satisfied," said Mrs. Dawson, bitterly.
+"Narry one of you hain't one bit o' feelin' ur pity."
+
+Mrs. Slogan shrugged her shoulders, and Peter looked up regretfully,
+and then with downcast eyes continued to pull silently at his pipe.
+
+"I jest did what I ort to 'a' done," said Mrs. Slogan.  "She ort to
+know the truth, an' I tol' 'er."
+
+"You could 'a' gone about it in a more human way," sighed Mrs. Dawson.
+"The Lord knows the child's had enough to worry 'er, anyway.  She's
+been troubled fer the last week about him not comin' like he used to,
+an' she'd a-knowed the truth soon enough."
+
+An hour later supper was served, and though her aunt called to her that
+it was on the table, Sally Dawson did not appear, so the meal passed in
+unusual silence.  The Slogans ate with their habitual zest, but the
+little bent widow only munched a piece of bread and daintily sipped her
+cup of buttermilk.
+
+Presently they heard the rasping sound of Sally's door as it was drawn
+open, and then they saw her go through the passage and step down into
+the yard.  Rising quickly, Mrs. Dawson went to the door and looked out.
+She descried her daughter making her way hastily towards the gate.
+
+"Sally!" cried out the old woman, her thin voice cracking on its too
+high key, "Sally, wait thar fer me!  Stop, I say!"
+
+The girl turned and waited for her mother to approach through the
+half-darkness, her face averted towards the road.
+
+"Sally, whar have you started?"
+
+The girl did not move as she answered:
+
+"Nowhere, mother; I--"
+
+The old woman put out her bony hand and laid it on the girl's arm.
+"Sally, you are not a-tellin' me the truth.  You are a-goin' to try to
+see John Westerfelt."
+
+"Well, what if I am, mother?"
+
+"I don't believe I'd go, darlin'.  I'd be above lettin' any triflin'
+man know I was that bad off--I railly would try to have a little more
+pride."
+
+Sally Dawson turned her head, and her eyes bore down desperately on the
+small face before her.
+
+"Mother," she said, "you don't know what you'd do if you was in my
+place."
+
+"I reckon not, darlin', but--"
+
+"Mother, I'll die if I don't know the truth.  Once he told me if I ever
+heard one word against him to come to him with it, and I said I would.
+Maybe Aunt Clarissa is right about Lizzie an' him, but I've got to get
+it straight from him.  He went to town to-day, and always drives along
+the road about this time."
+
+"Then I'll go out thar with you, Sally, if you will do sech a thing."
+
+"No, you won't, mother.  Nobody has any right to hear what I've got to
+say to him."
+
+The old woman raised the corner of her gingham apron to her eyes as if
+some inward emotion had prompted tears, but the fountains of grief were
+dry.
+
+"Oh, Sally," she whimpered, "I'm so miserable!  I'll never forgive yore
+aunt fer devilin' you so much, right now when you are troubled.  I'll
+tell you what me 'n' you'll do; we'll git us a house an' move away from
+'er."
+
+"I don't care what she says--if it's true," replied Sally.  "If--if
+John Westerfelt has fooled me, I wouldn't care if it was printed in
+every paper in the State.  If he don't love me, I won't care for
+nothin'.  Mother, you know he made me think he loved--wanted me, at
+least--that was all I could make out of it."
+
+"I was a leetle afeerd all along," admitted Mrs. Dawson.  "I was
+afeerd, though I couldn't let on at the time.  Folks said he was
+powerful changeable.  You see, he has treated other gals the same way.
+Sally, you must be brave, an' not let on.  Why, thar was Mattie
+Logan--jest look at her.  Folks said she was a rantin' fool about 'im,
+but when he quit goin' thar she tuck up with Clem Dill, an' now she's a
+happy wife an' mother."
+
+Sally turned towards the gate.  "What's that to me?" she said,
+fiercely.  "I'm not her, and she's not me.  Stay here, mother.  I'll be
+back soon."
+
+"Well, I'm goin' to set right thar on that log outside the gate, an'
+not budge one inch till you come back, Sally.  If you wait too long,
+though, I'll come after you.  Oh, Sally, I'm awful afeerd--I don't know
+what at, but I'm afeerd."
+
+Together the two passed through the gate, and then, leaving her mother
+at the log, Sally hastened through the darkness towards the main road,
+several hundred yards away.  Mrs. Dawson sat down and folded her hands
+tightly in her lap and waited.  After a few minutes she heard the heat
+of a horse's hoofs on the clay road, and when it ceased she knew her
+child was demanding and learning her fate.  Fifteen minutes passed.
+The beat of hoofs was resumed, and soon afterwards Sally Dawson came
+slowly through the darkness, her dress dragging over the dewy grass.
+She seemed to have forgotten that her mother was waiting for her, and
+was about to pass on to the house, when Mrs. Dawson spoke up.
+
+"Heer I am, Sally; what did he say?"
+
+The girl sat down on the log beside her mother.  There was a desperate
+glare in her eyes that had never been in eyes more youthful.  Her lips
+were drawn tight, her small hands clinched.
+
+"It's every bit true," she said, under her breath.  "He's goin' with
+Lizzie, regular.  He admitted he had an engagement with her tonight.
+Mother, it's all up with me.  He's jest tired of me.  I don't deserve
+any pity for bein' such a fool, but it's awful--awful--awful!"
+
+Mrs. Dawson caught her breath suddenly, so sharp was her own pain, but
+she still strove to console her daughter.
+
+"He's railly not wuth thinkin' about, darlin'; do--do try to forget
+'im.  It may look like a body never could git over a thing like that,
+but I reckon a pusson kin manage to sort o' bear it better, after
+awhile, than they kin right at the start.  Sally, I'm goin' to tell you
+a secret.  I'd 'a' told you before this but I 'lowed you was too young
+to heer the like.  It's about me 'n' yore pa--some'n' you never dreamt
+could 'a' happened.  Mebby it 'll give you courage, fer if a old woman
+like me kin put up with sech humiliation, shorely a young one kin.
+Sally, do you remember, when you was a leetle, tiny girl, that thar was
+a Mis' Talley, a tall, slim, yaller-headed woman, who come out from
+town to board one summer over at Hill's?  Well, she never had nothin'
+much to occupy 'er mind with durin' the day, an' she used to take 'er
+fancy-work an' set in the shady holler at the gum spring, whar yore pa
+went to water his hoss.  Of course, she never keerd a cent fer him, but
+I reckon to pass the time away she got to makin' eyes at him.  Anyway,
+it driv' 'im plumb crazy.  I never knowed about it till the summer was
+mighty nigh over, an' I wouldn't 'a' diskivered it then if I hadn't 'a'
+noticed that he had made powerful little headway ploughin' in the field
+whar he claimed to be at work.  She wasn't a bad woman.  I give 'er
+credit fer that, an' I reckon she never talked to 'im many times, an'
+never thought of him except to laugh at him after she went back home,
+but he never quit thinkin' about her.  She had 'er picture printed in a
+paper along with some other church-women in town, an' somehow he got
+a-hold of it an' cut it out.  He used to keep it hid in a ol'
+Testament, in a holler tree behind the cow-lot, an' used to slip out
+an' look at it when he 'lowed he wasn't watched.  Sally, I never once
+mentioned it to him.  I seed what had been done couldn't be undone, but
+the Lord on High knows well enough how I suffered.  Sally, maybe it's
+the Lord's will fer you to lose this feller now when you are young an'
+able to fight agin it, so you won't suffer the awful humiliation at a
+time o' life when a body ort to be easy.  Sally, are you a-listenin' to
+me?"
+
+"Yes, mother.  I heard every word you said about pa an' the woman.  I
+heard that, and I heard them frogs down there croaking, too, and the
+chickens fluttering on their roosts.  I heard his horse still
+a-trotting.  Mother, he was whistling when he drove up just
+now--_whistling_!"
+
+The two stared into each other's eyes for a moment, then the old woman
+went on:
+
+"It'll go powerful hard with you now, but you'd better have it over
+with when you're young 'an to suffer when you're a weak old woman like
+me.  Ol' age cayn't stand such things so well.  No, I never once
+mentioned the woman to yore pa.  I knowed it would jest make him resort
+to lyin', an' at the bottom he was a good, pious man.  He jest couldn't
+quit thinkin' o' that yaller-headed woman an' her blue eyes an' shiny
+store shoes.  I jest pitied 'im like he was a baby.  It went on till he
+got sick, an' many an' many a day he'd lie thar helpless an' look out
+towards the cow-lot, wistful like, an' I knowed he was thinkin' o' that
+pictur'.  He was lookin' that way when he drawed his last breath.  It
+may 'a' been jest a notion o' mine, fer some said he was unconscious
+all that day, but it looked that away to me.  I nussed him through his
+sickness as well as I could, an' attended to every wish he had till he
+passed away.  Now, you know some'n' else, Sally.  You know why I never
+put up no rock at his grave.  The neighbors has had a lots to say about
+that one thing--most of 'em sayin' I was too stingy to pay fer it, but
+it wasn't that, darlin'.  It was jest beca'se I had too much woman
+pride.  When I promised the Lord to love an' obey, it was not expected
+that I'd put up a rock over another woman's man if he was dead.  Sally,
+you are a sight more fortunate than you think you are."
+
+Sally rose, the steely look was still in her eyes, her face was like
+finely polished granite.  Mrs. Dawson got up anxiously, and together
+they passed through the gate.  They could see the red fire of Peter
+Slogan's pipe, and the vague form of his wife standing over him.
+
+"Now, darlin'--" began Mrs. Dawson, but Sally checked her.
+
+"Don't talk to me any more, mother," she said, impatiently.  "I want to
+be quiet and think--oh, my God, have mercy on me!"
+
+Mrs. Dawson said nothing more, and with a sinking heart she saw the
+stricken child of her breast walk on into her room and close the door.
+
+"Whar's she been?" asked Mrs. Slogan, aggressively.
+
+"She went to git out o' re'ch o' yore tongue," said the widow,
+desperately.
+
+To this apt retort Mrs. Slogan could not reply, but it evoked an amused
+laugh from her appreciative husband.
+
+"Well, Sally didn't shorely try to do that afoot, did she?" he gurgled.
+"Looks like she'd 'a' tuck a train ef sech was her intention."
+
+Mrs. Dawson passed into the house and through the dining-room into her
+own small apartment and closed the door.  She lighted a tallow-dip and
+placed it on the old-fashioned bureau, from which the mahogany
+veneering had been peeling for years.  Her coarse shoes rang harshly on
+the smooth, bare floor.  She sank into a stiff, hand-made chair and sat
+staring into vacancy.  The bend of her back had never been more
+pronounced.
+
+"The idee," she muttered, "o' my goin' over my trouble as ef that
+amounted to a hill o' beans ur would be a bit o' comfort!  My God, ef
+some'n' ain't done to relieve Sally I'll go stark crazy, an'--an'--I
+could kill 'im in cold blood, freely, so I could.  Oh, my pore,
+helpless baby! it seems like she never did have any rail friend but me."
+
+She rose and crept to the window, parted the calico curtains, and
+peered across the passage at her daughter's door.  There was a narrow
+pencil of light beneath it.  "She's readin' his letters over," said the
+old woman, "ur mebby she's prayin'.  That's railly what I ort to be
+a-doin' instead o' standin' heer tryin' to work out what's impossible
+fer any mortal.  I reckon ef a body jest would have enough faith--but I
+did have faith till--till it quit doin' me a particle o' good.  Yes, I
+ort to be a-prayin', and I'll do it--funny I never thought o' that
+sooner.  Ef God fetched a rain, like they claim he did t'other day,
+shorely he'll do a little some'n' in a case like this un."
+
+She blew out the tallow-dip and knelt down in the darkness, and
+interlaced her bony fingers.
+
+"Lord God Almighty, King of Hosts--my Blessed Redeemer," she began,
+"you know how I have suffered an' why I never could put no grave-rock
+over my husband's remains; you know how I have writhed an' twisted
+under that scourge, but I kin bear that now, an' more an' more of it,
+but I jest cayn't have my pore little baby go through the same, an'
+wuss.  It don't look like it's fair--no way a body kin look at it, for
+shorely one affliction of that sort in a family is enough, in all
+reason.  I stood mine, bein' a ol' woman, but Sally, she'll jest pine
+away an' die, fer she had all her heart set on that one man.  Oh, God
+Almighty, my Redeemer, you that forgive the dyin' thief an' begged fer
+help in yore own agony, let this cup pass.  Huh!  I'd ruther have 'em
+stick a speer through my side time an' time agin 'an have it go on with
+Sally like it is.  You'd better do what I ask, fer it's makin' a
+reg'lar devil out o' me.  I feel it comin' on, an' I won't be fit fer
+no place but hell fire.  I jest cayn't see no sense, jestice, nur
+reason in my pore little child lyin' in her bed an' twistin' with sech
+trouble.  You, or some power above or below, tuck Jasper frum me an'
+left that yaller-haired sting fer me to brood over day an' night, but
+the same ur wuss mustn't come to Sally, kase she don't deserve
+it--she's _helpless_!  Oh, Lord, have mercy--have mercy--mercy--mercy!"
+
+She rose to her feet, and without undressing threw herself on the bed.
+She could hear Slogan and his wife, now barefooted, thumping about in
+the next room.  Far away against the mountain-side she heard a hunter
+calling to his dogs and blowing a horn.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+John Westerfelt lived on his own farm in the big two-storied frame
+house which had been built by his grandfather, and which came to him at
+the death of his father and mother.  The place was managed for him by a
+maternal uncle, whose wife and daughter kept the house in order.  But
+all three of them had gone away on a short visit, leaving only the old
+negro woman, who was the cook and servant about the house, to attend to
+his wants.
+
+The morning following his meeting with Sally Dawson on the road near
+her house, Westerfelt arose with a general feeling of dissatisfaction
+with himself.  He had not slept well.  Several times through the night
+he awoke from unpleasant dreams, in which he always saw Sally Dawson's
+eyes raised to his through the darkness, and heard her spiritless voice
+as she bade him good-bye, and with bowed head moved away, after
+promising to return his letters the next day.
+
+He was a handsome specimen of physical manhood.  His face was dark and
+of the poetic, sensitive type; his eyes were brown, his hair was almost
+black, and thick, and long enough to touch his collar.  His shoulders
+were broad, and his limbs muscular and well shaped.  He wore
+tight-fitting top-boots, which he had drawn over his trousers to the
+knee.  His face was clean-shaven, and but for his tanned skin and
+general air of the better-class planter, he might have passed for an
+actor, poet, or artist.  He was just the type of Southerner who, with a
+little more ambition, and close application to books, might have become
+a leading lawyer and risen finally to a seat in Congress.  But John
+Westerfelt had never been made to see the necessity of exertion on his
+part.  Things had come easily ever since he could remember, and his
+wants were simple, and, in his own way, he enjoyed life, suffering
+sharply at times, as he did this morning, over his mistakes, for at
+heart he was not bad.
+
+"Poor little girl," he said, as he went out on the front veranda to
+wait for his breakfast.  "It was just blind thoughtlessness.  I really
+never dreamt she was feeling that way.  I've just got to make it
+lighter for her.  To begin with, I'll never put my foot inside of
+Lithicum's gate, and I'll go over there this morning and try to make
+her see what a worthless scamp I really am.  I wonder if I couldn't
+marry her--but, no, that wouldn't be right to her nor to me, for a man
+hasn't the moral right to marry a woman he doesn't really love, even if
+she thinks he is the only man on earth.  I wonder if I really told her
+I loved her?"  Here Westerfelt shuddered, and felt a flush of shame
+steal over his face.  "Yes, I have--I have," he muttered, "and I reckon
+I really did fancy I cared for her at the time.  Yes, I have been a
+contemptible coward; for my own idle enjoyment I have allowed her to go
+on counting on me until the thought of my going to see Lizzie Lithicum
+nearly kills her.  Well, by George!  I can cut that off, and I shall,
+too."
+
+Just then, in looking across the meadow lying between his house and the
+main road, he saw the short form of Peter Slogan approaching.
+
+"He's coming here," thought Westerfelt.  "She has asked him to bring
+the letters, even before breakfast.  That's the little woman's way of
+showing her pride.  What a contemptible scoundrel I am!"
+
+But as he continued to watch the approaching figure he was surprised to
+note that Slogan was displaying more energy than usual.  The little,
+short man was taking long steps, and now and then jumping over an
+obstacle instead of going around it.  And when he had reached the gate
+he leaned on it and stared straight at Westerfelt, as if he had lost
+his power of speech.  Then it was that Westerfelt remarked that
+Slogan's face looked troubled, and that a general air of agitation
+rested on him.
+
+"I wish you'd step out, if you please, John," he said, after a moment,
+"I've been walkin' so blamed fast I've mighty nigh lost my breath.  I'm
+blowin' like a stump-suckin' hoss."
+
+Westerfelt went to him.
+
+"What is the matter, Slogan?" he questioned, in a tone of concern.
+
+"We've had big trouble over our way," panted Slogan.  "Sally fell off'n
+the foot-log into the creek this mornin' an' was drowned."
+
+"Drowned!  You don't mean that, Slogan!" cried Westerfelt, in horror;
+"surely there is some mistake!"
+
+"No; she's as dead as a mackerel," Slogan answered.  "She wasn't
+diskivered tell she'd been under water fer a good half-hour.  She
+started, as usual, about daybreak, over to her cousin, Molly Dugan's,
+fer a bucket o' fresh milk, an' we never missed 'er until it was time
+she was back, an' then we went all the way to Dugan's before we found
+out she hadn't been thar at all.  Then her ma tuck up a quar notion,
+an' helt to it like a leech fer a long time.  My hoss had got out o'
+the stable an' strayed off some'rs in the woods, an' Sally's mother
+firmly believed the gal had run off.  I don't know why she 'lowed Sally
+would do sech a thing, but she did, and jest paced up an' down the yard
+yellin' an' takin' on an' beggin' us to go fetch her back, so that none
+of us at the house thought o' draggin' the hole at the foot-log.  But
+Bill Dugan did, an' soon come with the news whar she was at.  Then her
+ma jest had a spasm.  I railly believe on my soul she cussed God an'
+all futurity.  She raved till she was black in the face."
+
+"Then there is--is no doubt about it?" gasped Westerfelt.  "She is
+dead?"
+
+"Of course she's dead," answered Slogan; "an' bein' as my hoss ain't to
+be had, I 'lowed I'd try to borrow one o' yore'n to go order the
+coffin."  Slogan here displayed a piece of twine which he had wound
+into a coil.  "I've got the exact length o' the body.  I 'lowed that
+would be the best way.  I reckon they kin tell me at the store how much
+play a corpse ort to have at each end.  I've noticed that coffins
+always look longer, a sight, than the pusson ever did that was to
+occupy 'em, but I thought ef I tuck the exact measure--"
+
+"Here's the stable key," interrupted Westerfelt, with a shudder.  "Take
+any horse you want.  You'll find saddles and bridles in the shed."
+
+Slogan turned away, and Westerfelt walked back to the veranda.  "My
+God!" he groaned; "why don't I _know_ it was accident?  If it was not,
+then may the Lord have mercy on my soul!"
+
+He went into his room and threw himself on his bed and stared fixedly
+at the ceiling, a thousand conflicting thoughts crowding upon him.
+Presently he heard Slogan talking to the horse in the yard, and went
+out just as he was mounting.
+
+"I wisht you'd hand me a switch, John," he said.  "I don't want to be
+all day goin' an' comin'.  I'll be blamed ef I ain't afeerd them two
+ol' cats 'll be a-fightin' an' scratchin' 'fore I get back.  They had a
+time of it while the gal was alive, an' I reckon thar 'll be no peace
+at all now."
+
+"Does Mrs. Dawson blame anybody--or--or--?"  Westerfelt paused as if he
+hardly knew how to finish.
+
+"Oh, I reckon the ol' woman does feel a leetle hard at us--my wife in
+particular, an'--an' some o' the rest, I reckon.  You see, thar was a
+lot said at the quiltin' yesterday about Lizzie Lithicum a-cuttin' of
+Sally out, an' one thing or other, an' a mother's calculated to feel
+bitter about sech talk, especially when her only child is laid out as
+cold an' stiff as a poker."
+
+Again Westerfelt shuddered; his face was ghastly; his mouth was drawn
+and his lips quivered; there was a desperate, appealing, shifting of
+his eyes.
+
+"I reckon Mrs. Dawson feels hurt at me," he said, tentatively.
+
+Slogan hesitated a moment before speaking.
+
+"Well," he said, as if he felt some sort of apology should come from
+him, "maybe she does--a little, John, but the Lord knows you cayn't
+expect much else at sech a time, an' when she's under sech a strain."
+
+"Did she mention any names?" questioned the young man, desperately; and
+while he waited for Slogan to speak a look of inexpressible agony lay
+in his eyes.
+
+"I never was much of a hand to tote tales," said Slogan, "but I may as
+well give you a little bit of advice as to how you ort to act with the
+ol' woman while she is so wrought up.  I wouldn't run up agin 'er right
+now ef I was you.  She's tuck a funny sort o' notion that she don't
+want you at the funeral or the buryin'.  She told me three times, as I
+was startin' off, to tell you not to come to the church nur to the
+grave.  She was clean out o' her senses, an' under ordinary
+circumstances I'd say not to pay a bit of attention to 'er, but she's
+so upset she might liter'ly pounce on you like a wild-cat at the
+meetin'-house."
+
+"Tell her, for me, that I shall respect her wish," said Westerfelt.  "I
+shall not be there, Slogan.  If she will let you do so, tell her I am
+sorry her daughter is--dead."
+
+"All right, John, I'll do what I can to pacify 'er," promised Peter, as
+he took the switch Westerfelt handed him and started away.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+When Slogan had ridden off through the mild spring sunshine, Westerfelt
+saddled another horse and rode out of the gate towards the road leading
+away from the house containing Sally Dawson's remains.  He hardly had
+any definite idea of whither he was going.  He had only a vague
+impression that the movement of a horse under him would to some degree
+assuage the awful pain at his heart, but he was mistaken; the pangs of
+self-accusation were as sharp as if he were a justly condemned
+murderer.  His way led past the cross-roads store, which contained the
+post-office.  Two men, a woman, and a child stood huddled together at
+the door.  They were talking about the accident; Westerfelt knew that
+by their attitudes of awed attention and their occasional glances
+towards Mrs. Dawson's.  He was about to pass by when the storekeeper
+signalled to him and called out:
+
+"Mail fer you, Mr. Westerfelt; want me to fetch it out?"
+
+Westerfelt nodded, and reined in and waited till the storekeeper came
+out with a packet.  "It must 'a' been drapped in after I closed last
+night," he said.  "Thar wasn't a thing in the box 'fore I went home,
+an' it was the only one thar when I unlocked this mornin'.  Mighty bad
+news down the creek, ain't it?" he ended.  "Powerful hard on the old
+woman.  They say she's mighty nigh distracted."
+
+Making some unintelligible reply, Westerfelt rode on, the packet held
+tightly in his hand.  It was addressed in Sally Dawson's round, girlish
+handwriting, and he knew it contained his letters, and perhaps--he
+shuddered at the thought of what else it might contain.
+
+He whipped his horse into a gallop.  He wanted to reach a spot where he
+could open the package unobserved.  He met several wagons and a buggy.
+They contained people who bowed and spoke to him, but he scarcely saw
+them.  At the first path leading from the road into the wood he turned
+aside, and then opened his package.  There were three or four letters
+and notes he had written the dead girl, and one blotted sheet from her.
+With a quaking soul he read it.  It confirmed him in the fear which had
+taken hold of him at the first news of the tragedy.  The letter ran:
+
+
+"DEAR JOHN,--I simply cannot stand it any longer.  It is now about
+three in the morning.  Some people contend that such acts are done only
+by crazy folks, but I don't believe I ever was more sensible than I am
+right now.  I am not ashamed to own that I had my heart and soul set on
+being your wife and making you happy, but now that I know you didn't
+feel a bit like I did, an' love Lizzie, I jest can't stand it.  The
+pain is awful--awful.  I could not meet folks face to face, now that
+they know the truth.  I'd rather die a hundred deaths than see you an'
+her even once together.  I couldn't live long anyway.  I'm simply too
+weak and sick at heart.  The hardest thing of all is to remember that
+you never did care for me all the time I was making such a little fool
+of myself.  I know you never did.  Folks said you was changeable, but I
+never once believed it till last night on the road.  I have fixed it so
+everybody will think my death was accidental.  I've been warned time
+and again about that foot-log, and nobody will suspicion the truth.
+You must never mention it to a soul.  It is my last and only request.
+It would go harder with mother if she knew that.  Good-bye, John.  I
+love you more right now than I ever did, and I don't know as I blame
+you much or harbor much resentment.  I thought I would not say anything
+more, but I cannot help it.  John, Lizzie is not the woman for you.
+She never will love you deep, or very long.  Good-bye.
+
+"SALLY."
+
+
+Westerfelt put the letter in his pocket and turned his horse into an
+unfrequented road leading to the mountain and along its side.  The air
+was filled with the subtle fragrance of growing and blooming things.
+He was as near insanity as a man can well be who still retains his
+mental equipoise.  In this slow manner, his horse picking his way over
+fallen trees and mountain streams, he traversed several miles, and
+then, in utter desolation, turned homeward.
+
+It was noon when he came in sight of his house.  Peter Slogan had
+returned the horse, and, with a parcel under his arm, was trudging
+homeward.  All that night Westerfelt lay awake, and the next morning he
+did not leave his room, ordering the wondering servant not to prepare
+any breakfast for him.  He did not want to show himself on the veranda
+or in the front yard, thinking some neighbor might stop and want to
+talk over the tragedy.  There were moments during this solitary morning
+that he wished others knew the secret of Sally Dawson's death.  It
+seemed impossible for him to keep the grewsome truth locked in his
+breast--it made the happening seem more of a crime.  And then an awful
+thought dawned upon him.  Was it not a way God had of punishing him,
+and would there ever be any end to it?
+
+From his window he had a clear view of Mrs. Dawson's house.  There was
+a group of people in their best clothes on the porch, and considerable
+activity about the front yard, to the fence of which a goodly number of
+horses and mules were hitched.  The little church, with its gray,
+weather-beaten spire, could also be seen farther away, on a slight
+elevation.  It had a fence around it, and blended with the whiteness of
+the fence were a few gravestones.
+
+About eleven o'clock Westerfelt saw a negro boy climb a ladder leaning
+against the side of the church and creep along the edge of the roof to
+the open cupola and grasp the clapper of the cast-iron bell.  Then it
+began to toll.  The boy was an unpractised hand, and the strokes were
+irregular, sometimes too slow and sometimes too rapid.
+
+It was a signal for the procession to leave the house.  Westerfelt's
+eyes were glued to the one-horse wagon at the gate, for it contained
+the coffin, and was moving like a thing alive.  Behind it walked six
+men, swinging their hats in their hands.  Next followed Slogan's
+rickety buggy with its threatening wheels, driven by Peter.  The bent
+figure of the widow in black sat beside him.  Other vehicles fell in
+behind, and men, women, and children on foot, carrying wild flowers,
+dogwood blossoms, pink and white honeysuckle, and bunches of violets,
+brought up the rear.
+
+Westerfelt was just turning from the window, unable to stand the sight
+longer, when he saw Abner Lithicum's new road-wagon, with its red
+wheels and high green bed, in which sat the five women of his family,
+pause at his gate.  Going out on the veranda, Westerfelt saw Abner
+coming up the walk, cracking his wagon-whip at the stunted rose-bushes.
+
+"Hello!" he cried out; "I 'lowed mebby you hadn't left yet.  It 'll be
+a good half-hour 'fore they all get thar an' settled.  The preacher
+promised me this mornin' he'd wait on me an' my folks.  It takes my
+gals sech a' eternity to fix up when they go anywhar."
+
+"Won't you come in?" asked Westerfelt, coldly, seeing that Lithicum did
+not seem to be in any hurry to announce the object of his visit.
+
+"Oh no, thanky'," said Lithicum, with a broad grin; "the truth is, I
+clean forgot my tobacco.  I knowed you wasn't a chawin' man, but yore
+uncle is, an' he mought have left a piece of a plug lyin' round.  My
+old woman tried to git me to use her snuff as a make-shift, but lawsy
+me! the blamed powdery truck jest washes down my throat like leaves in
+a mill-race.  I never could see how women kin set an' rub an' rub the'r
+gums with it like they do.  I reckon it's jest a sort o' habit."
+
+"I'm sorry," said Westerfelt, "but I don't know where my uncle keeps
+his tobacco."
+
+"Well, I reckon I'll strike some chawin' man down at the
+meetin'-house."  Lithicum stood, awkwardly cutting the air with his
+whip.  "Railly, thar is one thing more," he said, haltingly.  "Lizzie
+'lowed, as thar was a' extra seat in our wagon, you might like to come
+on with us.  She said she had some'n' particular to tell you."
+
+"Tell her I am not going," said Westerfelt, sharply.  "I am not going."
+
+"Oh, you ain't!"  Lithicum looked his surprise both at the decision and
+at the unaccountable coldness of the young man's manner, which he had
+not noticed till now.  "Well, so long, Mr. Westerfelt, I reckon you
+know yore own business, but I 'lowed everybody would turn out, through
+respect to all concerned, if nothin' else."
+
+"I am not going; it is impossible for me to go," answered Westerfelt,
+and he turned abruptly into the house.
+
+Alone in his room, Westerfelt took Sally Dawson's last letter from his
+pocket and read it again.  Then he lighted a match and started to burn
+it, but some inward fear seemed to check him, and the match burned down
+to his rigid fingers and went out.  "No," he said, "that would be
+cowardly.  I shall keep it always, to remind me of my hellish mistake.
+Great God! the idea of my going to her funeral in a red wagon with
+Lizzie Lithicum--Lizzie Lithicum!"
+
+
+The next morning, as he was returning from the post-office, Westerfelt
+met Peter Slogan riding to a field he had rented down the road, and
+which he was getting ready for cotton-planting.  Slogan was astride of
+his bony horse, which was already clad in shuck collar and clanking
+harness, and carried on his shoulder a cumbersome plough-stock.
+
+"Well," he smiled, reining in as he caught Westerfelt's eye, "I 'lowed
+hard work in the sun would do more to git the kinks out'n me after all
+the trouble at my house than anything else."
+
+"How is Mrs. Dawson?" ventured Westerfelt.
+
+"You'd better ax me how she _ain't_," retorted Slogan, shrugging his
+shoulders.  "I could tell you a sight easier.  She's turned into a
+regular hell-cat.  I thought her an' my wife was bad enough 'fore the
+trouble, but it's wuss now.  The ol' woman has left us."
+
+"Left you?" repeated Westerfelt.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, she says she won't sleep an' eat in the same house with my wife,
+beca'se she give Sally advice, an'--an' one thing or nuther.  The ol'
+woman has bought 'er some second-hand cookin' utensils--a oven an' a
+skillet an' a cup an' a plate or two, an' has moved 'er bed an' cheer
+into the Hilgard cabin down below us.  She slept thar last night.  It
+looks powerful like she's wrong in the upper-story.  At fust she was
+all yells an' fury, but now she jest sulks an' hain't got one word to
+say to nobody.  I went down thar last night an' tried to call 'er to
+the door, but she wouldn't stir a peg.  As soon as she heerd me at the
+fence she blowed out 'er light an' wouldn't let on no more'n ef I was a
+dog a-barkin'.  Now, I hold that she hain't got no call to treat me
+that away.  I never tuck no hand in 'er disputes with my wife, an' ef
+hard things has been said about Sally, why they never come from me.
+Lord, I've got plenty else to think about besides gals an' women.  I
+think I'm on track o' the skunk 'at stole my axe."
+
+Westerfelt walked on.  It was plain to him that none of the neighbors
+knew the secret of Sally Dawson's death, but he was beginning to think
+that the mother of the girl might half suspect the truth, and that she
+was his enemy for life he did not doubt.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+The cornfields had grown to their full height and turned from green to
+yellow.  The stalks, stripped of their tops and blades, were bent by
+the weight of their ears.  There was a whispering of breezes in the
+sedge-fields, in the long rows of brown-bolled cotton plants, among the
+fodder-stacks, and in the forest that stretched from the main road up
+the mountain-side.  It was the season in which the rugged landscape
+appeared most brilliant; when the kalmia bloomed, the gentian, the
+primrose, the yellow daisy, the woodbine, and the golden-disked aster
+still lingered in sunny spots.  It was the season in which the leaves
+of the maple were as red as blood.
+
+John Westerfelt was leaving home, to take up his abode in the adjoining
+county over the mountain.  As he sat upon his horse and slowly rode
+along, one who had known him six months before would scarcely have
+recognized him, so great had been the change in his appearance.  His
+face was thinner; at the temples his hair had turned slightly gray, and
+an ineffable expression of restless discontent lay about his eyes.  A
+sum of money had come to him from his father's estate, and with it he
+had purchased a livery-stable at the village of Cartwright.  Ever since
+Sally Dawson's death, he had wanted an excuse to get away from the spot
+where the tragedy had occurred, and his leaving his farm to the
+management of his uncle now caused no particular comment among his
+neighbors.
+
+Reaching the highest point of the mountain, the village in question lay
+in the valley below.  Here he paused and looked behind him.
+
+"God being my helper, I'm going to try to begin a new life over here,"
+he said, almost aloud.  "Surely, I have repented sorely enough, and
+this is not shirking my just punishment.  A man ought to make something
+of himself, and I never could, in my frame of mind, with that poor,
+silent old woman constantly before my eyes, and knowing that she will
+never forgive my offence, and is perhaps constantly praying for some
+calamity to strike me down."
+
+At the first house in the outskirts of the village he dismounted.  A
+woman hearing his approach announced by a couple of lean dogs, which
+sprang from under the porch, came to the door.  She smiled and spoke,
+but her voice was drowned in the yelping of the dogs, which were trying
+to climb over the fence to get at the stranger.
+
+There was something admirable, if slightly discourteous, in the
+fearless manner in which Westerfelt leaned over the fence and, with the
+butt of his riding-whip, struck the animals squarely in the face,
+coolly laughing as he did so.
+
+"You, Tige! you, Pomp!" cried the woman, running to them and picking up
+sticks and stones and hurling them at the animals, "down thar, I say!"
+
+"They have forgotten me," said Westerfelt, with a laugh, as the dogs
+retreated behind the house, and he reached over the ramshackle gate to
+shake hands.
+
+"But I hain't, John," she replied, cordially.  "I wasn't lookin' fer
+you quite so soon, though.  I reckon you must 'a' rid purty peert."
+
+"Generally do," he made answer, "though I started early this morning,
+and lost half an hour at Long's shop, where I got my horse shod."
+
+"Put up yore animal," she said.  "That's the stable thar, an' you know
+better how to feed 'im 'an I do.  Luke's gone down to the livery-stable
+to look atter things fer you, but he'll be back 'fore supper-time."
+
+Westerfelt led his horse into the yard, and to the well near the door.
+
+He pushed the bucket into the opening, and allowed the wooden windlass
+to fly round of its own accord till the bucket struck the water.
+
+"Thirsty?" she asked.  "I'll git the gourd."
+
+He nodded.  "And I want to water my horse; every branch and creek is
+bridged for the last ten miles."
+
+While she was in the house he wound up the bucket, swearing at the
+horse for continually touching an inquisitive nose to his moving elbow.
+She returned with a great gourd dipper.  He rinsed it out, and, filling
+it, drank long and deeply.  Then he refilled the gourd and offered it
+to her.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said.  "I forgot my politeness."
+
+"I ain't dry," she said.  "I was jest a-lookin' at you, John; you look
+so much older an' different-like."
+
+"Oh, I reckon I'm all right," he said.  "How's Luke?" emptying the
+bucket into the trough and watching the horse drink.
+
+"As well as common; me an' him wus both bound fer you to git the
+livery-stable, an' we are glad the trade's closed.  It will seem like
+ol' times to have a body from Fannin over heer.  As soon as you writ
+the price you wus willin' to give in a lumpin' sum, Luke set to
+scheming.  He ain't no fool, if I do say it.  Horton an' Webb had the'r
+eyes on the stable, an' Luke thinks they'd a-raised his bid, but they
+'lowed he wus biddin' fur himself, an' knowed he couldn't raise the
+money.  Mis' Thorp wus in heer this mornin', an' she said Jasper Webb
+swore like rips when the administrator tol' 'im the trade wus closed
+with Luke as yore agent.  You orter do well with the investment; you
+got it cheap; you know how to keep up stock, an' the hack-line will pay
+with the mail it carries an' the passenger travel twixt heer an'
+Darley."
+
+"I'm satisfied," he said, and he took the saddle and bridle from his
+horse and turned the animal into the little log stable.
+
+"Hain't you goin' to feed 'im?" she asked, hospitably, as he was
+closing the door; "the's some fodder overhead, an' the corn is in re'ch
+through the crack above the trough."
+
+"Not yet," he returned; "I fed him some shelled corn at the shop.  I'll
+give him a few ears at supper-time."
+
+The slanting rays of the sun streamed from a saffron sky in the west
+and blazed in the red, yellow, and pink foliage on the mountain-side.
+The light brought into clearer outline the brown peaks and beetling
+crags that rose bleak and bare above the wealth of color, beyond the
+dark, evergreen stretches of pines and mountain cedars.  The gorgeous
+tail of a peacock spread and gleamed under the cherry-trees in the back
+yard.  A sleek calf was running back and forth in a little lot, and a
+brindled cow was bellowing mellowly, her head thrown up as she cantered
+down the road, her heavy bag swinging under her.
+
+At the sight of the woman a flock of ducks, chickens, and geese
+gathered round her.  She shooed the fowls away with her apron.  "They
+want the'r supper," she said, as she led her guest back to the front
+yard.  She went to the gate and looked down the road.  "I see Luke at
+the branch," she added, coming back to him; "he'd be on faster ef he
+knowed you wus heer."
+
+Luke Bradley was about fifty years of age.  He had blue eyes, a long
+body, long arms, and long legs.  His hair was reddish brown and his
+face florid and freckled.  He walked with a shambling gait, stooped
+considerably, and swung his arms.  He seldom wore a coat, and on days
+as mild as this his shirt-sleeves were always rolled up.  He presented
+a striking contrast to John Westerfelt, who, by the people of that
+remote section, might have been considered something of a swell.
+
+"How are you, ol' hoss?" Bradley laughed, as he swung the sagging gate
+open and grasped his friend's hand.  "Glad to see you; I've done
+nothin' but fight tongue battles fer you all day.  Webb has been
+cussin' me black an' blue fer biddin' agin 'im fer a stranger, but
+thar's one consolation--we've got 'im on the hip."
+
+Westerfelt laughed pleasantly as he followed his host into the
+sitting-room.  "Much obliged to you, Luke.  I'm glad I took your advice
+about the investment."
+
+"Me'n Marthy wus both dead set on gettin' you over heer," Luke said, as
+he placed a chair for Westerfelt in front of the fire.  "Both of us
+'low a change will do you good."
+
+Mrs. Bradley sat down in a corner and spread out her ample homespun
+skirt and began to run the hem of her apron through her fat, red
+fingers.
+
+"Me'n Luke's been talkin' it over," she said, with some embarrassment;
+"we 'lowed you mought mebby be willin' to put up with us; we've got a
+spare room, an' you know about how we live.  You've lied unmercifully
+ef you don't like my cookin'," she concluded, with an awkward little
+laugh.
+
+"I never lie," he retorted, smiling.  "It's been a year since I ate at
+your house, but I can taste your slice-potato pie yet, and your
+egg-bread and biscuits, ugh!"
+
+She laughed.  "You'll stay, then?"
+
+"I'm afraid not.  I've packed up some pieces of furniture--a bed and
+one thing or other--and I calculated that I'd occupy the room over the
+stable.  I'd like to be near my business.  I reckon I can get my meals
+down at the hotel.  I'll stay with you to-night, though; the wagon
+won't come till to-morrow."
+
+"Well, I'm disappointed, shore 'nough," said Mrs. Bradley.  "I had
+clean forgot the room at the stable, an' I ought to 'a' knowed, too,
+that Saunders' boys bunked thar.  Well, I won't raise no objections;
+Mis' Boyd, a widow woman, is keepin' the hotel now, and folks say she
+feeds well an' cheap enough.  She's from Tennessee, an's got a
+good-lookin', sprightly daughter.  Nobody knows a thing about 'em; they
+don't talk much about the'rse'ves.  They tuk the hotel when Rick Martin
+sold out last fall, an' they've been thar ever sence."
+
+
+Supper was served in the room adjoining the kitchen.  After it was
+over, Westerfelt and his host went back to the sitting-room.  Alf, a
+colored farm-hand, was heaping logs on the old-fashioned dog-irons in
+the wide fireplace, and a mass of fat pine burning under the wood
+lighted the room with a soft red glow.
+
+Westerfelt looked round him in surprise.  While they were at supper the
+carpet had been taken up, the floor swept clean, and a number of chairs
+placed against the wall round the room.
+
+"Marthy's doin's," Bradley explained, sheepishly; "don't hold me
+accountable; she's arranged to give you a shindig to introduce you to
+the young folks round about."
+
+Just then Mrs. Bradley came in.
+
+"Sweep the hearth, Alf," she said, pointing to a live coal that had
+popped out on the floor.  "Didn't I tell you never to put on them
+chestnut logs?  Do you want to burn the roof over our heads?  Give it
+to me!"  She snatched the unwieldy bundle of broomstraw from him.  "Go
+tell Mis' Snow I'm much obleeged fer the cheers, an' ef I need any more
+I'll send fer um after 'while.  Tell 'er ef she don't let Mary an' Ella
+come I'll never set foot in her house agin."
+
+"What's all this for?" asked Westerfelt.
+
+"_You_."  She slapped him familiarly on the arm.  "I'm goin' to give
+you a mount'in welcome.  This settlement is full o' nice gals, an' you
+hain't the least idee how much excitement thar's been sence the report
+went out that you are gwine to live amongst us.  I'm the most popular
+woman in Cartwright, jest beca'se I know you.  I tell you I've been
+blowin' yore horn.  I've talked a sight about you, an' you must do yore
+best an' look yore purtiest.  Oh, yore clothes is all right!" (seeing
+that he was looking doubtfully at his boots and trousers).  "They
+hain't a dressy set over heer."  Her husband was leaving the room, and
+she waited till he had closed the door after him.  "I want to talk to
+you like a mother, John," she said, sitting down near him and holding
+the bundle of broom between her knees.  "The truth is, I've had a sight
+o' worry over you.  I often lie awake at night thinkin' about you, an'
+wonderin' ef yore ma wouldn't blame me ef she wus alive fer not lookin'
+atter you more.  I've heerd what a solitary life you've been livin'
+sence she died.  God knows she wus a big loss, an' it does bring a
+great change to part with sech a friend, but, from what I heer, you let
+'er death bother you most too much.  Why, folks tell me you hain't at
+all like you used to be, an' that you jest stayed at home an' never
+went about with the young folks any more.  You don't look as well as
+you did the last time I seed you, nuther.  I reckon it's yore way o'
+living but you jest sha'n't do that away over heer.  You've got to be
+natural like other young folks, an' you jest shall, ef I have anything
+to say in the matter.  John, yore mamma was the best friend I ever had,
+an'--"
+
+She paused.  Luke was hallooing to some one down the road, and
+Westerfelt heard the rumble of wheels over a distant bridge.  Mrs.
+Bradley went to the door and went out.
+
+"They are comin', the whole caboodle of 'em!" she cried, excitedly.  "I
+declare, I believe I enjoy a party as much as any gal that ever lived,
+an' at my age, too--it's shameful.  I'd be talked about in some
+places."  She laid her hands on the shoulders of her guest, her face
+beaming.  "Now, ef you want to primp up a little an' bresh that
+hoss-hair off'n yore pants, go in yore room.  It's at the end o' the
+back porch.  Alf's already tuck yore saddle-bags thar."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+His room was a small one.  It had a sloping ceiling, and a little
+six-paned window.  A small, oblong stove stood far enough back in the
+capacious fireplace to allow its single joint of pipe to stand upright
+in the chimney.  There was a high-posted bed, a wash-stand, a mirror,
+and a split-bottomed chair.
+
+He sat down in the chair, rested his elbows on his knees, and leaned
+forward.  Despite his determination to begin life anew, he was thinking
+of Sally Dawson's death and burial--the old woman who was leading the
+life of a recluse, and hating all her kind, him in particular.  He put
+his hand in his coat-pocket and drew out a thick envelope containing
+the dead girl's letter, and read it as he had done almost every day
+since it came to him.  It was part of the punishment he was inflicting
+on himself.  He had been tempted a thousand times to destroy the
+letter, but had never done so.  He forgot that a gay party of young
+people were assembling in the next room; he was oblivious of the noise
+of moving chairs, the creaking floor, loud laughter, and the hum of
+voices.  Fate had set him aside from the rest of the world, he told
+himself; he was living two lives, one in the present, the other in the
+past.
+
+Westerfelt was suddenly reminded of where he was by the sound of some
+one tuning a fiddle in the sitting-room.  He put the letter into his
+pocket, rose, and brushed his hair before the mirror.  There was a
+clatter of heavy boots in the entry opposite his door; four or five
+young men had come out to wash their hands in the pans on the long
+shelf; they were passing jokes, laughing loudly, and playfully striking
+at one another.  Two of them clinched arms and began to wrestle.
+Westerfelt heard them panting and grunting as they swayed back and
+forth, till the struggle was ended by one of them shoving the other
+violently against the wall; Westerfelt opened the door.  A stout,
+muscular young giant was pinning a small man to the weather-boarding
+and making a pretence at choking him.
+
+"Lord, H'ram, stop!" gasped the victim; "yore sp'ilin' my necktie an'
+collar."
+
+"'Gin the rules to wear 'em," was the laughing reply.  "Heer, Joe, you
+sprinkle 'im while I hold 'im!"
+
+This command was about to be obeyed, when Mrs. Bradley suddenly
+appeared.
+
+"Boys, boys, behave!" she cried, and as the wrestlers separated she
+continued, apologetically, "I clean forgot thar wusn't a sign of a
+towel on the roller; I wonder what you intended to wipe on; here, take
+this one, an' hang it up when you're through."  Then she turned to
+Westerfelt's door and looked into his room.
+
+"Are you ready, young man?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he replied, coming out.
+
+"Gentlemen," she said, "quit thar a minute!  This is John Westerfelt,
+my old friend.  Mind you look atter yore intrusts.  The boys over in
+Fannin know how to please the gals.  Ef you don't watch sharp he'll cut
+you every one out."
+
+The two men holding the towel between them gave him their moist hands,
+and those at the basins nodded.  Mrs. Bradley drew him into the
+sitting-room.  The buzz of conversation ceased as she introduced him.
+They all rose, bowed, and sat down again, but no one spoke.  He tried
+to detain his hostess, but she would not stay.
+
+"I've got to look atter the rest," she said.  "You must talk to some o'
+these folks.  They didn't come here jest to look at you.  Here, Jennie
+Wynn, turn yore face round, an' give Frank a chance to talk to Lou."
+She whisked off into another room, and Westerfelt found himself facing
+a blushing maiden with a round face, dark hair and eyes.
+
+"Excuse my back," she said over her shoulder to Frank Hansard.
+
+"It _hain't_ as purty as yore face, ef you _have_ got on a new dress,"
+he replied, laughing.
+
+"Hush, Frank; hain't you got no manners?"  She meant that he was
+showing discourtesy by continuing to talk to her when she had just been
+introduced to a stranger.
+
+"You ought not to be hard on him," said Westerfelt; "he must have meant
+what he said."
+
+"You are jest like all the rest, I reckon," she said; "men think girls
+don't care for nothin' but sweet talk."
+
+Just then the old negro fiddler moved into the chimney-corner and raked
+his violin with his bow.  Jennie Wynn knew that he was about to ask the
+couples to take their places for the first dance.  She did not want
+Westerfelt to feel obliged to ask her to be his partner, so she
+pretended to be interested in the talk of a couple on her left.
+
+"Do they dance the lancers?" asked Westerfelt.
+
+"No, jest the reg'lar square dance.  Only one or two know the lancers,
+an' they make a botch of it whenever they try to teach the rest.  Uncle
+Mack cayn't play the music for it, anyway, though he swears he can."
+
+She glanced across the room at a pretty little girl with short curly
+hair, slender body, and small feet, and added, significantly, "Sarah
+Wambush is our brag dancer."
+
+He understood what she meant.  "Too short for a fellow as tall as I am,
+though," he said.
+
+"Git yo' pahtners fer de quadrille!" cried the fiddler, in a sing-song
+voice, quite in harmony with his music.  Westerfelt did not want to
+dance.  He had ridden hard that day, and was tired and miserable, but
+he saw no way of escape.  The party had been given in his honor, and he
+must show appreciation of it.
+
+"Will you dance it with me?" he asked the girl at his side.  "I am not
+a good dancer, and I am stiff from riding to-day."
+
+"Old Mack will soon take that out of you," she laughed, as she gladly
+nodded her acceptance.  She put out her hand to his.  "Quick!" she
+cried; "let's git that place near the door--it's head, and we can be
+opposite Sarah and Nelse Baker."  He followed her across the room.  He
+felt as undignified as if he were romping with a child.  The room was
+not large enough for two sets, so only one of four couples was formed.
+Old Mack noticed that three couples were left sitting, and cried out,
+autocratically, "Double on de sides!"  Two couples sprang eagerly
+forward and took places, leaving one couple alone in a corner.  The
+girl remaining with her partner attracted Westerfelt's attention.  She
+had rich brown hair, deep gray eyes, a small, well-shaped mouth, and a
+rather sad but decidedly pretty face.  There was something very
+graceful and attractive in the general contour of her body--her small
+waist, her broad shoulders and rounding chest, her well-formed head,
+and the artistic arrangement of her abundant hair.  There was
+something, too, in the tasteful simplicity of her gray tailor-made gown
+that reminded Westerfelt of the dress of young ladies he had seen on
+short visits to the larger towns in the State.
+
+Her companion was the most conspicuous person in the room.  He was
+above medium height, and had a splendid physique--broad shoulders,
+muscular limbs, light brown eyes, short brown beard, and long curling
+hair.  He wore a navy-blue sack-coat, large checked trousers tucked in
+the tops of his boots, a gray woollen shirt, and a broad leather belt.
+He was the only man in the room who had not taken off his hat.  It was
+very broad, the brim was pinned up on one side by a little brass
+ornament, and he wore it on the back of his head.
+
+Westerfelt caught the eye of his partner, and asked: "Who is the fellow
+with the hat on?"
+
+"Don't you know him?" she asked, in surprise.  "Why, that's Toot
+Wambush, Sarah's brother."
+
+"Why don't he take off his hat?"
+
+"For want of better sense, I reckon."  Then she laughed, impulsively.
+"I'll tell you why he always keeps it on in the house.  He was at a
+party over at Sand Bank last spring, an'--"
+
+"Han's to yo' pahtners!" cried out Uncle Mack, as he drew his bow
+across three or four strings at once, producing a harmony of bass,
+alto, and treble sounds.  "Salute de lady on yo' right!"
+
+Whack!
+
+The bridge of the fiddle had fallen.  Everybody laughed over Uncle
+Mack's discomfiture, as he rubbed the rosin out of his eyes and
+grunted, half amused, half vexed at the accident.  He held the violin
+between his knees and proceeded to adjust the bridge.
+
+"You were telling me why that fellow keeps on his hat," Westerfelt
+reminded his partner.
+
+"Oh yes!" laughed the girl, "that's so.  Toot's never satisfied if he
+ain't in a row o' some sort.  He will always manage to pick a quarrel
+out of something.  He's mighty troublesome, especially when he's
+drinkin'.  He was pretty full over there that night, an' kept dancin'
+with his hat on.  Mis' Lumpkin, who give the dance, asked 'im quietly
+to take it off an' behave like a gentleman.  That made 'im mad, an' he
+swore he'd die first.  Then some o' the boys tuk Mis' Lumpkin's part,
+an' tol' 'im the hat would come off ur he'd go out.  It 'ud be a treat
+to see Toot Wambush mad if you could feel sure you wouldn't get hit.
+He clamped his hands together behind 'im an' yelled to Uncle Mack to
+stop fiddlin'; then he 'lowed ef any man thar tried to oust 'im he'd
+put windows in 'im.  Frank Hansard, Lum Evans, and Andy Treadwell made
+signs at one another an' closed in on 'im.  They didn't fully realize
+who they had to deal with, though.  I hain't got much use for Toot, but
+he'll fight a circular saw bare-handed.  He backed into a corner over a
+pile o' split pine-knots an' grabbed one that Thad Muntford declared
+wuz shaped like the jaw-bone o' Samson's ass.  It had a long handle an'
+weighed about fifteen pounds.  On my word, it seemed to me he slugged
+Frank and Andy at exactly the same time.  You could 'a' heerd the'r
+skulls pop to the gate.  They both fell kerflop in front of 'im.  That
+left jest Lum Evans facin' 'im 'thout a thing in his hands.  He dodged
+Toot's pine-knot when he swung it at 'im an' then Toot laughed an'
+thowed it down and shook his fists at 'im, an' tol' 'im to come on for
+a fair fisticuff.  Jest then Frank come to an' started to rise, but
+Toot sent 'im back with a kick in the face, an' helt 'im down with 'is
+boot on 'is neck.  Andy backed out of the door, an' then Toot ordered
+Uncle Mack to play, an' tried to get the girls to dance with 'im, but
+nobody would, so he danced by 'isse'f, while Doc White an' Mis' Lumpkin
+worked on the wounded men in the next room.  Since then Toot has al'ays
+wore his hat at dances.  He swore he never would go to one unless he
+did."
+
+Westerfelt laughed.  "Who's the young lady?" he asked.
+
+"Harriet Floyd.  Her mother keeps the hotel.  They 'ain't been here so
+mighty long; they're Tennessee folks."
+
+"Sweethearts?"
+
+"Don't know.  He's 'er very shadder.  I reckon she likes that sort of a
+man; she's peculiar, anyway."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I don't know, but she is."  Jennie shrugged her shoulders.  "She don't
+git on with us.  In a crowd o' girls she never has much to say; it
+always seemed to me she was afraid somebody would find out some'n'
+about 'er.  She never mentions Tennessee.  But she's a great favorite
+with all the boys.  They'd be a string o' 'em round 'er now, but they
+don't want to make Toot mad."
+
+"Right han' ter yo' pahtners," called out Uncle Mack, rapping on the
+back of his fiddle with his bow.  "Salute yo' pahtners; balance all!"
+and the dance began.  "Swing corners!  Fust fo' for'ards, en back agin!"
+
+"Faster, Unc' Mack!" cried Sarah Wambush, as she swung past the old
+negro.  "That hain't the right time!"
+
+"Wait till he gets limbered up," cried Frank Hansard across to her.
+"He hain't drawed a bow in two weeks, an' has been ploughin' a two-hoss
+turnover."
+
+Louder and louder grew the music and the clatter of shoes and boots.
+The air was filled with dust; old Mack's fiddle could hardly be heard
+above his shouts and the laughter of the dancers.  Luke and Mrs.
+Bradley stood in the open door leading to the kitchen, both smiling.
+Mrs. Bradley seemed pleased with the ease with which Westerfelt
+appeared to be adapting himself to the company.
+
+"Git the straws, Luke!" urged Frank Hansard, as the "grand chain"
+brought him near Bradley.  "Give it to us lively."
+
+"I can't beat straws," said Luke.
+
+Hearing this, old Mack uttered a contradictory guffaw, and shook his
+gray wool in high amusement.
+
+"Go on, Luke," said his wife, as she pushed him towards the fiddler;
+"you kin, you know you kin."
+
+Luke edged round between the dancers and the fire, and took two smooth
+sour-wood sticks from Mack's coat-pocket.  The old negro laughed and
+sang all the louder as he held his head to one side and Luke began to
+thrum the strings in time to the music.
+
+"Whoo-ee!" shouted Frank, and the dance waxed faster and more noisy,
+till the exhausted fiddler brought it to an end by crying out:
+
+"Seat yo' pahtners."
+
+Jennie sat down in a row of girls against the wall, and Mrs. Bradley
+came to Westerfelt.
+
+"You must stir round," she said; "I want you to git acquainted.  Come
+over here an' talk to Sarah Wambush."  He followed her across the room.
+Sarah was seated next to Harriet Floyd.  As he sat down near Sarah, he
+fancied that Harriet, whose profile was towards him, gave him a glance
+out of the corner of her eye, but she turned her head and continued
+talking to Toot Wambush.  There was something he liked in the ease of
+her position as she sat, balling her handkerchief in a hand hidden half
+in the pocket of her jacket.  He thought her easily the prettiest girl
+in the room, and he vaguely resented the fact that she was receiving
+marked attention from a man of Wambush's character.
+
+He wanted to knock the fellow's hat off, and tell him that a new man
+had come into the settlement who could not, and would not, stand such
+nonsense in the presence of ladies.
+
+He listened to Sarah's prattle with only half an ear, adding a word now
+and then to keep her tongue going, till another dance was called.
+Nelse Baker asked Sarah to be his partner, and she rose.  Finding
+himself alone, Westerfelt got up.  As he did so, he caught another
+glance from the corner of Harriet Floyd's eye, but she looked away
+quickly.  She thought he was going to ask her to dance with him when he
+turned towards her, but he had decided to invite a little plain girl
+who sat next the wall, hemmed in by the crossed legs of Wambush.  The
+girl flushed over the unexpected attention and rose at once.
+
+"That couple don't seem to be dancing," Westerfelt remarked, with a
+glance at Wambush and Harriet, as he and his partner took a place in
+front of the fire.
+
+"No," she answered.  "Toot sorter sprained his foot at a log-rollin'
+to-day."
+
+"And she won't dance without him, is that it?"
+
+"She would, but none o' the boys won't ask her when Toot's on hand."
+
+"Ah, I see--engaged?"
+
+"No.  I reckon not; but Toot sorter lays claim to 'er though."
+
+"And she don't object?"
+
+She looked up and laughed.  "It don't look much like it, does it?"
+
+"I don't know; I never saw them together before."
+
+"Oh, I see; well, he's her regular stand-by; he takes 'er to all the
+frolics, an' the picnics, an' to meetin'.  He lives out at his
+father's, a mile or so from town, but he gets meals mighty often at the
+hotel."
+
+As the dance began Westerfelt glanced again at Harriet Floyd.  He could
+not explain the interest he had in her.  She was looking straight into
+his eyes, as if she had divined that he was talking about her.  He was
+almost certain that she colored slightly as she glanced on to Mrs.
+Bradley.
+
+Mrs. Bradley smiled and moved towards her, between the wall and the
+flying heels of the revolving circle.  Westerfelt, in turning his "lady
+on the right," came near them as Mrs. Bradley was saying:
+
+"I want you to get acquainted with my Fannin young man, Harriet.  He's
+mighty nice."
+
+At that moment Harriet caught Westerfelt's eye again, and knew that he
+had heard the remark.
+
+She nodded, and said, evasively, "You are having a nice dance, Mrs.
+Bradley; they all seem to be enjoying it very much."
+
+Westerfelt had not heard her voice before, and he liked it.  He noticed
+that she did not leave off her final g's, and that she spoke more
+clearly and correctly than the others.  He concluded that she must have
+received a better education than the average young lady in that
+section.  The dance was nearly ended when Westerfelt saw Wambush bend
+over and whisper something to her.  She nodded, drew her white shawl
+round her shoulders, rose, and followed him out through the kitchen.
+
+"Gone to try the moonlight," remarked the little gossip at Westerfelt's
+side, with a knowing smile.
+
+"All promenade!" shouted the fiddler, the dance being over.  The
+couples went outside.  They passed Wambush and Harriet on the porch,
+leaning against the banisters in the moonlight.  Her head was covered
+with her shawl, and her companion was very near her.
+
+"Never mind; we won't bother you," called out Sarah Wambush, who, with
+Nelson Baker, led the promenaders.  "We're goin' down the walk; you
+needn't run off on our account."
+
+All the others laughed, and Sarah, thinking she had said something
+bright, added: "Harriet's got a bad cold, an' Buddy's sprained his
+foot; they're takin' the'r medicine."
+
+This evoked another laugh, but neither Wambush nor his companion heeded
+it.  Westerfelt observed that they turned their backs to the
+promenaders and seemed to be talking earnestly.
+
+"It's cool out here," said Westerfelt's partner as they were returning
+from the walk under the arbor of grape-vines.  "They are all goin'
+inside."
+
+At about twelve o'clock the guests began to leave.  Harriet Floyd,
+followed by Wambush, came in hurriedly after most of the others had
+gone.  Westerfelt was near Mrs. Bradley when she came to say
+good-night.  He heard her say she had enjoyed herself very much, but
+she spoke hurriedly, as if she did not want to be the last to leave.
+Westerfelt watched them go through the gate, but he turned away when
+Wambush put his arm round her waist and lifted her lightly into his
+buggy.
+
+He was sure he would never like the fellow.
+
+
+Just before Westerfelt went to bed, Bradley looked into his room.
+
+"I 'lowed I'd better take a peep at that stove o' yore'n, an' see that
+thar ain't any danger o' fire while we are asleep," he said.  "How'd
+you make out to-night?"
+
+"First rate."
+
+"I 'lowed you wus gittin' on well enough--talked to most all the gals,
+I reckon."
+
+"All but one, I think--that Miss Floyd."
+
+"Ah, Toot's gal; mortgaged property, I reckon, or soon will be; she's
+as purty as red shoes, though, an' as peert as a cricket."
+
+Westerfelt sat down on the side of his bed and drew off his boots.
+
+"What sort of a man is he, Luke?"
+
+"Bad--bad; no wuss in seven States."
+
+"Fighting man?"
+
+"Yes; an' whiskey an' moonshinin' an' what not; ain't but one good
+p'int in 'im, an' that hain't wuth much in time o' peace.  I reckon ef
+yo're through with it, I'd better take yore candle; sometimes I have to
+strike a light 'fore day."
+
+"All right."  Westerfelt got into the bed and drew the covers up to his
+chin.  There was a thumping on the floor beneath the house.
+
+"It's the dogs," explained Luke, at the door.  "They are a-flirtin'
+the'r tails about.  They'll settle down terrectly.  What time do you
+want to rise in the mornin'?"
+
+"When you do.  I'm no hand to lie in bed."
+
+"You'll have to crawl out with the chickens then."
+
+"Luke!"
+
+Bradley turned at the door.  "What is it, John?"
+
+"I don't like Wambush's looks."
+
+Bradley laughed, with his hand over his mouth.  "Nobody else does to
+hurt."
+
+"Do you think he would trifle with the affections of a young girl?"
+
+"Would he?"  Again Bradley laughed.
+
+"Well, I reckon he would; he is a bad man, I tell you.  We'd never 'low
+him to enter our house, ef we could help it, but he'd raise the very
+devil ef he was slighted.  We'd never heer the end of it.  Ef we'd left
+'im out to-night I'd 'a' had 'im to fight out thar in the front yard
+while the party was goin' on.  I wouldn't mind it much, but my wife
+never wanted me in a row."
+
+"This girl he was with to-night, has she father or brothers?"
+
+"No, the's jest her an' 'er mother."
+
+"Isn't it pretty risky for her to go with him so much?"
+
+"Oh, I reckon she kin take care o' herse'f; she has that look to me;
+besides, she's been warned; my wife an' among 'em has talked to her
+plenty o' times.  I reckon she knows what he is well enough.  Do you
+know I had my eye on you an' her to-night?"
+
+"What do you mean, Luke?"  Westerfelt managed to avoid meeting the eye
+of his host as he put the question.  He could not remember ever having
+waited for a reply with more concern.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," smiled Bradley, knowingly; "but somehow you an' her
+seemed to me to be head an' shoulders above the rest o' that silly
+crowd.  The idee just popped into my head that you'd make a spankin'
+team, an' then ag'in" (Bradley laughed) "I tuck notice that you never
+went up to 'er an' talked to her free-like, as you did to most o' the
+rest, an' I remembered I wus jest that big a fool when I fust met
+Marthy.  But you wus a-watchin' of her, though.  I'll bet ef you looked
+at 'er once you did forty times.  As for her, I happen to know some'n
+funny.  You see, I heerd her an' Wambush a-talkin' on the back porch
+when I went out thar to draw up a bucket o' water.  The rope had got
+tangled somehow, an' I had to fix it, an' while I was doin' of it I
+couldn't help heerin' what they said, beca'se Toot wus as mad as a wet
+hen, an' didn't keer a dern who heerd 'im."
+
+"Mad--at her?" ejaculated Westerfelt.
+
+"Yes; it seemed that he had bantered her to say what she thought about
+you, an' she'd up an' told him you wus about the best-lookin' man she'd
+ever seed, an' that you looked like a born gentleman, an' one thing
+anuther.  I couldn't heer all that passed betwixt 'em, but he wus as
+nigh a' explosion as I ever seed 'im git without goin' off.  You'd
+better look out.  He won't do to meddle with.  He's a bad egg--an'
+tricky."
+
+When Bradley had gone, leaving his guest in the dark, Westerfelt found
+himself unable to sleep for thinking of what Luke had said.
+
+"I wonder, really," he mused, "why I didn't talk to her as I did to the
+others, for I certainly wanted to bad enough."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+Westerfelt's room at the stable was at the head of a flight of steps
+leading up from the office.  It had only a single window, but it
+commanded a partial view of several roads leading into the village, and
+a sparse row of houses on the opposite side of the street.  In front of
+the stable stood a blacksmith shop, and next to it, on the right, the
+only store in the village.  The store building had two rooms, the front
+being used for dry-goods, groceries, and country produce, the one in
+the rear as the residence of the storekeeper.  Next to the store, in a
+sort of lean-to, whitewashed shed with green shutters, was a bar-room.
+Farther on in this row, opposite the jail of the place, and partially
+hidden by the thinning foliage of sycamore, chestnut, and mulberry
+trees, was the hotel.  It was the only two-storied building in the
+village.  It had dormer windows in the roof and a long veranda in front.
+
+Somehow this building interested Westerfelt more than any of the
+others.  He told himself it was because he intended to get his meals
+there.  Finally he decided, as he was not to dine that day with the
+Bradleys, that he ought to go over at once and speak to the landlady
+about his board.  As he arranged his cravat before the little
+walnut-framed mirror, which the stable-boys in placing his furniture
+had hung on the wall, together with a hairbrush and a comb tied to
+strings, he wondered, with no little pleasurable excitement, if Harriet
+Floyd had anything to do with the management of the house, and if he
+would be apt to meet her that morning.
+
+Descending to the office on his way out, he found a young man writing
+at a desk.  It was William Washburn, the book-keeper for the former
+owners of the livery-stable, whom Westerfelt had retained on Bradley's
+recommendation.  Washburn was copying accounts from a ledger on to
+sheets of paper.
+
+"How are they running?" asked Westerfelt, looking over the young man's
+shoulder.
+
+"Lots of 'em hain't wuth the paper they are on," replied Washburn.
+"The old firm knowed everybody in creation, an' never could refuse a
+soul.  When you bought the accounts you didn't buy gold dollars."
+
+"I know that, but Bradley said he thought I might collect a good many
+of them."
+
+"Oh yes; maybe a half, or tharabouts."
+
+"Well," said Westerfelt, indifferently, "we'll do the best we can."
+
+"Thar's a big un that's no good."  Washburn pointed to an account he
+had just copied.
+
+"Who's it on?"
+
+"Toot Wambush."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Seventy-eight dollars an' fifty cents.  It's been runnin' on fer two
+yeer, an' thar hain't a single credit on it.  He never was knowed to
+pay a cent to nobody."
+
+"Don't let anything out to him till the account is paid."
+
+Washburn looked up with a dubious smile.  "He'll raise a' awful row.
+He never wants to go anywhar tell he's drinkin', an' then he's as ill
+as a snake an' will fight at the drop of a hat.  Nobody in Cartwright
+dares to refuse 'im credit."
+
+"I will, if he doesn't pay up."
+
+"D' y' ever see 'im?"
+
+"Yes, last night."
+
+"I'd be cautious if I wus you; he's a dangerous man, an' takes offence
+at the slightest thing."
+
+"If he gets mad at me for refusing to let him drive my horses when he
+owes a bill like that, and won't pay it, he can do so.  I obey the law
+myself, and I will not let drunkards run my business to suit
+themselves."
+
+"He's talking 'bout goin' out to his father's this morning, an' wants
+to drive the same rig he had last night."
+
+"I did not know he had my turnout last night."
+
+"Yes, you wusn't heer, an' I knowed he'd make trouble if I refused him."
+
+"That's all right, but don't let him get in any deeper till the old
+debt is settled.  I'm going over to the hotel a minute."
+
+It was a warm day for October, and the veranda of the hotel was crowded
+with loungers, homely men in jeans, slouched hats, and coarse brogans.
+Some of them sat on the benches, supported by the square columns, at
+the end of the veranda; a few had tilted their chairs against the wall,
+and others stood in groups and talked county politics.
+
+They all eyed Westerfelt curiously, and some of them nodded and said
+"Howdy do" as he passed.  He entered the parlor on the right of the
+long hall which ran through the centre of the main wing.  A slovenly
+negro girl was sweeping the hearth.  She leaned her broom against the
+cottage organ and went to call her mistress.
+
+A sombre rag carpet was on the floor, and a rug made of brilliant red
+and blue scraps of silk lay in front of the fire.  On a centre-table,
+covered with a red flannel cloth, stood a china vase, filled with
+colored leaves and grasses, and lying near it was a plush photograph
+album.  The rest of the furniture consisted of an ancient hair-cloth
+sofa, an old rocking-chair, the arms of which had been tied on with
+twine, and a sewing-machine.  The windows had cheap lace curtains,
+stiff enough to stand alone, and green shades with tinselled
+decorations.  The plastered walls were whitewashed and the ceiling was
+faded sky-blue.
+
+He heard a door close somewhere in the rear, and then with a light step
+Harriet Floyd entered.
+
+"Good-morning," she said, slightly embarrassed.  "Mother was busy, and
+so she asked me to come in."
+
+"I believe we were introduced, in a general way, last night," he said.
+"I hope you remember."
+
+"Oh yes, indeed," she made answer.
+
+He thought she was even prettier in the daylight in her simple calico
+dress and white apron than she had appeared the evening before, and he
+was conscious that the sharp realization of this fact was causing him
+to pause unnecessarily long before speaking in his turn.  But he simply
+could not help it; he experienced a subtle pleasure he could not
+explain in watching her warm, slightly flushed face.  Her eyes held a
+wonderful charm for him.  There seemed to be a strange union of forces
+between her long lashes and the pupils of her eyes, the like of which
+he believed he had never met before.
+
+"I've come to see if I can get my meals here," he said.  "It is near my
+place of business, and I've heard a lot of good things about your
+mother's table."
+
+"We always have plenty of room," she answered, simply.  "Mother will be
+glad to have you.  Won't you take a seat?"  She sat down on the sofa
+and he took a chair opposite her.
+
+"I suppose you enjoyed the party last night," he said, tentatively.
+
+He fancied she raised her brows a little and glanced at him rather
+steadily, but she looked down when she replied.
+
+"Yes; Mrs. Bradley always gives us a good time."
+
+"But you were not dancing."
+
+"No, I don't care much for it, and Toot--Mr. Wambush--had sprained his
+foot and said he'd rather not dance."
+
+"That was very kind of you.  Not many girls would be so considerate of
+a fellow's feelings."
+
+She looked down at a brindled cat that came into the room and rubbed
+its side against her skirt.
+
+"I don't think girls care enough about the feelings of men," she
+answered, after a little pause.  "If they would treat them nicer they
+would be better."
+
+"You think women can reform men then?"
+
+"Yes, I do; though a man that drinks is mighty hard to manage.
+Sometimes they can't help it, and they drink more when women show that
+they have lost confidence in them."
+
+He liked what she had said, notwithstanding its being an indirect
+defence of Wambush, but was prevented from answering by hearing his
+name angrily called in the street.  This was followed by heavy
+footsteps on the veranda.
+
+"Whar is that d----d livery man?"  The voice was now in the hall.
+
+"It's Toot Wambush!" cried the girl, rising quickly and turning to the
+door.  "I am afraid he--"  Just then the young ruffian entered.  His
+red face and unsteady walk showed that he had been drinking.
+
+"Say, Miss Harriet, have you seed--oh, heer you are!"--he broke off as
+he noticed Westerfelt.  "You are the one man in the United Kingdom that
+I want to see jest at this present moment.  Bill Washburn 'lowed he had
+orders from you not to let me have anything out'n yore shebang; is that
+so?"
+
+"I'd rather not talk business here," replied Westerfelt.  He rose and
+coolly looked Wambush in the face.  "If you say so, we'll walk across
+to the stable."
+
+"No," sneered Wambush, "this heer's good enough fur me; I hain't got no
+secrets frum them mount'in men out thar nur this young lady.  I jest
+want ter know now--right _now_, by Glory! ef you ever give sech orders."
+
+"Do you think this is a proper place to settle such a matter?" calmly
+asked Westerfelt.
+
+"D----d you; you are a coward; you are afeerd to say so!"
+
+Harriet Floyd, with a white, startled face, tried to slip between the
+two men, but Wambush roughly pushed her aside.
+
+"You _are_ afeerd!" he repeated, shaking his fist in Westerfelt's face.
+
+"No, I'm not," replied Westerfelt.  The corners of his mouth were drawn
+down and his chin was puckered.  "I have fought some in my life, and
+sometimes I get as mad as the next one, but I still try to be decent
+before ladies.  This is no place to settle a difficulty."
+
+"Will you do it outside, then?" sneered Wambush.
+
+Westerfelt hesitated, and looked at the crowd that filled the door and
+stood peering in at the window.  Mrs. Floyd was running up and down in
+the hall, excitedly calling for Harriet, but the crowd was too anxious
+to hear Westerfelt's reply to notice her.
+
+"If nothing else will suit you, yes," answered Westerfelt, calmly.  "I
+don't think human beings ought to spill blood over a matter of
+business, and I don't like to fight a man that's drinking, but since
+you have behaved so in this lady's presence, I'm really kinder in the
+notion."
+
+"Come on, then," blustered Wambush.  "I'm either yore meat or you are
+mine."  He turned to the door and pushed the crowd before him as he
+stamped out of the hall into the street.
+
+Harriet ran between Westerfelt and the door.  She put her hands on his
+shoulders and looked at him beseechingly.  "Don't go out there," she
+pleaded; "stay here and let him cool off; he is drinking!  He's a
+dangerous man."
+
+He took her hands and held them for an instant and then dropped them.
+"I'm afraid he's been humored too much," he smiled.  "I'd never have
+any respect for myself if I was to back down now.  I've known his kind
+to be cured by a good, sound thrashing, when nothing else would do any
+good."
+
+She raised her hands again, but he avoided her gently and went out into
+the street.  Wambush stood on the sidewalk a few yards from the door,
+one booted foot on the curbstone, the other on the ground.  He had
+thrown his broad-brimmed hat on the ground, and tossed his long hair
+back over his shoulders.  His left hand rested on his raised knee, his
+right was in the pocket of his short coat.
+
+"Come on, if you ain't too weak-kneed," he jeered, as Westerfelt
+appeared on the veranda.
+
+Westerfelt advanced towards Wambush, but when he was within a few feet
+of him, Wambush suddenly drew a revolver, cocked it, and deliberately
+raised it.  Westerfelt stopped and looked straight into Wambush's eyes.
+
+"I'm unarmed," said he; "I never carry a pistol; is that the way you do
+your fighting?"
+
+"That's yore lookout, not mine, d----n you!"
+
+Just then Luke Bradley ran up the sidewalk and out on the veranda near
+Westerfelt.  He had a warning on his lips, but seeing the critical
+situation he said nothing.  A white, tigerish look came into the face
+of Westerfelt.  The cords of his neck tightened as he leaned slowly
+towards Wambush.  He was about to spring.
+
+"Don't be a fool, John," cautioned Bradley.  "Be ashamed o' yorese'f,
+Toot!  Drap that gun, an' fight like a man ur not at all!"
+
+Wambush's eye ran along the revolver, following every movement of
+Westerfelt's with the caution of a panther watching dangerous prey.
+
+"One more inch and you are a dead man!" he said, slowly.
+
+Mrs. Floyd, who was on the veranda, cried out and threw her arms round
+Harriet, who seemed ready to run between the two men.  No one quite saw
+how it happened, but Westerfelt suddenly bent near the earth and sprang
+forward.  Wambush's revolver went off over his head, and before he
+could cock it again, Westerfelt, with a swift sweep of his arm, had
+sent it spinning through a window-pane in the hotel.
+
+"Ah!" escaped somebody's lips in the silent crowd, and the two men,
+closely on the alert, faced each other.
+
+"Part 'em, men; what are you about?" cried Mrs. Floyd.
+
+"Yes, part 'em," laughed a man on the edge of the crowd; "somebody 'll
+get his beauty spiled; Toot kin claw like a pant'er; I don't know what
+t'other man kin do, but he looks game."
+
+"No, let 'em fight it out fa'r an' squar'," suggested red-faced Buck
+Hillhouse, the bar-keeper, in the autocratic tone he used in conducting
+cock-fights in his back yard.
+
+The blood had left Westerfelt's face.  Wambush's eyes gleamed
+desperately; disarmed, he looked less a man than an infuriated beast.
+Westerfelt was waiting for him to make the attack, but, unlike his
+antagonist, was growing calmer every second.  All at once Wambush sent
+his right arm towards Westerfelt's face so quickly that the spectators
+scarcely saw it leave his side, but it was not quicker than
+Westerfelt's left, which skilfully parried the thrust.  Then, before
+Toot could shield himself, Westerfelt struck him with the force of a
+battering-ram squarely in the mouth.
+
+Wambush whined in pain, spat blood from gashed lips, and shook his head
+like a lion wounded in the mouth.  He ran backward a few feet to
+recover himself, and then, with a mad cry, rushed at Westerfelt and
+caught him by the throat.  Westerfelt tried to shake him off, but he
+was unsuccessful.  He attempted to strike him in the face, but Wambush
+either dodged the thrusts or caught them in his thick hair.  It seemed
+that Westerfelt's only chance now was to throw his assailant down, but
+his strength had left him, Wambush's claws had sunk into his neck like
+prongs of steel.  He could not breathe.
+
+"Hit 'im in the bread-basket, John!" cried Luke Bradley.
+
+It was a happy suggestion.  Westerfelt struck Wambush in the stomach.
+With a gasp and an oath, Wambush doubled up and released Westerfelt's
+throat.  The two men now clinched breast to breast, and, with arms
+round each other's bodies, each began to try to throw the other down.
+They swung back and forth and from side to side, but they were well
+mated.
+
+Westerfelt suddenly threw his left leg behind Wambush's heels and began
+to force him backward.  In an instant Wambush would have gone down, but
+seeing his danger he wriggled out of Westerfelt's grasp, drew something
+from his coat pocket, and sprang towards him.
+
+"Knife! knife! knife!" cried Luke Bradley in alarm.  "Part 'em!"
+
+"Yes, part 'em!" echoed the bar-keeper with an oath, as if the edge of
+his pleasure had been taken off by the more serious turn of affairs.
+Several men ran towards Wambush, but they were not quick enough.  He
+had stabbed Westerfelt once in the breast and drawn back his arm for
+another thrust, when Luke Bradley caught his wrist.  Wambush struck at
+Bradley with his left hand, but the bar-keeper caught it, and between
+him and Bradley, Wambush was overpowered.
+
+"The sheriff's coming!" a voice exclaimed, as a big man rode up quickly
+and dismounted.
+
+"Hello!" he cried, "I summon you, Buck Hillhouse, and Luke Bradley, in
+the name o' the law to 'rest Wambush.  Take that knife from 'im!"
+
+"Arrest the devil!" came from Wambush's bloody lips.  He made a violent
+effort to free himself, but the two men held him.
+
+"I'll he'p yer, whether you deputize me or not!" grunted Bradley, as he
+hung to the hand which still held the knife, "I'll he'p yer cut 'is
+d----d throat, the cowardly whelp!"
+
+"I've got nothin' 'gin nuther party," said the bar-keeper, "but I
+reckon I'll have to obey the law."
+
+"He's attempted deliberate murder on a unarmed man," Bradley informed
+the sheriff; "fust with a gun an' then with a knife.  Ef you don't jail
+'im, Bale Warlick, you'll never hold office in Cohutta Valley agin."
+
+The sheriff stepped up to Wambush.
+
+"Drap that knife!" he ordered.  "Drap it!"
+
+"Go to h----!"  Toot ceased his struggling and glared defiantly into the
+face of the sheriff.
+
+"Drap that knife!"  The sheriff was becoming angered.  He grasped
+Wambush's hand and tried to take the knife away, but Toot's fingers
+were like coils of wire.
+
+"I'll see you damned fust!" grunted Wambush, and, powerless to do
+anything else, he spat in the sheriff's face.
+
+"d----n you, I'll kill you!" roared Warlick, and he struck Wambush on the
+jaw.  Wambush tried to kick him in the stomach, but Bradley prevented
+it by jerking him backward.  It now became a struggle between three men
+and one, and that one really seemed equal in strength to the other
+three.
+
+"Drap the knife!" yelled Warlick again, and he drew a big revolver, and
+with the butt of it began to hammer Toot's clinched fingers.  As he did
+this, Bradley and Hillhouse drew Wambush backward and down to the
+ground.
+
+"I'll pay you for this, Bale Warlick," he groaned in pain, but he still
+held to the knife.
+
+"Let go that knife," thundered the sheriff.  "Let it a-loose, I tell
+you, or I'll mash your skull!"
+
+"Not while I hold 'im, Bale," said the bar-keeper, sullenly.  "Law or
+no law, I won't he'p beat no man 'at's down!"
+
+"Let go that knife!"  The sheriff spoke the last word almost in a
+scream, and he beat Wambush's knuckles so furiously that the knife fell
+to the ground.
+
+He then pinned Toot's legs to the earth with his knees, and held the
+knife up to a man in the crowd.
+
+"Keep it jest like it is fur evidence," he panted.  "Don't shet it up
+or tetch the blade."
+
+Disarmed, Wambush seemed suddenly overcome with fear.  He allowed the
+sheriff to jerk him to his feet, and walked passively between the three
+men across the street to the stone jail.
+
+Westerfelt stood alone on the sidewalk.  Everybody went to see Wambush
+locked up except Harriet and her mother.  They instantly came out to
+Westerfelt.  Harriet picked up a folded piece of letter paper.
+
+"Did you drop this?" she asked.
+
+He did not reply, but took the paper absently and thrust it into his
+coat pocket.  It had fallen from Wambush's pocket.  He was very white
+and leaned heavily against a sycamore-tree.
+
+"Oh, he's cut your coat; look!" Harriet cried.
+
+Still he did not speak.  He looked down at the slit in the cloth and
+raised his hand towards it, but his arm fell limply and he swayed from
+side to side.
+
+"Are you hurt?" asked Mrs. Floyd, anxiously.
+
+"I think not," he said; "but maybe I am, a little."
+
+Harriet opened his coat and screamed, "Oh, mother, he's cut!  Look at
+the blood!"
+
+He tried to button his coat, but could not use his fingers.  "Only a
+scratch," he said.
+
+"But your clothes are wet with blood," Harriet insisted, as she pointed
+to his trousers.
+
+He stooped and felt them.  They were damp and heavy.  Then he raised
+his heel in his right boot, and let it down again.
+
+"It's full," he said, with a sickly smile.  "I reckon I _have_ lost
+some blood.  Why--why, I didn't feel it."
+
+Martin Worthy, the storekeeper, ran across from the jail ahead of the
+others.  Hearing Westerfelt's remark, he cried:
+
+"My Lord! you must go inside an' lie down; fix a place, Miss Harriet,
+an' send fer a doctor, quick!"
+
+Harriet ran into the house, and Mrs. Floyd and Worthy supported
+Westerfelt between them into a room adjoining the parlor.  They made
+him lie on a bed, and Worthy opened his waistcoat and shirt.
+
+"Good gracious, it's runnin' like a wet-weather spring," he said.
+"Have you sent fer a doctor?" he asked as Harriet came in.
+
+"Yes; Dr. Lash, but he may not be at his office."
+
+"Send for Dr. Wells," he ordered a man at the door.  "That's right," he
+added to Harriet, who had knelt by the bed and was holding the lips of
+the wound together, "keep the cut closed as well as you kin!  I'll go
+tell 'im to use my hoss."
+
+As he went out there was a clatter of feet on the veranda.  The people
+were returning from the jail.  Westerfelt opened his eyes and looked
+towards the door.
+
+"They'll crowd in here," said Harriet to her mother.  "Shut the door;
+don't let anybody in except Mr. Bradley."
+
+Mrs. Floyd closed the door in the face of the crowd, asking them to go
+outside, but they remained in the hall, silent and awed, waiting for
+news of the wounded man.  Mrs. Floyd admitted Luke Bradley.
+
+"My heavens, John, I had no idea he got such a clean sweep at you!" he
+said, as he approached the bed.  "Ef I'd a-knowed this I'd 'a' killed
+the dirty scamp!"
+
+"I'm all right," replied Westerfelt; "just a little loss of blood."
+But his voice was faint and his eyelids drooped despite his effort to
+keep them open.  Worthy rapped at the door and was admitted.
+
+"Doc Lash has rid out to Widow Treadwell's," he announced.  "He's been
+sent fer, an' ort ter git heer before long.  It'll take a hour to git
+Wells, even ef he's at home."
+
+Harriet Floyd glanced at her mother when she heard this.  Her knees
+ached and her fingers felt stiff and numb, but she dared not stir.
+
+Once Westerfelt opened his eyes and looked down at her.
+
+"Do I hurt you?" she asked, softly.
+
+"Not a bit."  He smiled, and his eyes lingered on her face till their
+lids dropped over them.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+Dr. Lash came a little earlier than he was expected.  The wound was not
+really a fatal one, he said, but if Miss Harriet had not been so
+attentive and skilful in keeping the cut closed, the man would have
+bled to death.
+
+Westerfelt dropped to sleep, and when he awoke it was night.  A lamp,
+the light of which was softened by a pink shade, stood on a
+sewing-machine near the fireplace.  At first he could not recall what
+had happened nor where he was, and he felt very weak and sleepy.  After
+awhile, however, he became conscious of the fact that he was not alone.
+A slight figure was moving silently about the room, now at the
+fireplace, again at a table where some lint, bandages, and phials had
+been left.  The figure approached his bed cautiously.  It was Harriet
+Floyd.  When she saw that he was awake, she started to move away, but
+he detained her.
+
+"I'm a lot of trouble for a new boarder," he said, smiling.  "This is
+my first day, and yet I've turned your house into a fortification and a
+hospital."
+
+"You are not a bit of trouble; the doctor said let you sleep as much as
+possible."
+
+"I don't need sleep; I've been hurt worse than this before."
+
+She put her hand on his brow.  "It'll make you feverish to talk, Mr.
+Westerfelt; go to sleep."
+
+"Did they jail Wambush?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Toughest customer I ever tackled."  He laughed, dryly.
+
+She made no reply.  She went to the fire and began stirring the
+contents of a three-legged pot on the coals.  To see her better, he
+turned over on his side.  The bed slats creaked.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, running to him, "you'll break the stitches, and
+bleed again.  Don't move that way."
+
+He raised the blanket and looked down at his wound.
+
+"I reckon they are holding all right, though I _did_ feel a little
+twinge."
+
+"You have not had any dinner or supper," she went on.  "Dr. Lash said
+if you wanted anything I might give you some gruel and milk.  I've made
+it, and it is keeping warm at the fire.  Will you take some?"
+
+"No, I thank you; I can wait till breakfast.  Then I'll set up at the
+table and eat a square meal; somehow, I'm not hungry.  Wambush objected
+mightily to being jailed, didn't he?"
+
+"You ought not to wait till breakfast," she said, looking at the fire;
+"you'd better let me give you some of this gruel."
+
+"All right; you are the doctor."
+
+She dipped up some of the gruel in a bowl, and, adding some milk to it,
+came back to him.  But she was confronted by a difficulty.  He could
+not eat gruel and milk from a spoon while lying on his back.  He saw
+this, and put his hands on either side of him and started to sit up.
+
+"Oh, don't!" she cried, setting the bowl on the floor and gently
+pushing him back on his pillow; "you must not!"
+
+He laughed.  "Just like a woman.  You surely don't think I'm going to
+lie here for a week, like a sick cat, for such a little scratch.  I've
+lost some blood, that's all."  And before she could prevent it, he had
+drawn himself up and was smiling broadly.
+
+"I can't look after sick folks," she said, in despair.  "The doctor
+will blame me."
+
+"I heard him say if you hadn't held my cut so well I'd have bled to
+death."
+
+"Anybody else could have done it."
+
+"Nobody else didn't."
+
+"Do you want the gruel?  Take it quick, and lie down again; you'll lose
+strength sitting up."
+
+"You'll have to feed me," he said, opening his mouth.  "I'm too blamed
+weak to sit up without propping with my hands, and they don't seem very
+good supports.  Look how that one is wobbling."
+
+She sat down on the edge of the bed, and without a word placed the bowl
+in her lap and her arm round him.  Then neither spoke as she filled the
+spoon and held it to his lips.  She felt him trying to steady his arms
+to keep his weight from her.
+
+"It's really good," he said, as she filled the spoon the second time,
+"I had no idea I was so hungry; you say you made it?"
+
+"Yes; there now, I'll have to wipe your chin; you ought not to talk
+when you are eating."
+
+For several minutes neither spoke.  He finished the bowl of gruel and
+lay down again.
+
+"I feel as mean as a dog," he said, as she rose and drew the cover over
+him; "here I am being nursed by the very fellow's sweetheart I tried my
+level best to do up."
+
+She turned and placed the bowl on the table, and then went to the fire.
+
+"I heard you were his girl last night," he went on.  "Well, I'm glad I
+didn't kill him.  I wouldn't have tried in anything but self-defence,
+for even if he did use a gun and knife, when I had none, he's got
+bulldog pluck, and plenty of it.  Do you know, I felt like mashing the
+head of that sheriff for beating him like he did."
+
+She sat down before the fire, but soon rose again.  "If I stay here,"
+she said, abruptly, and rather sharply, "you'll keep talking, and not
+sleep at all.  I'm going into the next room--the parlor.  If you want
+anything, call me and I'll come."
+
+A few minutes after she left him he fell asleep.  She put a piece of
+wood on the fire in the next room and sat down before it.  She had left
+the door of his room ajar, and a ray of light from his lamp fell across
+the dark carpet and dimly illuminated the room.  The hours passed
+slowly.  No one in the house was astir.  No sound came from the outside
+save the dismal barking of a dog down the road.  She was fatigued and
+almost asleep, when she was suddenly roused by a far-off shout.
+
+"Whoopee!  Whoopee!"
+
+It seemed to come from the road leading down from the loftiest mountain
+peak.  She held her breath and listened.
+
+"Whoopee!  Whoopee!"  It was nearer.  Then she heard the steady tramp
+of horses' hoofs.  She rose and went to the window, moving softly, that
+her ear might not lose any of the sounds.  She raised the window
+cautiously and looked out.  The moon was shining brightly, and down the
+street beyond the livery-stable she saw a body of horsemen.
+
+"Great Heavens!" she exclaimed; "it's the 'Whitecaps'!"
+
+She drew back behind the curtains as the horsemen rode up to the hotel
+and stopped.  There were twenty or more, and each wore a white cap, a
+white mask, and a white sheet over the body.
+
+"Thar's whar the scrimmage tuck place," explained some one in a muffled
+voice, and a white figure pointed to the spot where Westerfelt and
+Wambush had fought.  "We must hurry an' take 'im out, an' have it over."
+
+Harriet Floyd heard some one breathing behind her.  It was Westerfelt.
+His elbow touched her as he leaned towards the window and peered out.
+"Oh, it's you!" she cried.  "Go back to bed, you--"
+
+He did not seem to hear her.  The moonlight fell on his face.  It was
+ghastly pale.  He suddenly drew back beside her to keep from being
+observed by the men outside.  His lips moved, but they made no sound.
+
+"Go back to bed," she repeated.  She put out her hand and touched him,
+but she did not look at him, being unable to resist the fascination of
+the sight in the street.
+
+"What do they want?" he whispered.  He put his hand on an old-fashioned
+what-not behind him, and the shells and ornaments on it began to rattle.
+
+"I don't know," she said; "don't let 'em see you; you couldn't do
+anything against so many.  They are a band sworn to protect one
+another."
+
+"His friends?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah, I see."  He glanced at the two doors, one opening into the hall,
+the other into his room, and then he swayed and clutched the curtain.
+
+She caught his arm and braced him up.  "Oh, you _must_ go lie down;
+you'll--"
+
+A noise outside drew her back to the window.  The band was crossing the
+street to the jail.
+
+"What are they going to do?"  He steadied himself, resting his hand on
+her shoulder, and looked through a pane above her head.
+
+"To take Toot out."
+
+"An' then he'll lead them, won't he?"
+
+"I don't know!  I reckon so--oh, I can't tell!"  She faced him for an
+instant, a look of helpless indecision in her eyes; then she turned
+again to the window.
+
+"I'll go slip on my coat," he said.  "I--I'm cold.  I'd better get
+ready.  You see, he may want to--call me out.  I wish I had a gun--or
+something."
+
+She made no answer, and he went into his room.  He turned up the lamp,
+but quickly lowered it again.  He found his coat on a chair and put it
+on.  He wondered if he were actually afraid.  Surely he had never felt
+so before; perhaps his mind was not right--his wound and all his mental
+trouble had affected his nerves, and then a genuine thrill of horror
+went over him.  Might not this be the particular form of punishment
+Providence had singled out for the murderer of Sally Dawson--might it
+not be the grewsome, belated answer to her mother's prayer?
+
+Just then Harriet entered the room softly and turned his light down
+still lower.
+
+"Stay back here," she said, her tone almost a command.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"If they get Toot out, it would be just like him to try to--  You--you
+are not strong enough to get out of their way.  Oh, I don't know what
+to do!" She went back to the window in the next room.  He followed her,
+and stood by her side.
+
+The white figures had dismounted at the jail.  They paused at the gate
+a moment, then filed into the yard and stood at the door.  The leader
+rapped on it loudly.
+
+"Hello in thar, Tarpley Brown, show yorese'f!" he cried.
+
+There was a silence for a moment.  In the moonlight the body of men
+looked like a snowdrift against the jail.  The same voice spoke again:
+
+"Don't you keep us waitin' long, nuther, Tarp.  You kin know what sort
+we are by our grave-clothes ef you'll take the trouble to peep out o'
+the winder."
+
+"What do you-uns want?"  It was the quavering voice of the jailer, from
+the wing of the house occupied by him and his family.
+
+His voice roused a sleeping infant, and it began to cry.  The cry was
+smothered by some one's hand over the child's mouth.
+
+"You know what we-uns want," answered the leader.  "We come after Toot
+Wambush; turn 'im out, ef you know what's good fer you."
+
+"Gentlemen, I'm a sworn officer of the law, I--"
+
+"Drap that!  Open that cell door, ur we'll put daylight through you."
+
+This was followed by the low, pleading voice of the jailer's wife,
+begging her husband to comply with the demand, and the wailing of two
+or three children.
+
+"Wait, then!" yielded the jailer.  Westerfelt heard a door slam and
+chains clank and rattle on the wooden floor; a bolt was slid back, the
+front door opened, and the white drift parted to receive a dark form.
+
+"Whar's my hoss?" doggedly asked Toot Wambush.
+
+"Out thar hitched to the fence," answered the leader.
+
+"You-uns was a hell of a time comin'," retorted Wambush.
+
+"Had to git together; most uv us never even heerd uv yore capture tell
+a hour by sun.  Huh, you'd better thank yore stars we re'ched you when
+we did."
+
+The band filed out of the gate and mounted their horses.  Toot Wambush
+was a little in advance of the others.  He suddenly turned his horse
+towards the hotel.
+
+Westerfelt instinctively drew back behind the curtain, Harriet caught
+his arm and clung to it.
+
+"Go to your room!" she whispered.  "You'd better; you must not stay
+here."  He seemed not to hear; he leaned forward and peered again
+through the window.  The leader and Wambush had just reined their
+horses in at the edge of the sidewalk.
+
+"Come on, Toot; whar you gwine?" asked the leader.
+
+"I want to take that feller with us; I'll never budge 'thout him, you
+kin bet your bottom dollar on that."
+
+"He's bad hurt--'bout ter die; don't be a fool!"
+
+"Huh!  Doc Lash sent me word he was safe.  I didn't hurt 'im; but he
+did me; he damaged my feelings, and I want to pay 'im fer it.  Are you
+fellers goin' back on me?"
+
+"Not this chicken," a voice muttered, and a white form whipped his
+horse over to Wambush's.  "I'm with you," said another.  Then there was
+a clamor of voices, and all the gang gathered round Wambush.  He
+chuckled and swore softly.  "That's the stuff!" he said.  "Them's
+Cohutta men a-talkin'; you kin bet yore sweet life."
+
+Harriet turned to Westerfelt.  "They are drinking," she said.  "Haven't
+you got a pistol?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You stay here then; don't let them see you; I'm going up-stairs and
+speak to Toot from the veranda.  It's the only chance.  Sh!"
+
+She did not wait for a reply, but opened the door noiselessly and went
+out into the hall.  He heard the rustle of her skirts as she went up
+the stairs.  A moment later the door leading to the veranda on the
+floor above opened with a creak, and she appeared over the heads of the
+band.
+
+"Toot!  Toot Wambush!" she called out in a clear, steady voice.  "I
+want to speak to you!"
+
+Wambush, in a spirit of bravado, had just ridden on to the veranda, and
+could hear nothing above the thunderous clatter of his horse's hoofs on
+the floor.
+
+"Here, thar, you jail-bird, yore wanted!" cried out the leader.  "Stop
+that infernal racket!"
+
+"What is it?" asked Wambush, riding back among his fellows.
+
+"Toot Wambush!" Harriet repeated.
+
+He looked up at her.  "What do you want?" he asked, doggedly, after
+gazing up at her steadily for a moment.
+
+"Get away as fast as you can," she replied.  "His wound has broke
+again.  He's bleeding to death!"
+
+"Well, that's certainly good news!"  Wambush did not move.
+
+"You'd better go," she urged.  "It will be wilful murder.  You made the
+attack.  He was unarmed, and you used a pistol and a knife.  Do you
+want to be hung?"
+
+He sat on his horse silent and motionless, his face upraised in the
+full moonlight.  There was no sound except the champing of bits, the
+creaking of saddles.
+
+"Come on, Toot," urged the leader in a low tone.  "You've settled yore
+man's hash; what more do you want?  We've got you out o' jail, now let
+us put you whar you'll be safe from the law."
+
+Wambush had not taken his eyes from the girl.  He now spoke as if his
+words were meant for her only.
+
+"If I go," he said, "will you come?  Will you follow me?  You know I'm
+not a-goin' to leave 'thout you, Harriet."
+
+It seemed to Westerfelt that she hesitated before speaking, and at that
+moment a realization of what she had become to him and what she
+doubtless was to Wambush came upon him with such stunning force that he
+forgot even his peril in contemplating what seemed almost as bad as
+death.
+
+"This is no time nor place to speak of such things," he heard the girl
+say, finally.  "Go this minute and save yourself while you can."
+
+"Hold on, Harriet!" Wambush cried out, as she was moving away.
+Westerfelt could no longer see her, and then he heard her close the
+door and start down-stairs.
+
+"Come on, Toot"--the leader whipped his horse up against that of
+Wambush.
+
+Some of the others had already started away.
+
+Toot did not move.  He was still looking at the spot where Harriet
+Floyd had stood.
+
+"It simply means the halter, you blamed fool!"
+
+Wambush stared into the mask of the speaker, and then reluctantly rode
+away.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+When Harriet returned she found Westerfelt lying face downward on the
+floor.  In his fall he had unconsciously clutched and torn down the
+curtain, and like a shroud it lay over him.  She was trying to raise
+him, when the door opened and her mother appeared.
+
+"What's the matter, Harriet?"
+
+"He has fainted--I don't know, he may be dead.  Look, mother!"
+
+Mrs. Floyd raised Westerfelt's head and turned his face upward.
+
+"No, he's still breathing."  She opened his shirt hastily.  "His wound
+has not broken; we must get him to bed again.  How did he happen to be
+here?"
+
+"He got up as soon as the Whitecaps came; I couldn't persuade him to go
+back."
+
+"We must carry him to the bed," said Mrs. Floyd.  As they started to
+raise him, Westerfelt opened his eyes, took a long breath, and sat up.
+Without a word he rose to his feet, and between them was supported back
+to his bed.
+
+"His feet are like ice," said Mrs. Floyd, as she tucked the blankets
+round him.  "Why did you let him stand there?"
+
+"It wasn't her fault, Mrs. Floyd," explained Westerfelt, with
+chattering teeth.  "I knew they meant trouble, and thought I ought to
+be ready."
+
+"You ought to have stayed in bed."  Her eyes followed Harriet to the
+fireplace.  "No, daughter," she said, "go lie down; I'll stay here."
+
+"I'd rather neither of you would sit up on my account," protested
+Westerfelt; "I'm all right; I'll sleep like a log till breakfast.  I
+don't want to be such a bother."
+
+"You ain't a bit of trouble," replied Mrs. Floyd, in a tone that was
+almost tender.  "We are only glad to be able to help.  When I saw that
+cowardly scamp draw his pistol and knife on you, I could 'a' killed
+him.  I've often told Harriet--"
+
+"Mother, Mr. Westerfelt doesn't care to hear anything about him."
+Harriet turned from the fire and abruptly left the room.  Mrs. Floyd
+did not finish what she had started to say.  Westerfelt looked at her
+questioningly and then closed his eyes.  She went to the fireplace and
+laid a stick of wood across the andirons, and then sat down and hooded
+her head with a shawl.
+
+When Westerfelt awoke it was early dawn.  The outlines of the room and
+the different objects in it were indistinct.  At the foot of his bed he
+noticed something which resembled a heap of clothing on a chair.  He
+looked at it steadily, wondering if it could be part of the strange
+dreams which had beset him in sleep.  As the room gradually became
+lighter, he saw that it was a woman.  Mrs. Floyd, he thought--but no,
+the figure was slighter.  It was Harriet.  She had taken her mother's
+place just before daybreak.  Her head hung down, but she was not
+asleep.  Presently she looked up, and catching his eyes, rose and came
+to him.
+
+"How do you feel now?"  She touched his forehead with her soft, cool
+hand.
+
+"I'm all right; I'll be up to breakfast."
+
+"No, you won't; you must not; it would kill you."
+
+"Pshaw!  That pin-scratch?"  He playfully struck his breast near the
+wound.  "He'd have to cut deeper and rip wider to do me up."
+
+She stifled a cry and caught his hand.
+
+"You must not be so foolish."  She started to turn away, but his
+fingers closed over hers.
+
+"I'm sorry.  I'll mind what you say, because you've been so good to me.
+It seems mighty queer--Toot Wambush's girl takin' care of the very man
+he tried to wipe off of the face of creation.  No wonder he--"
+
+She twisted her hand from his clasp.  "Why do you say _I'm his girl_?"
+
+"Because they all do, I reckon; ain't you?  Last night I heard him ask
+you to follow him."
+
+"You never heard me say I would, did you?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"Well, then!"  She went to the fireplace.  He could not see her, but
+heard her stirring the fire with a poker, and wondered if her movement
+was that of anger or agitation, For several minutes neither of them
+spoke; then she came to him suddenly.
+
+"I forgot," she said; "here's a newspaper and a letter.  Will Washburn
+left them for you."  She gave them to him and went to the window and
+raised the shade, flooding the room with the soft yellowing light from
+the east.  Then she resumed her seat at the fire.
+
+He opened his letter.  The handwriting was very crude, and he did not
+remember having seen it before.  Looking at the bottom of the last
+page, he saw that it was signed by Sue Dawson--Sally Dawson's mother.
+It was not dated, and began without heading of any kind.  It ran thus:
+
+
+"So you left this place fur new pastures.  But I Will be sworn you went
+off cause you could not see the sun ashinin on my Childs grave nor meet
+her old broke down mother face to face.  I have wanted to meet you ever
+since she died, but I helt in.  The reason I sent you word not to come
+to the Funeral was cause I knowed ef I saw you thar I would jump right
+up before the people and drag you with yore yaller Pumpkin face full of
+gilt right up to her Box an make you look at yore work.  It was not out
+of respect fur yore feelings that I did not, nuther, fur I dont respect
+you as much as I do a decent egg-suckin dog, but I was afraid folks
+would suspicion the pore Child's secret, the secret that me an you an
+nobody else knows, that she took her own life to git out of the misery
+you put her in.  She did not want them to know, an they shall not;
+besides, thar are Folks in this cussed Settlement mean enough to
+begrudge her the grave Lot she has becase of what she was driv to.
+
+"Thar is one thing I want you to stop.  I dont want you to hire Peter
+Slogan with Blood money, nur nobody else, to haul wood fur me.  I
+knowed you did send a load, fur he is too lazy to think of anybody but
+hisself without thar was money in it.  I accused him of it after I had
+toted the last Stick back to yore land whar he got it.  He tried to
+deny it, but I saw the lie in his face an shamed it.  Dont you bother
+about me.  I will live a powerful sight longer than you want me to
+before I am through with You.  You will never forgit how Sally died, ef
+you did not look at her pore little face in death nur help the
+neighbors fill her grave up.
+
+"John Westerfelt, you killed my Child as deliberately as ef you had
+choked the life out of her with yore Bare hands.  You hung after her
+night and Day, even after she had been cautioned that you was fickle,
+an then when you got her whole soul an hart you deliberately left her
+an begun flyin around Liz Lithicum.  I know yore sort.  It is the
+runnin after a thing that amuses you, an as soon as you get it you turn
+agin it an spurn it under foot an laugh at it when it strugles in pain.
+Lawsy me.  God Almighty dont inflict good men with that Disease, but
+you will have it nawin at yore Hart tel you run across some huzzy that
+will rule you her way.  Beware, John Westerfelt, you will want to marry
+before long; you are a lonely, selfish Man, an you will want a wife an
+childern to keep you company an make you forget yore evil ways, but it
+is my constant prayer that you will never git one that loves you.  I am
+prayin for that very thing and I believe it will come.  John
+Westerfelt, I am yore Enemy--I am that ef it drags me into the Scorchin
+flames of hell.
+
+"SUE DAWSON."
+
+
+He refolded the letter, put it with quivering fingers back into its
+envelope, and then opened the newspaper and held it before his eyes.
+There was a clatter of dishes and pans in the back part of the house.
+A negro woman was out in the wood-yard, picking up chips and singing a
+low camp-meeting hymn.  Now and then some one would tramp over the
+resounding floor, through the hall to the dining-room.
+
+Harriet went to the door and closed it.  Then she turned to him.  The
+paper had slipped from his fingers and lay across his breast.
+
+"What shall I get for your breakfast?" she asked.  She moved round on
+the other side of the bed, wondering if it was the yellow morning light
+or his physical weakness that gave his face such a depressed, ghastly
+look.
+
+"What did you say?"  He stared at her absently.
+
+"What would you like for breakfast?"
+
+He looked towards his coat that hung on the foot of his bed.
+
+"Don't bother about me; I'm going to get up."
+
+"No, you must not."  She caught his wrist.  "Look how you are
+quivering; you ought not to have tried to read."
+
+He raised the paper again, but it shook so that its rustling might have
+been heard across the room.  She took it from him, and laid it on a
+chair by the bed.  She looked away; the corners of his mouth were drawn
+down piteously and his lips were twitching.
+
+"Please hand me my coat," he said.
+
+"You are not going to get up?"  She sat down on the bed and put her
+hand on his brow.  Her face was soft and pleading.  It held a
+sweetness, a womanly strength he longed to lean upon.
+
+He caught her hand and held it nervously.
+
+"I don't believe I've got a single friend on earth," he said.  "I don't
+deserve any; I'm a bad man."
+
+"Don't talk that way," she replied.  There was something in his
+plaintive tone that seemed to touch her deeply, for she took his hand
+in both of hers and pressed it.
+
+"I don't want to die, for your sake," he said, "for if I was to go
+under, it would be awkward for your--your friend.  He might really have
+to swing for it."
+
+She released his hand suddenly, a pained look in her face.  "Did you
+want to put your letter in your coat pocket?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+She took the coat from a chair, gave it to him, and then went back to
+the fireplace.  He thrust his hand into the pocket and took out Sally
+Dawson's last letter, and put it and her mother's into the same
+envelope.  As he was putting them away he found in the same pocket a
+folded sheet of paper.  He opened it.  It was a letter from John
+Wambush to his son Toot.  Then Westerfelt remembered the paper Harriet
+had picked up and given him in the street after the fight.  Hardly
+knowing why he did so, he read it.  It was as follows:
+
+
+"DEAR TOOT,--Me an yore mother is miserable about you.  We have prayed
+for yore reform day and night, but the Lord seems to have turned a deef
+ear to our petitions.  We hardly ever see you now an we are afraid you
+are goin to git into serious trouble.  We want you to give up
+moonshinin, quit drinkin an settle down.  We both think if you would
+jest git you a good wife you would act better.  I wish you would go an
+marry that girl at the hotel--you know who I mean.  I am as sorry for
+her as I ever was for anybody, for she dont think you love her much.
+She told me all about it the night the revenue men give you sech a
+close shave.  I was standin on the hotel porch when you driv the wagon
+up with the whiskey barrel on it an I heerd them a-lopin along the road
+after you.  I thought it was all up with you for I knowed they could go
+faster than you.  Then I seed her run out on the back porch an help you
+roll the whiskey in the kitchen an close the door.  An when the
+officers com up you was a-settin on the empty wagon talkin to her as if
+nothin had happened.  I heard all the lies she told em about seein
+another wagon go whizzin down the road an I thought it was a great pity
+for her to do it, but she was doin it for a man she loved an I wouldent
+hold that agin her.  A woman that loves as hard as she does would do a
+sight wuss than that if it was necessary.  After you loaded the whiskey
+back on the wagon and got away to the woods, I went round an told her
+what I had seed an she bust out cryin an throwed her arms round my neck
+an said she loved you better than she did her own life an that she
+never would love any other man as long as breeth was in her body.  Son,
+that night she come as nigh beggin me to git you to marry her as a
+proud girl could, an when I left I promised her I would talk to you
+about it.  She's a good girl, Toot, and it would make a man of you to
+marry her.  I like her mighty well an so does yore mother.  Please do
+come out home soon.  It looks like a pity for you to be away so much
+when it worries yore ma like it does.
+
+"Yore affectionate father,
+
+"JOHN WAMBUSH."
+
+
+Westerfelt folded the letter deliberately, and then in a sudden spasm
+of jealous despair he crumpled it in his hand.  He turned his head on
+the side and pressed down his pillow that he might see Harriet as she
+sat by the fire.  The red firelight shone in her face.  She looked
+tired and troubled.
+
+"Poor girl!" he murmured.  "Poor girl!  Oh, God, have mercy on me!  She
+loves him--she loves him!"
+
+She looked up and caught his eyes.  "Did you want anything?" she asked.
+
+He gave the letter to her.  "Burn it, please.  I wish I had not read
+it."
+
+She took it to the fire.  The light of the blazing paper flashed on the
+walls, and then went out.
+
+He remained so silent that she thought he was sleeping, but when she
+rose to leave the room she caught his glance, so full of dumb misery
+that her heart sank.  She went to her mother in the kitchen.  Mrs.
+Floyd was polishing a pile of knives and forks, and did not look up
+until Harriet spoke.
+
+"Mother," she said, "I am afraid something has gone wrong with Mr.
+Westerfelt."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the old lady in alarm.
+
+"I don't know, but he got a letter this morning, and after he read it
+he seemed changed and out of heart.  He gave it to me to burn, and I
+never saw such a desperate look on a human face.  I know it was the
+letter, because before he read it he was so--so different."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Floyd, "it may be only some business matter that's
+troubling him.  Men have all sorts of things to worry about.  As for
+me, I've made a discovery, Harriet, at least I think I have."
+
+"Why, mother!"
+
+Mrs. Floyd put the knives and forks into the knife-box.
+
+"Hettie Fergusson was here just now," she said.
+
+"This early!" exclaimed Harriet, incredulously.  "Why, mother, where
+did she spend the night?"
+
+"At home; that's the curious part about it; she has walked all that
+three miles since daylight, if she didn't get up before and start
+through the dark.  I never could understand that girl.  All the time
+she was working here she puzzled me.  She was so absent-minded, and
+would jump and scream almost when the door would open.  I am glad we
+didn't need her help any longer.  Sometimes I wish she had never come
+to the hotel."
+
+Harriet stared wonderingly at her mother; then she said:
+
+"Did she want to help us again?"
+
+Mrs. Floyd laughed significantly.
+
+"That's what she pretended she wanted, but she didn't have no more idea
+of working here than I have of flying through the air at this minute.
+Harriet, she is dead crazy in love with Toot Wambush.  That is the
+truth about it."
+
+"Why, mother, I can't believe it!" cried Harriet, her brow wrinkling in
+perplexity.  "He hardly ever went with her or talked to her."
+
+"He took her out home with him in a buggy six or seven times to my
+knowledge," declared Mrs. Floyd, "and there's no telling how often he
+saw her at home.  He is awfully thick with her father.  I never was
+fooled in a woman; she is in love with him, and right now she is
+worried to death about him.  She couldn't hide her anxiety, and asked a
+good many round-about questions about where he was gone to, and if we
+knew whether the sheriff was hunting for him now, and if we thought Mr.
+Westerfelt would prosecute him."
+
+Harriet laughed.  "Well, I never dreamt there was a thing between those
+two.  When he asked her to go with him in his buggy out home, I thought
+it was because she lived on the road to his father's, and that he just
+did it to accommodate her, and--"
+
+"Oh, I've no doubt that is what _he_ did it for, darling, but she was
+falling in love with him all the time, and now that he is in trouble,
+she can't hide it.  Do you know her conduct this morning has set me to
+thinking?  The night you and I spent over at Joe Long's I heard Wambush
+came very near being arrested with a barrel of whiskey he was taking to
+town, and that he managed to throw the officers off his track while he
+was talking to Hettie in our back yard.  Do you know it ain't a bit
+unlikely that she helped him play that trick somehow?  They say he was
+laughing down at the store after that about how he gave them the slip.
+I'll bet she helped him."
+
+"If she is in love with him she did, I reckon," returned Harriet,
+wisely.  "I wish he was in love with her.  He is getting entirely too
+troublesome."
+
+"He'll never care a snap for her as long as you are alive," retorted
+the old lady.  "I'm sorry now that I ever let you go with him so much.
+He seems to be getting more and more determined to make you marry him
+whether or no.  He is jealous of Mr. Westerfelt."  Mrs. Floyd lowered
+her voice.  "If he hadn't been, he wouldn't have fought him as he did.
+That is at the bottom of it, daughter, and now that he is a regular
+outlaw I am awfully uneasy.  If I ever get a chance, I'm going to
+convince him that it is useless for him to worry you as he does.  I'd
+rather see you in your grave than married to a man like that."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+It was a week before John Westerfelt was strong enough to leave his
+room in the hotel.  Inflammation of his wound had set in, and at one
+time his condition was thought to be quite critical.
+
+One day Luke Bradley came in his buggy to drive him out to his house.
+
+"Marthy won't heer to a refusal," he said.  "She's powerful' troubled.
+She 'lowed ef we'd 'a' made you stay with us you'd not 'a' been apt to
+'a' met Wambush that day, an' 'a' been laid up like this.  She's jest
+dyin' to git to cook things fer you an' doctor you up."
+
+"I'll go and stay a day, anyway," promised Westerfelt.  He glanced at
+Harriet Floyd, who stood behind the curtains looking out of the window.
+"I don't need any finer treatment than I've had, Luke.  Miss Harriet's
+been better than a sister to me.  She saved my life the other night,
+too.  If she hadn't interfered that gang would have nabbed me as sure
+as preaching, and I was unarmed and too weak to stand rough handling."
+
+Harriet came from the window.  She took the roll of blankets that
+Bradley had brought and held one of them before the fire.
+
+"It's chilly out to-day," she said.  "You'd better wrap him up well,
+Mr. Bradley."
+
+Bradley did not reply.  He heard a noise outside, and went out hastily
+to see if his horse was standing where he had left him.  Westerfelt
+dragged himself from his chair and stood in front of the fire.  He had
+grown thinner during his confinement, and his clothes hung loosely on
+him.
+
+"You have been good to me," he repeated, in a low tone, "and I wish I
+could do something to pay you back."  She said nothing.  She bent over
+and felt the blanket to see if it were scorching, and then turned the
+other side to the fire.
+
+"Mrs. Bradley is a fine nurse," she said, presently.  "She'll take good
+care of you.  Besides, she has a better claim on you than we--mother
+and I--have; she has known you longer."
+
+"I'll tell you the truth," he answered, after studying her face for a
+moment in silence.  "I'd really be willing to get hurt over again for
+an excuse to live here like I have.  I am the loneliest man that was
+ever born--lonely is no name for it.  In the dead hours of the night I
+suffer agonies--you see, I am not a good sleeper.  I have been as near
+insanity as any man that ever lived out of an asylum.  But I have been
+mighty nearly free from all that since you began to nurse me.  I wish
+to God it could go on forever--forever, do you understand?--but it
+can't--it can't.  I have my troubles and you have yours--that is," he
+added, quickly, as she shot a sudden glance of inquiry at him, "I
+reckon you have troubles, most girls do."
+
+"Yes, I have my troubles, Mr. Westerfelt," she said, simply.
+"Sometimes I think I cannot bear mine, but I do."
+
+He said nothing, but his eyes were upon her almost with a look of fear.
+Was she about to tell him frankly of her love for Wambush?
+
+She rolled up one of the blankets and put it on the rug in front of the
+fire, and held up another to be warmed.  He thought he had never seen a
+face so full of sweet, suffering tenderness.  His heart bounded
+suddenly with a thought so full of joy that he could hardly breathe.
+She had driven the outlaw from her heart and already loved him; she had
+learned to love him since he had been there.  He could see it, feel it
+in her every tender word and act, and he--God knew he loved her--loved
+her with his whole wearied soul.  Then the thought of her appeal to old
+John Wambush and the lies she had told that night to save her lover
+struck him like a blow in the face, and he felt himself turning cold
+all over in the embrace of utter despair.  "No, no, no!" he said, in
+his heart, "she's not for me!  I could never forget that--never!  I've
+always felt that the woman I loved must never have loved before, and
+Wambush--ugh!"
+
+She raised her great eyes to his in the mellow firelight, and then, as
+if puzzled by his expression, calmly studied his face.
+
+"You are not going back to that room over the stable, are you?" she
+questioned.
+
+"Yes, to-morrow night."
+
+"Don't do it--it is not comfortable; it is awfully roomy and bare and
+cold."
+
+"Oh, I am used to that.  Many a time I've slept out in the open air on
+a frosty night, with nothing round me but a blanket."
+
+"You could occupy this room whenever it suited you; it is seldom used.
+I heard mother say yesterday that she wished you would."
+
+"I'd better stay there," he answered, moved again by her irresistible
+solicitude, and that other thing in her tone to which he had laid claim
+and hugged to his bruised heart.  He felt an almost uncontrollable
+desire to raise her in his arms, to unbosom his anguish to her, and
+propose that they both fight their battles of forgetfulness side by
+side, but he shrank from it.  The thought of Wambush was again upon him
+like some rasping soul-irritant.
+
+"No, no; I'm going back to the stable," he said, fiercely.  "I will not
+stay here any longer--not a day longer!"
+
+He saw her start, and then she put down the blanket and stood up.  "I
+do not understand you at all, sometimes" she faltered, "not at all."
+
+"But I understand you, God knows," he returned, bitterly.  "Harriet,
+little, suffering, wronged woman, I know something about you.  I know
+what has been worrying you so much since I came here."
+
+She started and an awful look crept into her face.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Westerfelt, do you?"
+
+"Yes, I know it--that's enough now; let's agree never again to speak of
+it.  I don't want to talk about it, and I reckon you don't.  Anyway, it
+can't be helped."
+
+"No, it can't be helped."  Her lips began to twitch and quiver, and her
+eyes went down.
+
+"I understand it all now," she added.  "And I don't blame you.  I told
+mother yesterday that I thought you might suspect--"
+
+"Your mother knows then?"
+
+"Yes, of course," raising her eyes in surprise.
+
+For a moment they were silent.  Westerfelt leaned against the
+mantel-piece; he had never felt such utter despair.  It was like being
+slowly tortured to death to hear her speaking so frankly of the thing
+which he had never been able to contemplate with calmness.
+
+"So you see now that I'd better go back to the stable, don't you?" he
+asked, gloomily.
+
+"I suppose so," she said.  "I suppose you mean that--" but she was
+unable to formulate what lay in her confused mind.  Besides, Luke
+Bradley was coming in.  They heard his heavy tread on the veranda.
+
+"Well, come on, John, ef you are ready," he called out.  "That blamed
+nag o' mine won't stand still a minute."
+
+When Westerfelt had been driven away, and Harriet had watched him out
+of sight down the road, she came back to the fire and sat down in the
+chair Westerfelt had used during his convalescence.  She kept her eyes
+fixed on the coals till her mother entered the room.
+
+"I reckon he thought funny that I didn't come in to tell him good-bye,"
+she said, with a knowing little laugh; "but I'll be bound he was glad I
+didn't.  Even Mr. Bradley had the good sense to go outside."
+
+"Mother, what are you talking about?"
+
+"You know mighty well what I mean," returned Mrs. Floyd, with a smile.
+"I know Mr. Westerfelt is dead in love with you, and goodness knows you
+couldn't fool me about how you feel if you tried.  I was a girl once."
+
+"Mother," said Harriet, "I never want you to mention him to me again,"
+and she put her hands over her face and began to cry softly.
+
+"Why, what is the matter, dear?" the old woman sat down near her
+daughter, now alarmed by her conduct.  Harriet stared her mother in the
+face.  "He knows all about it, mother--he knows I am not your child,
+that nobody knows where I came from.  Oh, mother, I can't stand it--I
+simply cannot.  I wanted him to know, and yet when he told me he knew,
+it nearly killed me."
+
+Mrs. Floyd turned pale.  "There must be some mistake," she said; "no
+one here knows it--and only one or two up in Tennessee."
+
+"There is no mistake," sighed the girl.  "He told me the other day that
+he had relatives in Tennessee.  Oh, mother, more people know it than
+you think.  I have always felt that they knew.  So many have noticed
+that you and I do not look alike."
+
+Mrs. Floyd's eyes were moist and her face was wrung with sympathy.  She
+put her arms around the girl and drew her to her breast.  "I ought
+never to have told you," she said; "but the lawyers knew it, and when
+your papa's estate was wound up it had to be told to a few.  I thought
+you would soon forget it, but you have never stopped thinking about it.
+You are entirely too sensitive, too--"
+
+"Mother, you don't know anything about it," said Harriet.  "When you
+told me I was not your child I actually prayed to die.  It has been the
+only real trouble I ever had.  I never see poor, worthless people
+without thinking that I may be closely related to them, and since Mr.
+Westerfelt has been here and told me about his aristocratic relatives
+and his old family, I have been more unhappy than ever.  I was going to
+tell him some day, but he saved me the trouble."
+
+"I can't imagine how he knew it," gave in Mrs. Floyd, thoughtfully.
+"Perhaps he has had some dealings with our lawyers, though they
+promised not to speak of it.  I thought when we moved down here among
+strangers you'd quit troubling about that.  You know you are as good as
+anybody else, so what is the good of worrying?  You make me very
+unhappy, Harriet.  I feel almost as if I did wrong to bring you up.
+But you know I love you just the same as if you was my own child, don't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, and I love you as if you were my own mother.  I love you more,
+too, when I am in trouble, though I reckon I don't show it; but,
+mother, I am dying to know something about my own flesh and blood.  I'd
+rather know that my blood was good than have all the wealth of the
+earth.  You have let enough out to show me that I must have had very,
+very poor parents."
+
+"I simply said that when they left you at my house you had on rather
+cheap clothing, but you know that was just after the war, when nobody
+could dress their children much."
+
+"But they deserted me," said Harriet; "they could not have been very
+honorable.  I reckon Mr. Westerfelt knows all about it."
+
+"Well, he won't think any the less of you if he does," said Mrs. Floyd.
+"He looks like a born gentleman to me.  You will never see a man like
+him turning against a girl for something she can't help.  You ought not
+to say your parents were not honorable; they may have left you,
+thinking it would be best for you.  We were considered pretty well off
+then."
+
+Harriet made no reply for several minutes, and then she said:
+
+"I think Mr. Westerfelt is the best man I ever knew, but he must be
+like his father some, and he told me that his father, who was a captain
+in the army, refused to ever see his daughter again who married the son
+of his overseer.  She moved to Texas, and died out there.  Mother, the
+legitimate daughter of an overseer would stand higher in any Southern
+community than--"  At this point a sob broke in her voice, and the girl
+could go no further.  Mrs. Floyd rose and kissed her on the cheek.  "I
+see," she said, "that as long as you keep talking about this you will
+search and search for something to worry about.  I'm glad Mr.
+Westerfelt knows about it, though, for he would have to be told some
+day, and now he knows what to count on.  I'll bet you anything he keeps
+on loving you, and--"
+
+"Oh, mother," broke in Harriet, "I don't think he lo--cares that much
+for me; I really do not."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+"By George!" exclaimed Bradley, as they drove away, "you certainly lit
+on your feet when you struck that house.  It looks like it 'ud pay you
+to git stabbed every day in the week; it's paid the community, the Lord
+knows, fer it is shet of the biggest dare-devil that wus ever in it.
+The ol' lady seems to have about as bad a case on you as the gal.  I've
+been thar a time or two to ax about you, an' I never seed the like o'
+stirrin' round fixin' things they 'lowed would suit yore taste."
+
+"They have been mighty good to me, indeed," answered the young man,
+simply.  "I don't think I could have had such thoughtful attention,
+even at home."
+
+"I don't like fer anything to puzzle me," said Luke, with a little
+laugh, "an' I'll swear Miss Harriet's a riddle.  I would a-swore on the
+stand a week ago that she wus as big a fool about Wambush as a woman
+kin git to be, but now--well, I reckon she's jest like the rest.  Let
+the feller they keer fer git a black eye an' have bad luck, an' they'll
+sidle up to the fust good-lookin' cuss they come across.  A man that
+reads novels to git his marryin' knowledge frum is in pore business;
+besides the book hain't writ that could explain a woman unless it is
+the Great Book, an' it wouldn't fit no woman o' this day an' time."
+
+"You think, then, Luke," said Westerfelt, "that a good woman--a real
+good woman--could love twice in--in a short space of time?"
+
+"Gewhillikins!  What a question; they kin love a hundred times before
+you kin say Jack Robinson with yore mouth open.  When you git married,
+John, you must make up your mind that yo're marryin' fer some'n else
+besides dern foolishness.  The Bible says the prime intention of the
+business wus to increase an' multiply; ef you an' yore wife ever git to
+multiplyin', you an' her won't find much time to suck thumbs an' talk
+love an' pick flowers an' press 'em in books an' the like.  Folks may
+say what they damn please about women lovin' the most; it's the feller
+mighty nigh ever' whack that acts the fool.  I was plumb crazy about
+Marthy, an' used to be afeerd she wus so fur gone on me that she
+wouldn't take a sufficient supply o' victuals to keep up 'er strength.
+That wus when I was courtin' of 'er an' losin' sleep, an' one thing or
+other.  After we wus married, though, me an' 'er mother come to words
+one day about a shoat pig she claimed had her mark on its yeer an' was
+penned up with mine, an' she up an' told me out o' spite that the very
+night before me 'n' Marthy got married, Ward Billingsley wus thar at
+the house tryin' to get 'er to run off with him, an' that Marthy come
+as nigh as pease a-doin' of it.  Her maw said she'd a-gone as shore as
+preachin' ef she'd a-had a dress fitten to take the trip on the train
+in.  I reckon it wus every word the truth, fer to this day Marthy won't
+deny it; but it don't make a bit of difference to me now.  Marthy would
+a-done as well by Ward as she did by me, I reckon.  When women once git
+married they come down to hard-pan like a kickin' mule when it gits
+broke to traces."
+
+Westerfelt drew the blankets closer about him.  The road had taken a
+sharp turn round the side of a little hill, and the breeze from the
+wide reach of level valley lands was keen and piercing.  Bradley's
+volubility jarred on him.  It brought an obnoxious person back, and
+roughly, into the warm memory of Harriet Floyd's presence, and gentle,
+selfless tenderness.  He ground his teeth in agony.  He had just been
+debating in his mind the possibility of his being, in consideration of
+his own mistakes, able to take the girl, in her new love, into his
+heart and hold her there forever, but if she loved Wambush, as, of
+course, she once did, might she not later love some other man--or might
+she not even think--remember--Wambush?
+
+"Great God!"  He uttered the words aloud, and Bradley turned upon him
+in surprise.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," said Westerfelt; "my wound twinged just a little, that is
+all."
+
+"I was driving too fast over these rocks anyway," said Bradley,
+solicitously.
+
+The horse stopped at a clear mountain stream that leaped in a
+succession of waterfalls down the sheer hill-side into the valley.
+Bradley got out to loosen the bridle to allow the animal to drink, and
+stood with one foot on the shore and the other on a brown stone in the
+water.  Try as he would, Westerfelt could not banish Harriet from his
+mind.  Her sweet personality seemed to be trying to defend itself
+against the unworthy thoughts which fought for supremacy in his mind.
+He thought of her wonderful care of him in his illness; her unfailing
+tenderness and sympathy when he was suffering; her tears--yes, he was
+sure he had detected tears in her eyes one day when the doctor was
+giving him unusual pain in dressing his wound.  Ah, how sweet that was
+to remember! and yet the same creature had loved a man no higher than
+Wambush; had even sobbed out a confession of her love in the arms of
+his father.  Such was the woman, but he loved her with the first real
+love of his life.
+
+The next day but one, Westerfelt, feeling sufficiently strong, was
+driven by Washburn down to the livery-stable, where he sat in the warm
+sunshine against the side of the house.  While sitting there watching
+the roads which led down to the village from the mountains, he was
+surprised to see Peter Slogan ride up on his bony bay horse and alight.
+
+"Howdy' do, John?" he said.  "I wus jest passin' on my way home an'
+thought I'd halt an' ax about that cut o' yore'n."
+
+"Oh, I'm doing pretty well, Peter," answered Westerfelt, as he extended
+his hand without rising.  "But I didn't know that you ever got this far
+from home."
+
+"Hain't once before, since I went to fight the Yanks," grinned Slogan.
+"Seems to me I've rid four hundred an' forty-two miles on that
+churndasher thar.  My legs is one solid sore streak from my heels up,
+an' now it's beginnin' to attact my spine-bone.  I'm too ol' an' stiff
+to bear down right in the stirrups, I reckon."
+
+"What has brought you over here?" asked Westerfelt, with a smile.
+
+Slogan took out his clay pipe with its cane stem and knocked it on the
+heel of his boot, then he put it into his mouth and blew through it
+till the liquid nicotine cracked audibly.  "I've been huntin'," he
+said, dryly.  "In my day an' time I've been on all sorts o' hunts, from
+bear an' deer down to yaller-hammers, but I waited till I wus in my
+sixty-fifth year--goin' on sixty-six--'fore I started out huntin' fer a
+dad-blasted woman."
+
+"A woman!" exclaimed the listener.
+
+"You could guess who it wus ef you'd make a stab ur two at it," Slogan
+made answer, as he scratched a match and began to smoke.  "Day before
+yesterday Clariss' went out in the yard to rake up a apron o' chips,
+an' happened to take notice that thar wusn't a sign o' smoke comin' out
+o' the old woman's chimney.  It was cold enough to freeze hard boiled
+eggs, an' she 'lowed some'n had gone wrong down at the cabin, so she
+run in whar I wus, skeerd into kinniptions.  'Mr. Slogan,' sez she, 'I
+believe sister's friz in 'er bed, ur dropped off sudden, fer as shore
+as yore a-smokin' in that cheer, thar ain't a speck o' fire in 'er
+chimney.'  Well, I wus in my stockin' feet, like I ginerally am when I
+want to take it easy before a fire on a cold day, an' I slid my feet
+into my shoes as quick as I could an' went out an' took a look.  Shore
+enough, thar wusn't a bit o' smoke about the cabin.  So I tol' Clariss'
+to run down an' see what wus wrong, but she wouldn't budge out o' her
+tracks.  You see, she ain't never felt right about the way she used to
+do the old woman, an' I reckon she wus afeerd her dead body would do a
+sight more accusin'--I dunno, she wouldn't go a step fer some reason ur
+other, but she stood thar twistin' 'er hands an' cryin' an' beggin' me
+to do her duty.  I tol' 'er the last time I wus thar the ol' huzzy
+wouldn't so much as notice me, an' that I'd had 'nough trouble lookin'
+atter my own pore kin without galivantin' about atter my kin by a'
+unfortunate marriage, but nothin' would do 'er but fer me to go, so I
+did, an' found the old woman had run clean off.  Well, when I told
+Clariss' that, she mighty nigh had a fit.  She swore she had driv her
+sister desperate by her conduct in the past an' that 'er body would be
+found as stiff as a bar o' iron in the woods some'rs whar she wus
+tryin' to keep warm.  So the long an' short of it wus that me 'n' my
+hoss had to start out."
+
+"And you have found her?" asked the young man, now thoroughly concerned.
+
+"You bet I did, after scourin' the entire face of creation.  I traced
+'er frum one old acquaintance to another, till last night I run up on
+'er over at Bill Wyman's, ten miles down the valley.  It was ten
+o'clock when I got thar, an' as cold as a cake o' ice in the small o'
+yore back.  I called Bill out in his shift on the porch.  I was mighty
+nigh friz, an' I reckon he soon got that away, fer he kept dancin'
+about fust on one foot an' then on another, while we talked.  He
+admitted she wus thar, but he wouldn't let me stay all night, although
+I offered to plank down the usual price fer man an' beast.  She'd been
+talkin' to him, I could see that, fer he up an' said some'n about folks
+bein' churched in his settlement fer the mistreatment o' widows, but
+he'd admit, he said, that he wusn't posted on the manners an' customs
+uv all the places over beyant the mount'in; he reckoned the nigher
+people got to the railroad the furder they wus from the cross.  I tried
+to reason with 'im, but he said ef I wanted to argue my case, I'd
+better come round in the summer.
+
+"Thar wusn't any other house nigher'n six miles, an' so I made me a
+fire in a little cove by the road, an' set over it an' thought, mostly
+about women, all night.  I've heerd preachers say a man oughtn't to
+think too much about women anyway, but I reckon I backslid last night,
+fer I thought hard about mighty nigh ever' woman I ever seed or heerd
+of."
+
+"How has Mrs. Dawson been getting on since I left?" ventured Westerfelt.
+
+"Just about as bad as she knowed how, I reckon, John.  After you left,
+she seemed to take 'er spite out on Lizzie Lithicum.  Liz never could
+pass anywhar nigh 'er without havin' the old cat laugh out loud at 'er.
+Liz has been goin' with that cock-eyed Joe Webb a good deal--you know
+he's jest about the porest ketch anywhars about, an' that seemed to
+tickle Mis' Dawson mightily.  I reckon somebody told 'er some'n Liz
+said away back when you fust started to fly around 'er.  I axed Clem
+Dill ef he knowed anything about it, an' Clem 'lowed Liz had kind o'
+made fun o' Sally about you gittin' tired uv 'er, an' one thing ur
+other.  I dunno; I cayn't keep up with sech things.  I jest try to find
+'em out once in awhile because Clariss' is sech a hand to want to know.
+When she gits to rantin' about anythin' I've done--ur hain't done--all
+I got to do to shet 'er up is to start to tell 'er some'n somebody's
+has said about somebody else, an' she gits 'er cheer.  So I try to keep
+a stock o' things on hand.  Clem Dill's afeerd o' Mis' Dawson now.  I
+was in the store one day about a week ago, an' she come in to swap a
+pair o' wool socks she had knit fer coffee, an' Clem 'lowed, jest to
+pass the time, while he wus at the scales, he'd ax 'er what ailed her
+an' Lizzie, anyway.  But I reckon Clem has quit axin' fool questions,
+fer she turned on 'im like a tiger-cat.  Sez she:
+
+"'Liz Lithicum dared to say my child made a fool o' herse'f about John
+Westerfelt.  That's exactly what Liz an' other folks sez about yore
+wife.  I don't see what right you have to ax me sech a question.'
+Well, sir, Clem was so much set back 'at he couldn't hardly speak, an'
+he spilled a scoop o' coffee on the counter 'fore he could get it into
+the old woman's poke.  After she had gone out, laughin' in her sneakin'
+way, Clem come back whar I wus at by the stove an' set down an' spit
+about two dozen times.  Arter 'while he axed me ef I'd ever heerd the
+talk about his wife, an' I eased him all I could, but, lawsy me, you
+ort ter see 'im hop up an' bow an' scrape when old Sue comes in the
+store now.  Clem ain't a jealous man--I reckon he's been married too
+long for that.  In my courtin' days I used to be jealous actually of
+Clariss's own daddy, but now I make a habit o' invitin' the preacher to
+our house every third Sunday so I kin git a decent meal an' set an'
+smoke in the kitchen.  John, you don't seem to be any nigher marryin'
+now than you wus awhile back."
+
+Westerfelt smiled, but made no reply.
+
+"Well, you'd better keep on a-thinkin' it over," counselled Slogan, as
+he took the saddle and blanket from his horse and examined a rubbed
+spot on the animal's back; "thar's a heap more fun marryin' in a body's
+mind than before a preacher; the law don't allow a feller but one sort
+of a wife, but a single man kin live alone, an' fancy he's got any kind
+he wants, an' then she won't be eternally a-yellin' to 'im to fetch in
+fire-wood.  A young feller kin make a woman a sight more perfect than
+the Creator ever did, an' He's had a sight o' practice.  I reckon the
+Lord made 'em like they are to keep men humble and contrite an' to show
+up to advantage His best work on t'other shore.  But so long, John, I
+must be goin'."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+It was a dark night two weeks later.  Westerfelt, quite recovered from
+his illness, was returning from a long ride through the mountains,
+where he had been in search of a horse that had strayed from the stable.
+
+The road along the mountain-side was narrow and difficult to follow.
+At times he was obliged to ascend places so steep that he had to hold
+to the mane of his horse to keep from falling off.
+
+At the foot of a mountain about two miles from Cartwright, he heard
+voices ahead of him.  He stopped, peered through the foliage, and, a
+few paces farther on, saw a wagon containing a couple of barrels.  Near
+it stood two men in slouched hats and jeans clothing.
+
+"Thought shore I heerd some'n," said one of them.
+
+"Which away?" asked the other.
+
+"Sounded to me like a hoss up on the mount'in."
+
+There was a silence for a moment, then the first voice said:
+
+"No, not that away.  Listen!  It's somebody comin' up the road on foot.
+I reckon it's a friend, but I don't take no resks."
+
+The two men stepped quickly to the wagon and took out a couple of
+rifles.  Then they stood motionless behind the wagon and horse.
+Westerfelt heard the regular step of some one coming up the road.
+
+"Hello thar!" cried one of the men at the wagon.
+
+"Hello!" was the answer.
+
+"Stand in yore tracks!  What's the password?"
+
+"Joe Dill's good 'nough pass-word fer me; I don't try to keep up with
+all the pop-doodle you fellers git up."
+
+"Joe Dill will do in this case, bein' as yore a good liquor customer.
+What'll you have, Joseph?"
+
+"A gallon o' mash--this jug jest holds that amount up to the neck.
+Gi'me a swallow in a cup, I'm as dry as powder.  What do you-uns mean
+by bein' in the business ef you cayn't send out a load oftener'n this?
+I'll start to 'stillin' myse'f.  I know how the dang truck's made;
+nothin' but corn-meal an' water left standin' till it rots, an'--"
+
+"Revenue men's as thick through heer as flies in summer-time," broke in
+the man at the faucet.  "Sh! what's that?"
+
+Westerfelt's horse had stepped on a dry twig.  There was silence for a
+moment, then Dill laughed softly.
+
+"Nothin' but a acorn drappin'.  You fellers is afeerd o' yore shadders;
+what does the gang mean by sendin' out sech white-livered chaps?"  The
+only sound for a moment was the gurgling of the whiskey as it ran into
+the jug.  "How's Toot like his isolation?" concluded Dill, grunting as
+he lifted the jug down from the wagon.
+
+"It's made a wuss devil 'n ever out'n 'im," was the answer.  "He don't
+do a blessed thing now but plot an' plan fer revenge.  He's beginnin'
+to think that hotel gal's gone back on 'im an' tuk to likin' the feller
+he fit that day.  My Lord, that man'll see the day he'll wish he'd
+never laid eyes on Wambush."
+
+"I hain't in entire sympathy with Toot."  It was Dill's voice.  "That
+is to say, not entire!"
+
+"Well, don't say so, ef you know what's good fer you."
+
+"Oh, it's a free country, I reckon."
+
+"Don't you believe it!"
+
+"What's Toot gwine to do?"
+
+"I don't know, but he'll hatch out some'n."
+
+Westerfelt's horse had been standing on the side of a little slope, and
+the soft earth suddenly gave way beneath his hind feet, and in
+regaining a firm footing he made a considerable noise.  There was
+nothing now for Westerfelt to do but to put a bold face on the matter.
+
+"Get up," he said, guiding his horse down towards the men.
+
+"Halt!" commanded one of the moonshiners.  All three of them were now
+huddled behind the wagon.
+
+"Hello!" answered Westerfelt, drawing rein; "I'm lookin' for an iron
+gray, flea-bitten horse that strayed away from the livery-stable this
+morning; have you fellows seen anything of him?"
+
+"No, I hain't."  This in a dogged tone from a slouched hat just above a
+whiskey barrel.
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"I don't think anybody could have taken him," continued Westerfelt,
+pleasantly.
+
+"Hain't seed 'im."  The speaker struck the wagon-bed with his rifle as
+he was trying to put it down behind the barrels without being seen.
+
+"The left hand road leads to town, I believe?" said Westerfelt, riding
+away.
+
+"Yes, but take the right at the next fork."
+
+About half a mile farther on he saw two horsemen, approaching.  When
+quite near they stopped.
+
+"Howdy' do?" said one, eying Westerfelt suspiciously.
+
+"How are you?" answered Westerfelt.
+
+"We are revenue men; we're after a couple o' men and a wagon loaded
+with whiskey.  Seen anything of them?"
+
+Westerfelt was silent.  The revenue officer who had spoken rested his
+elbow on his thigh and leaned towards him.
+
+"Looky' here," he said, deliberately; "we don't know one another, but
+there may be no harm in tellin' you if you try to throw us off the
+track you lay yoreself liable to complicity.  We've had about as much
+o' that sort o' treatment round heer as we are going to put up with."
+
+"I'm not on the witness-stand," said Westerfelt, pleasantly; "I'm only
+looking for a stray horse."
+
+"Let's go on," said the other Officer to his companion.  "We are on the
+right road; he's seed 'em ur he'd a-denied it.  Let's not lose time."
+
+"I'm with you," was the reply; then to Westerfelt: "You are right, you
+hain't on the witness-stand, but ef we wanted to we could mighty easy
+arrest you on suspicion and march you back to jail to be questioned by
+the inspectors."
+
+Westerfelt smiled, "You'd have to feed me at the expense of the
+government, and I'm as hungry as a bear; I've been out all day, and
+haven't had a bite since breakfast."
+
+The revenue men laughed.  "We know who you are," said the one that had
+spoken first, "an' we know our business, too; so long!"
+
+Two hours later, as Westerfelt was about to go to bed in his room over
+the stable, he heard a voice calling down-stairs.  He went to the
+window and looked out.  Below he saw four men, two saddle horses, and a
+horse and wagon.  He heard Washburn open the office door and ask:
+
+"What do you folks want?"
+
+"Want to put up our beasts an' this hoss an' wagon," was the reply.
+"We've got some gentlemen heer we're gwine to jail till mornin'."
+
+"All right.  I'll slide open the doors as soon as I git my shoes on.  I
+wus in bed."
+
+"We'll have to leave these barrels o' rotgut with you."
+
+"All right.  Plenty o' room."  Westerfelt came down-stairs just as
+Washburn opened the big doors.
+
+"Hello!" said the revenue officer who had addressed him on the
+mountain; "you see we made quick time; we found 'em right whar you left
+'em."
+
+"I see."
+
+Washburn, who was under the skirt of a saddle unbuckling a girth,
+glanced at Westerfelt in surprise as he lifted the saddle from the
+horse and carried it into the stable.  The two moonshiners exchanged
+quick glances and sullenly muttered something to each other.
+Westerfelt, intent on getting the business over that he might go to
+bed, failed to observe these proceedings.  When the officers had taken
+their prisoners on towards the jail, Washburn, who, with a lantern, was
+putting the horses into stalls, turned to Westerfelt.
+
+"My Lord!  Mr. Westerfelt," he said, "I hope you didn't give them
+fellers away."
+
+"Never dreamt of such a thing.  What do you mean?"
+
+"I 'lowed you had by what that feller said just now."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Why, he said they'd ketched the men right whar you left 'em, an'--"
+
+"Well, what of that?" Westerfelt spoke impatiently.  "I did pass the
+whiskey wagon.  The revenue men asked me if I'd seen them, and I simply
+refused to answer.  They didn't get anything out of me."
+
+"That's just what I'd 'a' done, but I wish you'd 'a' set yorese'f right
+jest now, fer them fellers certainly think you give 'em away, an'
+they'll tell the gang about it."
+
+"Well, I didn't, so what does it matter?"
+
+Washburn took out the bowl of his lantern and extinguished the light as
+they entered the office.
+
+"It makes a man mighty unpopular in the Cohutta Valley to interfere
+with the moonshiners," he answered.  "Whiskey-makin' is agin the law,
+but many a family gits its livin' out o' the stuff, an' a few good
+citizens keep the'r eyes shet to it.  You see, Mr. Westerfelt, the gang
+may be a little down on you anyway sence your difficulty with Wambush.
+Did you know that he wus a sort of a ring-leader amongst 'em?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, you mark my word, that feller'd swear his chances of heaven away
+to turn them mount'in men agin you."
+
+"Most of them are good-hearted fellows" replied Westerfelt.  "They
+won't harm me."
+
+Washburn sat down on his bed, pulled off his shoes, and dropped them on
+the puncheon floor.
+
+"But he's got the'r ear, an' you hain't, Mr. Westerfelt.  He'd grab at
+a chance like this an' you'd never be able to disprove anything.
+Toot's got some unprincipled friends that 'ud go any length to help him
+in rascality."
+
+The next morning before the revenue men had left with their prisoners
+and the confiscated whiskey for the town where the trial before an
+inspector was to take place, a number of mountaineers had gathered in
+the village.  They stood about the streets in mysterious groups and
+spoke in undertones, and now and then a man would go to the jail window
+and confer with the prisoners through the bars.  Several men had been
+summoned to attend the trial as witnesses, and others went out of
+curiosity or friendship for the accused.
+
+That evening, as John Westerfelt was passing through the hall of the
+hotel to the dining-room, he met Harriet Floyd.  She started when she
+saw him, and he thought she acted as if she wanted to speak to him, but
+just then some other boarders entered, and she turned from him
+abruptly.  She sat opposite him at the table a few moments later, but
+she did not look in his direction.
+
+On his return to the stable after supper, Washburn gave him a letter.
+He recognized Sue Dawson's handwriting on the envelope.
+
+"Is it a order?" asked Washburn, thinking it concerned the business.
+
+"No, no; from a--a friend."  Westerfelt lighted a candle at the wick of
+Washburn's lantern and went up to his room.  He put the candle on a
+little table and sat down by it.
+
+"I'll never read another line from that woman," he said.  "I can't.
+She'll run me crazy!  I've suffered enough."
+
+He threw the letter unopened on the table, and clasped his hands over
+his knee and sat motionless for several minutes.  Then he picked up the
+letter and held one corner of it in the candle-flame.  It ignited, and
+the blue blaze began to spread over the envelope.  Suddenly he blew it
+out and tore the letter open.  The margin of the paper was charred, but
+the contents were intact.  It ran:
+
+
+"JOHN WESTERFELT,--I heard you Come Nigh meeting yore Death.  The Lord
+let you live to make you Suffer.  The worst pain is not in the body But
+in the Soul.  You will likely live a long time and never git over yore
+guilty suffering.  The Report has gone out that some gal over thar tuk
+care of you while you wus down in Bed.  Well, it would be jest like you
+to try yore skill on her.  God Help her.  I dont know her, nor nothin
+about her, but she ort ter be warned.  Ef she loved you with all Her
+soul you would pick a Flaw somehow.  Mark my words.  You will live to
+See Awful Shapes when nobody else does.  Yore Hell Has begun.  It will
+Go on for everlastin and everlastin.
+
+"SUE DAWSON."
+
+
+He put the letter into his pocket and went to the window and drew down
+the shade.  Then he locked the door and placed the candle on the
+mantel-piece and stood an open book before it, so that his bed was in
+the shadow.  He listened to hear if Washburn was moving below, then
+knelt by the bed and covered his face with his hands.  He tried to
+pray, but could think of no words to express his desires.  He had never
+been so sorely tried.  Even if he could school himself to forgetting
+Harriet's old love and the act of deceitfulness into which her love had
+drawn her, could he ever escape Mrs. Dawson's persecutions?  Would she
+not, even if he won and married Harriet, pursue and taunt him with the
+girl's old love, as she had Clem Dill?  And how could he stand
+that--he, whose ideal of woman and woman's constancy had always been so
+high?
+
+He rose, sat on the edge of the bed, and clasped his hands between his
+knees.  The room was in darkness except the spot of light on the wall
+behind the book.  Below he heard the horses crunching their corn and
+hay.  He took from his pocket Sue Dawson's letters and the one from
+Sally and wrapped them in a piece of paper.  Then he looked about for a
+place to hide them.  In a corner overhead he saw a jutting rafter, and
+behind it a dark niche where the shingles sloped to the wall.  It was
+too high for him to reach from the floor, so he placed the table
+beneath the spot, and, mounting it, pushed the packet tightly into the
+corner.  Then he stepped down and removed the table, cautiously, that
+Washburn might not hear him, and sat on the bed again.  He remained
+there motionless for twenty minutes.  Suddenly a rat ran across the
+floor with a scrap of paper in its mouth.  He stared at the place where
+the rat had disappeared as if bewildered, then rose, placed the table
+back against the wall, secured the packet, and put it into his pocket.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+Westerfelt knew he could not sleep, and, seeing the moonlight shining
+through his window, he decided to take a walk.  He went below.
+Washburn sat in a little circle of candle-light mending a piece of
+harness.
+
+"Has the hack come in yet?" asked Westerfelt, remembering that he had
+paid little attention to business that day.
+
+"Yes," answered Washburn; "it's down at the store unloadin' the mail."
+
+"I thought I heard it turn the corner.  Any passengers?"
+
+"No; Buck said a family, one woman and five children, wus ready to
+start by the Cohutta road to Royleston, but the report about the
+Whitecaps t'other night skeerd 'em out of it, so they went by train to
+Wilks, an' through that way.  This outlawin' will ruin the country ef
+it hain't stopped; nobody'll want to settle heer."
+
+"I'll be back soon," said Westerfelt, and he went out.
+
+The November air was dry and keen as he walked briskly towards the
+mountains.  The road ran through groves of stunted persimmon and
+sassafras bushes, across swift-bounding mountain streams, and under
+natural arbors of wild grapes and muscadine vines.  In a few minutes
+Westerfelt reached the meeting-house on a little rise near the roadside.
+
+It had never been painted, but age and the weather had given it the
+usual grayish color.  Behind it, enclosed by a rail fence, was the
+graveyard.  The mounds had sunk, the stones leaned earthward, and the
+decaying trellises had been pulled down by the vines which clambered
+over them.
+
+It was a strange thing for Westerfelt to do, but, seeing the door open,
+he went into the church.  Two windows on each side let in the
+moonlight.  The benches were unpainted, and many of them had no backs.
+
+Westerfelt stood before the little pulpit for a moment and then turned
+away.  Outside, the road gleamed in the moonlight as it stretched on to
+the village.  A glimpse of the graveyard through the window made him
+shudder.  It reminded him of a grave he had never seen save in his
+mind.  It was past midnight.  He would go back to his bed, though he
+felt no inclination to sleep.
+
+As he approached the stable, walking in the shadow of the trees on the
+side of the street, he saw a woman come out of the blacksmith's shop
+opposite the stable.  For a moment she paused, her face raised towards
+the window of his room, and then retreated into the shop.
+
+It was Harriet Floyd.  He stepped behind a tree and watched the door of
+the shop.  In a moment she reappeared and looked up towards his window
+again.  He thought she might be waiting to see him, so he moved out
+into the moonlight and advanced towards her.
+
+"Oh, it's you!" she exclaimed, excitedly.  "I've been waiting to see
+you.  I--I must tell you something, but it won't do to stand here;
+somebody will see us.  Can't we?--come in the shop a minute."
+
+Without speaking, and full of wonder, he followed her into the dark
+building.  She led him past piles of old iron, wagon-tires,
+ploughshares, tubs of black water, anvils, and sledges to the forge and
+bellows at the back of the shop.  She waited for a moment for him to
+speak, but he only looked at her questioningly, having almost steeled
+his heart against her.
+
+"I come to warn you," she began, awkwardly, her eyes raised to his.
+"Toot Wambush has prejudiced the Whitecaps against you.  He has
+convinced them that you reported the moonshiners.  They are coming
+to-night to take you out.  The others don't mean to kill you; they say
+it's just to whip you, and tar and feather you, and drive you out of
+the place, but he--Toot Wambush--will kill you if he can.  He would not
+let you get away alive.  He has promised the others not to use
+violence, but he will; he hates you, and he wants revenge.  He'll do it
+and make the others share the responsibility with him--that's his plan."
+
+He put his hand on the bellows-pole; the great leather bag rattled and
+gasped, and a puff of ashes rose from the forge.
+
+"How do you happen to know this?" he asked, coldly.  She shrank from
+him, and stared at him in silence.
+
+"How do you know it?" he repeated, his tone growing fierce.
+
+She drew the shawl with which she had covered her head more closely
+about her shoulders.
+
+"Toot hinted at it himself," she said, slowly.
+
+"When?"
+
+"About an hour ago."
+
+"You met him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you a member of his gang?"
+
+"Mr. Westerfelt," shrinking from him, "do--do you mean to insult me?"
+
+"Would he have told you if he had thought you would give him away?"
+
+"I reckon not--why, no."
+
+"Then he considers you in sympathy with his murderous plans."
+
+"I don't know, but I want you to keep out of his way.  You must--oh,
+Mr. Westerfelt, you must go!  Don't stand here; they are coming down
+the Hawkbill road directly.  You could ride off towards Dartsmouth and
+easily get away, if you will hurry."
+
+"I see," he answered, with a steady stare of condemnation; "you want to
+keep him from committing another crime--a more serious one."
+
+She looked at him an instant as if puzzled, and then said:
+
+"I want to keep him from killing you."
+
+"Do you think he would take advantage of a helpless man?"
+
+"I know it, Mr. Westerfelt; oh, I know he would!"
+
+"Then you acknowledge he is a coward, and yet you--my God, what sort of
+a creature _are_ you?"
+
+She continued to stare at him wonderingly, as if half afraid.  She
+moved suddenly into a moonbeam that streamed through a broken shingle
+in the roof.  Her face was like white marble.  In its terrified lines
+and angles he read nothing but the imprint of past weakness where he
+should have seen only pleading purity--the purity of a child cowed and
+awed by the object of a love so powerful, so self-sacrificing that she
+made no attempt to understand it.  She had always felt her inferiority
+to others, and now that she loved her ideal of superiority she seemed
+to expect ill-treatment--even contempt--at his hands.
+
+He looked away from her.  The begrimed handle of the bellows creaked
+and swung as he leaned on it.  He turned suddenly and impulsively
+grasped her hands.
+
+"You are a good girl," he cried; "you have been the best friend I ever
+had.  If I don't treat you better, it is on account of my awful nature.
+I can't control it when I think of that villain."
+
+"He _has_ treated you very badly," she said, slowly, in a voice that
+faltered.
+
+"Where did you meet him and when?" he asked, under his breath.  "God
+knows I thought you were done with him."
+
+"He came right to the house just after dark," returned Harriet.
+"Mother let him come in; she wanted to talk to him."
+
+"Did he come to get you to go away with him, Harriet?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Westerfelt."
+
+"And why didn't you go?"
+
+"Oh, how _can_ you ask such a question," she asked, "when you _know_--"
+She broke off suddenly, and then, seeing that he was silent, she added:
+"Mr. Westerfelt, sometimes I am afraid, really afraid, your sickness
+has affected your mind, you speak so strange and harsh to me.  Surely I
+do not deserve such cruelty.  I am just a woman, and a weak one at
+that; a woman driven nearly crazy through troubling about you."  She
+raised a corner of her shawl to her eyes.
+
+He saw her shoulders rise with a sob, then he caught her hands.
+"Don't--don't cry, little girl.  I'd give my life to help you.  Oh yes,
+_do_ let me hold your hands, just this once; it won't make any
+difference."
+
+She did not attempt to withdraw her hands from his passionate, reckless
+clasp, and, now more trustingly, raised her eyes to his.
+
+"Sometimes I think you really love me," she faltered.  "You have made
+me think so several times."
+
+"I'm not ashamed of it," he said.  "I've had fancies for women, but I
+have never felt this way before.  It seems to me if I was to live a
+thousand years I'd never, never feel that you was like other women.
+Maybe you love me real deep, and maybe you just fancy me, but I'll
+never want any other human being like I want you.  I have been a bad
+man--a careless, thoughtless man.  Ever since I was a boy I have played
+with love.  I was playing with fire--the fire of hell, Harriet--and I
+got burnt.  In consequence of what I've done I suffer as no mortal ever
+suffered.  Repentance brings contentment to some men, but they are not
+built like me.  I don't do anything from morning to night but brood and
+brood over my past life."
+
+"I thought you had had some trouble," she returned, sympathetically.
+
+"Why did you think so?" he asked.
+
+"You talked when you were out of your head.  That's why I first took
+pity on you.  I never saw a man suffer in mind as you did.  You rolled
+and tumbled the first two or three nights and begged for forgiveness;
+often you spoke so loud I was afraid others in the house would hear."
+
+He opened his palms before her.  "These hands are soaked in human
+blood--innocent human blood," he said, tragically.  "I don't deny it;
+if it would do a particle of good I'd tell every soul on earth.  I won
+a good girl's love, and when I got tired of her and left her she killed
+herself to escape the misery I put her in.  I was unworthy of her, but
+she didn't know it, or want to know it.  Nobody knows she took her own
+life except me and her mother, and it has ruined her life--taken away
+her only comfort in old age and made her my mortal enemy.  She never
+gives me a minute's rest--she reminds me constantly that I'll never get
+forgiveness and never be happily married, and she is right--I never
+shall.  My wicked nature demands too much of a woman.  I can love, and
+do love, with all my soul, but my pride cannot be subdued.  I--"
+
+"I understand, Mr. Westerfelt" she broke in, quickly.  "Don't bring up
+that subject again.  What you said when I last saw you was enough.  It
+almost kept me from coming to-night, but it was my duty; but you do not
+have to say any more about that."  She took a step backward and stood
+staring at him in mute misery.  She had never felt that she was worthy
+of him, in a way, but his cold reference--as she understood it--to her
+misfortune released a spring of resentment she hardly knew was wound in
+her breast.
+
+"Forgive me," he pleaded, trying to regain her hands.  "I'll never
+mention it again.  I promise you that--never again."
+
+"It's all right," she answered, softening under his passionate gaze.
+"But it would be kind of you to avoid mentioning what I cannot help."
+
+He was about to reply, but there was a sound of barking dogs from the
+mountain.  "Go quick!"  She caught her breath.  "Don't wait!  That may
+be them now.  Don't let them kill you."
+
+He did not stir.  "You'd better go home," he said, calmly.  "I don't
+care a straw what becomes of me.  I've had enough of the whole
+business.  I have got as much right to live as anybody else, and I will
+not be driven from pillar to post by a gang of outlaws, headed by a
+coward."  He drew a revolver, and, half cocking it, carelessly twirled
+the cylinder with his thumb.  "I've got five thirty-two-caliber shots
+here, and I think I can put some of them where they ought to go."
+
+She pushed the revolver down with her hand.  "No, no!" she cried, "you
+must not be reckless."
+
+"I am a pretty good shot," he went on, bitterly, "and Toot Wambush
+shall be my first target, if I can pick him out.  Then the rest may do
+what they like with me.  You go home.  It will do you no good to be
+seen with me."
+
+She caught his arm.  "If you don't go, I'll stay right here with you.
+Hush!  Listen!  What was--?  Great Heavens, they are coming.  Go!  Go!"
+
+She glided swiftly to the door, and he followed her.  Coming along the
+Hawkbill road, about an eighth of a mile distant, they saw a body of
+horsemen, their heads and shoulders dressed in white.  His revolver
+slipped from his fingers and rang on a fallen anvil.  He picked it up
+mechanically, still staring into the moonlight.  Again he wondered if
+he were afraid, as he was that night at the hotel.
+
+"Run! get out a horse," she cried.  "Mr. Washburn is there; he will
+help you!  Go quick, for God's sake!  I shall kill myself if they harm
+you."  He stared at her an instant, then he put his revolver into his
+belt.
+
+"All right, then, to oblige you; but you must hurry home!"  He hastened
+across the street and rapped on the office door.
+
+"Who's thar?" called out Washburn from his bed.
+
+"Me--Westerfelt."
+
+There was a sound of bare feet on the floor inside and the door opened.
+
+"What's up?" asked Washburn, sleepily.
+
+"I want my horse; there's a gang of Whitecaps coming down the Hawkbill,
+and it looks like they are after me."
+
+"My God!"  Washburn began fumbling along the wall.  "Where's the
+matches?  Here's one!"  He scratched it and lighted his lantern.  "I'll
+git yore hoss.  Stand heer, Mr. Westerfelt, an' ef I ain't quick enough
+make a dash on foot fer that strip o' woods over thar in the field.
+The fences would keep 'em from followin', an' you might dodge 'em."
+
+When Washburn had gone into the stable, Westerfelt looked towards
+Harriet.  She had walked only a few yards down the street and stood
+under the trees.  He stepped out into the moonlight and signalled her
+to go on, but she refused to move.  He heard Washburn swearing inside
+the stable, and asked what the matter was.
+
+"I've got the bridles all tangled to hell," he answered.
+
+"Hurry; anything will do!"
+
+The Whitecaps had left the mountain-side and were now in sight on the
+level road.  A minute more and Westerfelt would be a captive.  He might
+get across the street unnoticed and hide himself in the blacksmith's
+shop, but they would be sure to look for him there.  If he tried to go
+through the fields they would see him and shoot him down like a rabbit.
+
+"Heer you are; which door, back or front?" cried Washburn.
+
+"Front, quick!  I've got to run for it!  I'm a good mind to stand and
+make a fight of it."
+
+"Oh no; hell, no! Mr. Westerfelt."
+
+Washburn slid the big door open and kicked the horse in the stomach as
+he led him out.
+
+"Git up, quick!  They are at the branch.  Blast it, they heerd the
+door--they've broke into a gallop!"
+
+As Westerfelt put his foot into the stirrup he saw Harriet Floyd glide
+out of sight into the blacksmith's shop.  She had determined not to
+desert him.  As he sprang up, the girth snapped, and the saddle and
+blanket fell under his feet.
+
+"God, they are on us!" gasped Washburn.  One of the gang raised a
+shout, and they came on with increased speed.
+
+"Up!  Up!" cried Washburn, kicking the saddle out of his way.  "Quick!
+What's the matter?"  Westerfelt felt a twinge in his old wound as he
+tried to mount.  Washburn caught one of his legs and lifted him on his
+horse.
+
+Westerfelt spurred the horse furiously, but the animal plunged,
+stumbled, and came to his knees--the bridle-rein had caught his foot.
+The foremost of the gang was now within twenty yards of him.
+
+"Halt thar!" he yelled.
+
+Westerfelt drew his horse up and continued to lash him with his
+bridle-rein.
+
+"Shoot his hoss, but don't tetch him!" was the next command.
+
+Several revolvers went off.  Westerfelt's horse swayed at the rump and
+then ran sideways across the street and fell against a rail fence.
+Westerfelt alighted on his feet.  He turned and drew his revolver, but
+just then his horse rolled over against his legs and knocked the weapon
+from his hand.  It struck the belly of the horse and bounded into the
+middle of the street.
+
+"Ha, we've got ye!" jeered the leader, as he and two or three others
+covered Westerfelt with their revolvers.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+The gang formed a semi-circle round Westerfelt and his horse.  In their
+white caps and sheets they appeared ghostly and hideous, as they looked
+down at him through the eye-holes of their masks.  One of them held a
+coil of new rope and tantalizingly swung it back and forth before his
+face.
+
+"You must go with us up the Hawkbill fer a little moonlight picnic," he
+jeered.  "We've picked out a tree up thar that leans spank over a cliff
+five hundred feet from the bottom.  Ef the rope broke, ur yore noggin
+slipped through the noose, you'd never know how come you so."
+
+"He's got to have some'n to ride," suggested another muffled voice; "we
+have done his horse up."
+
+"Well, he's got a-plenty, an' he won't need 'em atter our ja'nt,"
+jested the man with the rope.  "You uns back thar, that hain't doin'
+nothin' but lookin' purty, go in the stable and trot out some'n fer 'im
+to ride; doggoned ef I want 'im straddled behind me.  His ha'nt 'ud
+ride with me every time I passed over the Hawkbill."
+
+"Bill Washburn's in thar," said a man in the edge of the crowd.  "I
+seed 'im run in as we rid up."
+
+The leader, who sat on a restive horse near Westerfelt, called out:
+
+"Hello in thar, Bill Washburn; git out some'n to put yore man on.
+Hurry up, ur we'll take you along to see the fun."
+
+Washburn opened the office door and came out slowly.
+
+"What do _you_ say, Mr. Westerfelt?  It's yore property.  I won't move
+a peg agin the man that I work fer ef eve'y dam Whitecap in Christendom
+orders it."
+
+"Care_ful_, care_ful_, young man; none o' your lip!" said the leader,
+half admiringly.
+
+"Give 'em the lot!"  It was the first time Westerfelt had spoken.
+
+Washburn made no reply, but went slowly back into the stable.
+
+Westerfelt's dying horse raised his head and groaned.  A man near the
+animal dismounted and drew his revolver.
+
+"What d' you say?" said he to Westerfelt.  "Hadn't I better put 'im out
+o' his misery?"
+
+"I'd be much obliged if you would."  Westerfelt turned his face away.
+There was a moment's pause.  The man waited for the horse's head to
+become still.  Then he fired.
+
+"Thanks," said Westerfelt.  He looked round at the crowd, wondering
+which of the men could be Toot Wambush.  He had an idea that he had not
+yet spoken, and was not among those nearest to him.  Through the open
+door he could see Washburn's lantern moving about in the stable.
+
+"Hurry up in thar," cried a tall figure.  "Do you think we're gwine
+to--"  He began to cough.
+
+"How do you like to chaw cotton, Number Six?" a man near him asked.
+
+"The blamed lint gits down my throat," was the reply.  "I'd ruther be
+knowed by my voice'n to choke to death on sech truck."
+
+From far and near on all sides came the dismal barking of dogs, but the
+villagers, if they suspected what was being enacted, dared not show
+their faces.  Washburn led a horse through the crowd and gave the
+bridle to Westerfelt.  He hesitated, as if about to speak, and then
+silently withdrew.  Westerfelt mounted.  The leader gave the order, and
+the gang moved back towards the mountain.  Two horsemen went before
+Westerfelt and two fell behind.  As they passed the shop, dimly he saw
+the form of a woman lying on the ground just out of the moonlight that
+fell in at the door.  Harriet had swooned.  When they had gone past the
+shop, Westerfelt reined in his horse and called over his shoulder to
+Washburn, who stood in front of the stable.  He would not leave her
+lying there if he could help it, and yet he did not want Wambush to
+know she had warned him.  The gang stopped, and Washburn came to them.
+
+"Any directions you want to give?" he asked of Westerfelt.
+
+"I saw you looking for the account-book," answered Westerfelt, staring
+significantly into his eyes.  "I was in the blacksmith's shop to-day
+and left it on the forge."
+
+Washburn stared blankly at him for an instant, then he said, slowly,
+"All right."
+
+"You'd better get it to-night," added Westerfelt.
+
+"All right, sir.  I'll attend to everything."
+
+"Cool as a cucumber," laughed a man.  "Next thing you know he'll give
+orders 'bout whar he wants to be buried, an' what to have cut on his
+grave-rock."
+
+The whole gang laughed at this witticism, and started on again.  When
+they had gone about a hundred yards Westerfelt glanced back.  He saw
+Washburn cross the road and enter the blacksmith's shop, and the next
+instant the shop was hidden by a sudden turn in the road.  They passed
+the meeting-house and began to ascend the mountain.  Here and there
+along the dark range shone the red fires of chestnut harvesters.  The
+blue smoke hung among the pines, and the air was filled with the odor
+of burning leaves.  They passed a camp--a white-covered wagon, filled
+with bags of chestnuts, two mules tethered to saplings, and three or
+four forms in dusky blankets lying round a log fire.  As the weird
+procession passed, the mules drew back on their halters and threw their
+ears forward, but the bodies at the fire did not stir.
+
+In about twenty minutes the band reached a plateau covered with a
+matting of heather.  They went across it to the edge of a high
+precipice.  It was as perpendicular as a wall.  Below lay the valley,
+its forests of pines and cedars looking like a black lake in the clear
+moonlight.
+
+"Git down, men, an' let's 'tend to business an' go back home,"
+commanded the leader.  "I have a hankerin' atter a hot breakfast."
+
+Everybody alighted except Westerfelt.  The leader touched him with his
+whip.  "Will you git down, or do you want to be drug off like a saddle?"
+
+"May I ask what you intend to do with me?" asked Westerfelt,
+indifferently.
+
+The leader laughed.  "Put some turkey red calico stripes on that broad
+back o' yorn, an' rub in some salt and pepper to cuore it up.  We are
+a-gwine to l'arn you that new settlers cayn't run this community an'
+coolly turn the bluecoats agin us mount'in folks."
+
+Westerfelt looked down on the masks upturned to him.  Only one of the
+band showed a revolver.  Westerfelt believed him to be Toot Wambush.
+He had not spoken a word, but was one of the two that had ridden close
+behind him up the mountain.  One of the white figures unstrapped a
+pillow from the back part of his saddle.  He held it between his knees
+and gashed it with a knife.
+
+"By hunkey! they're white uns," he grunted, as he took out a handful.
+"I 'lowed they wus mixed; ef my ole woman knowed I'd tuck a poke uv 'er
+best goose feathers ter dab on a man she'd get a divorce."
+
+Two or three laughed behind their masks.  Another laugh went round as a
+short figure returned from the bushes with a bucket of tar which had
+been left near the road-side.
+
+"Heer's yore gumstickum."  He dipped a paddle in it and flourished it
+before Westerfelt, who was still on his horse.  "Say, mister, you don't
+seem inclined to say anything fer yorese'f; the last man we dressed out
+fer his weddin' begged like a whipped child, an' made no end o'
+promises uv good behavior."
+
+Westerfelt got down from his horse.  "I'm completely in your power," he
+replied.  "I won't beg any man nor gang of men living to give me my
+rights.  I suppose I am accused of having reported those fellows to the
+revenue men.  I have simply to say that it is a lie!"
+
+"Uh, uh!" said the leader; "_care_ful! _care_ful!  Don't be reckless.
+We uns ain't the lyin' sort."
+
+"I say it's a lie!"  Westerfelt stared straight into the mask of Toot
+Wambush.  The wearer of it started and half raised his revolver, but
+quickly concealed it under the sheet that hung below his waist.
+Everybody was silent, as if they expected a reply from Wambush, but he
+made none.
+
+"Them pore Cohutta men lyin' in the Atlanta jail said so, anyway,"
+returned the leader.  "They ain't heer to speak fer the'rse'ves; it's a
+easy thing to give them the lie behind the'r backs."
+
+"They were mistaken, that's all," said Westerfelt.  "Nobody but the
+revenue men themselves could tell the whole truth about it.  I did pass
+the wagon--"
+
+"An' eavedropped on our two men.  Oh, we know you did, kase they heerd
+a sound, an' then as you didn't come for'ard, they 'lowed they had made
+a mistake, but when you finally did pass they knowed it wus you, an'
+that you'd been listenin'."
+
+"That's the truth," admitted Westerfelt.  "I had been warned that it
+would be dangerous for me to go about in the mountains alone.  I heard
+the men talking, and stopped to find out who they were.  I did not want
+to run into an ambush.  As soon as I found out who they were I spoke to
+them and passed."
+
+"At the stable, though, young man," reminded the leader--"at the
+stable, when the bluecoats fetched the prisoners an' the plunder in,
+they told you that they'd found them right whar you said they wus."
+
+"You bet he did.  What's the use a-jabberin' any longer?"  The voice
+was unmistakably Wambush's, and his angry tones seemed to fire the
+impatience of the others.  Westerfelt started to speak, but his words
+were drowned in a tumult of voices.
+
+"Go ahead!" cried several.
+
+"Go ahead!  Are you gwine to hold a court an' try 'im by law?" asked
+Wambush, hotly.  "I 'lowed that point was done settled."
+
+Westerfelt calmly folded his arms.  "I've no more to say.  I see I'm
+not going to be heard.  You are a gang of cold-blooded murderers."
+
+The words seemed to anger the leader.
+
+"Shuck off that coat an' shirt!" was his order.
+
+Westerfelt did not move.  "I'm glad to say I'm not afraid of you," he
+said.  "If you have got human hearts in you, though, you'll kill me,
+and not let me live after the degradation you are going to inflict.  I
+know who's led you to this.  It is a cowardly dog who never had a thing
+against me till I refused to let him have credit at my stable, when he
+owes an account that's been running for two years.  He tried to kill me
+with a pistol and a knife when I was unarmed.  He failed, and had to
+get you to help him.  You are not a bit better than he is.  I'm no
+coward.  I've got fighting blood in me.  Some of you'd acknowledge it
+if I was to tell you who my father was.  I have reason to believe there
+are men here to-night who fought side by side with him in the war, and
+were with him when he was shot down tryin' to hold up the flag at the
+battle of Chickamauga.  One of the dirty cowards he once carried off
+the field when the whelp could hardly walk with a bullet in his leg!"
+
+"What company wus that?" came from the edge of the crowd.  The voice
+was quivering.
+
+"Forty-second Georgia."
+
+For a moment no one spoke, then the same voice asked:
+
+"Who wus your pa, young man?"
+
+"Captain Alfred Stone Westerfelt, under Colonel Mills."
+
+The tall slender figure of the questioner leaned forward breathlessly
+and then pushed into the ring.  Without a word he stood near
+Westerfelt, unpinned the sheet that was round him, and slowly took off
+his mask.  Then he put a long forefinger into his mouth, pried a wad of
+cotton out of each cheek, and threw them on the ground.
+
+It was old Jim Hunter.  He cleared his throat, spat twice, wiped his
+mouth with his hand, and slowly swept the circle with his eyes.
+
+"I'm the feller he toted out," he said.  He cleared his throat again,
+and went on:
+
+"Boys, if thar's to be any whippin', ur tarrin' an' featherin' in this
+case, I'm agin it tooth an' toe-nail.  Cap Westerfelt's boy sha'n't
+have a hair o' his head fetched on sech flimsy evi_dence_ as we've had
+while I'm alive.  You kin think what you please o' me.  I've got too
+much faith in the Westerfelt stock to believe that a branch of it 'u'd
+spy ur sneak.  This is Jim Hunter a-talkin'."
+
+Two others pushed forward, taking off their sheets and masks.  They
+were Joe Longfield and Weston Burks.
+
+"We are t'other two," said Longfield, dryly.  "The Yanks killed off too
+blame many o' that breed o' men fer us to begin to abuse one at this
+late day.  Ef Westerfelt's harmed, it will be over my dead body, an' I
+bet I'm as hard to kill as a eel."
+
+"Joe's a-talkin' fer me," said Burks, simply, and he put his hand on
+his revolver.
+
+"We've been too hasty," began Jim Hunter again.  "We've 'lowed Toot to
+inflame our minds agin this man, an' now I'll bet my hat he's innocent.
+I'd resk a hoss on it."
+
+"Thar's a gal in it, I'm a-thinkin'," opined Weston Burks, dryly.
+
+"Men," cried the leader, "thar's a serious disagreement; we've always
+listened to Jim Hunter; what must we do about the matter under dispute?"
+
+"Send the man back to town," cried a voice in the edge of the crowd.
+"He's the right sort to the marrow; I'll give 'im my paw an' wish 'im
+well."
+
+"That's the ticket!" chimed in the man with the rope, as he tossed it
+over the horn of his saddle.
+
+"I 'low myself we've been a leetle bit hasty," admitted the leader.
+
+"Put down that gun!  Drap it!" cried Jim Hunter, turning suddenly on
+Toot Wambush.  "Ef you dare to cock a gun in this crowd, you'll never
+live to hear it bang!"
+
+Wambush started to raise his revolver again, but Hunter knocked it from
+his hand.  Wambush stooped to pick it up, but the old man kicked it out
+of his reach.
+
+"You don't work that trick on this party," he said, hotly.
+
+"I wasn't tryin' to draw it," muttered Wambush.
+
+"You lie!"  Then Hunter turned to the leader: "What d'ye think ortter
+be done with a man like that?  Ef I hadn't a-been so quick he'd a shot
+Westerfelt, an' before the law we'd all a-been accomplices in murderin'
+a innocent man."
+
+"I move we give the whelp six hours to git out'n the county," said Joe
+Longfield.  "You all know I've been agin Toot."
+
+"That would be too merciful," said Burks.
+
+"Boys," the leader cried, "Wambush has broke a rule in tryin' this
+thing on us.  You've heerd the motion; is thar a second?"
+
+"I second it," said Jim Hunter.
+
+"It's been moved and seconded that Wambush be 'lowed six hours to git
+clean out o' the county; all in favor say yes."
+
+There was almost a general roar.
+
+"All opposed say no."
+
+No one spoke for a moment, then Wambush muttered something, but no one
+understood what it was.  He turned his horse round and started to
+mount.  He had his left foot in the stirrup, and had grasped the mane
+of the animal with his right hand, when the leader yelled:
+
+"Hold on thar!  Not so quick, sonny.  We don't let nobody as sneakin'
+as you are ride off with a gun in his hip pocket.  S'arch 'im, boys;
+he's jest the sort to fire back on us an' make a dash fer it."
+
+Hunter and Burks closed in on him.  Wambush drew back and put his hand
+behind him.
+
+"Damn you! don't you touch me!" he threatened.
+
+The two men sprang at him like tigers and grasped his arms.  Wambush
+struggled and kicked, but they held him.
+
+"Wait thar a minute," cried the leader; "he don't know when to let well
+enough alone.  You white sperits out thar with the tar an' feathers
+come for'ard.  Wambush ain't satisfied with the garb he's got on."
+
+A general laugh went round.  With an oath Wambush threw his revolver on
+the ground and then his knife.  This done, Hunter and Burks allowed him
+to mount.
+
+"Don't let him go yet," commanded the leader; "look in his saddle-bags."
+
+Wambush's horse suddenly snorted, kicked up his heels, and tried to
+plunge forward, but Burks clung to the reins and held him.
+
+"He dug his spur into his hoss on this side like thunder," said a man
+in the crowd.  "It's a wonder he didn't rip 'im open."
+
+"S'arch them bags," ordered the leader, "an' ef he makes anuther budge
+before it's done, or opens his mouth fer a whisper, drag 'im right down
+an' give 'im 'is deserts."
+
+Wambush offered no further resistance.  Hunter fumbled in the bags.  He
+held up a quart flask of corn whiskey over his head, shook it in the
+moonlight, and then restored it.  "I hain't the heart to deprive 'im of
+that," he said, as he walked round the horse; "he won't find any better
+in his travels."  On the other side he found a forty-four-caliber
+revolver.
+
+"That 'u'd be a ugly customer to meet on a dark road," he said, holding
+it up for the others to see.  "By hunky! it 'u'd dig a tunnel through a
+rock mountain.  Say, Westerfelt, ef he'd 'a' got a whack at yer with
+this yore fragments 'u'd never a-come together on the day o' jedgment."
+
+Westerfelt made no reply.
+
+"Now, let 'im go," said the leader.  "Ef he dares to be seed anywhar in
+the Cohutta section six hours frum now he knows what will come uv 'im.
+We refuse to shelter 'im any longer, an' the officers of the law will
+take 'im in tow."
+
+The ring of men and horses opened for Wambush to pass out.  He said
+nothing, and did not turn his head as he rode down the mountain into
+the mysterious haze that hung over the valley.
+
+"What do you say, boys?" proposed Jim Hunter to Longfield and Burks.
+"Let's ride down the road a piece with Westerfelt."
+
+"All right," both of them said.  There was a general scramble of the
+band to get mounted.  Westerfelt got on his horse and started back
+towards the village, accompanied by the three men.  When they had
+ridden about a hundred yards, Westerfelt said:
+
+"I'm taking you out of your way, gentlemen, and I think I'd rather go
+alone."
+
+"Well, all right," said Hunter; "but you've got to take my gun.  That
+whelp would resk his salvation to get even with you."
+
+"I know it," said Westerfelt, putting the revolver into his pocket;
+"but he'll not try it to-night."
+
+"No, I think he's gone fer good," said Longfield.  "I guess he'll make
+fer Texas."
+
+At a point where two roads crossed a few yards ahead of them,
+Westerfelt parted with the three men.  They went back up the mountain,
+and he rode slowly homeward.
+
+When he was in sight of the stable, he saw Washburn coming towards him
+on horseback.
+
+"Hello!  Did they hurt you, Mr. Westerfelt?" he asked.
+
+"They never touched me."
+
+"My Lord! how was that?"
+
+"I told them I had nothing to do with the arrest; three of them were
+old friends of my father's, and they believed me.  Did you find
+her--did you find Miss Harriet?"
+
+"Yes; I couldn't make out what you meant 'bout the account-book at
+first, but I went over to the shop as soon as you all left.  She wus
+lyin' thar on the ground in a dead faint.  It took hard work to bring
+her to."
+
+"You took her home?"
+
+"Not right away; I couldn't do a thing with 'er.  She acted like a
+crazy woman.  She screamed an' raged an' tore about an' begged fer a
+hoss to ride atter you all.  She wasn't in no fix to go; she didn't
+know what she wus about, an' that scamp would a-shot 'er.  I believe on
+my soul he would."
+
+They had reached the stable and dismounted, but neither moved to go in.
+
+"I reckon you ought to know the truth, Washburn, since you saw her
+there so late at night," said Westerfelt, hesitatingly.  "The fact is,
+she came to warn me.  I suppose she knew Wambush would try to kill me,
+and she didn't want to--"
+
+"She don't keer a snap for Wambush, ef that's what you mean," said
+Washburn, when he saw that Westerfelt was going no farther.  "I know
+it's been the talk, an' she no doubt did like him a little at one time,
+but the' ain't but one man livin' she keers fer now.  It ain't none o'
+my business--I'm no hand to meddle, but I know women!  She kep' cryin'
+an' sayin' that they'd murder you, an' ef they did she'd kill Toot
+Wambush ur die in the attempt.  I'm tellin' you a straight tale."
+
+Westerfelt sat down in a chair at the side of the door.  Washburn led
+the horse into the stable and put him into a stall.  Then he came back.
+Westerfelt's hands were over his face, but he took them down when he
+heard Washburn's step.
+
+"Did--did she hurt herself when she fell?" he asked.
+
+"No, she's all right."  Washburn hesitated a moment, then he added:
+"Mr. Westerfelt, you ought to go up to yore room an' try to rest some;
+this night's been purty rough on you atter bein' down in bed so long."
+
+Westerfelt rose silently and went through the office and up the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+The dawn was breaking when Harriet Floyd stole up to her room under the
+slant of the roof.  She had no idea of trying to sleep.  She sat down
+on the side of the bed, shivering with cold.  Through the small-paned
+dormer window the gray light fell, bringing into vague relief the
+different objects in the room.  Down in the back yard the chickens were
+flapping their wings and crowing lustily.  Through the dingy glass she
+could see the cow-lot, the sagging roof of the wagon-shed, the barn,
+the ricks of hay, and the bare branches of the apple-trees still
+holding a few late apples.  Her shoes were wet with dew and her dress
+and shawl hung limply about her.
+
+There was a sudden step in the hall; a hand touched the latch; the door
+opened cautiously.
+
+"Harriet!"
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+Mrs. Floyd glided across the floor, sat down on the bed by her
+daughter, and stared at her in wonder.
+
+"Where on earth have you been?  I have been watching for you all night.
+Oh, my child, what is the matter?  What has gone wrong?"
+
+"I have been out trying to save Mr. Westerfelt.  Toot led the
+Regulators down an' they took him out.  I warned him, but he would not
+go in time and they took him to the mountain."
+
+"Good Heavens! what did they intend to do with him?"
+
+"Most of them meant only to frighten him and to whip him, but Toot
+Wambush will kill him if he gets a chance."
+
+"I don't believe they'll harm him," said Mrs. Floyd, consolingly.
+"Anyway, we can't do anything; get in bed and let me cover you up; you
+are damp to the skin and all of a quiver; you'll catch your death
+sitting here."
+
+Mrs. Floyd put her hand round Harriet, but she sprang up and pulled
+down a heavy cloak from a hook on the wall.
+
+"I did not come here to go to bed!" she cried.  She put the garment on
+and strode past her mother to the window.  Mrs. Floyd followed her
+movements with an anxious glance.  At the window Harriet turned and
+stamped her foot.  "Do you think I'm going to bed when I don't
+know--oh, my God, I can't bear it!  I can't bear it!"  She suddenly
+approached her bewildered mother, put her hands on her shoulders, and
+turned her face to the light.  "You hear me, mother?  As God in Heaven
+is my witness, if a hair of that man's head is harmed to-night, I'll
+kill Toot Wambush on sight.  I'll kill him, if I hang for it!  I swear
+it before God!  Do you hear?  I swear it--no power on earth shall stop
+me!  I'll _do_ it!"
+
+Her body swayed.  She made a step towards the door and sank down in a
+swoon.  Mrs. Floyd sprang for a pitcher of water and sprinkled her
+face.  The girl revived a little, and her mother raised her in her
+arms, put her on the bed, and drew the covers over her.  Harriet closed
+her eyes drowsily.  She did not seem wholly conscious.  Mrs. Floyd went
+down-stairs and lighted a fire in the kitchen stove, and put on some
+water to heat.  Then she went to the cook's room off the back porch and
+shook the door.
+
+"Get up quick, Em', Harriet is sick!" she cried; then she ran up to her
+own room, opposite Harriet's, and finished dressing herself.  As she
+was crossing the hall she saw a man on horseback in the street.  She
+went out on the veranda and called to him.  At first she did not
+recognize him, but when he came nearer she saw that it was Washburn.
+
+"Are you going to help Mr. Westerfelt?" she asked, in a low tone, as
+she leaned over the railing.
+
+"I've done all that kin be done," he said.  "I've been round among the
+citizens.  They all say we'd be fools to try to do anything, Mrs.
+Floyd.  Some are skeerd to death, an' others pretend they don't think
+Mr. Westerfelt's in danger."
+
+She did not answer, fearing her voice would rouse Harriet, and after he
+had ridden away, she went back to the girl's room.  Harriet was asleep,
+so she left her.  A few hours later the barkeeper's wife came into the
+kitchen and told Mrs. Floyd the latest news.  She dropped the pan she
+was cleaning and eagerly ran up to Harriet.
+
+The noise of the opening door roused the girl.  She sat up, stared in a
+dazed way at her mother an instant, then threw off the coverings and
+sprang out of bed.
+
+"I've been asleep; Mr. Westerfelt!  Oh, mother, why did you let me--"
+
+"He's all right!" interrupted Mrs. Floyd.  "They didn't touch a hair of
+his head." Harriet stared open-mouthed.
+
+"He's back safe and sound," went on Mrs. Floyd; "he proved himself
+innocent and they let 'im go."
+
+"Oh, mother, mother!"  Harriet put her arms round the old woman's neck
+and clung to her.  "Thank God!  Oh, mother, thank God--thank God!"
+Then she sat down in a chair and began hastily to put on her shoes.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Going to see him."
+
+"Not now; why--"
+
+"I _will_ see him.  Let me alone; don't try to stop me!"
+
+"You surely would not go to the stable!  He--"
+
+"I'd go anywhere to see him.  I don't care what people say; I'm going
+to see him."
+
+As Harriet bent to fasten her shoes, Mrs. Floyd touched her.
+
+"Daughter, are you engaged to Mr. Westerfelt?"
+
+Harriet did not look up.  She still bent over her shoes, but the
+strings lay motionless in her fingers.
+
+"No, he intimated he couldn't marry me, on--on account of my
+misfortune.  Oh, don't let's talk about it.  He and I understand each
+other.  He loves me, but we're not engaged."
+
+Mrs. Floyd leaned against the mantel-piece.  Her face had become hard
+and stern.  Harriet started to leave the room, but Mrs. Floyd suddenly
+stepped between her and the door.
+
+"He intimated that _that_ would keep him from marrying you?  My
+Lord--the coward!"
+
+"Mother, don't--don't say that!"
+
+"I thought he was a _man_!  Why, he is lower than a brute."
+
+Harriet disengaged herself from her mother's grasp, and passed on to
+the door.  She turned on the threshold.
+
+"I have no time to quarrel with you about him," she said, with a sigh;
+"you can have your opinion, nothing on earth will change mine.  He
+loves me.  I am going to see him now, and nothing you can say or do
+will prevent me."
+
+Her shoes rattled loosely on the bare floor and on the stairs as she
+went down to the street.
+
+During the night the sycamore-trees had strewn the ground with
+half-green, half-yellow leaves, and the tops of the fences were white
+with frost.  Martin Worthy was taking down the shutters at the store
+and calling through the window to his wife, who was unscrewing them on
+the inside.  A farmer had left his team in front of the bar, and she
+saw him taking his morning drink at the counter and heard Buck
+Hillhouse giving him an exaggerated report of the visit of the
+Whitecaps.  The eastern sky was yellowing, and a peak of the tallest
+mountain cut a brown gash in the coming sunlight.  At the fence in
+front of Bufford Webb's cottage a cow stood lowing for admittance, and
+a milking-pail hung on the gate.
+
+As Harriet passed, Mrs. Webb came out with a bucket of "slop" for the
+pig in a pen near the fence.  She rested it on the top rail to speak to
+Harriet, but the hungry animal made such a noise that she hastened
+first to empty the vessel into the trough.
+
+"Good-morning," she said, going quickly to the gate and wiping her
+hands on her apron; "did you-uns heer the racket last night?"
+
+"Yes," answered Harriet.
+
+"I didn't sleep a wink.  We could see 'em frum the kitchen winder.
+It's a outrage, but I'm glad they did no rail harm."
+
+The girl passed on.  She found Washburn in front of the stable oiling a
+buggy.  He had placed a notched plank under an axle and was rapidly
+twirling a wheel.
+
+"Where is Mr. Westerfelt?" she asked.
+
+He raised his eyes to the window in the attic.  "Up thar lyin' down.
+He's not in bed.  He jest threw hisself down without undressing."
+
+"Is he asleep?"
+
+"I don't know, Miss Harriet, but I think not."
+
+"Did they hurt him last night, Mr. Washburn?"
+
+"Why, no, Miss Harriet, not a single bit."
+
+She caught her breath in relief.  "I thought maybe they had, and that
+he was not going to acknowledge it.  Are--are you sure?"
+
+"As sure as I could be of anything, Miss Harriet; I believe he is a
+truthful man, an' he told me they didn't lay the weight of a finger on
+'im.  You kin go up an' ax 'im.  He ain't asleep; he looked too worried
+to sleep when he got back.  He walked the floor the balance o' the
+night.  Seems to me he's been through with enough to lay out six common
+men."
+
+Harriet did not answer.  She turned into the office and went up the
+stairs to Westerfelt's room.  Round her was a dark, partially floored
+space containing hay, fodder, boxes of shelled corn, piles of corn in
+the husk, and bales of cotton-seed meal.  She rapped on the
+door-facing, and, as she received no response, she called out:
+
+"Mr. Westerfelt, come out a minute."
+
+She heard him rise from his bed, and in a moment he stood in the
+doorway.
+
+"Oh, it's you!" he cried, in a glad voice.  "I was afraid you were not
+well.  I--"
+
+"I am all right," she assured him.  "But I simply couldn't rest till I
+saw you with my own eyes.  When I heard they let you off I was afraid
+it was a false report.  Sometimes, when those men do a bad thing they
+try to cover it up.  Oh, Mr. Westerfelt, I am so--so miserable!"
+
+He caught her hands and tried to draw her into his room out of the
+draught which came up the stairs, but she would not go farther than the
+door.
+
+"No, I must hurry back home" she said.  "Mother did not want me to come
+anyway; she didn't think it looked right, but I was so--so worried."
+
+"I understand."  He was feasting his eyes on hers; it was as if their
+hunger could never be appeased.  "Oh, I'm so glad you come I've had you
+on my mind--"
+
+But she interrupted him suddenly.  Looking round at the bleak room and
+its scant furniture, she said: "I--I thought may be I could persuade
+you now to come back to your room at the hotel, where mother and I
+could wait on you.  You do not look as well as you did, Mr. Westerfelt."
+
+He smiled and shook his head.
+
+"It's mighty good of you to ask me," he returned, "but this is good
+enough for me, and I don't want to be such a bother.  The Lord knows I
+was enough trouble when I was there."
+
+A look of sharp pain came upon her sensitive face for an instant, then
+she said; "I wish you wouldn't talk that way; you weren't one bit of
+trouble."
+
+He looked away from her.  He was, indeed, not at his best.  His beard
+had grown out on his usually clean-shaven face and his cheeks looked
+sallow and sunken.  He was tingling all over with a raging desire to
+throw his arms about her and tell her how he loved her and longed to
+make her his wife, but suddenly a mind-picture of Toot Wambush rose
+before him.  He saw her deliberately lying to the officers to save him
+from arrest, and--worse than all--he saw her in the arms of the
+outlaw's father sobbing out a confession of her love.  He told himself
+then, almost in abject terror of some punishment held over him by God
+Himself, that Mrs. Dawson's prayers would be answered--if--if he gave
+way.  "No," he commanded himself, "I shall stand firm.  She's not for
+me, though she may love me--though she does love me now and would wipe
+out the past with her life.  A woman as changeable as that would change
+again."  Then a jealous rage flared up within him, and he laid a
+threatening hand on either of her shoulders and glared into her eyes.
+
+"I told you last night I'd never bring up a certain subject again,
+but--"
+
+"Then you'd better not," she said, so firmly, so vindictively, that his
+tongue was stilled.  "I came here out of kindness; don't you
+dare--don't you insult me again, Mr. Westerfelt."
+
+"Oh, do forgive me!  I--"  But she had shaken off his hands and moved
+nearer the stairway.
+
+"You made a promise last night," she reminded him, "and I did not dream
+you had so little respect for me as to break it so soon."
+
+He moved towards her, his hands outstretched imploringly, but a sound
+from below checked him.  Some one was speaking to Washburn in the
+office.  Then footsteps were heard on the stairs, and Mrs. Bradley,
+followed by Luke, waddled laboriously up the steps.  She was wiping her
+eyes, which were red from weeping.  She glanced in cold surprise at
+Harriet, and passing her with only a nod, went to Westerfelt and threw
+her arms around his neck.  Then with her head on his breast she burst
+into fresh tears.
+
+"You pore, motherless, unprotected boy," she sobbed.  "I can't bear it
+a bit longer.  Me 'n' Luke wus the cause o' yore comin' to this
+oncivilized place anyway, an' you've been treated wuss 'an a dog.  Ef
+Luke had one speck o' manhood left in him, he'd--"
+
+Bradley advanced from the door, and drew his wife away from Westerfelt.
+
+"Don't act so daddratted foolish," he said.  "No harm hain't been done
+yet--no _serious_ harm."  Still holding her hand, he turned to
+Westerfelt; "They've tried to do you dirt, John, I know, but them boys
+will be the best friends on earth to you now.  Ef you ever want to run
+fer office all you got to do is to announce yorese'f.  Old Hunter wus
+down at Bill Stone's this mornin' as we passed buyin' his fine hoss to
+replace yore'n."
+
+"I reckon they've run Toot Wambush clean off," put in Mrs. Bradley,
+looking significantly at Harriet.  She expected the girl to reply, but
+Harriet only avoided her glance.  Mrs. Bradley rubbed her eyes again,
+put her handkerchief into her pocket, and critically surveyed the damp,
+bedraggled dress of the girl.
+
+"It's mighty good of you to come down to see 'im all by yourself so
+early," she said; "some gals wouldn't do sech a thing.  The report is
+out that you notified John of what the band intended to do."
+
+Harriet nodded, and looked as if she wanted to get away.
+
+"It wus mighty good of you, especially as you an' Toot are sech firm
+friends," went on Mrs. Bradley; "but it's a pity you wusn't a little
+sooner with yore information."
+
+"She told me in plenty of time," corrected Westerfelt.  "It was my
+fault that I didn't get away.  I didn't go when Miss Harriet told me
+to."
+
+His reply did not please Mrs. Bradley, as she showed by her next
+remark.  "I'd think you'd be afeerd o' makin' Toot madder at you 'n he
+already is," she said to Harriet.
+
+The girl did not look at her.  She was watching Westerfelt, who had
+suddenly moved to the bed and sat down.  When she spoke she directed
+her explanation to Bradley rather than to his wife.
+
+"Mother and I thought Mr. Westerfelt ought not to stay here alone, and
+that we'd get him to come over to the room he had in the hotel; so we--"
+
+"You an' yore mother hain't knowed 'im sence he wus knee-high like me
+an' Luke has," jealously retorted Mrs. Bradley.  "I reckon it's time we
+wus givin' the boy a little attention.  We've got the buggy down thar
+waitin', John, an' a hot breakfast ready at home.  I won't stand no
+refusal.  You jest got to come with us; you needn't make no excuse."
+
+"I'm not sick," answered Westerfelt, with a faint smile.  He glanced at
+Harriet.  With an unsteady step she was moving away.  He wanted to call
+to her, but the presence of the others sealed his lips.  She turned out
+into the semi-darkness of the loft, and then they heard her descending
+the stairs.
+
+The sun was rising as she went back to the hotel.  No one was in the
+parlor.  She entered it and closed the door after her.  She drew up the
+window-shade and looked down the street till she saw Mrs. Bradley and
+Westerfelt pass in a buggy.  Then she went into the dining-room, where
+a servant was laying a cloth on a long table, took down a stack of
+plates from a shelf, and began to put them in their places.
+
+When breakfast was over that morning Westerfelt went back to the
+stable.  While sitting in the office.  Long Jim Hunter came to the door
+leading a fine bay horse, a horse that Westerfelt recognized at a
+glance as one he had seen and admired before.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Westerfelt," he called out over Washburn's shoulder, who had
+gone to him.  "I wish you'd step heer a minute.  I know you don't do
+the rough work round heer, but I like to have my dealings with the head
+of a shebang.  Wash, heer, never did have much more sense 'n a chinch,
+nohow."
+
+"What can I do for you, Mr. Hunter?" asked the man addressed, coming
+out.
+
+There was a decidedly sheepish look in the old man's face, and he swung
+the halter of the horse awkwardly to and fro.
+
+"Well, you see, it's jest this way, Westerfelt," he began, with an
+effort.  "I've bought this blamed hoss frum Bill Stone an' I want to
+leave 'im heer with you.  I want you to put 'im through any sort o'
+work you see fit; he's too blam' fat an' frisky anyhow."
+
+Westerfelt comprehended the whole situation, but he did not want to
+accept the horse.  "Why, Mr. Hunter, really--" he began.
+
+"Oh, we'll take yore hoss," laughed Washburn.  "We kin take the kinks
+out'n his mane an' tail an' make 'im wish he never wus born.  Oh,
+Lordy, yes, we want 'im, an' ef you've got a good saddle an' bridle ur
+a buggy hustle 'em around."
+
+"Well, you'd better 'tend to 'im."  Hunter tossed the halter to
+Washburn.  "I'll be blamed ef I want 'im."  And he turned and without
+another word walked away.
+
+"It's wuth three o' the one they shot," was Washburn's laconic
+observation.  He looked the animal over admiringly and slapped him so
+vigorously under the belly that the horse grunted and humped his back.
+
+Cartwright, like nearly every other Georgian village, had its lawyer.
+Bascom Bates was a young man of not more than thirty, but he was
+accounted shrewd by many older legal heads, who had been said to have
+advised him to move to a larger place.  When business did not come to
+his office, Bates sometimes went after it.  If a woman lost a husband
+in a railway wreck or was knocked off the track where he had no right
+to be, Bates called as early as possible and offered to direct a suit
+against the corporation for damages at half the usual price--that is,
+as Bill Stone once put it, the widow got half and Bates half, which
+nobody seemed to think exorbitant, because it cost a lawyer a good deal
+to get his education, and court convened but twice a year.  He was
+among the first to call on Westerfelt that morning, and with a
+mysterious nod and crooking of his fingers in the air he induced the
+young man to follow him into one of the vacant stalls in the back part
+of the long building.
+
+"Thar's something that has jest struck me, Westerfelt," he began, in
+the low voice of an electioneering candidate, and he possessed himself
+of one of Westerfelt's lapels and began to rub his thick, red fingers
+over it.  "I wouldn't have you mention me in the matter, for really I
+hain't got a thing ag'in any of these mountain men, but I thought I'd
+say to you as a friend that this is a damageable case.  Them men could
+be handled for what they done last night, and made to sweat for
+it--sweat hard cash, as the feller said."
+
+Westerfelt stared at him in surprise.
+
+"Oh," he said, "I never thought of that.  I--"
+
+"Well, there ain't no harm in looking at the thing from all sides,"
+broke in the lawyer, as deliberately as his professional eagerness
+would permit.  "A good price could be made out of the ring-leaders
+anyway.  Old Jim Hunter's got two hundred acres o' bottom land as black
+as that back yard out thar, an' it's well stocked, an' I know all the
+rest o' the gang an' their ability to plank up.  Maybe it wouldn't even
+get as far as court.  Them fellers would pay up rather than be
+published all over creation as--"
+
+Westerfelt drew back, smiling.  He did not really dislike Bates, and he
+attributed his present proposition to the desire to advance in his
+profession, but he was far from falling into the present proposal.
+
+"I haven't the slightest intention of prosecuting, Mr. Bates," he
+declared, firmly.  "In fact, nothing could persuade me to take a single
+step in that direction."
+
+The face of the lawyer fell.
+
+"Oh, that's the way you feel.  Well," scratching his chin, "I don't
+know as it makes much difference one way or the other, but I hope, Mr.
+Westerfelt, that you won't mention what I said.  These fellers are the
+very devil about boycottin' people."
+
+"It shall go no further," answered Westerfelt, and together they walked
+to the front.  A few minutes after Bates had gone across the street to
+his office, old Hunter slouched into the stable and stood before
+Westerfelt.  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in Bates's direction
+and grinned uneasily.  Then he spat, and delivered himself of this:
+
+"I'll bet I kin make a powerful good guess at what that feller wanted
+to see you about."
+
+Westerfelt smiled good-naturedly.  He felt irresistibly drawn towards
+the old man.
+
+"Do you think you could, Mr. Hunter?"
+
+"I'd bet a ten-acre lot agin a ginger-cake.  An' I'll bet some'n else;
+I'll bet ten dollars 'gin a nickel that Cap. Westerfelt's boy ain't
+a-gwine to harbor no ill-will agin one o' his daddy's old friends that
+wus actin' the damn fool 'fore he knowed who he wus monkeyin' with."
+
+"You'd win on that bet, Mr. Hunter," and Westerfelt gave the old man
+his hand.
+
+Hunter's shook as with palsy as he grasped and held it.  Tears rose in
+his eyes.  "Lord, Lord A'mighty!" he said, "when I reecolect that the
+young chap 'at stood up thar so spunky all by hisse'f last night, in
+that moonlight an' sassed all of us to our teeth was Cap. Westerfelt's
+boy--by God, I jest want some hound dog to come an' take my place on
+God's earth--so I do.  I want some able-bodied cornfield nigger to wear
+a hickory-withe out on my bare back."  Then he dropped Westerfelt's
+hand and strode away.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+Westerfelt accepted the urgent invitation of the Bradleys to live in
+their house awhile.  For the first week his wound gave him pain and his
+appetite failed him, which was due as much, perhaps, to mental as
+bodily trouble, for Harriet Floyd was on his mind constantly.
+Thoroughly disgusted with himself for having in the past treated the
+hearts of women lightly, he now drew the rein of honor tightly when he
+thought of his position and hers.  He told himself he would never go to
+see her again till he had made up his mind to forget her love for
+Wambush and every rasping fact pertaining to it, and honorably ask her
+to be his wife.  There were moments in which he wondered if she were
+not, on her part, trying to forget him, and occasionally, when his
+spirits sank lowest, he actually harbored the fear that her affection
+might already have returned to Wambush.  He recalled something he had
+once heard that a woman would love a man who was unfortunate more
+surely than one who was not, and this thought almost drove him mad with
+jealousy, for was she not likely, through pity, to send her heart after
+the exile?  Now and then, in passing the hotel, he caught a glimpse of
+Harriet on the veranda or at the window, but she always turned away, as
+if she wished to avoid meeting him, and this pained him, too, for she
+had become his very life, and such cold encounters were like permanent
+steps towards losing her forever, which, somehow, had never quite
+shaped itself into a possibility in his mind.
+
+It was a warm day in the middle of November, Westerfelt and Washburn
+stood at the stable waiting for the hack, which, once a day, brought
+the mail and passengers from Darley.  It had come down the winding red
+clay road and stopped at the hotel before going on to the stable.
+
+"I see a woman on the back seat," remarked Washburn.  "Wonder why she
+didn't git out at the hotel."
+
+In a moment the hack was in front of the stable, and Budd Ridly, the
+driver, had sprung down and was helping a woman out on the opposite
+side.  When she had secured her shawl and little carpet-bag, she walked
+round the hack and came towards Westerfelt.
+
+It was Sue Dawson.  She wore the same black cotton bonnet and gown, now
+faded and soiled, that she had worn at her daughter's funeral.
+
+"Howdy' do?" she said, giving him the ends of her fingers, and resting
+her carpet-bag on her hip.  "I _'lowed_ you'd be glad to see me."
+There was a malicious gleam in her little blue eyes, and her withered
+face was hard and pale and full of desperate purpose.
+
+"How do you do?" he replied.
+
+She smiled as she slowly scrutinized him.
+
+"Well, you _don't_ look as if you wus livin' on a bed of ease exactly,"
+she said, in a tone of satisfaction; "you've been handled purty rough,
+I reckon, fer a dandified feller like you, but--"  She stopped suddenly
+and glanced at Washburn, who was staring at her in surprise, then went
+on: "Budd Ridly couldn't change a five-dollar bill, an' he 'lowed I
+might settle my fare with the proprietor uv the shebang.  Don't blame
+Budd; I tol' 'im I wus well acquainted with the new stableman; an' I
+am, I reckon, ef _any_body is.  I had business over heer," she went on,
+as she got out her old-fashioned pocket-book and fumbled it with
+trembling fingers.  "I couldn't attend to it by writin'; some'n's gone
+wrong with the mails; it looks like I cayn't git no answers to the
+letters I write."
+
+Washburn took the money and went into the office for the change.
+
+"I didn't see what good it would do to write, Mrs. Dawson," said
+Westerfelt; "maybe it was wrong for me not to, but I've had a lot to
+bear; and you--"
+
+"_That_ you have," she interrupted, her face hardening, as she looked
+across the ploughed fields, bordered by strips of yellow broom-sedge,
+towards the pine forests in the west.  "You wus cut bad, I heer, an'
+laid up fer a week ur so, an' then the skeer them Whitecaps give you on
+top of it must a' been awful to a proud sperit like yore'n; but even
+sech as that will wear off _in time_.  But nothin' _human_, John
+Westerfelt--nothin' _human_ kin fetch back the dead.  Sally's place is
+unoccupied.  I'm doin' her work every day, an' her dressin' an' pore
+little Sunday fixin's is all still a-hangin' on the wall.  She wus the
+only gal--"
+
+Washburn came back with the change.  The old woman's thin hands
+quivered as she took the coin and slowly counted the pieces into her
+pocket-book, Washburn suspected from the expression of Westerfelt's
+face that the conversation was of a private nature, so he went out to
+the hack to help Budd unharness the horses.
+
+"No," went on the old woman, sternly, "you've brought about a pile o'
+misery in yore life, John Westerfelt, an' you hain't a-gwine to throw
+it off like a ol' coat, an' dance an' make merry.  You may try that
+game; but yore day is over; you already bear the mark of it in yore
+face an' sunk cheeks.  You've got another gal on yore string by this
+time, too."
+
+"You are mistaken, Mrs. Dawson."
+
+"How about the one at the hotel that nussed you through yore sick
+spell?"
+
+"There is nothing between us."  He hesitated, then added: "Nothing at
+all, nor there never will be."
+
+"_You_ say thar hain't, but that don't prove it.  I want to lay eyes on
+_her_; I can tell ef you have been up to yore old tricks when I see
+'er.  Ef she's got a purty face you have."
+
+He made no reply.
+
+She hitched her burden up on her left hip and curved her body to the
+right.  "I'm a-gwine to put up thar, an' I'll see.  The Bradleys 'll
+think quar ef I don't put up with them, I reckon; but I'm gwine to try
+hotellin' fer once.  Right now it's in my line uv business.
+Good-mornin'; I don't owe you anything--nothin' in the money way, I
+mean.  Ah! you think I'm a devil, I reckon; well, you made me what I
+am.  I'm yore work, John Westerfelt!"
+
+He stood in the stable door and watched the little bent figure walk
+away.  He saw her pass the cottages, the store, the bar, and enter the
+hotel; then he went through the stable into the back yard and stood
+against the wall in the warm sunlight.  He didn't want Washburn to come
+to him just then with any questions about business.  A sudden,
+startling fear had come to him.  He was going to lose Harriet now, and
+through Mrs. Dawson, and it would be the just consequences of his early
+indiscretion.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+As the old woman entered the hotel she saw no one.  Looking into the
+parlor, and seeing it empty, she went down the hall to the rear of the
+house.  The door of the dining-room was open.  Mrs. Floyd was there
+arranging some jars of preserves in the cupboard, and turned at the
+sound of the slip-shod feet.
+
+"Good-morning," Mrs. Floyd said; "won't you have a seat?"
+
+Mrs. Dawson put her shawl and carpetbag on a chair.  "I want to put up
+heer to-night," she said.  "I never put up at a tavern in my life, an'
+I'm a sorter green hand at it.  I reckon you could tell that by lookin'
+at me."
+
+"We are pretty full," said Mrs. Floyd; "but we will manage to make a
+place for you somehow.  My daughter will show you a room.  Oh, Harriet!"
+
+"Yes, mother."  Harriet came in from the kitchen.  She had overheard
+the conversation.  Mrs. Dawson eyed her critically and slowly from head
+to foot.
+
+"This lady wants to stop with us," said Mrs. Floyd; "show her to the
+little room upstairs."
+
+Harriet took the carpet-bag.  "Do you want to go up now?"
+
+"I reckon I mought as well."
+
+Harriet preceded her to a little room at the head of the stairs.  The
+girl was drawing up the window-shade to let light into the room when
+the old woman spoke.  "You are the gal that nussed John Westerfelt
+through his spell, I reckon," she said.
+
+Harriet turned to her in surprise.  "Yes, he was with us," she replied.
+"Do you know him?"
+
+"A sight better 'n you do, I'm a-thinkin'," Mrs. Dawson seated herself,
+took off her bonnet, and began nervously folding it on her knee.  "But
+not better 'n you _will_, ef you don't mind what yo're about."
+
+Harriet flushed in mingled embarrassment and anger.  Without replying,
+she started to leave the room, but Mrs. Dawson caught the skirt of her
+dress and detained her.
+
+"You don't know who I am.  I had a daughter--"
+
+"I know all about it."  Harriet jerked her skirt from the old woman's
+hand and looked angrily into her face.  "She drowned herself because he
+didn't love her.  I do know who you are; you are a devil disguised as a
+woman!  He may have caused your daughter's death, but he did not do it
+intentionally, but you--you would murder him in cold blood if you
+could.  You have come all the way over here to drive him to
+desperation.  You--you are a bad woman.  I mean it!"
+
+For a moment Mrs. Dawson was thrown entirely off her guard by the
+unexpected attack.  She rose and stretched out a quivering hand for her
+carpet-bag, which she had put on the bed.  She shifted it excitedly
+from one hand to the other, and looked towards the door.
+
+"Yo're jest one more uv his fool victims, I kin see that," she gasped.
+"He's the deepest, blackest scoundrel on the face of the earth!"
+
+Harriet's eyes flashed.  "He's the best man I ever saw, and has had
+more to put up with.  You've come over here to persecute him; but you
+sha'n't stay in this house.  Get right out; we don't want you!"
+
+"Why, Harriet, what on _earth_ do you mean?" exclaimed Mrs. Floyd,
+suddenly entering the room.
+
+Harriet pointed at Mrs. Dawson.  "This woman has come over here to
+worry the life out of Mr. Westerfelt because he didn't marry her
+daughter.  She wrote threatening letters to him while he was at death's
+door, and is doing her best now to drive him crazy.  She sha'n't stay
+under this roof while I am here.  You know I mean exactly what I say,
+mother.  She goes or I do.  Take your choice!"
+
+"Mr. Westerfelt has had a lot of trouble," began Mrs. Floyd, wondering
+what it could all be about; "everybody here is in sympathy with him.
+We are all liable to mistakes; surely you can pardon him if--"
+
+"Not while I'm above ground," shrieked the old woman.  She dropped her
+bag, then picked it up awkwardly, and started to leave by a door which
+opened into another room.  She burst into hysterical weeping when Mrs.
+Floyd caught her arm to detain her.  "Not while I'm alive an' have my
+senses," she went on, in sobs and piping tones.  "I'll hound him to his
+grave.  I wouldn't stay heer over night to save my life.  I'd ruther
+sleep in a hay-stack ur in a barn-loft."
+
+Harriet turned her white, rigid face to the window, and stood between
+the parted curtains as still as a statue.  Mrs. Floyd tried again to
+detain the old woman, but she flounced out of the room and thumped
+down-stairs.
+
+
+The next morning a young girl came into the village by one of the
+mountain roads.  Her face was sad and troubled, and she looked as if
+she had walked a long distance.  She was poorly dressed, and her shoes
+were coarse and coated with dust, but her face was pretty and sweet.
+
+In front of the meeting-house she stopped and sat down on a log near
+the road-side.  When people passed she would draw her sun-bonnet over
+her face and turn her head from them.  Suddenly she rose and trudged on
+to the post-office.
+
+It was a busy day at Cartwright, and the little porch was filled with
+loungers.  Old Jim Hunter was there with his long-barrelled rifle and a
+snarling opossum, the tail of which was held between the prongs of a
+split stick.  When the animal showed a disposition to bite anybody, or
+crawl away, he subdued it instantly by turning the stick and twisting
+its tail.  Joe Longfield had come with a basket of eggs packed in
+cotton-seed to exchange for their value in coffee, and the two wags
+were entertaining the crowd with jokes at the expense of each other.
+
+As the girl passed into the store Martin Worthy was weighing a pail of
+butter for a countryman in a slouch hat and a suit of brown jeans.  She
+returned his nod and went to the little pen in the corner in which the
+mail was kept.
+
+"I cayn't 'low you but ten cents a pound for yore butter," Worthy said
+to the man.  "Yore women folks never _will_ work the water out, an'
+it's al'ays puffy an' white.  Town people don't want sech truck.  It
+has to be firm and yaller.  Look what the Beeson gals fetch once a
+week.  I gladly pay 'em fifteen fer it."  He uncovered a pile of firm
+golden balls and struck them with his paddle.  "Any woman can make sech
+butter ef they won't feed the cows cotton-seed an' will take 'nough
+trouble."
+
+When the man had joined the group outside, Worthy came from behind the
+counter into the pen, wiping his hands on a sheet of brown paper.
+
+"I don't think thar's a thing fer any o' yore folks, Miss Hettie," he
+said to the girl, "but I'll look jest to satisfy you."  He took a
+bundle of letters from a pigeon-hole and ran them hurriedly through his
+hands.  "Not a thing," he concluded, putting the letters back; "jest as
+I thought."
+
+She paused for a moment as if about to ask a question.  She put a thin
+hand on the cover of a sugar-barrel, and looked at him timidly from the
+depths of her bonnet as he came out of the pen, but she said nothing.
+As she started to go, her skirt caught on a sliver of the barrel, and,
+as she stooped to unfasten it, she almost fell forward.  But she
+recovered herself and went out of the door towards the hitching-rack in
+front, paused, and looked back at the road over which she had come.
+
+"Don't seem to know exactly whar she _does_ want to go," remarked Jim
+Hunter, breaking the silence which had followed her departure from the
+store.  "Who is she, anyway?"
+
+"Oz Fergerson's daughter Hettie," replied Worthy, leaning against the
+door-jamb.  "She don't look overly well; I reckon that's why she quit
+workin' at the hotel.  She's dyin' to git a letter from some'rs; she
+comes reg'lar every day an' goes away powerfully disappointed."
+
+"Never seed her before as I know of," said Longfield, handing Worthy
+his basket of eggs.
+
+The girl suddenly turned down the sidewalk.  She passed Mrs. Webb's
+cottage and the bar and went into the hotel.  Mrs. Floyd met her at the
+door.
+
+"Mis' Floyd, I want to see Harriet," she said.
+
+"She's up-stairs," replied Mrs. Floyd.  "I'll call her; but you'd
+better go in to the fire."
+
+The girl shook her head and muttered something Mrs. Floyd could not
+understand, so she left her in the hall.
+
+Mrs. Floyd found Harriet in her room.  "Hettie Fergerson is down-stairs
+and wants to see you," she said.  "She still acts very strange.  I
+asked her to go into the parlor, but she wouldn't."
+
+"How do you do, Hettie?" said Harriet, as she came down the steps.
+"Come into the parlor; you look cold."
+
+The girl hesitated, but finally followed Harriet into the warm room.
+They sat down before the fire, and there was an awkward silence for
+several minutes, then the visitor suddenly pushed back her bonnet and
+said, in a hard, desperate tone:
+
+"Where is Toot Wambush, Harriet?"
+
+Harriet looked at her in surprise for an instant, then she answered:
+
+"Why, Hettie, how could I know?  Nobody in Cartwright does now, I
+reckon."
+
+"I thought _you_ might."  Both girls were silent for a moment, then the
+visitor looked apprehensively over her shoulder at the door.  "Is yore
+ma coming in here?"
+
+"No; she's busy in the kitchen; do you want to see her?"
+
+"No."  The girl spoke quickly and moved uneasily.
+
+"You came to see me?"
+
+"I come to see _some_body--oh, Harriet, I'm so miserable!  You didn't
+suspicion it, Harriet, but I'm afraid that man has made a plumb fool of
+me.  I haven't slept hardly one wink since they driv' 'im off.  I--"
+She put her hand to her eyes, and as she paused Harriet thought she was
+crying, but a moment later, when she removed her hand, her eyes were
+dry.
+
+"Why did you come to--to see me, Hettie?" questioned Harriet.
+
+"Because," was the slow-coming reply, "I thought maybe he had wrote
+back to you."
+
+"He has never written to me, Hettie--never a line."
+
+The face of the girl brightened.  "Then you ain't engaged to him, _are_
+you, Harriet?"
+
+"The idea! of course not."
+
+"Oh, I'm mighty glad of that," exclaimed the visitor.  "You see, I'm
+such a fool about him I got jealous.  Oh, Harriet, there ain't no use
+in me tryin' to deceive myself; I know he would marry you at the drop
+of a hat if you'd have him.  I know that, and still I am crazy about
+him.  I ain't much to blame, Harriet, if I am foolish.  He made me so,
+an' 'most any pore, lonely girl like I am would care for a good-looking
+man like he is.  Oh, Harriet, it is awfully humiliating to have to
+think it, but I believe the reason he treats me like he does is that I
+showed him too plainly how much I loved him."
+
+"I did not suspect till the other day," said Harriet, to avoid that
+point, "that he was paying you any particular attention.  Mother told
+me he often drove you out home."
+
+"Oh, la, that ain't a circumstance, Harriet!  He used to come out home
+mighty nigh every day or night.  Pa an' ma think he is a regular
+prince.  You know he swore pa out of a big whiskey scrape in Atlanta,
+and since then pa and him has been mighty thick.  They thought all
+along that Toot wanted to marry me, and it made 'em mighty proud, and
+then it began to look like he was settin' up to you.  That's why I quit
+staying here, Harriet.  I couldn't be around you so much and know--or
+think, as I did, that he was beginning to love you."
+
+"I don't think," protested Harriet, "that he was ever deeply interested
+in me.  You must not think that.  In fact, I believe now, Hettie, that
+you and he will be happily married some day--if he ever gets out of his
+trouble."
+
+Hettie drew in her breath quickly and held it, raising a glad glance to
+the speaker's face.
+
+"Why do you think so, Harriet?--oh, you are just saying this to make me
+feel better."
+
+Harriet deliberated for a moment, then she said: "He was here the night
+they run him off--the night they all took Mr. Westerfelt out.  Mother
+and I had a long talk with him.  Mother talked straight to him about
+flirting with you, and told him what a good, nice girl you were, and--"
+
+"Oh, did she, Harriet?  I could hug her for it!"
+
+"Yes, and he talked real nice about you, too, and admitted he had acted
+wrong.  Hettie, I believe in time that he'll come back and ask you to
+marry him.  I believe that in the bottom of my heart."
+
+The countenance of the visitor was now aglow with hope.
+
+"Maybe he will--maybe he will," she said.  "I was afraid I let him see
+too plain that I was a fool about him, but some men like that, I
+reckon; he always seemed to come oftener.  Harriet, one thing has
+worried the life nearly out of me.  I heard Frank Hansard say a young
+man never would think as much of a girl after she let him kiss her.
+I'm no hypocrite--I'm anything else; but as much as I'd love to have a
+young man I cared for kiss me, I'd die in my tracks before I'd let 'im
+put his arm around me if I thought it would make 'im think less of me.
+Do you reckon" (she was avoiding Harriet's eyes)--"do you think that
+would make any difference with Toot--I mean, with any young man?"
+
+Harriet smiled in spite of the look of gravity in Hettie's eyes.
+
+"Some men might be that way," she finally said, consolingly--she was
+thinking of the innate coarseness of Hettie's lover--"but I don't think
+Mr. Wambush is.  That was one of the first things my mother ever taught
+me.  She told me she'd learned it by experience when she was a girl.  I
+don't pretend to be better than other girls, but I've always made men
+keep their distance."
+
+Hettie shrugged her shoulders, as if to throw off some unpleasant idea.
+
+"Oh, I don't care.  I'd do it over again.  Lord, I couldn't help it.  I
+love him so, and he is so sweet and good when he tries to be.  He
+thinks I'm all right, too, in some ways.  He says I'm just the girl to
+marry a dare-devil like he is.  Did you ever know it was me that helped
+get him away from the revenue men the night he had a barrel o' whiskey
+on his wagon?"  Hettie laughed impulsively, and her graceful little
+body shook all over.
+
+"Mother thought you had a hand in it," answered Harriet, with an
+appreciative smile.
+
+"It was fun," giggled Hettie.  "Toot drove nipitytuck down the street
+from the Hawkbill as fast as he could lick it, and them a-gallopin'
+after 'im.  I had been on the front porch talkin' to his father, who
+was anxious about 'im and wanted to see 'im.  Toot pulled up at the
+side gate an' said: 'No use, Het, damn it; I can't make it, and they'll
+know my horse and wagon an' prove it on me.'  Then I thought what to
+do; the men wasn't in sight back there in the woods.  Quicker 'n
+lightnin', I made Toot push the whiskey across the porch into the
+kitchen an' shet the door, an' when the revenue men stopped at the gate
+Toot was settin' up as cool as a cucumber in his wagon talkin' to me
+over the fence.  I think he was asking me to get in the wagon and go
+out home with him.  I never seed--saw 'im so scared, though, in my
+life; but la me! it was fun to me, an' I had more lies on my tongue 'n
+a dog has fleas.
+
+"'Did you have a barrel on that wagon a minute ago?' one of the two men
+asked.
+
+"'What'n the hell are you talkin' about?' asked Toot.  'I haven't
+seed--seen no barrel.'"  Hettie was trying to speak correctly, but the
+spirit of the narrative ran away with her meagre ideas of grammar.
+
+"'Oh,' said I, 'you've got the wrong sow by the ear; a wagon went
+whizzin' by here a minute ago like it was shot out of a gun.'
+
+"'Which way?' the officer asked, rippin' out an oath that 'u'd a-took
+the prize at a cussin'-bee.
+
+"I pointed down the road and said: 'I hear it a-clatterin' now,' and
+off they galloped.  Well, Toot soon loaded the whiskey again and drove
+off up the mountain, but he's laughed about that a hundred times and
+told the moonshiners about it.  Whenever I meet one in the road--I know
+the last one of 'em--they ask me if I've seen a whiskey wagon anywheres
+about.  Harriet," she added, more soberly, "you've give me a sight of
+comfort.  Now tell me about you-know-who.  Toot told me the last time
+he was at our house that he knowed you were gone on that new feller.
+I'm sorry they fit, but he had no business refusin' to credit Toot.
+Nobody else ever did the like, and it was calculated to rile him,
+especially when he was full an' loaded for bear, as folks say.  How are
+you and him makin' out, Harriet?"
+
+Harriet's face had taken on a sober look, and she hesitated before
+replying; finally she said:
+
+"There is nothing between us, Hettie, and I'd rather not talk about
+him."
+
+"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry!" the other exclaimed.  "He is such a good-looking
+man, and so many thought you and him would come to a understanding.
+They say a girl gets a mighty good whack at a man when he is laid up
+flat of his back.  I never have tried it, but it looks reasonable."
+
+Then Hettie rose.  "I'm goin' to stay to dinner with you all," she
+said, "and I'm going out now to help yore ma.  Pore woman, she looked
+dead tired jest now!"
+
+A few minutes later Mrs. Floyd came to Harriet, who was still seated in
+the parlor, an expression of deep thought on her face.
+
+"Harriet," said the old lady, wiping her damp hands on her apron,
+"Hettie has gone to work washing dishes in there like a house a-fire.
+I declare she's a big help; as soon as she comes about I feel rested,
+for I know she won't leave a thing undone.  What have you been saying
+to her?  I never saw her so cheerful.  She's been runnin' on in the
+kitchen like a fifteen-year-old child.  I declare I can't keep from
+liking her.  You must a-told her some'n about Toot Wambush."
+
+"I did," admitted Harriet.  "Mother, I've been standing in her way.  I
+believe he likes her, and will marry her now that I have given him his
+last answer."
+
+"Do you really, daughter?"
+
+"Yes, I think he will--I'm almost sure of it, and I just had to tell
+her so, she looked so down-hearted."
+
+Mrs. Floyd laid her hand on Harriet's head and smiled.
+
+"You deserve to be happy, too, daughter, and somehow I feel like you
+are going to be.  Mr. Westerfelt is nobody's fool; he knows you're
+sweet and good, and--"
+
+"I don't want to talk about him, mother," Harriet said, firmly, as she
+rose.  "I think we ought to keep Hettie a few days; she'd like to be
+near the post-office, I know."
+
+"Well, the Lord knows I'm willing," consented Mrs. Floyd, as she
+followed her daughter to the kitchen.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+Sue Dawson leaned on the front gate at the Bradleys'.
+
+"Hello!  Hello!  Hello! in thar!" she cried, in a shrill, piping voice.
+No one replied.  "I'm a good mind to go in anyway," she thought.  "I
+reckon they hain't got no bitin' dog."  She raised the iron ring from
+the post and drew the sagging gate through the grooves worn in the
+pebbly ground and entered the yard.  The front and back doors were
+open, and she could see a portion of the back yard through the hall.
+
+No one seemed to be in the house.  A young chicken had hopped up the
+back steps, crossed the entry, and was stalking about in the hall
+chirping hollowly, as if bewildered by its surroundings.  Across the
+rear door a sudden gust of wind blew a wisp of smoke, and then it
+occurred to Mrs. Dawson that some one might be in the back yard.  She
+drove the chicken before her as she stalked through the hall.
+
+Martha Bradley was making soap.  With her back to the house, she was
+stirring a boiling mixture of grease and lye in a large wash-pot.
+Under the eaves of the kitchen stood an ash-hopper, from the bottom of
+which trickled a tiny amber stream.
+
+"Howdy, Marthy?" said Mrs. Dawson, behind Mrs. Bradley's back.  "It was
+so still in the house, I 'lowed you wus all dead an' buried."
+
+Mrs. Bradley turned and dropped her paddle.  "Why, ef it hain't Mis'
+Dawson, as I'm alive!  Whar on earth are you bound fer?"
+
+"Jest come over fer a day ur so," was the reply.  "I thought some o'
+stoppin' at the hotel, but, on second thought, I 'lowed you an' Luke
+mought think strange ef I did, so heer I am."
+
+"I've al'ays got room fer a old neighbor, an' you'd a-been lonely at
+the hotel.  I'm glad you come, but--"  Mrs. Bradley took up her paddle
+and began to stir the contents of the pot.  "I reckon, I ortter tell
+you, plain, Mis' Dawson, that John Westerfelt is stayin' with us.
+We've got plenty o' room fer you both, but I thought it mought not be
+exactly agreeable fer you."
+
+A spiteful fire kindled in Mrs. Dawson's eyes.  "It mought upset _him_
+a little speck, Marthy, but I hain't done nothin' to be ashamed uv
+myse'f."
+
+Mrs. Bradley went to the ash-hopper and filled a dipper with lye and
+poured it into the pot.  Then she wiped her hands on her apron.  "John
+Westerfelt's had enough trouble to kill a ordinary man, Mis' Dawson,"
+she said, "an' I'm his friend to the backbone; ef you've got any
+ill-will agin 'im, don't mention it to me.  Besides, now would be a
+good time fer you to show Christian forbearance.  He's been
+thoughtless, but heer lately he is a changed man, an' I believe he's
+tryin' his level best to do right in God's sight.  He's had a peck o'
+trouble in one way or another over heer, but, in addition to that, I'm
+mistaken ef he don't suffer in secret day and night."
+
+"You don't say," cried Mrs. Dawson, eagerly.  "I 'lowed he wus cuttin'
+a wide swath over heer."
+
+"Never was a bigger mistake.  He don't visit a single gal in the place.
+He neglects his business, an' spends most o' his time in the woods
+pretendin' to hunt, but he seldom fetches back a thing, and you know he
+used to be the best shot at the beef matches.  Luke thinks his mind is
+turned a little bit.  Luke happened to go 'long the Shader Rock road
+t'other day an' seed John lyin' flat o' his back in the woods.  He
+passed 'im twice inside of a hour, an' he hadn't moved a peg.  No
+healthy minded man don't carry on that way, Mis' Dawson."
+
+"Hain't he a-settin' up to that hotel gal?" Mrs. Bradley turned towards
+the house with her guest.  "No, he hain't," she answered.  "She nussed
+him when he wus down, an'--well, maybe she does kinder fancy _him_ a
+little--any natcherl girl would--I don't say she _does_ nor _doesn't_,
+but he hain't been to see 'er, to my knowledge, a single time, nur has
+never tuk her out to any o' the parties.  No, thar's nothin' twixt 'em;
+she tried to git 'im to come stay at the hotel when he wus sick atter
+the Whitecap outrage, an' I thought she acted a little for'ard then,
+but he refused an' come to us instead."
+
+"You don't say so; why, I heerd--"
+
+"A body kin always heer more about a thing fur off than right whar it
+happens," concluded Mrs. Bradley.  They were now in the sitting-room,
+and Mrs. Dawson took off her bonnet and shawl.  Mrs. Bradley put some
+pieces of pine under the smouldering logs in the fireplace and swept
+the hearth.
+
+That night when Westerfelt came home supper was on the table.  He was
+surprised to see the visitor, but she did not notice him and he said
+nothing to her.  The meal passed awkwardly.  Luke made an effort to
+keep up the conversation with her by asking about his friends in her
+neighborhood, but her replies were in a low tone and short, and he
+finally gave up the attempt.
+
+Westerfelt rose from the table before any of the others and left the
+house.  As he turned from the gate to go to the stable, he looked
+through the window and saw Mrs. Dawson move her chair to the fire.  He
+paused and leaned against the fence.  The firelight shone in the old
+woman's face; it was sad and careworn.  Somehow she reminded him of his
+mother, as she had looked a short time before she died.  He started on
+slowly, but came back again to the same spot.  Luke wiped his mouth on
+the corner of the table-cloth, rose from the table, and went out at the
+back door.  Westerfelt heard his merry whistle at the barn.  Mrs.
+Bradley filled a large pan with dishes and took them into the kitchen.
+Mrs. Dawson bent over the fire.  Something in the curve of her back and
+the trembling way she held her hands to the blaze made him think again
+of his mother.  He hesitated a moment, then, lifting the ring from the
+post, he pushed the gate open and went round the house and into the
+kitchen.
+
+In a corner dimly lighted by a tallow-dip, and surrounded by pans,
+pots, and cooking utensils, Mrs. Bradley stood washing dishes.  She
+turned when he entered.
+
+"Why," she exclaimed, "I--I thought you'd gone; what are you comin' in
+the back way fer?"
+
+"I've got something to say to--to her," he said, in a low tone.  "I
+thought I'd ask you to stay out here for a minute--I won't be long."
+
+She said nothing for a moment, but looked at him strangely, as she
+slowly dried her hands on a dish-towel.  Then she burst out impulsively:
+
+"John Westerfelt, ef Luke wusn't so particular 'bout my conduct with
+men, I'd kiss you smack dab in the mouth an' hug you; no wonder women
+make fools of the'rse'ves about you.  Ef anybody ever dares agin to say
+anything agin yore character to me, I'll--"
+
+She choked up, turned to the corner, and dived into her dishpan, and he
+saw only her back.  He went into the next room.  Mrs. Dawson's dull
+glance was fixed on the coals under the logs.  She started when she
+looked up and saw him behind her, and shrank from him in a pitiful
+blending of fright and questioning astonishment as he drew a chair near
+to hers and sat down.
+
+"What do you want, man?" she asked, looking towards the kitchen door,
+as if she hoped Mrs. Bradley would appear.
+
+"I want to talk to you, Mrs. Dawson," he said.  "I don't want you to
+hate me any longer.  I am awfully sorry for you; I did you a big
+injury, but I didn't do it on purpose.  I did not dream it would end
+like it did.  I have suffered over it night and day.  It will stick to
+me the rest of my life."
+
+The old woman was rapidly regaining her self-possession and with it her
+hatred of him; her eyes flashed in the firelight.  The sad expression
+he had surprised on her face was gone.
+
+"She's in 'er grave," she snarled.  "Give 'er back an' I'll git down on
+my knees to you, as much as I hate you!"
+
+"You know I'm helpless to undo what's been done," he said, regretfully.
+
+"Well, take yorese'f out'n my sight then.  You've made a' ol' woman
+perfectly miserable; go on an' marry, an' be happy, ef you kin."
+
+"I never expect to be that.  I've repented of my conduct a thousand
+times.  I have suffered as much as God ought to make a man suffer for a
+wrong deed."
+
+"Not as much as me, an' I hain't guilty o' no crime nuther."
+
+"I've humbly begged your forgiveness.  I can do no more."  He rose
+slowly, despondently.
+
+"Git out'n my sight, you vagabond!" Mrs. Dawson's voice rose till the
+last word ended in a shriek.
+
+Footsteps were heard in the kitchen, the door opened, and Mrs. Bradley
+strode in, her face aflame.  Westerfelt stepped towards her and put his
+hands on her shoulders.
+
+"Don't say anything," he said; "for God's sake, pity her."
+
+"I cayn't stand it," she blurted out, half crying; "she's gwine
+entirely too fur!"  She pushed his hands down and stood glaring at Mrs.
+Dawson.
+
+"Look a heer, Sue Dawson," she said, getting her breath fast, "yo're a
+older woman an' me, an' I've got due respect fer age an' a gray head,
+but John Westerfelt is my friend, an' is a-visitin' of me 'n' Luke at
+present.  You are welcome in my house ef you'll behave yorese'f decent,
+but you cayn't come under my roof to goad him to desperation.  Now I've
+said my say.  Thar's the door ef you dare open yore mouth agin.  Thar
+ain't a speck o' Christian sperit in you.  I'm ashamed to call you
+neighbor."
+
+With an expression of mingled anger and fear in her face, Mrs. Dawson
+looked at her hostess, and without a word rose stiffly and went to the
+bed, on which lay her shawl, carpet-bag, and bonnet.  Her face was to
+the wall as she drew her bonnet on and began to tie the strings.
+
+"I'll go out the back way," whispered Westerfelt to Mrs. Bradley; "for
+God's sake, don't let her go!"
+
+"All right," promised Mrs. Bradley; "go on.  I'll make 'er stay, I
+reckon, but she's as stubborn as a mule."
+
+He went through the kitchen, round the house, and out at the gate.  He
+stopped, leaned against the fence, and watched the two women through
+the window.  Mrs. Dawson had put on her shawl.  She held her bag in
+front of her, and stood in the centre of the room.  Mrs. Bradley leaned
+against the mantel-piece.  Their lips moved, and Mrs. Dawson was
+gesticulating furiously, but he could not hear their voices.  Suddenly
+Mrs. Bradley took the bag from the old woman and put it on the bed.
+Then she untied Mrs. Dawson's bonnet-strings, took off the bonnet and
+shawl, and drew her back to the fire.  They stood talking for a moment,
+then sat down together.  Mrs. Bradley, holding the shawl and bonnet in
+her lap, put her arm round the old woman.  Mrs. Dawson began fumbling
+in the pocket of her dress.  She got out her handkerchief and held it
+to her face, then Mrs. Bradley began to wipe her own eyes on the corner
+of her apron.
+
+"My God!" groaned Westerfelt, as he turned away, "this is more than I
+can bear!"
+
+The next day was Sunday.  It was as bright and balmy as spring.
+Westerfelt slept late.  When he went in to breakfast Mrs. Bradley told
+him that Mrs. Dawson was out at the barn with Luke.  They all intended
+to go to camp-meeting that day, she said.  A revival had been going on
+at the meeting-house for the past week, and the congregation had
+increased so much that the little building would no longer hold the
+people.  It had, therefore, been announced that the Sunday service
+would be held at Stone Hill Camp-ground, two miles from the village on
+the most picturesque of the Cohutta Valley roads.
+
+As Westerfelt went down to the stable after breakfast he saw wagons,
+hacks, and old-fashioned carriages standing at nearly every gate on the
+street.  Washburn and a colored boy, Jake, were at the stable busy
+washing and oiling the wheels of vehicles and currying horses.
+
+"I wus jest about to send up to you," was Washburn's greeting.
+"Turnouts are at a premium to-day.  I didn't know whether to let out
+yore own hoss an' buggy or not; two or three fellers that want to take
+the'r girls are offerin' any price fer some'n to ride in."
+
+"I am going myself."
+
+"Hossback ur buggy?"
+
+"Buggy."  Westerfelt turned suddenly and walked back towards the hotel.
+He had decided to invite Harriet Floyd to go to camp-meeting with him,
+let the consequences be what they might.  He wanted to see her, and
+nothing should prevent it--not even Mrs. Dawson's presence in the
+village nor her threats.
+
+As Westerfelt walked away Washburn said to himself; "It u'd be tough on
+'im ef Bascom Bates is ahead of 'im, after all his hangin' back.  By
+George!  I can't imagine who else Bates could 'a' intended to ask; he's
+give up goin' to Hansard's.  I'll bet my hat Bates means business with
+Miss Harriet."
+
+Westerfelt walked into the parlor of the hotel.  A colored girl was
+sweeping the carpet and went out to tell Harriet that he wished to see
+her.  Harriet didn't keep him waiting long.  On rising she had dressed
+for church.  She wore a pretty gray gown with a graceful bow of ribbon
+at her throat, and carried her cloak on her arm.  She put it on the
+sofa as she entered.  She was agitated, and he felt her hand quiver
+when he took it.
+
+"I came to ask you to drive to the camp-ground with me," he said, as
+her hand slid out of his; "will you go?"
+
+"Why--why," she stammered, "I--I--promised to go with Mr. Bates; I'm
+very sorry; if I had known--"
+
+He glanced through the open door; his face had suddenly grown cold,
+hard, and suspicious.  He was jealous even of a man she had never been
+with before.  She sank into a chair and looked up at him helplessly,
+appealingly.  She knew he was jealous, and in that proof of his love
+her heart went out to him.
+
+"Oh, it don't matter," he said, quickly.  "I'm going to drive out
+myself anyway, and I thought if you had nobody to take you, you might
+like to go 'long."
+
+"He asked me yesterday," she faltered.  Her voice was full of startled
+concern.  "I'd rather go with you, you know I had.  I have never gone
+with him anywhere.  We are almost strangers.  I--I would hardly know
+how to talk to him."
+
+She knew it was not with his natural voice that Westerfelt answered.
+"Well," he said, coldly, "you can't go with two fellows, and he got to
+you first.  I reckon Bates knows the roads; you'd better take the
+river-bottom route.  Washburn says the other is not as good as it might
+be.  Good-bye."
+
+He had reached the veranda when she called him back.  As he re-entered
+the room she rose and stepped towards him.
+
+"Are you mad with me, Mr. Westerfelt?"
+
+He was ashamed of himself, but he could not conquer his horrible humor.
+"Not in the least; I don't blame you."  His tone was still cold and his
+glance averted.  She put her handkerchief to her face in vexation, but
+removed it quickly as she caught his glance.
+
+"I'll not go; I'll stay at home," she affirmed.
+
+"No, go; you'd never hear the end of it if you were to slight Bates."
+
+"Shall I see you out there?"
+
+"I reckon not," he laughed, harshly.  "I never want anybody bothering
+me when I take a girl anywhere, and I try to obey the Golden Rule with
+other men.  You belong to Bates to-day."  He left the room.  She heard
+him stride across the veranda and walk hurriedly away.  She went to the
+window and tried to catch another glimpse of him, but he was out of
+sight.  She turned into the next room.  Her mother was there packing
+some table linen into the bottom of a wardrobe.
+
+"Mother," the girl faltered, "Mr. Westerfelt asked me just now to go to
+the camp-ground with him."
+
+Mrs. Floyd let a table-cloth which she was folding hang down in front
+of her for a moment as she looked at Harriet.  "Well, you told him you
+was going with Bascom Bates, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, of course, but--"
+
+"Well, what of it?  I wish you'd just look what a mess the rats have
+gone and made of this linen.  They've been trying to gnaw the starch
+out of it, and have cut holes in nearly every piece."
+
+"He looked mad, mother; he pretended he didn't care, but I never saw
+such a look on anybody's face.  Oh, mother--"
+
+"Harriet!"  Mrs. Floyd looked straight into the girl's eyes as she
+closed the wardrobe door and turned the key.  "Looky' here, I'm older
+than you, and I know men a sight better.  Mr. Westerfelt is a nice man
+and a good enough catch, but he's got plenty of faults.  You've just
+got to listen to reason.  Some men will despise a girl quicker for
+letting themselves be run over than anything else, and he's one of that
+sort.  He has deliberately insulted you by throwing up a delicate
+matter to you, which God knows you couldn't help, and now--well, he's a
+purty thing to dictate to you who you go with--"
+
+"Mother, something was wrong with his mind when he said that,"
+interrupted Harriet.  "He's just gettin' well, that's all.  Oh, mother,
+he loves me--I know he does--I know it!  I'll bet he hardly remembers
+what he said.  And now this old Bascom Bates has come between us."
+
+Mrs. Floyd was moved, in spite of her desire to hold her ground.
+
+"Yes," she admitted, "I think he acts like he loves you, and after
+staying away so long, his wanting to go with you to-day looks powerful
+like he has come to his senses at last.  But you will spoil it all if
+you slight another respectable man to please him.  That's the long and
+short of it.  Now, you take my advice and give him as good as he sends
+every time, and a little more to boot.  It's a woman's right."
+
+"Mother, you don't know Mr. Westerfelt; he--"
+
+"La! yes, I do; they are every one p'int-blank alike.  They want what
+they can't get, and what other men have, a sight more than what is in
+easy reach.  If you've got any gumption, you'll make him think you are
+having a mighty good time with Bascom Bates to-day.  If Bascom keeps
+coming to see you it will make him think all the more of you, too.
+Bates belongs to mighty nigh as good stock as he does anyway, and folks
+say he is the sharpest trader and note-shaver in the county.  Ef you
+don't encourage him to come regular I shall do it for you.  And if I
+ever get a chance I'll throw out a hint to Westerfelt that you have a
+little leaning towards the law anyway."
+
+"I don't want you to do that, mother," objected Harriet, quite
+seriously.
+
+Mrs. Floyd laughed slyly as she turned away.  "You leave them two Jakes
+to me.  I feel like I was a girl again.  We used to have lots o' fun
+with Mr. Floyd, me 'n' mother did.  Did I ever tell you the time me'n'
+her--"  But Harriet, with a preoccupied air, had turned away.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+Westerfelt went back to the stable and ordered Jake to get out his
+horse and buggy.  Washburn watched him over the back of the mule he was
+hitching to a spring wagon and smiled.  "Got it in the neck that pop!"
+he murmured.  "I knowed Bates wusn't a-buyin' a new whip an' lap-robe
+fer nothin'.  I'll bet my life Mr. Westerfelt 'll lose that gal, an',
+by George, he ort to!  He don't seem to know his own mind."
+
+Just then Bascom Bates whirled by on his way to the hotel.  There was
+something glaringly incongruous between his glistening silk hat and the
+long-haired "plough horse" and rickety buggy he was driving.  The silk
+hat was a sort of badge of office; lawyers wore them, as a rule, and he
+was the only lawyer at Cartwright.  He had bought his silk hat on the
+day of his admission to the bar, and had worn it regularly on dry
+Sundays ever since.  It would have suited anybody else better than it
+did him.  He was not at all good-looking.  His hair was stiff and
+rather red, his eyes were pale blue, his face was freckled, and the
+skin of his neck had a way of folding itself unattractively.  He wore
+thick cow-leather shoes, which he never blacked, but greased
+frequently, and that made them catch and hold the dust.  He never
+considered himself carefully dressed unless all the buttons of his vest
+were unfastened, except one at the top and one at the bottom.  The gap
+between the two buttons was considered quite a touch of rural style.
+He held the reins, but a little negro boy sat on the seat beside him.
+He was taking the boy to hold his horse while he went into the hotel
+after Harriet.  That, too, was considered quite the proper thing--a
+custom which had come down from slavery days--and as there was a
+scarcity of black boys in the village, Bates had brought his all the
+way from his father's plantation.  The boy was expected to walk back
+home after the couple got started, but Bates intended to give him
+something for his trouble, and the distinction of holding Mr. Bates's
+horse in town was something the boy never expected to forget.
+
+Bates had been a common farm-boy before he studied law, and the handles
+of ploughs, axes, and grubbing-hoes had enlarged the joints of his
+fingers and hardened his palms.  He had studied at night, earned a
+reputation as an off-hand speaker hard to be downed in debating
+societies, made a few speeches on the stump for willing gubernatorial
+candidates, and was now looked upon as a possible Democratic nominee
+for the Legislature.  Most young lawyers in that part of the State were
+called "Colonel," and Bates had been addressed by the title once or
+twice.
+
+Westerfelt pretended not to see him as he passed, but he urged Jake to
+hurry up and get out his horse and buggy.  He had a strange idea that
+it would humiliate him in Harriet's eyes to be seen by her as she
+passed with a man he now regarded as a rival.  He would have given much
+to have had any sort of companion with him.  Jake had some difficulty
+in backing the horse into the shafts, and before Westerfelt could get
+started, he saw Harriet come out on the veranda and follow Bates to his
+buggy.  However, Westerfelt managed to get started before they did, and
+drove on without looking back.  Knowing that Bates was fond of fast
+driving, and fearing that he might overtake him, Westerfelt drove
+rapidly.  The fires of jealousy were raging within him.  He told
+himself that it would be a long time before he would ask her again to
+go with him anywhere, and during that drive he almost convinced himself
+that he could give her up without much regret.  He was sure Bates
+wanted to marry her.  Such a stolid, matter-of-fact man would never
+visit a girl with less serious intentions.  Bates, of course, was
+ignorant of the girl's early love for Wambush.  He wondered if she
+would ever confess to the lawyer as she had to him.  He thought it
+unlikely; for he had found it out and mentioned it to her first, and,
+besides, her experience with him had taught her discretion.  Westerfelt
+would have been more generous in his estimation of her character had he
+been less jealous, and less angered by the disappointment of not being
+her escort.  People driving slow teams looked at him curiously as he
+dashed past them.  He had but one desire at that moment, and that was
+not to face Harriet and Bates together.
+
+The road, near the camp-ground, went through a dense wood, and was so
+narrow that vehicles could not pass one another on it.  In the
+narrowest part of this road Westerfelt was forced to stop.  A wagon
+filled with women and children, and driven by old John Wambush, had
+halted in front of him.
+
+"What's the matter?" Westerfelt called out to the old man, who had got
+down beside his horses and was peering at the motionless line of
+vehicles ahead.
+
+"A hack's broke down," the old fellow replied.  "Nobody hurt, it seems,
+but the banks on both sides is so steep that they cayn't cleer the
+road.  We'll have to take our time.  I'd jest about as soon set heer in
+my wagon as to listen to them long-winded preachers, anyway."
+
+Westerfelt heard the beat of hoofs behind him.  He was sure Bates and
+Harriet were approaching, but he dared not look around.  Through the
+trees came the sound of singing from the camp-ground.  The horse behind
+got nearer and nearer, till it stopped with its nose in the back part
+of Westerfelt's buggy, Westerfelt did not turn his head.  He leaned
+over the dash-board and impatiently called out to old Wambush:
+
+"How long are they going to keep us?"
+
+"Tell kingdom come ur Gabriel blows his horn," laughed the old man, and
+all his family and the neighbors who were sharing the hospitality of
+his wagon joined in the laugh.  It was a thing the old man would have
+said to anybody else and in the same tone, but it irritated Westerfelt.
+The silence of the couple behind convinced him that it was Bates and
+Harriet, for men in love do not talk much.  Mrs. Wambush turned her
+head and took off her gingham bonnet to get a good look at the man her
+son had tried twice to kill.  Her features were so much like Toot's
+that Westerfelt, who had never seen her before, thought he had
+discovered the fountain-head of the young outlaw's villany.  He glanced
+aside, but she continued to stare at him fixedly.
+
+"How are you comin' on?" she asked him, slapping a little girl in a
+blue homespun dress who was about to fall out of the wagon.
+
+"Pretty well, thank you," replied Westerfelt, coldly.  He had detected
+a suggestion of a sneer about the old woman's lips.
+
+"Cuts _is_ a bad thing," she went on.  "I reckon yore doctor bill run
+up to some more'n you'd 'a' lost that day by jest lettin' my boy have
+some'n to ride out home in."
+
+"Dry up!" thundered old Wambush.  He climbed back into his chair and
+glared at her.  "Ef you dare open yore mouth agin, I'll make you git
+right out an' make tracks fer home."  The old woman jerked on her
+bonnet and turned her face towards the horses.  Old Wambush looked over
+his shoulder at Westerfelt, a sheepish look on his face.
+
+"Don't pay no 'tention to her," he apologized; "she's had the very old
+scratch in 'er ever since Toot was run off; I don't harbor no ill-will,
+but women ain't got no reason nohow.  They never seem to know when
+peace is declared.  It's the women that's keepin' up all the strife
+twixt North and South right now.  Them that shouldered muskets an' fit
+an' lived on hard-tack don't want no more uv it."
+
+Westerfelt said nothing.
+
+"Hello thar!"  The voice was from the buggy behind.  Westerfelt turned.
+It was Frank Hansard with Jennie Wynn.
+
+"Hello!" replied Westerfelt, greatly relieved,
+
+"Whyn't you git down an' fight it out while we're waitin'?" jested
+Frank, in a low voice.  "Anything 'u'd be better'n this; but I'll tell
+you, she's a regular wild-cat, if you don't know it."
+
+Westerfelt smiled, but made no response.  Beyond Hansard's buggy was
+another, and in it sat Harriet and Bates; there was no mistaking the
+old-fashioned silk hat and Harriet's gray dress.  It seemed to
+Westerfelt that the blood in his veins stopped at the sight of the
+couple sitting so close together.
+
+"Can you see who's behind us?" asked Jennie, mischievously.  "It's
+undoubtedly a case; they've been connoodlin' all the way an' didn't
+even have the politeness to speak to us as we passed 'em in the big
+road."
+
+Westerfelt pretended not to hear.  Old Wambush's wagon had started.
+The camp-ground was soon reached.  As Westerfelt was hitching his horse
+to a tree, he could not help seeing Bates and Harriet in the bushes not
+far away.  Bates was taking his horse out of the shafts and looping up
+the traces, and she stood looking on.  Westerfelt knew that Jake or
+Washburn would attend to his horse, so he walked on to the spot where
+the service was to be held.
+
+The camp-ground was in a level grove of pine-trees, between two steep
+hills.  A space had been cleared in the centre of the grove and a long
+shed built.  It was open at the sides and at one end, and filled with
+benches without backs.  Straw was strewn in the aisles and between the
+benches.  There was a platform at the closed end of the shed, and on it
+sat a number of preachers and elders of the church.
+
+The crowd was large.  Westerfelt stood for a moment in the phalanx of
+men surrounding the shed, and surreptitiously eyed Bates and Harriet.
+Her back was towards him as she stood, her cloak on her arm, still
+politely watching her escort's movements.  She looked so pretty, and
+there was such appealing grace in her posture.  He saw Bates join her
+and take her arm, and then he watched them no longer.  He knew they
+were coming, and he went in at the end of the shed and found a seat
+near the centre on the left.  He saw Luke Bradley drive up and help his
+wife and Mrs. Dawson to alight, then Frank Hansard and Jennie Wynn came
+in and sat on the bench just behind him.  Jennie was laughing in her
+handkerchief.
+
+"There is old Mis' Henshaw," she whispered to Frank; "she's the'r
+regular stan'-by at shouting.  When they begin to call up mourners she
+commences to clap 'er hands an' shout, then the rest get over their
+bashfulness an' the fun begins.  We may see a lot of excitement if the
+town-people don't come and freeze 'em out with their finery an' stiff
+ways."
+
+"You ort ter go up yorese'f, Jen," replied Frank; "you need it ef
+anybody does."
+
+"I went up once," she laughed; "but Mary Trumbull pinched me an' tol'
+me to look at ol' Mis' Warlick's dress, right in front of us.  It had
+split wide open between the shoulders an' all down the back.  I thought
+I'd die laughin'.  They all believed I was cryin', and I got hugged by
+a whole string of exhorters."
+
+"We'd better lie low," cautioned Frank; "last year, these camp-ground
+folks had some town-people indicted for disturbin' public worship, an'
+they had a lots o' trouble at court.  They say they've determined to
+break up the fun that goes on here."
+
+Westerfelt saw Luke Bradley and his party come in and sit down near the
+centre of the shed.  He caught Mrs. Dawson's glance, but she quickly
+looked away.  She had not forgiven him; that fact lay embedded in the
+sallow hardness of her face.
+
+A moment later he forgot that Mrs. Dawson was in existence, for Harriet
+and Bates were coming in.  Bates still clutched her arm and carried her
+cloak thrown over his shoulder.  Westerfelt looked straight ahead at
+the platform, but he heard their feet rustling in the straw, and knew
+that they had sat down on the bench behind Hansard and Jennie.  He
+overheard Bates, who could not possibly speak in a whisper, ask her in
+a mumbling bass voice if she wanted her cloak, and he saw the shadows
+of the couple on the ground as she stood up and allowed him to help her
+put it on.
+
+Gradually the shed had filled to overflowing.  A white-haired preacher
+raised the tune of a familiar hymn, and the principal service of the
+day began.
+
+After the sermon was over, the congregation rose to get their
+lunch-baskets, which had been left in their vehicles.
+
+"Mighty poky business so far," Westerfelt heard Jennie Wynn say, as she
+and Hansard went out ahead of him; "wait until after dinner, they'll
+get limbered up by that time."
+
+Westerfelt hoped Harriet and Bates would leave as soon as the others
+did, but he saw them standing between the benches as if waiting for
+some one.  He looked straight ahead of him as he approached them, and
+was about to pass without looking in the direction, when Bates caught
+his arm and detained him.
+
+"Miss Harriet wants to see you," he said, with a grin; "you wouldn't be
+in such a hurry if you knew what for."
+
+"I want you to come to dinner with us," Harriet said, tremulously,
+leaning forward.  "Jennie Wynn and I are going to put our baskets
+together, and Hyram Longtree and Sue Kirby are coming."
+
+"I thank you," he said, "but I reckon I'll have to eat with Mrs.
+Bradley."  He might have accepted the invitation if Bates had not been
+grinning so complacently and looking at Harriet with such a large air
+of ownership.
+
+"Oh, come on," urged Bates.  "You get Bradley hash every day; there is
+some'n good in our basket; I could smell it all the way out here."
+
+"I wish you _would_ come," urged Harriet.  "Mrs. Bradley will let you
+off."
+
+There was something in her look and tone that convinced him that she
+had detected his jealousy and was sympathizing with him, and that in
+itself angered him.
+
+"No, I thank you, not to-day," he said, coldly; "how did you like the
+preacher?"
+
+"Very well," she replied, her face falling.  "I have heard him before."
+
+He had brought it on himself, but he was stung to the quick when she
+touched Bates's arm, smiled indifferently, and said: "I see Sue and
+Hyram out there waiting for us; we'd better go."
+
+As Westerfelt walked on, overwhelmed with jealous rage, he heard her in
+the same tone ask Jennie Wynn to send Frank after her basket.
+Westerfelt edged his way through the crowd to Mrs. Bradley and Mrs.
+Dawson.
+
+"Why," said Mrs. Bradley, "I 'lowed you'd go off an' eat with some o'
+yore young friends.  But we are glad you come."
+
+"I never go back on home folks," he said, making an effort to speak
+lightly.
+
+"Well, I fetched enough fer a dozen field-hands," laughed Mrs. Bradley.
+"Two young preachers have promised to eat with me; that's all I've
+axed.  Luke, you go bring Brother Jones an' his friend, an' wait fer us
+out at the wagon."
+
+"Why cayn't we fetch the dinner in heer an' not have to sit on the damp
+ground?" suggested Bradley.
+
+"Beca'se, gumption! they won't have us greasin' up the benches that
+folks set on in the'r best duds," she retorted.  "Besides, the pine
+straw will keep us off'n the ground, ef you ain't too lazy to rake it
+up."
+
+Just then Harriet and her friends passed, and Westerfelt saw the girl
+looking inquiringly at Mrs. Dawson.  He heard the old woman grunt
+contemptuously, and saw her toss her head and fiercely eye Harriet from
+head to foot as she went down the aisle.
+
+Westerfelt shuddered.  He wondered if the old woman could possibly know
+of Harriet's past connection with Wambush and her girlish infatuation.
+He turned away with Luke to get the basket.  Bradley was saying
+something about a suitable place to spread the lunch, but Westerfelt
+did not listen.  He could think of nothing but the strange, defiant
+look in Mrs. Dawson's eyes as they fell on the girl he loved.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+At luncheon Westerfelt sat next to Mrs. Bradley and could not see Mrs.
+Dawson, who was on the other side of her.  Among the trees on his
+right, he had a good view of Harriet Floyd's party.  They all seemed
+exasperatingly merry.  Bates was making himself boyishly conspicuous,
+running after water, preparing lemonade, and passing it round to the
+others, with his silk hat poised on the back part of his head.  Mrs.
+Bradley and her friends remained seated for some time after they had
+finished eating, and Westerfelt saw the young men in Harriet's party
+rise, leaving the girls to put the remains of the lunch into the
+baskets.  Hyram and Frank strolled off together, and Bates, after a
+moment's hesitation, came straight over to Westerfelt.
+
+"I want to talk to you, if you are through," he said, alternately
+pulling at a soiled kid glove on his hand and twisting his stubby
+mustache.
+
+Westerfelt rose, conscious that Mrs. Dawson was eying him, and walked
+down a little road through the pines.  Neither spoke till they were out
+of sight of the crowd.  Then Bates stopped suddenly and faced his
+companion.  He put his foot on a fallen log, and cleared his throat.
+He looked up at the sky and slowly caressed his chin with his fingers,
+as Westerfelt had once seen him do in making a speech before the
+justice of the peace.
+
+"We ain't well acquainted, Westerfelt," he began, stroking his chin
+downward and letting his lips meet with a clucking sound, also another
+professional habit; "but, you'd find, ef you knew me better, that I
+never beat the devil round the stump, as the feller said, an' I'm above
+board."  He paused for a moment; then he kicked a rotten spot on the
+log with the broad heel of his brogan till it crumbled into dust.
+"I've got some'n to say to you of a sort o' confidential nature, an' ef
+you'll let me, I may ask you a point-blank question."
+
+"Fire away," said Westerfelt, wonderingly.
+
+"I'm not a ladies' man," continued Bates, with a kick at another soft
+spot on the log.  "I'm jest a plain Cohutta Mountain, jack-leg lawyer.
+I've not been much of a hand to go to the shindigs the young folks have
+been gitting up about heer.  One reason was I couldn't afford it,
+another was I didn't have the time to spare, so I haven't never paid
+court to any special young lady in Cartwright.  But now, I think I am
+in purty good shape to marry.  I believe all young men ought to get 'em
+a wife, an' if I ever intend to do the like, I'll have to be about it,
+for I'm no spring chicken.  Now, to make a long story short, I've taken
+a strong liking to the girl I fetched out here to-day, an', by George,
+now that I've got headed that way, I simply can't wait any longer, nor
+hold in either.  I intend to ask her to be my wife if--" he began again
+to kick the log.  "Dang it, it seems to me--you see, I know that she
+don't care a rap for Wambush; a few of us thought thar was something
+between 'em once, but since he went off it is as plain as day that she
+is not grieving after him.  But, somehow, it seems to me that she may
+have a hankering after you.  I don't know why I think so, but if thar
+is any understanding between you two I'd take it as a great favor if
+you'd let me know it, right now at the start.  I'll wish you well--but
+I'd like to know it.  It's a powerful big thing to me, Westerfelt--the
+biggest thing I ever tackled yet."
+
+Westerfelt's face was hard and expressionless.  He avoided the lawyer's
+searching glance, shrugged his shoulders and smiled coldly.
+
+"I am not engaged to her," he said, doggedly; "as far as I know she is
+free to--to choose for herself."
+
+"Ah!"  Bates slowly released his chin and caught his breath.
+
+Westerfelt could have struck out the light that sprang into his eyes.
+"I hain't seen a bit of evidence in that line, I'll admit," went on
+Bates, with a chuckle of relief; "but some of the boys and girls seemed
+to think that something might have sprung up between you and her while
+you was laid up at the hotel.  I reckon I was mistaken, but I thought
+she looked cut up considerable when you didn't come to dinner with us
+jest now.  She wasn't lively like the rest."
+
+"Pshaw!" said Westerfelt; "you are off the track."
+
+"Well, no odds."  Bates began to tug at his glove again.  "I've come to
+you like a man an' made an open breast of it, as the feller said.  I
+intend to ask her point-blank the very first time I get her alone
+again.  The girl hain't give me the least bit of hope, but her mother
+has--a little.  I reckon a feller might take it that way."
+
+"What did Mrs. Floyd say?" Westerfelt started, and looked Bates
+straight in the eyes.
+
+"Oh, nothing much; I may be a fool to think it meant anything, but this
+morning when I called for Miss Harriet the old lady came in and acted
+mighty friendly.  She asked me to come to dinner with 'em next Sunday,
+and said Harriet always was backward about showing a preference for the
+young man she really liked, an' said she was shore I didn't care much
+for her or I'd come oftener."
+
+Westerfelt was silent.  He had never suspected Mrs. Floyd of scheming,
+but now that his suspicions were roused he let them run to the opposite
+extreme.
+
+Yes, he thought, she was trying to marry her daughter off.  Perhaps
+because she wanted her to forget Wambush, who was certainly a man no
+sensible woman would like to have in her family.
+
+Bates's round red face appeared in a blur before him.  Bates said
+something, but it sounded far off, and he did not catch its import.
+There was a long silence, and then the lawyer spoke again:
+
+"What do you say?  Why are you so devilish grum?"  He took off his hat,
+and wiped his brow with a red bandanna.  Westerfelt stared into his
+face.  He was unable to collect his senses.  It was an awful moment for
+him.  If he intended to marry her, and forget all, he must propose to
+her at once, or, urged by her mother, she might marry Bates and be lost
+to him forever.  Bates caught his arm firmly.
+
+"I'm no fool," he said, impatiently.  "Dad burn it, you _do_ love her.
+I see it!  You are trying to throw me off the track!  Look heer!  If
+you've lied to me--"  Voices were heard in the bushes up the road.
+Jennie Wynn and Harriet were approaching.  "There they are now!"
+exclaimed Bates, in another tone; "you have not been open with me; for
+God's sake, don't keep me in suspense!  Is she _yours_?  Answer that!"
+
+"I have never asked her."  Westerfelt spoke through tight lips.  "I've
+no claim on her."
+
+"Well, then, it's as fair for one of us as the other."  Bates was half
+angry.  "We both want her; let's have it over with.  Let's speak out
+now an' let her take her choice.  If she takes you, you may drive her
+home; ef it's me--well, you bet it'll make a man of me.  She is the
+finest girl on God's green earth.  Here they come!  What do you say?"
+
+Westerfelt drew his arm from Bates's grasp, and stared at him with eyes
+which seemed paralyzed.
+
+"Don't mention me to her," he demanded, coldly.  "I'll manage my own
+affairs."
+
+"All right," Bates lowered his voice, for the two girls were now quite
+near; "you may be sure of your case, and I may be making a blamed fool
+of myself, but she's worth it."
+
+"What are you two confabbin' about?" cried Jennie, in a merry voice.
+Neither of the men answered.  Harriet looked curiously at them, her
+glance resting last and longer on the lawyer.  That encouraged him to
+speak.
+
+"I want to see you a minute, Miss Harriet," he said, reaching out for
+her sunshade.  "May I?"
+
+"Certainly," she said, looking at him in slow surprise.  She
+relinquished her umbrella, and they walked off together.
+
+"What on earth is the matter with that man?" asked Jennie, her eyes on
+the receding couple; then she glanced at Westerfelt, and added, with a
+little giggle, "What's the matter with _you_?"
+
+Westerfelt seemed not to hear.
+
+"Mr. Bates looks like he's lost his best friend," went on the
+irrepressible girl.  "Look how he wabbles; he walks like he was
+following a plough in new ground.  I wouldn't want him to swing my
+parasol about that way.  What do you reckon ails him?"
+
+"I don't know," said Westerfelt.  Her words irritated him like the
+persistent buzzing of a mosquito.
+
+"I wonder if that fellow is goose enough to go an' fall in love with
+Harriet."
+
+"What if he should?" Westerfelt was interested.
+
+"She hain't in love with him."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"How do I _know_?  Because she is silly enough to be gone on a man that
+don't care a snap for her."
+
+"Wambush?"
+
+"No," scornfully; "_you_, that's who."
+
+Westerfelt was silent for a moment, then he said: "How do you know I
+don't care for her?"
+
+"You don't show it; you always stay away from her.  They say you've
+been spoiled to death by girls over the mountain."
+
+"I asked her to come out here with me to-day."
+
+"Did you?  You don't mean it!  Well, I'll bet she--but I'm not goin' to
+tell you; you are vain enough already."  They were silent for several
+minutes after that.  She seated herself on a log by the roadside, and
+he stood over her, his eyes on the pines behind which Bates and Harriet
+had disappeared.  What could be keeping them so long?  Jennie prattled
+on for half an hour, but he did not hear half she said.  Afternoon
+service began.  The preacher gave out the hymn in a solemn, monotonous
+voice, and the congregation sang it.
+
+"We must be goin' purty soon," said Jennie; "my gracious, what is the
+matter with them people; hadn't we better go hunt 'em?"
+
+"I think not, they--but there they are now."
+
+Harriet and Bates had turned into the road from behind a clump of
+blackberry vines, and, with their heads hung down, were slowly
+approaching.  Looking up and seeing Westerfelt and Jennie, they
+stopped, turned their faces aside, and continued talking.
+
+Westerfelt was numb all over.  Had she accepted Bates?  He tried to
+read their faces, but even the open countenance of Bates revealed
+nothing.
+
+"Come on, you ninnies!" Jennie cried out.  "What on earth are you
+waiting for?"
+
+Her voice jarred on Westerfelt.  "Hush! for God's sake, hush!" he
+commanded, sharply.  "Let's go on--they don't want us!"
+
+Wondering over his vehemence, Jennie rose quickly and followed him.  He
+walked rapidly.  She glanced over her shoulder at Harriet and Bates,
+but Westerfelt did not look back.  When the shed was reached, Jennie
+asked him if he were going in with her, but he shook his head, and she
+entered alone.  He remained in the crowd on the outside, pretending to
+be listening to the sermon, but was furtively watching the spot where,
+concealed by the trees, Bates and Harriet still lingered.
+
+The preacher ended his discourse, started a hymn, and commenced to
+"call up mourners."  Old Mrs. Henshaw began to pray aloud and clap her
+hands.  The preacher came down from the platform, gave his hand to her,
+and she rose and began to shout.  Then the excitement commenced.
+Others joined in the shouting and the uproar became deafening.  It was
+a familiar scene to Westerfelt, but to-day it was all like a dream.  He
+could not keep his eyes off the trees behind which he had left Harriet
+with his new rival.  What could be keeping them?
+
+Presently he saw them emerge from the woods.  They were still walking
+slowly and close together.  Westerfelt could learn nothing from
+Harriet's passive face, but Bates now certainly looked depressed.  A
+sudden thought stunned Westerfelt.  Could she have told Bates of her
+old love for Wambush, and had he--even he--decided not to marry her?
+They passed the shed, went on to Bates's buggy, got into it, and drove
+down the road to Cartwright.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+The religious excitement had spread over all the congregation.  Every
+bench held some shouting or praying enthusiast.  Some of the women
+began to move about on the outside, pleading with the bystanders to go
+forward for prayer.  One of them spoke to Westerfelt, but he simply
+shook his head.  Just then he noticed Mrs. Dawson sitting on the end of
+a bench next to the centre aisle.  She had turned half round and was
+staring at him fixedly.  When she caught his eye, she got up and came
+towards him.  Other women were talking to men near him, and no one
+noticed her approach.
+
+In the depths of her bonnet her withered face had never appeared so
+hard and unrelenting.  She laid her hand on his arm and looked up into
+his eyes.
+
+"Are you a seeker, John Westerfelt?" she asked, with a sneer.
+
+"No, I am not."  He tried to draw his arm away, but her bony fingers
+clutched and held it.
+
+"They say the's a chance fer all to wipe out sins," she went on, "but I
+have my doubts 'bout you.  You know whar you'll land.  You kin mighty
+nigh feel the hot now, I reckon."
+
+He caught her wrist and tore his arm from her grasp.
+
+"Leave me alone!" he cried; then he dropped her wrist and added: "For
+Heaven sake don't--_don't_ devil me to death; you make me forget you
+are a woman and not a beast--a snake!  My God, let me alone!"
+
+His angry tone had drawn the attention of a few of the bystanders.  A
+tall, lank countryman, standing near Westerfelt, turned on him.
+
+"Be ashamed o' yorese'f, young man," he said; "ef you don't want to be
+prayed fer you don't have to, but don't cut up any o' yore shines with
+these Christian women who are tryin' to do good."
+
+"You don't know what you are talking about," replied Westerfelt, and he
+turned away quickly, and went across the cleared space to his horse and
+buggy.  Jake, who was lying on the ground with some other negroes, ran
+forward and unfastened his horse, and gave him the reins.
+
+"Want me to go back wid yer, Marse John?" he asked.
+
+"No," answered Westerfelt, and he drove rapidly homeward.  Reaching the
+stable, he put up his horse, and went to the room over the office.  He
+sat down, took up an old newspaper, and tried to read it, but there
+seemed to be something in the paling light on the bare fields outside
+and the stillness of the empty building that oppressed him.  He rose
+and looked out of the window.  Not a soul was in sight.  The store and
+the bar, with their closed shutters, looked as if they had not been
+opened for a century.  A brindled cow stood in the middle of the
+street, jangling a discordant bell, and lowing dolefully.  He rose,
+went down-stairs, walked aimlessly about in the stable, and then went
+up the street towards Bradley's.  He wondered if Harriet had returned,
+but as he passed the hotel he had not the courage to look in.
+
+Every door of the Bradley house was closed.  He tried all the windows,
+but they were held down by sticks placed over the sashes on the inside.
+Even the chickens and ducks in the back yard seemed to have fallen
+under the spell of the unwonted silence.  The scare-crow in the
+cornfield beyond the staked-and-ridered rail fence looked like the
+corpse of a human being flattened against the yellow sky.
+
+He went out at the gate and turned up the Hawkbill road till he was
+high enough to see the village street above the trees.  Later he
+noticed the vehicles beginning to come back from the camp-ground, and
+he returned home by a short path through the fields.  He reached the
+Bradleys' just as Luke was helping his wife out of the spring-wagon at
+the gate.
+
+"We didn't fetch Mis' Dawson back," explained Mrs. Bradley.  "She met
+some old acquaintances--the Hambrights--an' they made 'er go home with
+'em.  Lawsy me, haven't I got a lots to tell you, though!  You had as
+well prepare fer a big surprise.  You couldn't guess what tuk place out
+thar atter you left ef you made a thousand dabs at it.  Luke, go put up
+the hoss.  I want to talk to John, an' I don't want you to bother us
+tell I'm through, nuther.  You kin find plenty to do out at the barn
+fer a few minutes."
+
+Westerfelt followed her into the sitting-room and helped her kindle the
+fire in the big chimney.
+
+"Well, what has happened?" he asked, when the red flames were rolling
+up from the heap of split pine under the logs.
+
+"It's about Mis' Dawson," announced Mrs. Bradley, as she sank into a
+big chair and began to unpin her shawl.  "She's got religion!"
+
+"You don't mean it!"
+
+"Yes, an' I'm what give it to her--me, an' nobody else.  I'm a purty
+thing to be talkin' that way, but it's the livin' truth.  I caused it.
+When I seed her git up an' go acrost to you and drive you clean off, I
+got so mad I could a-choked her.  I wus sittin' by Brother Tim
+Mitchell.  You don't know 'im, I reckon, but he's the biggest bull-dog
+preacher 'at ever give out a hymn.  He's a ugly customer, not more'n
+thirty, but he's consecrated, an' had ruther rake a sinner over the
+coals of repentance 'an eat fried chicken, an' he's a Methodist
+preacher, too.  He's nearly six foot an' a half high an' as slim as a
+splinter; he lets his hair run long an' curls it some.  He's as dark as
+a Spaniard, an' his face shines like he eats too much grease an' sweats
+it out through the pores uv his skin.
+
+"Well, he seed me a-lookin' at Mis' Dawson, when she went to devil you,
+an' he bent over to me an' sez he: 'Sister Bradley, what ails that
+woman anyhow?'
+
+"'What ails her?' sez I.  'What'd you ax that fer, Brother Tim?'
+
+"'She don't do nat'ral,' sez he.  'I've been talkin' to 'er about 'er
+speritual welfare ever sence I set down heer, an' she won't say one
+word.  She ain't a bit like the gineral run o' old women; an' what's
+more, she hain't doin' one bit o' exhortin' that I kin see.  I don't
+know whether she's in the vineyard or not.'
+
+"Then, John Westerfelt, I jest come out an' tol' 'im about 'er.  Of
+course I never give no names; but I made 'im see what ailed her, an' I
+never seed a man look so interested.  'Sister Bradley,' sez he, rubbin'
+his hands, when I got through, 'I'm going to wade in an' get hold o'
+that woman's soul.'
+
+"'Well,' sez I, 'you may have to wade purty fur an' dive consider'ble,
+fer she's about the toughest snag you ever struck.'
+
+"'I'm a-goin' to have 'er _soul_,' sez he, an' he laughed.  'I'd ruther
+make that sort of a struggle for the Lord 'an to put out a burnin'
+house, ur keep a pizen snake frum bitin' a baby.  You watch my smoke.
+Is she a-comin' back heer?'
+
+"'I kin bring 'er back,' sez I, 'fer right this minute I'd ruther see
+that woman a shoutin' convert 'n to have a meal sack full o' gold
+dollars.'
+
+"'Well,' sez he, sorter jokin' like, 'you fetch 'er heer an' set 'er
+down whar she wus a minute ago, an' I'll put a plaster on 'er back
+that'll make 'er _think_ she's shoutin' whether she is or not.'
+
+"Well, I went to whar she was outside an' tol' 'er Brother Mitchell
+wanted to see 'er.  'I jest ain't a-goin' a step,' sez she, 'so I
+ain't,' an' she looked sorter suspicious.
+
+"'Well, I don't railly see how yo're goin' to help yorese'f, Mis'
+Dawson,' sez I.  'Goodness knows yo're showin' mighty little int'rust
+in the meetin' anyways.  Looks like you wouldn't insult one of the most
+saintly men we got by turnin' yore back on 'im.  Mebby he wants to ax
+about startin' a meetin' over yore way.  You'd better go.'
+
+"That settled it; I took 'er back an' set 'er down by him, an' he begun
+to git in his work.  I never knowed a man called to preach could be so
+mealy-mouthed.  He begun--you see I was next to him an' could ketch
+ev'ry word, although thar was jest a regular hullabaloo o' shoutin' an'
+singin' goin' on all about--he begun by goin' over his own family
+trouble, an' I wanted to laugh out, fer the Lord knows, while Brother
+Tim's folks has had _some_ few ordinary reverses, an' _did_ lose a few
+head o' stock in the war, an' one o' the gals married a no-'count
+Yankee carpenter an' never would write back home, an' Brother
+Mitchell's ma an' pa died uv ripe old age--but, as I say, nobody ever
+thought they wus particular unfortunate.  Howsomever, she thought they
+wus from his tale an' his sad, mournful way o' talkin'.  Job an' all he
+went through, b'iles an' all, wasn't a circumstance, an' it was all the
+Lord's doin's, Brother Tim said, to show him the true light.  I seed
+she was listenin' an' that he had hold uv 'er some, but I kinder
+thought she wusn't as easy prey as he 'lowed, fer he broke down once in
+awhile an' had a sort o' sickly, quivery look about the mouth.  All at
+once he turned to me as mad as a hornet.  Sez he: 'It's that dern
+bonnet,'--no, he didn't say that exactly.  I heer Luke say them things
+so much 'at his words slip in when I'm in a hurry--'it's that bonnet o'
+her'n, Sister Bradley,' sez he.  'I'll never git 'er in a wearin' way
+as long as that poke keeps bobbin' up an' down twixt me 'n her eyes.
+Cayn't you manage to git it off?'
+
+"Well, you kin imagine that wus a difficult thing to do, but I reckon
+the Lord o' Hosts must 'a' been with us, fer all at once a idee come to
+me an' I jest leaned over to her.  'Sister Dawson,' sez I, 'I beg yore
+pardon, but the skirt o' yore bonnet is ripped, le'me see it a minute,'
+an', la me!  Brother Mitchell's eyes fairly danced in his head.  I
+heerd him laugh out sudden an' then he kivered his mouth 'ith his long,
+bony hand an' coughed as I snatched the bonnet frum 'er head an' begun
+to tear a seam open.  She made a grab over his spindlin' legs fer it,
+but I paid no attention to 'er, pretendin' to be fixin' it.  Then the
+fun begun.  I seed 'im lay hold of 'er wrists an' look 'er spank, dab
+in the eyes, an' 'en he begun to rant.  Purty soon I seed her back
+limberin' up an' I knowed, as the sayin' is, that she was our meat.
+All at once, still a-hold o' 'er hands, he turned to me, an' sez he:
+'Go ax Brother Quagmire to sing "How firm a foundation" three times,
+with the second an' last verse left out, an' tell 'im to foller that up
+with "Jesus, Lover."  Git 'im to walk up an' down this aisle--this un,
+remember.  Tell 'im I've got a case heer wuth more 'n a whole bench
+full o' them scrubs 'at'll backslide as soon as meetin' 's over; tell
+'im to whoop 'em up.  Sister Bradley, you are addin' more feathers to
+yore wings right now 'an you ever sprouted in one day o' the Lord's
+labor.  But, for all you do, hold on to that blasted devil's
+contraption.'  He meant the bonnet.
+
+"I slid out 'twixt the benches on one side, an' went round to the stand
+an' spoke to Brother Quagmire, who wus leadin'; he's the big,
+white-headed man they say looks like Moody an' has the scalps o' more
+sinners in 'is belt than any man on the war-path.  When I tol' 'im what
+wus up, he giggled an' said, 'God bless 'im, Mitch is a wheel-hoss!'
+an' with that he busted out singin' 'How firm a foundation, ye saints
+o' the Lord,' an' he waved his hands up an' down like a buzzard's
+wings, an' went up our aisle, a-clappin' an' singin' to beat the Dutch.
+I never seed the like before.  I wusn't cryin' fer the same reason 'at
+the rest of 'em wus, but the tears wus jest a-streamin' down my face
+like a leaky well-bucket, fer I believed the thing wus goin' to work,
+an' I wus thinkin' how glad you'd be.  She looked up an' seed my face
+an' busted out cryin'.  Then Brother Mitchell ketched 'er up in his
+arms an' yelled: 'You little, ol', triflin' thing, I'm a-gwine to put
+you in the arms o' yore Redeemer,' an' then I jest couldn't help
+cryin'.  Luke seed me give way an' sneeked off to water the hosses.
+John, she was the happiest creetur God ever made.  She laid 'er old
+bare head in my lap an' cried like a baby.  I never railly loved 'er
+before, but I did then.  Somehow she seemed to be my own mother come
+back to life ag'in.  But she didn't shout an' take on like the rest.
+She jest cried an' cried an' had the youngest look on 'er face I ever
+seed on a ol' person.  Once she said, sez she, 'I'm goin' back to put a
+grave-rock over Jasper's remains,' an' then I remembered folks said she
+wus too stingy to do that when Dawson died.  She looked like she wanted
+to talk about you, but I didn't feel called on to fetch up the subject.
+After awhile she went out to the wagon whar her carpet-bag wus, an' got
+up in one o' the cheers an' begun to stitch on some'n.  I wus puzzled
+right sharp, fer it wus a Sunday, an' it looked like a funny thing fer
+a body to do, but atter awhile she come to me with some'n wrapped up in
+a paper--I'll show it to you in a minute--an' give it to me.  It was a
+pair uv her best knit wool socks.  You know some old women think it's a
+mark o' great respect to give a pair o' socks to anybody that they've
+knit the'rselves.
+
+"'I want you to take the socks,' sez she, 'an' give 'em to the right
+person,' sez she, awful bashful like.  You know, John, I don't believe
+all the religion this side o' the burnin' lake kin make some folks beg
+a body's pardon, not ef they wanted to wuss than anything on earth.
+She is one o' that sort.  I 'lowed right off 'at the socks wus fer you
+an' started to tell 'er how glad you'd be to git 'em when, all at once,
+I noticed a letter M worked in red wool on 'em.  It was a letter M as
+plain as anything could be, a big letter M, 'an' that throwed me.  Then
+I thought about Brother Mitchell's name beginnin' with a M, an' so I
+said, sez I, 'So you want me to give 'em to Brother Mitchell, do you?'
+An' 'en she flared up.  'Who said a word about Brother Mitchell?' she
+axed.  I seed she wusn't pleased by my mistake, an' so I tried my level
+best to think o' somebody else with a M to his name, but I couldn't to
+save my neck, so at last I give it up.  'Yo're entirely too mysterious
+fer me, Mis' Dawson,' sez I.  'I can't, fer the life o' me, think uv
+one soul you know whose name begins with a M.'  'M,' sez she, 'who said
+that was a letter M?  Yo're jest a-puttin' on.  You know that ain't no
+M.'
+
+"'That's what it is,' sez I.  'I haven't waited till I'm old enough to
+have gran'children to l'arn my a b c's.'
+
+"She snatched the socks frum me, an' I 'lowed she wus goin' to throw
+'em away, but she turned 'em upside down an' helt 'em before my eyes.
+'Do you call that a M?' sez she, an' shore 'nough it was as plain a W
+as I ever laid eyes on.
+
+"'Oh!' sez I, 'now I see.  Do you want me to give 'em to John
+Westerfelt?'
+
+"But she wouldn't say narry a word.  I seed how the land lay, fer I
+knowed she'd ruther die, religion ur no religion, 'an come right out in
+so many words an' say she wus sorry.  You know I believe as I'm
+a-settin' heer 'at thar'll be folks meetin' on the golden sands of
+eternity, by the River of Life, 'at'll pass one another with the'r
+noses in the air; but I'll take that back.  I reckon thar won't be no
+noses, nur no air, as fer that matter; folks that's read up on sech
+matters says everything will be different.  The Lord knows I hope it
+will be.  I want a change.  But I am gettin' away frum Mis' Dawson.
+Then I up an' told 'er p'int-blank I wus goin' to give the socks to you
+with the compliments of the day, an' ef she objected she'd better put
+in 'er complaint in time, but she jest walked back an' set down in
+front o' the stand.  John, she's that sorry fer all she's said and done
+'at she can't talk about it.  These heer socks is all the proof you
+need.  I don't think she wants to meet you face to face nuther.  She's
+goin' home in the mornin' in Sam Hambright's wagon.  Lord!  Peter
+Slogan an' his wife never 'll know what to make uv 'er.  I'd give a
+purty to be thar when she comes, fer they won't know she's converted,
+an' she'd be strung up by the toes ruther 'n tell 'em right out."
+
+Mrs. Bradley stood up, and then quickly sat down again.  "I thought I'd
+get them socks out'n the dinner-basket, but I heer Luke a-comin'.  He's
+like a fish out o' water.  He seed me a-takin' on with Mis' Dawson, an'
+he thinks I've got a fresh dose o' religion.  I didn't let 'im know no
+better, an' he wus grum all the way home.  He can't put up with a
+Christian of the excitable sort.  Hush, don't say a word; watch me
+devil him, but ef you don't keep a straight face I'll bust out
+laughin'.  Lordy, I feel good somehow--I reckon it's beca'se yo're shet
+o' that old woman's persecutions."
+
+Just then Bradley entered and laid his hat on the bed.  Westerfelt now
+noticed the unsettled expression of his face and smiled as he thought
+of the innocent cause of it.
+
+"Well," said Bradley, "are you through with John?  It's high time we
+wus havin' some'n t' eat."
+
+"Yes," said his wife, with a doleful expression of countenance, "I
+reckon I'm through with him.  Set down in that cheer, Luke.  I've been
+talkin' to John about his speritual welfare, an' it's yore time now.
+We've got to turn over a new leaf, Luke--me 'n' you has; we've jest
+gone fur enough in iniquity--that is, you have; I've meant well enough
+all along."
+
+"I say!"  Luke sat down uneasily and glanced at Westerfelt, who sat
+staring at him with an assumed look of seriousness which threatened to
+go to pieces at any instant.
+
+"Yes, Luke," went on his wife, "you've been my mill-rock long enough,
+an' now I'm goin' to take a new an' a firmer stand in my treatment uv
+you.  We used to hold family prayer an' ax the blessin', an' now our
+house has got to be called the dancin'-door to perdition; we've got to
+quit all that.  I'm a-goin' to smash that jug o' bug-juice o' yo'r'n in
+the closet, an' not another speck o' the vile truck shall come in my
+house."  (She caught Westerfelt's eye, drew down the side of her face
+which was next to him, and winked slyly.)
+
+"Oh, you are!"  Bradley was a picture of absolute misery.  He crossed
+his legs and then put his feet side by side, only to cross and recross
+his legs again.
+
+"I've had a great awakenin' to-day, Luke," she went on, "an' now I see
+nothin' ahead o' me but one solid blaze o' glory.  John heer is
+convicted, an' is goin' to do the right thing, but I reckon he won't
+have as much to undo as you who are older in wrong livin'.  That cow
+you traded fer with Fred Wade has to go back early in the mornin'.  You
+knowed the one you swapped wus mighty nigh dry, an' 'at his'n come home
+every night with 'er bag so loaded she could hardly take a step without
+trippin' up--the fust thing in the mornin', mind you!  I want you to
+git the Book right now, too, an' read some, an' let's begin family
+worship.  Thar it is on the sewin'-machine; I'll bet you ain't looked
+in it in a month o' Sundays."
+
+Westerfelt was laboriously keeping a straight face, but it was waxing
+red as blood and his eyes were protruding from their sockets and
+twinkling with a merriment that was a delight to Mrs. Bradley, who kept
+glancing at him as she talked.
+
+"What in the dev--what do you mean, Marthy?" Bradley stammered.  "The
+cow kin go back, ef you say so, but blame--but I'll draw a line at home
+prayin'.  I ain't fittin', that's all; I ain't fittin'."
+
+"I know that as well as you do"--Mrs. Bradley wiped a smile from her
+face and winked at Westerfelt--"but this blessed Sabbath is a good time
+to begin.  Git the Book, Luke!"
+
+"I'll not do it, Marthy; you may shout an' carry on as much as you
+like, with yore sudden religious spurts, but I believe in regularity,
+one way ur the other."
+
+"Git that Book, Luke Bradley; git it, I say," and then Westerfelt's
+laughter burst from him, and he laughed so heartily that an inkling of
+the truth seemed forced on Bradley, who had witnessed his wife's
+practical joking before.
+
+"I believe, on my soul, it's a sell," he said, in a tone of vast
+relief.  "Lord, I 'lowed you'd gone plumb crazy."
+
+And then he was sure it was a joke, for Mrs. Bradley had her head
+between her fat knees, and was laughing as he had never heard her laugh
+before.
+
+"I paid you back, you ol' goose," she said, when she could master her
+merriment.  "You had no business thinkin' I'd lost my senses, jest
+because I cried when 'at ol' woman got so happy.  I was glad on John's
+account, but you don't know a bit more now than you did.  You couldn't
+see a wart on yore nose ef you wus cross-eyed."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI
+
+Mrs. Dawson reached home the next day about four o'clock in the
+afternoon.  Mrs. Slogan was seated at her great cumbersome hand-made
+loom in the corner of the kitchen, weaving reddish brown jeans for
+Peter's clothing.  Mrs. Lithicum and her husband were in paying a
+visit.  The latter and Slogan were talking over a joint hog-killing
+they were going to have to save labor and expense.  Peter had put a
+higher mental valuation on the labor saved than Lithicum.  He had
+discovered, on a former occasion, that the arrangement had saved him
+some money, and that Ab had done all the work, such as directing the
+black hands and keeping the water just the proper temperature to remove
+the bristles without "setting" them.
+
+"You see," Peter had remarked to his wife, "Ab works more'n I do; mebby
+it's beca'se he's a chawin' man--a smokin' man has to set down to smoke
+to do any good, while a chawin' man kin use both hands at any job, an'
+jest squirt when an' whar he wants to."
+
+Peter went to a window, while Ab was watching the movement of the loom,
+and looked across the fields.  Suddenly the others heard him utter an
+ejaculation of profound astonishment.  The loom ceased its monotonous
+thumping, and all eyes turned on him.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Lithicum, her round, red face full of
+curiosity.
+
+"I'll bet narry one o' you could make a good guess."
+
+They knew him too well to expect information from him, so they all
+started for the window.  Mrs. Lithicum reached it first.  "As I'm
+alive!" she cried.  "Mis' Dawson's got back.  She's gettin' out uv a
+wagon down at 'er cabin."
+
+"Well, I 'lowed she wouldn't always be gallivantin' about heer and
+yan," said the weaver, as she peered over the shoulder of her guest.
+"I reckon they've all got tired of 'er over thar an' sent 'er home."
+
+Mrs. Lithicum followed the speaker back to the loom.  "Well, I don't
+know but I'm a leetle grain sorry," she said.
+
+"Sorry!" repeated the sister of the person under discussion.  "I don't
+see what thar railly is to be sorry about."
+
+Mrs. Lithicum looked as if she had got her foot into it, and she
+flushed, but she had her defence ready.  "Well, you see, Mis' Slogan,
+she's tuck a most unaccountable dislike to Lizzie, an' a pusson
+like--well, some _do_ think her trouble has sorter turned 'er brain,
+an' the's no rail tellin' what quar notion may strike 'er."
+
+"Do you think so, Mis' Lithicum?"  Mrs. Slogan retained the big smooth
+shuttle in her hand and eyed the speaker anxiously, her eyelids
+quivering.
+
+"To be downright plain, yes, I do.  Mis' Slogan, ef she _is_ yore
+sister, an' I've thought many a time 'at ef I wus in yore place I
+wouldn't feel safe nuther.  They say a pusson sometimes gits softenin'
+o' the brain frum hatin' folks an' livin' alone like she does.  I'd be
+afeerd to leave the house open at night ef I wus you."
+
+"Well!" suddenly broke in Peter, who was the only one remaining at the
+window.  "You may have my overcoat an'"--after a pause--"my best Sunday
+shirt, too, ef she hain't loaded 'er bed in that wagon an' 's a-comin'
+this way as big as the side of a house.  She's comin' back heer,
+Clariss, Lordy, Lordy!"
+
+They all ran to the window again and stood breathlessly watching the
+oncoming wagon.  "She's off 'er nut now, I know," said Peter.  "I know
+'er too well; she never would come back heer ef she wus in 'er right
+mind."
+
+"Well, I don't want to meet 'er--that's one thing certain," cried Mrs.
+Lithicum in sudden terror.  "She mought pounce upon me on Lizzie's
+account.  I'm a-goin' home by the path through the cotton-patch.  Good
+day to all uv you.  Ef I was you-uns," she called back from the door,
+"I'd have 'er put up!"
+
+Abner mutely followed her, and the Slogans were left to solve the
+problem for themselves.  The wagon drew up at the door, and from their
+window they saw the little woman step down over the front wheel and
+direct the white driver--they could not hear her voice, but they read
+the signs of her hands--to put the few pieces of furniture on the
+porch.  This done, the wagon clattered away, and Mrs. Dawson, with
+hanging head, came into the passage and went to her old room.
+
+"What in the name o' goodness do you reckon she's goin' to do?" gasped
+Mrs. Slogan, quite pale and cold.  "I'm nearly skeerd to death."
+
+"She's got a faint idee 'at she's goin' to put up heer with us,"
+answered Peter with considerable concern for a man of his phlegmatic
+temperament.  "They say crazy folks jest natcherly drift back into
+the'r old ruts, an' the best way is to let 'em alone.  Ef she kin feed
+'erself we'll be in luck; some crazy folks jest gaum the'rselves from
+head to foot an' have to have constant attention."
+
+"But you ain't a-goin' to let 'er stay, are you?" cried his wife.
+
+Peter smiled grimly and went to the mantel-piece for his foul-smelling
+comforter.  He also pulled down from a nail on the wall a dry stalk of
+tobacco and proceeded to crush and crumble some of the crisp leaves in
+his big palm.
+
+"Me?  I don't see 'at I've got a thing to say in the matter," he
+retorted, with a grimace that bore a slight resemblance to a smile.
+"You wus tellin' me jest t'other day 'at the lan' an' house wus in yore
+name an' her'n, an' 'at I had no right to put in.  I reckon you'll have
+to manage 'er, Clariss."
+
+Mrs. Slogan sank back on the bench of the loom, but she didn't set the
+thing in motion; she had an idea that the slightest sound might draw
+the attention of the bustling inmate of the room across the passage,
+and just then she was not prepared to exchange greetings.
+
+Peter stood at the window, his head now enveloped in smoke, and kept
+peering out at the porch from which Mrs. Dawson was moving the various
+articles pertaining to her bed, such as slats, posts, railings,
+mattress, pillows, sheets, and coverings.
+
+"She's as busy as a hoss's tail in fly-time," he observed.  "Oh, Lawsy
+mercy!"
+
+This last ejaculation came out with such startled emphasis that his
+wife let her mouth fall open as she waited for him to explain.  But
+Peter only stretched his neck towards the window, holding his pipe
+behind him to keep from setting fire to the curtain.
+
+"Oh, Peter, what is it?"
+
+"She hain't fetched a sign of a thing to cook with," he replied.  "I
+kinder thought I heerd a clatter in that wagon as it driv' off; she's
+give 'er coffee-pot an' fryin'-pan an' dishes to the feller that
+fetched 'er over heer an' moved 'er things.  She intends to eat with
+us."
+
+Mrs. Slogan wrung her hands.  "Something jest has to be done," she
+said, "an' the Lord knows I don't know what it is.  Do you reckon she's
+dangerous, Peter?"
+
+"She's yore sister, Clariss," he chuckled, in spite of the gravity of
+the situation, "an' I'd hate to be in yore re'ch ef you wus to lose any
+more uv yore mind.  As it is, you--"
+
+"I wish you'd shet up!" broke in his wife; "this ain't no time fer
+foolishness."
+
+Then they drew their chairs up to the fireplace and sat down.  They
+could still hear the old woman moving about, setting things to rights
+in her room.  Suddenly there was a great clatter of falling slats.  The
+bed had come down.
+
+"She can't put that thing up by 'erself" suggested Peter.  "Go in an'
+he'p 'er."
+
+"I'll do no sech a thing; do you reckon I want 'er to scratch my eyes
+out?  Huh!  She hates me like a rattlesnake, an' has jest come heer so
+she kin devil me to death.  I see it now.  She seed she wusn't worryin'
+me much over thar in 'er ol' cabin, an' she's jest bent on gittin'
+nigher."
+
+"I reckon that's jest yore--yore conscience a-talkin'," opined Slogan.
+"Thar's no gittin' round it, Clariss, you did sorter rub it in when
+Sally wus alive.  I often used to wonder how the old creetur managed to
+put up with it; you kept ding-dongin' at 'er frum mornin' to night.  Ef
+she's cracked, yo're purty apt to have it read out to you frum the Book
+o' Judgment."
+
+Mrs. Slogan must have felt the truth of this accusation, for she voiced
+no denial.  The room across the passage suddenly became quiet.  It was
+evident that the bed was up; as a further evidence of this, Mrs. Dawson
+was seen to go out to the wood-pile and fill her apron with chips and
+return with them.
+
+"She's got located," remarked Slogan.  "She's a-goin' to set in now an'
+make 'erse'f comfortable."
+
+"She'll burn the house down over our heads," whined Mrs. Slogan.  "Oh,
+Peter, I'm not satisfied!  I'm anything but."
+
+The sun went down and night came on.  Mrs. Slogan began to prepare
+supper, casting, the while, frequent glances at the door opening on the
+passage.  Peter smoked pipe after pipe without being able to come to
+any definite conclusion as to how to surmount the difficulty.  Suddenly
+he looked over his shoulder and tapped the heel of his shoe with his
+pipe.
+
+"You'd better cook enough fer three," was what he said, "an' make more
+coffee.  Ef she don't he'p us drink it, we'll need it to keep us
+company through the night.  I know in reason 'at you won't close yore
+eyes till--till we see some way out of the difficulty."
+
+"Peter Slogan," said his wife, in a whisper, as she laid the
+table-cloth down in a chair and leaned over him, "you skeer the life
+out o' me when you talk that away.  I never seed you look like you
+minded anything before."
+
+"I'm glad I show some'n'," he grinned, struggling back into his old
+sardonic mood.  "I 'lowed I'd got too hardened to feer man, God, ha'nt,
+ur devil.  Well, I _don't_ keer overly much about havin' a crazy
+creetur' so nigh me, an' I ain't a-goin' to, ef I kin see any way out
+of it.  We ain't a thousand miles from the State asylum."
+
+Mrs. Slogan moved noiselessly as she unfolded the cloth and spread it.
+She put the coffee on the table and poured the floating grounds from
+the top into a tin cup.
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do," she proposed, timidly.  "I'll fix 'er
+some supper on that piece o' plank thar, an' a big cup o' coffee
+sweetened jest like she used to like it, ef--"  She hesitated.
+
+"Ef what?  Out with it!"
+
+"Ef you'll take it in thar whar she's at."
+
+Peter deliberated and cleared his throat.
+
+"She's _yore_ sister," he got out, finally, "an' the last time I went
+to 'er cabin she wouldn't listen to me no more 'n ef I wus a rat
+a-squeakin'.  You see, a feller's sorter expected to--"
+
+"I don't keer ef she _is_ my sister, I ain't a-goin' in thar, an' that
+settles it.  I declare I'd be ashamed to call myse'f a man ef I wus
+afeerd uv a weakly, bent-over old woman like she is."
+
+Peter stirred uneasily in his chair.
+
+"I don't keer about holdin' no talk with 'er--ur startin' 'er off by
+the sight o' me--but I'll go thar--I see 'er door ain't shet--an' I'll
+put the grub whar she'll see it."
+
+"Well, that'll do," agreed Mrs. Slogan.  "Feedin' 'er ain't a-goin' to
+make 'er any wuss, an' it mought have a quietin' effect."
+
+Peter took the improvised tray when it was brought to him and went out
+with it, returning in a moment.
+
+"I ketched 'er a-lookin' right at me," he said, "an' so I jest walked
+bold-faced in an' put the stuff on a table in front of 'er.  She looked
+down in the fire an' didn't speak, an' I didn't nuther.  She didn't
+look one bit dangerous.  Now that I've seed 'er, I reckon I'll sleep
+some.  I'm dem glad I did.  Ef you'll jest take a peep at 'er you'll
+feel better."
+
+"Well, I won't close my two eyes," affirmed his wife.  "I hain't seed
+'er, nur I don't intend to, ef I kin git out of it."
+
+When supper was ready they softly moved their chairs to their places
+and sat down.  Mrs. Slogan didn't eat heartily, but Peter's appetite
+seemed normal.  They had finished eating, Peter had secured his
+toothpick from the broom, and they had moved back to the fireplace,
+when they heard a stealthy step on the passage floor near the door.
+The bolt was turned, the door shutter creaked and moved a few inches.
+A hand came in sight, and something wrapped in brown paper was tossed
+into the centre of the room.  Then the steps receded, and they heard
+the widow resume her chair.
+
+Peter rose curiously and picked up the parcel, and bringing it to the
+fire opened it.  Its contents were a pair of woollen socks and a pair
+of stockings of the same material.  On the first had been worked a big
+red letter "P" and on the other a capital "C."
+
+"Did you ever?" gasped Mrs. Slogan.  "I don't believe she's a bit more
+crazy 'n I am."
+
+"I never 'lowed she wus," said Peter, with a laugh.  "I jest thought
+she mought be harder to manage 'an you, that's all."
+
+"Sister's gone an' had a change o' heart!" declared Mrs. Slogan,
+ignoring his joke.  "Nothin' else could a-made 'er come back an' give
+us these things.  I heerd they had a big revival over thar.  Oh, Lordy,
+I do feel so relieved!"
+
+"Well, I reckon we mought as well go in an' pay 'er our respects an'
+git started," grumbled Peter.  "I'm not a-goin' to tote 'er meals
+about, I'll tell you that.  Slavery day is over."
+
+"No, we'll jest let 'er alone," Mrs. Slogan beamed; "she'll know we
+mean all right by the supper, an' I reckon she'll move up 'er cheer in
+the mornin'; ef she don't, I'll blow the field-horn."
+
+Peter lighted another pipe.  "I wonder," said he, "how long it'll be
+'fore you an' her 'll be clawin' agin.  Religion ur no religion, crazy
+ur no crazy, women is jest the same."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+When Westerfelt went to bed that night after his talk with Mrs. Bradley
+about the conversion of Mrs. Dawson, it was with a certain lightness of
+heart and buoyancy of spirits that he had not experienced for a long
+time.  He did not know exactly how his new feeling would show itself in
+regard to Harriet, but he believed he might, in time, cease to look
+upon her love for Wambush as such an unpardonable offence.  "Surely,"
+he argued, "if Mrs. Dawson can forgive me for all I have done, I ought
+to pardon the girl I love for what she did before she knew me."
+
+These were admirable intentions, but he was counting on a depth of
+nature that was not his either by inheritance or cultivation.  The
+inflammable material was still bound up in his breast, and it needed
+but one spark to fire it.  What he was struggling against had come down
+to him from a long line of ancestors, men who would rather have died
+than brook the thought of a rival, especially in an inferior; men who
+would have spurned the love of their hearts if it were stained with
+falsehood under any circumstances, and when, as it was in Westerfelt's
+case, the provocation was not only deceit, but ardent love for such a
+man--ah, there was the rub!
+
+The next morning he watched Bates's office from the stable till he saw
+the lawyer come down the street and enter.  He waited awhile longer,
+for he saw Bates go out to the wood-pile and return with an armful of
+wood.  Presently blue smoke began to rise from the chimney, and
+Westerfelt went over and rapped on the door.
+
+"Come in!" Bates called out.  Westerfelt found him with his back to the
+door, sitting over the fire, a leather-bound tome in his lap.
+
+"Hello!" he cried, seeing who it was; "pull up a seat."
+
+Westerfelt drew a rickety chair from beneath a dusty desk and sat down.
+
+"Did you get home all right?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."  Bates closed his book, leaving his forefinger in it for a
+book-mark; he removed his foot from the side of the chimney and cleared
+his throat.  "Miss Harriet asked me to fetch her home early; dang it!
+I believe she would a-stayed longer, but she was sorry for me."
+
+"Sorry for you--why?"
+
+"Because she couldn't see it my way, I reckon."
+
+"Did she--refuse you?"
+
+Bates threw his book on a table.  "Do I look like a man that's goin' to
+marry the prettiest and the best girl in the world?  Westerfelt, I
+didn't sleep a wink last night."
+
+"That's bad."
+
+"Looky' heer, don't give me any shenanigan; you knowed what she'd do
+for me.  You knowed mighty well."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Yes, dad burn it; you know she loves you."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"If you don't know it you are a numskull.  She intimated to me that she
+loved some feller, but that she never intended to marry anybody.  I'm
+no fool.  I know who she meant.  Look here!"  Bates suddenly rose to
+his feet.  His face was both white and red in splotches.  He grasped
+the back of his chair with both his hands and leaned on it.  "I've
+heard o' your doings over the mountain.  She hain't no kin to me, but
+I'll tell you one thing right now, Westerfelt, she's a good girl, an'
+if you trifle with her feelings you'll have me to whip ur get a licking
+yorese'f.  I'm talking straight now, man to man."
+
+Westerfelt rose, and the two men stood side by side, each staring into
+the other's face.
+
+"Don't be a fool," said Westerfelt, after a slight pause; "don't meddle
+with what don't concern you," and he turned and left the room.  He had
+never allowed a man to threaten him in that sort of way, but he was in
+no frame of mind to quarrel.  Besides, there was something in the
+lawyer's defence of Harriet that made him like the fellow.
+
+He was about to cross the street to the stable when he saw Harriet come
+out of the hotel and trip along the sidewalk towards the store.  She
+wore no hat or bonnet, but held a handkerchief over her head to protect
+her face from the sun.  He was sure she saw him, but she did not show
+any sign of recognition.  He kept on his way, but when she had
+disappeared in the store he hesitated, then stopped, recrossed the
+street, and turned into the store after her.  She was standing on the
+grocery side, tapping the counter with a coin.  Martin Worthy was
+behind the counter, weighing a package of soda for her.  She flushed
+red and then paled a little as Westerfelt entered and held out his hand.
+
+"It's a pretty day," he said.  "I'd like to take you to drive after
+dinner, if you will go with me.  I hated like smoke to miss that ride
+yesterday."
+
+She shook hands with him and then turned to Worthy, who was tying the
+package with a piece of twine drawn from a ball in a holder at the
+ceiling.  Westerfelt was afraid she was going to ignore his invitation
+wholly, but she looked round presently and smiled faintly.
+
+"I shall be glad to go," she answered.  "Any one else going?"
+
+"No; that is, not that I know of."
+
+She leaned over to give Worthy the money, and waited for the change
+without glancing again at Westerfelt.
+
+She took her parcel and started to leave.  "Then I shall come about two
+o'clock?" he said, going with her to the door.
+
+She nodded.  "Very well; I'll be ready," and he stood aside for her to
+pass.
+
+She walked briskly back to the hotel and into the kitchen, where her
+mother was at work.
+
+"Did you get it?" Mrs. Floyd asked.
+
+"Yes, and there's the change."  Harriet put down the package and
+dropped some pieces of silver into a goblet on the table.
+
+"What's the matter?"  Mrs. Floyd was kneading dough in a great wooden
+tray, and she looked at Harriet over her shoulder.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"I know there _is_."  Mrs. Floyd turned and began rubbing the dough
+from her fingers as a woman puts on a kid glove.
+
+"Mr. Westerfelt has asked me to drive with him after dinner," said the
+girl.  "That's all."
+
+"Harriet!"  Mrs. Floyd's eyes sparkled with excitement as she sprinkled
+some flour over her dough and began to roll the mass back and forth.
+"I reckon you will acknowledge _now_ that I know something about young
+men.  If you had refused to go with Bascom Bates yesterday, Mr.
+Westerfelt would have had no respect for you; as it is, he couldn't
+wait twenty-four hours to see you.  For all you do, don't let him see
+too plain that you care for him.  Mind what I say!"
+
+Westerfelt was impatient for two o'clock to arrive.  It was one when he
+left Bradley's after dinner.  He went to the stable and ordered Jake to
+get out his horse and buggy.  He would call for her at once; he could
+not wait any longer.  He felt a sort of sinking sensation at his heart
+as Jake gave him the whip and reins, and he was actually trembling when
+he stopped at the hotel.  Harriet came out on the veranda above and
+told him she would be down at once.  She did not keep him waiting long,
+and when she came down, prettily flushed and neatly attired, his heart
+bounded and his pulse quickened.  Had she been a queen he could not
+have felt more respect for her than he did as he stood shielding her
+skirt from the wheels and helped her get seated.  He was just about to
+get in himself when an old man came down the sidewalk from Worthy's
+store, headed for the buggy.  It was old John Wambush with a basket of
+eggs on his arm.
+
+"Howdy' do," he said, nodding to them both.  "Miss Harriet, is yore ma
+needin' any more eggs now?  I diskivered another nest this mornin', an'
+'lowed she mought be able to use 'em.  She's about the only one in the
+place 'at ever has cash to pay fer produce."
+
+"I don't know, Mr. Wambush," Harriet replied, politely.  "She is in the
+house; you might go in and see her."
+
+The old man shifted his basket to his other arm and hesitated.
+Westerfelt got into the buggy and took up the reins.
+
+"I reckon, Miss Harriet, you hain't heerd frum Toot sence I seed you?"
+
+"No, Mr. Wambush."  Westerfelt was not looking at her as she spoke, and
+the saddest part of it lay in the fact that he was trying to save her
+from what he imagined must be a very embarrassing situation.  "No, he
+has not written me."
+
+"Well"--the old man turned--"as fur as I'm concerned, I'm not one bit
+afeerd that he'll not be able to take keer o' hisse'f, but his mammy is
+pestered mighty nigh to death about 'im."
+
+Just then Mrs. Floyd came out on the porch and threw a kiss at Harriet.
+The act and its accompanying smile reminded Westerfelt of the deception
+the old lady had played on Bates, and that added weight to the vague
+convictions once more alive in his brain.  Mrs. Floyd's smile implied a
+certain confidence in his credulity and pliability that was galling to
+his proud spirit.
+
+His horse was mettlesome, and Westerfelt drove rapidly over a good road
+which ran along the foot of the mountain.  The day was fine, the
+scenery glorious, but he was oblivious of their charm.  His agony had
+never been so great.  He kept his eyes on his horse; his face was set,
+his glance hard.  Once he turned upon her, maddened by the sweet,
+half-confiding ring in her voice when she asked him why he was so
+quiet, but the memory of his promise never to reproach her again
+stopped him.  With that came a sudden reckless determination to rid
+himself of the whole thing by going away, at least temporarily, and
+then he remembered that he really had some business affairs to attend
+to in Atlanta.
+
+"I am going away awhile, Miss Harriet," he told her.
+
+"You are, really?"
+
+"Yes; I'm needed down in Atlanta for a while.  I reckon I'll get back
+in a few weeks."
+
+He saw her face change, but he did not read it correctly.  At that
+moment he could not have persuaded himself that she cared very much one
+way or the other.  Surely a girl who had, scarcely six weeks before,
+sobbed in old Wambush's arms about her love for his son could not feel
+anything deeply pertaining to another man whom she had known such a
+short time.
+
+"Let's go back," he proposed, suddenly, and almost brutally.  "I reckon
+we've gone far enough.  Night comes on mighty quick here in the valley."
+
+She raised her eyes to his in a half-frightened glance, and said:
+
+"Yes; let's go back."
+
+He turned his horse, and for fifteen minutes they drove along in
+silence.  There was now absolutely no pity in his heart.  The vast
+black problem of his own tortured love seemed to be soaking into him
+from the very air about him.
+
+He broke the silence.
+
+"So you refused Bates?"
+
+She looked at him again.  "How did you know that?"
+
+He laughed bitterly.
+
+"He told me so; he's another fool."
+
+"Mr. Westerfelt!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he amended, quickly; "but any man is a fool to be
+simply crazy about a woman, and he is."
+
+He saw her raise her little shapely hand to her twitching mouth and
+experienced one instant's throbbing desire to catch it and hold it and
+beg her to have mercy on him and help him throw off the hellish despair
+that rested on him.  It was a significant fact that she said nothing to
+protract the conversation on the line of Bates's proposal.  To her the
+proposal and rejection of a king by her would have found no place in
+her thoughts, facing the incomprehensible mood of the man she loved.
+It was growing dark when they reached the hotel.  As he aided her to
+alight he gave her his hand.  "It's good-bye for a while, anyway," he
+said.
+
+She started; her hand was heavy and cold.  She caught her breath.
+"When are you going, Mr. Westerfelt?"
+
+"In the morning after breakfast, by the hack to Darley."
+
+That was all.  She lowered her head and passed into the house.  In the
+hall she met her mother.
+
+"Great goodness, dear!" exclaimed the old woman; "what on earth did you
+run away from him so sudden for?"
+
+Harriet pushed past her into the parlor and stood fumbling with the
+buttons of her cloak.
+
+"Answer me, daughter," pursued Mrs. Floyd; "what did--"
+
+"Oh, God! don't bother me, mother," cried Harriet.
+
+Mrs. Floyd held her breath as she drew her daughter down on a sofa and
+stared into her face.
+
+"What's the matter, daughter?  _Do_ tell me."
+
+"He's going away," said Harriet.  "Oh, mother, I don't know what ails
+him!  I never saw anybody act as he did.  He had little to say, and
+when he spoke it looked as if he was mad with me.  Oh, mother,
+sometimes I think he loves me, and then again--"
+
+"He _does_ love you," declared Mrs. Floyd.  "I hid behind the curtains
+in the parlor and watched him on the sly while he was waiting for you
+to come down.  I never saw a man show love plainer; he kept looking up
+at your window, and his face fairly shone when you come out.  You can't
+fool me.  He's in love, but he's trying to overcome it for--for some
+reason or other.  High-spirited men do that way, sometimes.  Men don't
+like to give up their liberty and settle down.  But he'll come to time,
+you see if he don't."
+
+Harriet stood up and started to the door.  "Where are you going?" asked
+her mother.
+
+"Up-stairs," sighed Harriet.  "Mother, can you do without my help at
+supper?  I want to lie down and be alone."
+
+"Of course; I won't need you; everything is attended to, and Hettie
+come while you was away.  She fairly danced when she heard you had gone
+to drive with Mr. Westerfelt.  She hopes you will speak to him about
+Toot.  She's heard from him.  He wants to come back home and marry her,
+if Mr. Westerfelt can be persuaded to withdraw the charges.  Do you
+think he would, daughter?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know, mother!"  Harriet slowly ascended the stairs to her
+room, and Mrs. Floyd sat down in the darkening parlor to devise some
+scheme; she finally concluded that Harriet was too much in love to
+manage her own affairs, and that she would take them in hand.
+
+"He loves her, that's certain," she mused, "and he is a man who can be
+managed if he is worked just right."  She had evidently arrived at an
+idea as to what should be done in the emergency, for she put on her
+cloak and hat and went up to Harriet's room.  The girl sat near the
+bed, her head bent over to a pillow.
+
+"Daughter," Mrs. Floyd said, laying her hand on Harriet's head, "you
+stay here, and don't come down-stairs to-night for all you do.  I'm not
+going to have people see you looking like that.  It will set 'em to
+talking, after you've been to ride with Mr. Westerfelt.  Stay here;
+I'll have Hettie fetch you something to eat."
+
+Harriet did not look up or reply, and Mrs. Floyd descended to the
+street.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII
+
+Westerfelt was in the yard back of the stable.  He had just started
+home when he saw a muffled figure enter the front door, and heard Mrs.
+Floyd asking Washburn if he were in.
+
+"Here I am," he called out; and he approached her as she waited at the
+door.
+
+"I want to see you a minute, Mr. Westerfelt," she said.  "Can you walk
+back a piece with me?"
+
+"Yes," he replied.  "I'm going up to Bradley's to supper."
+
+Outside it was dark; only the lights from the fire in the store and the
+big lamp on a post in front of the hotel pierced the gloom.  A few
+yards from the stable she turned and faced him.
+
+"Do you intend to kill my child?" she asked, harshly.
+
+"What do you mean?" he answered.
+
+"I mean that you will literally kill her--that's exactly what I mean.
+You've treated her worse than a brute.  What did you do to her this
+evening?  Tell me; I want to know.  I have never seen her act so
+before."
+
+He stopped, leaned against a fence, and stared at her.
+
+"I've done nothing; I--"
+
+"I know better.  She fell in a dead faint as soon as she got to her
+room.  I undressed her an' put 'er to bed; but something is wrong.  She
+is out of her head, but she keeps moaning about you, and saying you are
+going away.  Are you?"
+
+"I thought of it, but I won't.  I'll stay if--if you think I ought.
+I'll do anything, Mrs. Floyd--anything you wish."
+
+"Well, don't go off.  She'll not live a week if you do.  Spare her--she
+is all I have left on earth.  Think, think how she has suffered.  She
+has not been well since the night she fainted in the blacksmith's shop
+an' lay so long on the cold ground--that was all for your sake, too."
+
+"I know that, Mrs. Floyd," he said.  "I'll stay.  Tell her that--tell
+her I'm coming to see her.  Can I see her to-night?"
+
+The old woman hesitated.
+
+"No, she's--she's in bed; but I'll tell her what you said, though.  It
+will do her good.  I'm glad I came to see you.  I knew you loved her;
+you couldn't help it.  She has been so good to you, and no woman ever
+loved a man more.  When you are married you will both be happy.  You'll
+wonder then how you could be so silly."
+
+"I know I have been a fool."  He took her hand and pressed it, almost
+affectionately.  "Take care of her, Mrs. Floyd; don't let her be sick."
+
+She turned to leave him.  "She'll be well in the morning, I hope; don't
+worry.  She will get all right when she's had a rest and a night's
+sleep.  Now, let me walk on alone; the people talk so much in this
+place."
+
+He stopped behind a clump of sycamore bushes and watched her disappear
+in the gloom.  He saw her when she went through the light at the store,
+and again as she passed under the lamp at the hotel.  He followed
+slowly.  He passed the hotel and looked into the wide hall, but saw no
+one.
+
+A lane led from the street to an open lot behind the hotel.  He
+remembered that Harriet's room looked out that way, and, hardly knowing
+why he did so, he walked down the lane till he could see her window.
+There was a light in the room.  For several minutes he stood gazing at
+the window, feeling his feet sink into the marshy soil.  He wondered
+how he could pass the long hours of the night without speaking to her.
+He had just resolved that he would go to the hotel and implore Mrs.
+Floyd to let him see Harriet if only for a moment, when he noticed a
+shadow on the wall of the room.  It looked like some one sitting at a
+table.  He decided that it must be Mrs. Floyd watching by Harriet's
+bed, and in imagination he saw the girl lying there white and
+unconscious.  Suddenly, however, the shadow disappeared.  The figure
+rose into the light and crossed the room.  It was Harriet.  She wore
+the same gown she had worn an hour before.  She stood for a moment in
+the light, as if placing something on the mantel-piece, and then
+resumed her seat at the table.  The shadow was on the wall again.  He
+looked at it steadily for twenty minutes.  His feet had sunk deeper
+into the loam and felt wet and cold.  Slowly he trudged back through
+the lane.  Mrs. Floyd had lied to him.  The girl was not ill.  At the
+street corner he stopped.  For an instant he was tempted to go to the
+hotel and ask Mrs. Floyd if he could see Harriet for a moment, that he
+might catch her in another lie, and then and there face her in it, but
+he felt too sick at heart.  Harriet had not swooned.  Mrs. Floyd had
+not undressed her and put her to bed.  She had made up the story to
+excite his sympathy and gain a point.  He groaned as he started on
+towards Bradley's.  Mrs. Floyd had tried to get Bates to marry the
+girl, and now was attempting the same thing with him.  And why?
+
+At the gate of Bradley's house he stopped.  Through the window he saw
+Luke and his wife at supper.  They had not waited for him.  He would
+not go in.  He could not eat or talk to them.  He wanted to be alone to
+decide what course to pursue.  He crossed the road and plunged into the
+densest part of a pine forest.  He came to a heap of pine-needles that
+the wind had massed together, and sank down on it, hugged his knees to
+his breast, and groaned.  He wanted to tell his whole story to some
+one--any one who would listen and advise him.  He could not decide for
+himself--his power of reasoning was gone.  Suddenly he rose to his feet
+and started up the mountain.  Taking a short cut, he reached the
+Hawkbill road, and, with rapid, swinging strides, began to climb the
+mountain.
+
+As he got higher among the craggy peaks, that rose sombre and majestic
+in the moonlight, the air grew more rarified and his breath came short.
+
+He could see the few lights of the village scattered here and there in
+the dark valley, and hear the clangor of the cast-iron bell at the
+little church.  It was prayer-meeting night.
+
+After a while he left the main road, and without any reason at all for
+so doing, he plunged into the tangle of laurel, rhododendron bushes,
+vines, and briers.  The soles of his shoes had become slick on the
+pine-needles and heather, and he slipped and fell several times, but he
+rose and struggled on.  Then he saw the bare brown cliff of a great
+canyon over the tops of the trees, and suddenly realizing the distance
+he had come he turned and walked homeward.
+
+He found the Bradley house wrapped in darkness.  He could hear Luke
+snoring out to the gate.  He went round the house to the back door.  It
+was unlocked, and he slipped in and gained his own room.  Without
+undressing he threw himself on the bed and tried to sleep, but the
+attempt was vain.  He lay awake all night, and when dawn broke he had
+not yet decided whether he was going away or not.  He really believed
+he was losing his mind, but he did not care.  He rose and sat at his
+window.  The sky along the eastern horizon was turning pale, and the
+chickens were crowing and flapping their wings.  He heard Bradley
+lustily clearing his throat as he got out of bed.  Later he heard him
+in the kitchen making a fire.  Westerfelt knew he would go out to the
+barn-yard to feed and water his cattle and horses, and he wanted to
+avoid him and his cheery morning greeting.  Buttoning his coat round
+his neck, he tip-toed from his room across the passage and went down
+the street to the stable.
+
+One of the big sliding-doors had been pushed aside, and in the back
+yard he saw Jake washing a buggy, and heard Washburn in one of the rear
+stalls, rattling his currycomb and brush together as he groomed a
+horse.  He went into the office.  The outer door was closed, and it
+would have been dark there, but for Washburn's lighted lantern which
+hung on a peg over the desk.  He sat down at the desk and tried anew to
+think.  Presently he decided that he would go to Atlanta, and that he
+would write a note to Mrs. Floyd, telling her of his change of plans.
+He took up a sheet of paper and began the note, but was interrupted by
+Washburn's step outside.  He crumpled the paper in his hand, quickly
+thrust it into his pocket, and pretended to be looking over the pages
+of the ledger which lay open on the desk.
+
+"Hello!" Washburn stood in the doorway.  "I didn't know you wus heer.
+Anything gone wrong?"
+
+"No; why?"
+
+"It's a little early fer you, that's all."  Washburn dropped his brush
+and currycomb under the desk, and, full of concern, stood looking down
+at him.
+
+"Thought I'd come down before breakfast" said Westerfelt.  "How was
+business yesterday?"
+
+"Good; nearly everything out, and it wus most all cash--very little
+booked."
+
+"Wash?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"How much did I agree to pay you by the month?"
+
+"Thirty dollars."  Washburn glanced at the open ledger.  "Have I made
+any mistake?"
+
+"No, but--but I've been making you do all the work.  It isn't fair.
+Credit yourself with forty dollars a month from the start and keep it
+up."
+
+Washburn flushed.  "I'm mighty much obliged, Mr. Westerfelt.  I wusn't
+complainin' as it wus."
+
+"I know it, but you are a good fellow; I'm going to trust the whole
+business to you.  Your judgment's as good as mine; do the best you can.
+I'm going down to Atlanta for a few days--I don't know for how long,
+but I will write you from there."
+
+"I'll do the best I can, Mr. Westerfelt, you kin be shore of that."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV
+
+After breakfast, at Bradley's, Westerfelt went into his room and
+hastily packed his valise and told Alf to take it to the stable and put
+it into the hack going that morning to the station.  Mrs. Bradley came
+to him in the entry.
+
+"John Westerfelt, what's got into you?" she asked, looking at him with
+concern.  "Shorely you are not goin' off."
+
+"To Atlanta for a few days on business, that's all," he said; "I'll
+write back from there."
+
+She looked at him curiously, as if not quite satisfied with his
+explanation.  "Well, hurry back," she said.  "Me 'n' Luke'll miss you
+mightily."
+
+"Tell Luke good-bye for me," he called back from the gate, and she
+nodded to him from the hall, but he could not hear what she said.  As
+he approached the stable, he saw the hack waiting for him at the door.
+Budd Ridly sat on the driver's seat.
+
+"Time we wus off," he remarked to Westerfelt.  "It takes peert drivin'
+to catch the two-forty, south-bound."
+
+"That's a fact," said Washburn, coming from the stable, "but I'll bet
+you'll have to wait a few minutes, anyway."  He was looking back in the
+direction from whence Westerfelt had come.  "I saw Miss Harriet come
+out o' the hotel jest after you passed; it looks to me like she's
+trying to overtake you."
+
+Westerfelt turned and saw Harriet about a hundred yards away.  "Maybe
+she is," he said.  "I'll go meet her."
+
+She paused when she saw him approaching, and he noticed that she looked
+greatly troubled and was quite pale.
+
+"I must see you, Mr. Westerfelt," she said, a catch in her voice.  "I
+came right at once so you wouldn't get left.  Oh, Mr. Westerfelt,
+mother has just told me what she said to you last night.  I don't know
+what she did it for--I reckon she thought she was acting right--but I
+cannot help her in deception of any kind.  I was not sick last night."
+
+"I knew you were not," he said, and then he could think of nothing else
+to say.
+
+"But mother said she told you I was, and that she left the impression
+on your mind that it was because you were going off.  That is not true,
+Mr. Westerfelt.  I cannot presume to dictate to you about what you
+ought to do.  Besides, it really seems a sensible thing for you to go.
+She said you promised not to leave, but I can't have it that way."
+
+Something in the very firmness of her renunciation of him added weights
+to his sinking spirits.
+
+"You think it would be best for me to go?" he managed to articulate.
+"Oh, do you, Harriet?"
+
+"Yes, I do," she said, emphatically, after a little pause in which she
+looked down at the ground.  "I am only a girl, a poor weak girl, and
+then--" raising her fine eyes steadily to his face--"I have _my_ pride,
+too, you see, and it has never been so wounded before.  If--if I had
+not loved you as I have this would have been over between us long ago.
+And then I excused you because you were sick and unjustly persecuted,
+but you are well now, Mr. Westerfelt--well enough to know what's right
+and just to a defenceless girl."
+
+There was now not a trace of color in his face, and he felt as if he
+were turning to stone.  He found himself absolutely unable to meet her
+words with any of his own, but he had never been so completely her
+slave.
+
+"You must answer me one question plainly," she continued, "and I want
+the truth.  Will you, Mr. Westerfelt?"
+
+"If I can I will, Harriet."
+
+"On your honor?"
+
+"Yes, on my honor."
+
+"Were you not leaving simply to--to get away from the--(oh, I don't
+know how to say it)--the--because you did not want to be near me?"
+
+He shrank back; how was he to reply to such a pointed question?
+
+"On your word of honor, Mr. Westerfelt!"
+
+There was nothing for him to do but answer in the affirmative, but it
+fired him with a desire to justify himself.  "But it was not because I
+don't love you, Harriet.  On the other hand, it was because I do--so
+much that the whole thing is simply driving me crazy.  As God is my
+judge, I worship you--I love you as no man ever loved a woman before.
+But when I remember--"
+
+"I know what you are going to say," her lip curling in scorn, "and I
+want to help you forget my misfortune.  Perhaps you will when I tell
+you that my feeling for you is dying a natural death, and it is dying
+because I no longer respect you as I did."
+
+"Oh, God! don't--_don't_ say that, Harriet!"
+
+"But I'm only telling you the truth.  I would not marry you--not if you
+were the only man on earth--not if you were worth your weight in
+gold--not if you got down on your knees and asked me a thousand times."
+
+"You would not, Harriet?"
+
+"Why should I?  A girl wants a husband she can lean on and go to in
+every trouble she has.  You wouldn't fill the bill, Mr. Westerfelt.
+Good gracious, no!"
+
+She turned back towards the hotel, and like a man with his intelligence
+shaken from him by a superior force, he tried to keep at her side.  In
+silence they reached the steps of the hotel.
+
+"You'll miss that hack if you don't hurry," she said.  "Besides, you've
+acted as if this was a pest-house ever since mother and I nursed you
+here and I made such a fool of myself."
+
+"Harriet, if you do not consent to be my wife I don't know what I shall
+do.  I want you--I want you.  I love you, I can't do without you.
+That's God's truth.  If I hesitated it was only because I was driven
+crazy with--"
+
+"It's a great pity about your love," she sneered; her eyes flashed, and
+she snapped her fingers in his face, her breast rising and falling in
+agitation.  "Sweethearts may be hard to find, and husbands, too, but I
+wouldn't marry you--you who have no more gentlemanly instincts than to
+blame a girl for what happened when she was a helpless little baby."
+
+"What--what do you mean by that, Harriet?" he questioned, his eyes
+opening wide.  "I have never--"
+
+"You told me--or, at least, you showed it mighty plain--" she broke in,
+"that it was because I was a foundling and never knew who my real
+parents were that you have such a contempt for me."
+
+"Harriet, as God is my judge, I don't know what you're talking about.
+You have never mentioned such a thing to me before."
+
+"Oh yes, I did," she was studying his startled face curiously, "or
+rather you told me you knew about it--that you had heard of it."
+
+"But I had never heard of it--I never dreamed of it till this minute.
+Besides that would not make a particle of difference to me.  It would
+only make me love you more--it _does_ make me love you more."
+
+Her face clouded over with perplexity.  Somebody was coining down the
+sidewalk, and she led him into the parlor.
+
+"Why, Mr. Westerfelt," she began again, "I--I don't know what to make
+of you.  It was one day when you were sick here, just after you asked
+me to burn a letter you had got.  I remember it distinctly."
+
+He started.  "I was not alluding to that," he said.
+
+"Then what were you speaking of?"
+
+"Of Wambush, and all the rest.  Oh, Harriet, I've tried so hard to
+forget him and overcome my--"
+
+"What about him?  Answer me; what about him?"
+
+"The letter I asked you to burn was not for me.  It was from old
+Wambush to Toot.  In it he mentioned you, and how you helped Toot hide
+that whiskey, and how you confessed your love and cried in the old
+man's arms."
+
+"Mr. Westerfelt, are you _crazy_?  Are you a raving maniac?  I never
+did anything like that.  Toot Wambush was writing about Hettie
+Fergusson.  She is his sweetheart; she helped him hide the barrel of
+whiskey in the kitchen.  Oh, Mr. Westerfelt, was that what you've been
+thinking all this time?"
+
+A great joy had illuminated his face, and he grasped her hands and
+clung to them.
+
+"Harriet, I see it all now; can you ever forgive me?"
+
+She did not answer, but hearing her mother's step in the hall she
+called out, while she tightened her little fingers over his, "Mother,
+come in here; come quick!"
+
+"What is it, darling?" asked the old woman, anxiously, as she entered
+the room.
+
+"Oh, mother, he thought I was Hettie; he thought I loved Toot Wambush;
+he says he doesn't care about the other thing one bit."
+
+"Well, I didn't see how he could," said Mrs. Floyd.  "I didn't, really."
+
+"She hasn't said she will forgive me for thinking she was in love with
+Wambush, and making such a fool of myself on account of the mistake,"
+said Westerfelt.  "I wish you'd help me out, Mrs. Floyd."
+
+"I may not forgive you for thinking I could love such a man," answered
+Harriet, "but I don't blame you a bit for the way you acted.  I reckon
+that was just jealousy, and that showed he cared for me; don't you
+think so, mother?"
+
+"Yes, daughter, I always have believed that Mr. Westerfelt loved you.
+And if I had had the management of this thing there wouldn't have been
+such a long misunderstanding.  Mr. Westerfelt, Hettie Fergusson is out
+in the kitchen, just crazy to know if you will withdraw the charges
+against Toot so that he can come back home."
+
+"I wouldn't prosecute that man," laughed Westerfelt, "not if he'd
+killed my best friend.  Tell her that, Mrs. Floyd."
+
+"Well, she'll be crazy to hear it, and I'll go tell her."  She went
+into the hall and quickly returned.  "Will Washburn is in front and
+wants to speak to you," she said.  But Washburn came to the door
+himself, an anxious look on his face.
+
+"The hack's still waitin' fer you, Mr. Westerfelt," he said.  "What
+must I do about it?"
+
+"Tell Ridly to go on without me," laughed Westerfelt.  "And--Wash!" he
+added.  "Take all the money out of the cash drawer and go get blind
+drunk.  Shoot off all the guns you can find, and set the stable on
+fire.  Wash, shake hands!  I'm the luckiest fellow on God's green
+earth."
+
+Washburn was not dense, and he reddened as it occurred to him that his
+reply ought to voice some sort of congratulations.
+
+"Ef I'm any jedge o' human natur' yo're both lucky," he stammered.
+"Mr. Westerfelt is about the squarest man I ever struck an' would fight
+a circular saw bare-handed, an' Miss Harriet, I'll sw'ar I jest can't
+think o' nothin' good enough to say about you, except ef you hadn't
+a-been all wool an' a yard wide Mr. Westerfelt wouldn't a-been so crazy
+about you."  Washburn laughed out suddenly, and added, "Some time I'll
+tell you about how he used to do at night when he couldn't sleep,
+especially after Bas' Bates got to cuttin' his patchin', an' buyin'
+paper collars an' neckties."
+
+After Washburn had left they sat together on the sofa for several
+minutes in silence.  The pause was broken by Harriet.
+
+"I've been trying to make out what God meant by making us go through
+all this--you through all your ups and downs, and me mine.  Don't you
+reckon it was so that He could make us feel just like we do now?"
+
+He nodded, but there was a lump of happiness in his throat that kept
+him from speaking.
+
+"Well, I do," she said.  "I used to think He hadn't treated me fair,
+but I thank Him with all my heart for _all_ of it--_all_ of it.  I
+wouldn't alter a thing.  I believe you love me, and I can't think of
+anything else I could want.  I believe you loved me even when you
+thought I loved Toot Wambush, and if you did then, I know you will now
+when I tell you I never loved any other man but you, and never even
+allowed any other man even hold my hand."
+
+
+
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