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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Judith of the Cumberlands, by Alice MacGowan,
+Illustrated by George Wright
+
+
+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: Judith of the Cumberlands
+
+
+Author: Alice MacGowan
+
+
+
+Release Date: September 4, 2008  [eBook #26527]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 26527-h.htm or 26527-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/5/2/26527/26527-h/26527-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/5/2/26527/26527-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS
+
+by
+
+ALICE MACGOWAN
+
+Author of
+"The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage,"
+"The Last Word," "Huldah," "Return," Etc.
+
+With Illustrations in Colour by George Wright
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "The moonlight flickered on the blade in his hand
+as he reeled backward over the bluff" (page 145).]
+
+
+
+
+Grosset & Dunlap
+Publishers, New York
+
+Copyright, 1908
+by
+Alice MacGowan
+
+This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers,
+G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+To my mountain friends, dwellers in lonely cabins, on winding horseback
+trails and steep, precarious roads; or in the tiny settlements that
+nestle in the high-hung inner valleys; lean brown hunters on remote paths
+in the green shadowed depths of the free forest, light-stepping,
+keen-eyed, humorous-lipped, hitting the point as aptly with an instance
+as with the old squirrel gun they carry; wielders of the axe by many a
+chip pile, where the swinging blade rests readily to answer query or
+offer advice; tanned, lithely moving lads following the plough, turning
+over the shoulder a countenance of dark beauty; grave, shy girls, pail in
+hand, at the milking-bars in dawn or dusk; young mothers in the doorway,
+looking out, babe on hip; big-eyed, bare-footed mountain children
+clinging hand in hand by the roadside, or clustered like startled little
+partridges in the shelter of the dooryard; knitters in the sun and
+grandams by the hearth; tellers and treasurers all of tales and legends
+couched in racy old Elizabethan English; I dedicate this--their book and
+mine.
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+I have been so frequently asked how I, a woman, came by my intimate
+acquaintance with life in the more remote districts of the southern
+Appalachians, particularly in the matter of illicit distilling, that I
+think it not amiss to here set down a few words as to my sources of
+knowledge.
+
+I have always lived in a small city in the heart of the Cumberlands, and
+a portion of each year was spent in the mountains themselves. The speech
+of Judith and her friends and kin has been familiar to me from childhood;
+their point of view, their customs and possessions as well known to me as
+my own. Then when I began to write, I was one summer at Roan Mountain, on
+the North Carolina-Tennessee line, probably less than two hundred miles
+from Chattanooga by the railway, and Gen. John T. Wilder, who had
+campaigned all through the fastnesses of that inaccessible region,
+suggested to me that I buy a mountain-bred saddle horse, and ride such a
+route as he would give me, bringing up, after about a thousand miles of
+it, at my home. To follow the itinerary that the old soldier marked out
+on the map for me was to leave railroads and modern civilisation as we
+know it, penetrate the wild heart of the region, and, depending on the
+wayside dwellers for hospitality and lodging from night to night, be
+forcibly thrust into an intimate comprehension of a phase of American
+life which is perhaps the most primitive our country affords.
+
+I was more than eight weeks making this trip, carrying with me all
+necessary baggage on my capacious, cowgirl saddle with its long and
+numerous buckskin tie-strings. At first I shrank very much from riding up
+to a cabin--a young woman, alone, with garments and outfit that must
+challenge the attention and curiosity of these people--in the dusk of
+evening or in a heavy rain-storm, and asking in set terms for lodging.
+But it took only a few days for me to find that here I was never to be
+stared at, wondered at, nor questioned; and that, proffering my request
+under such conditions, I was met by instant hospitality, and a grave,
+uninquiring courtesy unsurpassed and not always equalled in the best
+society, and I seemed to evoke a swift tenderness that was almost
+compassion.
+
+During this journey I became acquainted with some features of mountain
+life which I might never have known otherwise. My best friends in the
+mountains in the neighbourhood of my own home had always been a little
+shy of discussing moonshine whiskey and moonshiners; but here I earned a
+dividend upon my misfortunes, being more than once taken for a revenue
+spy; and in the apologetic amenities of those who had misjudged me, which
+followed my explanations and proofs of innocence, I have been shown in a
+spirit of atonement, illicit still and "hideout." I have heard old
+Jephthah Turrentine make his protest against the government's attitude
+toward the mountain man and his "blockaded still." I have foregathered
+with the revenuers in the settlements at the foot of the circling purple
+ranges, and been shown the specially made axes and hooks they carry with
+them for breaking up and destroying the simple appurtenances of the
+illicit manufacture. Knowing that Blatch Turrentine's still must have
+cost him three hundred dollars, I cannot wonder that a mountain man, a
+thrifty fellow like Blatch, should have lingered, even in great danger,
+over the project of carrying it with him.
+
+These dwellers in the southern mountain region, the purest American
+strain left to us, hold the interest and appeal of a changing, vanishing
+type. The tide of enlightenment and commercial prosperity must presently
+sweep in and absorb them. And so I might hope that a faithful picture of
+the life and manners I have sought to represent in _Judith of the
+Cumberlands_ would be the better worth while.
+
+                                                             A. Mac G.
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+CHAPTER                              PAGE
+     I.  Spring                         1
+    II.  At "The Edge"                 20
+   III.  Suitors                       47
+    IV.  Building                      64
+     V.  The Red Rose and the Briar    83
+    VI.  The Play-Party                99
+   VII.  Kisses                       112
+  VIII.  On the Doorstone             124
+    IX.  Foeman's Bluff               135
+     X.  A Spy                        152
+    XI.  The Warning                  161
+   XII.  In the Lion's Den            181
+  XIII.  In the Night                 199
+   XIV.  The Raid                     207
+    XV.  Council of War               221
+   XVI.  A Message                    235
+  XVII.  The Old Cherokee Trail       244
+ XVIII.  Bitter Parting               261
+   XIX.  Cast Out                     273
+    XX.  A Conversion                 282
+   XXI.  The Baptising                302
+  XXII.  Ebb-Tide                     315
+ XXIII.  The Dumb Supper              326
+  XXIV.  A Case of Walking Typhoid    340
+   XXV.  A Perilous Passage           360
+  XXVI.  His Own Trap                 371
+ XXVII.  Love's Guerdon               382
+XXVIII.  A Prophecy                   393
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Judith of the Cumberlands
+
+Chapter I
+
+Spring
+
+
+"Won't you be jest dressed to kill an' cripple when you get that on!
+Don't it set her off, Jeffy Ann?"
+
+The village milliner fell back, hands on hips, thin lips screwed up, and
+regarded the possible purchaser through narrowed eyes of simulated
+ecstasy.
+
+"I don't know," debated the brown beauty, surveying herself in a
+looking-glass by means of an awkwardly held hand-mirror. "'Pears to me
+this one's too little. Hit makes me look like I was sent for and couldn't
+come. But I do love red. I think the red on here is mightly sightly."
+
+Instantly the woman of the shop had the hat off the dark young head and
+in her own hands.
+
+"This is a powerful pretty red bow," she assented promptly. "I can take
+it out just as easy as not, and tack it onto that big hat you like. I
+believe you're right; and red certainly does go with yo' hair and eyes."
+Again she gazed with languishing admiration at her customer.
+
+And Judith Barrier was well worth it, tall, justly proportioned,
+deep-bosomed, long-limbed, with the fine hands and feet of the true
+mountaineer. The thick dusk hair rose up around her brow in a massive,
+sculptural line; her dark eyes--the large, heavily fringed eyes of a
+dryad--glowed with the fires of youth, and with a certain lambent shining
+which was all their own; the stain on her cheeks was deep, answering to
+the ripe red of the full lips.
+
+In point of fact Mrs. Rhody Staggart the milliner considered her a big,
+coarse country girl, and thought that a pair of stout corsets well pulled
+in would improve her crude figure; but she dealt out compliments without
+ceasing as she exchanged the red bow for the blue, and laboriously pinned
+the headgear upon the bronze-brown coils, admonishing gravely, "Far over
+to one side, honey--jest the way they're a-wearin' them in New York this
+minute."
+
+The buyer once more studied her mirror, and its dumb honesty told her
+that she was beautiful. Then she looked about for some human eyes to make
+the same communication.
+
+"What's a-goin' on over yon at the Co't House?" she inquired with languid
+interest, looking across the open square.
+
+"They's a political speakin'," explained the other. "Creed Bonbright he
+wants to be elected jestice of the peace and go back to the Turkey Tracks
+and set up a office. Fool boy! You know mighty well an' good they'll run
+him out o' thar--or kill him, one."
+
+Although the girl had herself ridden down from Turkey Track Mountain that
+morning, and the old Bonbright farm adjoined her own, the news held no
+interest for her. She wished the gathering might have been something more
+to her purpose; but she solemnly paid for the hat, and with the cheap
+finery on her stately young head, which had been more appropriately
+crowned with a chaplet of vine leaves, moved to the door. She hoped that
+standing there, waiting for the boys to bring her horse, she might
+attract some attention by her recently acquired splendour.
+
+She looked up at the Court House steps. The building was humbly in the
+Greek manner, as are so many of the public structures in the South.
+Between its great white pillars, flaking paint and half-heartedly
+confessing their woodland genesis, stood a tall young man, bareheaded.
+The doubtful sunlight of a March day glinted on his uncovered yellow
+hair. He was speaking rapidly in a fervid fashion that seemed beyond the
+occasion; in his blue eyes shone something of the fanatic's passion; his
+bearing was that of a man who conceives himself to have a mission and a
+message.
+
+Judith looked at him. She heard no word of what he was saying--but him
+she heard. She heard the high, vibrant voice, saw the fair hair on the
+upflung head, the rapt look in the blue eyes with their quick-expanding
+pupils. Suddenly her world turned over. In a smother of strange,
+uncomprehended emotions, she was gropingly glad she had the new hat--glad
+she had it on now, and that Mrs. Staggart herself had adjusted it. On
+blind impulse she edged around into plainer view, pushing freely in
+amongst the fringe of men and boys, an unheard-of thing for a well taught
+mountain girl to do, but Judith was for the moment absolutely unconscious
+of their humanity.
+
+"You never go a-nigh my people," cried Bonbright in that clear thrilling
+tenor that is like a trumpet call, "you never go a-nigh them with the
+statute--with government--except when the United States marshal takes a
+posse up and raids the stills and brings down his prisoners. That's all
+the valley knows of the mountain folks. The law's never carried to
+anybody up there except the offenders and criminals. The Turkey Track
+neighbourhoods, Big and Little, have got a mighty bad name with you-all.
+But you ought to understand that violence must come when every man is
+obliged to take the law into his own hands. I admit that it's an eye for
+an eye and a tooth for a tooth with us now--what else could it be? And
+yet we are as faithful to each other, as virtuous, and as God-fearing a
+race as those in the valley. I am a mountain man, born and bred in the
+Turkey Tracks; and I ask you to send me back to my neighbours with the
+law, that they may learn to be good citizens, as they are already good
+men and women."
+
+Upon the word, there broke out at the farthest corner of the square an
+abrupt splatter of sound, oaths, cries, punctuated by the swift staccato
+of running feet. The ringing voice came to a sudden halt. Out of a little
+side street which descended from the mountain, a young fellow burst into
+view, running in long leaping bounds, his hands up. Behind him lumbered
+Dan Haley the United States marshal, a somewhat heavy-set man, puffing
+and panting, yelling, "Halt! halt! halt!" and finally turning loose a
+fusillade of shots aimed high over the fleeing lad's head. There was a
+drawing back and a scattering in every direction.
+
+"Hey, Bonbright!" vociferated a man leaping up from the last step where
+he had been sitting, pointing to where the marshal's deputy followed
+behind herding five or six prisoners from the mountains, "Hey, Bonbright!
+There's some of your constituency--some God-fearing Turkey-Trackers--now,
+but I reckon you won't own 'em."
+
+"I will!" shouted Bonbright, whirling upon him, and one got suddenly the
+blue fire of his hawk-like eye with the slant brow above. "They _are_ my
+people, and the way they're treated is what I've been trying to talk to
+you-all about."
+
+"Well, you better go and take them fellers some law right now," jeered
+his interlocutor. "Looks like to me they need it mighty bad."
+
+"That's just what I'm about," answered Bonbright. "God knows they'll get
+no justice unless I do. That's my job," and without another word or a
+look behind him he made his way bareheaded through the group on the steps
+and down the street.
+
+Meantime the pursued had turned desperately and dodged into the millinery
+store whence Judith Barrier had emerged a little earlier. Instantly there
+came out to the listeners the noise of falling articles and breaking
+glass, and the squeals and scufflings of the women. The red-faced marshal
+dived in after his quarry, and emerged a moment later holding him by one
+elbow, swearing angrily. Creed Bonbright came up at the instant, and
+Haley, needing some one to whom he could express himself, explained in
+voluble anger:
+
+"The damned little shoat! Said if I'd let him walk a-loose he'd give me
+information. You can't trust none of them."
+
+Bonbright laid a reassuring touch on the fugitive's shoulder as Haley
+fumbled after the handcuffs.
+
+"I ain't been into no stillin', Creed!" panted the squirming boy.
+
+"Well, don't run then," admonished Bonbright. "You've got no call to.
+I'll see that you get justice."
+
+While he spoke there wheeled into the square, from a nearby waggon-yard,
+two young mountaineers on mules, one leading by the bridle-rein a sorrel
+horse with a side-saddle on it. At sight of the marshal and those with
+him, an almost imperceptible tremor went through the pair. There was a
+flicker of nostril, a rounding of eye, as their glance ran swiftly from
+one to another of Haley's prisoners. They were like wild game that winds
+the hunter.
+
+"St! You Pony Card, is that them?" whispered Haley, sharply nudging the
+prisoner he held. "Turn him a-loose, Bonbright; I've got him handcuffed
+now."
+
+The boy--he was not more than sixteen--choked, reddened, held down his
+head, studying the marshal's face anxiously from beneath lowered
+flax-coloured brows.
+
+"Yes, them's Andy and Jeff Turrentine," Bonbright heard the husky,
+reluctant whisper. "Now cain't I go?"
+
+The newcomers were beyond earshot, but the by-play was ominous to them.
+The lean young bodies stiffened in their saddles, the reins came up in
+their hands. For a moment it seemed as if they would turn and run for it.
+But it was too late. Without making any reply Haley shoved his prisoner
+into the hands of the deputy and with prompt action intercepted the two
+and placed them under arrest. Bonbright observed one of the boys beckon
+across the heads of the gathering crowd before he dismounted, and noted
+that some one approached from the direction of the Court House steps and
+received the three riding animals. In the confusion he did not see who
+this was. Haley spoke to his deputy, and then drew their party sharply
+off toward the jail, which could be used temporarily for the detention of
+United States prisoners. To the last the young Turrentines muttered
+together and sent baleful glances toward Bonbright, whom they plainly
+conceived to be the author of their troubles. Poor Pony Card plodded with
+bent head mutely behind them, a furtive hand travelling now and again to
+his eyes.
+
+Such crowd as the little village had collected was following, Bonbright
+with the rest, when he encountered the girl who had come from the
+milliner's shop. She stood now alone by the sorrel horse with the
+side-saddle on it, holding the bridle-reins of the two mules, and there
+was a bewildered look in her dark eyes as the noisy throng swept past her
+which brought him--led in the hand of destiny--instantly to her side.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked her. "Can I help you?" And Judith who, in
+her perturbation, had not seen him before, started violently at the words
+and tone.
+
+"They've tuck the boys," she hesitated, in a rich, broken contralto, that
+voice which beyond all others moves the hearts of hearers, "I--I don't
+know how I'm a-goin' to get these here mules home. Pete he won't lead so
+very well."
+
+"Oh, were you with the men Haley arrested?" ejaculated Bonbright.
+
+"Yes, they're my cousins. I don't know what he tuck 'em for," the young,
+high-couraged head turned jailward; the dark eyes flashed a resentful
+look after the retiring posse.
+
+"It looks like to me, from what Haley said, that there's nothing against
+them," Bonbright reassured her. "But they're likely to be held as
+witnesses--that's the worst about this business.
+
+"I was going over there right now to see what can be done about it--being
+a sort of lawyer. But let me help you first. I'm Creed Bonbright--reckon
+you know the name--born and raised on Big Turkey Track."
+
+Judith's heart beat to suffocation, the while she answered in commonplace
+phrase, "I shorely do. My name is Judith Barrier; I live with Uncle
+Jephthah Turrentine, on my farm. Hit's right next to the old Bonbright
+place. We've been livin' thar more'n four years. I hate to go back and
+tell Uncle Jep of the boys bein' tuck; and that big mule, Pete, I don't
+know how I'm a-goin' to git him out o' the settlement, he's that mean and
+feisty about town streets."
+
+"I reckon I can manage him," Bonbright suggested, looking about. "Oh,
+Givens!" he called to a man hurrying past. "When you get over there ask
+Haley not to take any definite action--I reckon he wouldn't anyhow. I'm
+going to represent the prisoners, and I'll be there inside of half an
+hour. Now let me put you on your horse, Miss Judith, and I'll lead the
+mules up the road a piece for you."
+
+And so it came about that Judith sprang to the back of the sorrel nag
+from Creed Bonbright's hand. Creed, still bareheaded, and wholly
+unconscious of the fact, walked beside her leading the mules. They passed
+slowly up the street towards the mountainward edge of Hepzibah, talking
+as they went in the soft, low, desultory fashion of their people.
+
+The noises of the village, aroused from its usual dozing calm, died away
+behind them. Beyond the last cabin they entered a sylvan world all their
+own. While he talked, questioning and replying gravely and at leisure,
+the man was revolving in his mind just what action would be best for the
+prisoners whose cause he had espoused. As for Judith, she had forgotten
+that such persons existed, that such trivial mischance as their arrest
+had just been; she was concerned wholly with the immediate necessity to
+charm, to subjugate the man.
+
+[Illustration: "Creed walked beside her leading the mules."]
+
+A rustic belle and beauty, used to success in such enterprises, in the
+limited time at her command she brought out for Creed's subduing her
+little store of primitive arts. She would know, Pete suggesting the
+topic, if he didn't despise a mule, adding encouragingly that she did.
+The ash, it seemed, was the tree of her preference; didn't he think it
+mighty sightly now when it was just coming into bloom? His favourite
+season of the year, his favoured colour, of such points she made inquiry,
+giving him, in an elusive feminine fashion, ample opportunity to relate
+himself to her. And always he answered. When all was spoken, and at the
+first sharp rise she drew rein for the inevitable separation, she could
+not have said that she had failed; but she knew that she had not
+succeeded.
+
+"Ye can jest turn Pete a-loose now," she told him gently. "He'll foller
+from here on."
+
+Bonbright, on his part, was not quite aware why he paused here, yet it
+seemed cold and unfriendly to say good-bye at once, Again he assured her
+that he would go immediately to the jail and find what could be done for
+her cousins. There was no more to be said now--yet they lingered.
+
+It was a blowy, showery March day, its lips puckered for weeping or
+laughter at any moment, the air full of the dainty pungencies of new
+life. Winged ants, enjoying their little hour of glory, swarmed from
+their holes and turned stone or stump to a flickering, moving grey. About
+them where they stood was the awakening world of nature. Great, pale blue
+bird-foot violets were blooming on favoured slopes, and in protected
+hollows patches of eyebright made fairy forests on the moss, while under
+tatters of dead leaves by the brookside arbutus blushed. Above their
+heads the tracery of branches was a lace-work overlaid with fanlike
+budding green leaves, except where the maples showed scarlet tassels, or
+the Judas tree flaunted its bold, lying, purple-pink promise of fruitage
+never to be fulfilled.
+
+Could two young creatures be wiser than nature's self? It was the new
+time; all the gauzy-winged ephemeræ in the moist March woods were
+throbbing with it, buzzing or flashing about seeking mates and nectar.
+The earth had wakened from her winter sleep and set her face toward her
+ancient, ardent lover, the sun. In the soul of Judith Barrier--Judith the
+nature woman--all this surged strongly. As for the man, he had sent forth
+his spirit in so general a fashion, he conceived himself to have a
+mission so impersonal, that he scarce remembered what should or should
+not please or attract Creed Bonbright.
+
+Judith dreaded lest he make his farewells before she had from him some
+earnest of a future meeting. He could not say good-bye and let her leave
+him so! It seemed to her that if he did she should die before she reached
+the mountain-top. Dark, rich, earth-born, earth-fast, material, she
+looked down at Creed where he stood beside her, his hand on the sorrel's
+neck, his calm blue eyes raised to hers. Her gaze lingered on the fair
+hair flying in the March breeze, above a face selfless as that of some
+young prophet. Her eager, undisciplined nature found here what it craved.
+Coquetry had not availed her; it had fallen off him unrecognised--this
+man who answered it absently, and thought his own thoughts. And with the
+divine pertinacity of life itself she delved in the ancient wisdom of her
+sex for a lure to make him rise and follow her. It was not bright eyes
+nor red lips that could move or please him? But she had seen him moved,
+aroused. The hint was plain. Instantly abandoning her personal siege, she
+espoused the cause of her bodiless rival.
+
+"I--I heard you a-speakin' back there," she said with a little catch in
+her breath.
+
+Bonbright's eyes returned from the far distances to which they had
+travelled after giving her--Judith Barrier, so worthy of a blue-eyed
+youth's respectful attention--a passing glance. She replied to his gaze
+with one full of a meaning to him at that time indecipherable;
+nevertheless it was an ardent, compelling look which he must needs answer
+with some confession of himself.
+
+"You wouldn't understand what I was trying to tell about," he began
+gently. "Since I've been living in the valley, where folks get rich and
+see a heap of what they call pleasure, I've had many a hard thought about
+the lives of our people up yonder in the mountains. I want to go back to
+my people with--I want to tell them--"
+
+The girl leaned forward in her saddle, burning eyes fixed on his intent
+face, red lips apart.
+
+"Yes--what?" she breathed. "What is it you want to say to the folks back
+home? You ort to come and say it. We need it bad."
+
+"Do you think so?" asked Bonbright doubtfully. "Do you reckon they would
+listen to me? I don't know. Sometimes I allow maybe I'd better stay here
+where the Judge wants me to till I'm an older man and more experienced."
+
+He studied the beautiful, down-bent face greedily now, but it was not the
+eye of a man looking at a maid. His thoughts were with the work he hoped
+to do. Judith's heart contracted with fear, and then set off beating
+heavily. Wait till he was an old man? Would love wait? Somebody else
+would claim him--some town girl would find the way to charm him. In sheer
+terror she put down her hand and laid it upon his.
+
+"Don't you never think it," she protested. "You're needed right now.
+After a while will be too late. Why, I come a-past your old home in the
+rain last Wednesday, and I could 'a' cried to see the winders dark, and
+the grass all grown up to the front door. You come back whar you
+belong--" she had almost said "honey"--"and you'll find there is need
+a-plenty for folks like you."
+
+"Well, they all allow that I'll be elected next Thursday," Creed
+assented, busying himself over the lengthening of Beck's bridle, that she
+might lead the mule the more handily. "And if I am I'll be in the Turkey
+Tracks along in April and find me a place to set up an office. If I'm
+elected----"
+
+"Elected! An' ef yo'r not?" she cried, filled with scorn of such a paltry
+condition. What difference could it make whether or not he were elected?
+Wouldn't his hair be just as yellow, his eyes as blue? Would his voice be
+any less the call to love?
+
+He smiled at her tolerantly, handing up the lengthened strap.
+
+"Well, I don't just rightly know what I will do, then," he debated.
+
+"But you're a-comin' up to the Turkey Tracks anyhow, to--to see yo'
+folks," persisted Judith with a rising triumph in her tone.
+
+"Yes," acquiesced Bonbright, "I'll come up in April anyhow."
+
+And with this assurance the girl rode slowly away, leading Beck, the now
+resigned Pete following behind. All the sounds from the valley were
+gathered as in a vast bowl and flung upward, refined by distance. A
+moment she halted listening, then breasted the first rise and entered
+that deep silence which waits the mountain dweller. The great forest
+closed about her.
+
+Creed Bonbright stood for a moment in the open road looking after her.
+Something she had conveyed to him, some call sent forth, which had not
+quite reached the ear of his spirit, and yet which troubled his calm. He
+lifted his gaze toward the bulk of the big mountain looming above him. He
+passed his hand absently through his fair hair, then tossed his head back
+with a characteristic motion. It was good to know he was needed up there.
+It was good to know he would be welcomed. So far the girl had made her
+point. After this the mountains and Judith Barrier would mean one thing
+in the young man's mind. As the shortest way to them both, he turned and
+walked swiftly down toward the settlement and to the undertaking which
+there awaited him.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+At "The Edge"
+
+
+The girl on the sorrel nag and the two riderless animals toiled patiently
+up the broad, timbered flank of Big Turkey Track, following the raw red
+gash in the greenery that was the road.
+
+She gazed with wondering eyes at the familiar landmarks of the trail. All
+was just as it had been when she rode down it at dawn that morning, Andy
+and Jeff ahead on their mules whistling, singing, skylarking like two
+playful bear cubs. It was herself that was changed. She pushed the cheap
+hat off her hot forehead and tried to win to some coherence of thought
+and--so far had she already come on a new, strange path--looked back with
+wondering uncomprehension, as upon the beliefs and preferences of a crude
+primitive ancestress, to the girl who had cared that this hat cost a
+dollar and a half instead of a dollar and a quarter--only a few hours
+since when she bought it at the store. She went over the bits of talk
+that had been between her and Creed Bonbright. What had he said his
+favourite colour was? Memory brought back his rapt young face when she
+put the question to him. She trembled with delight at the recollection.
+His eyes were fixed upon the sky, and he had answered her absently,
+"blue."
+
+Blue! What a fool--what a common thickheaded fool she had been all her
+days! She let the sorrel take his own gait, hooked his bridle-rein and
+Beck's upon the saddle-horn, and lifting her arms withdrew the hatpins
+and took off the unworthy headgear. For a moment she regarded savagely
+the cheap red ribbon which had appeared so beautiful to her; then with
+strong brown fingers tore it loose and flung it in the dust of the road,
+where Pete shied at it, and the stolid Beck coming on with flapping ears
+set hoof upon it.
+
+What vast world forces move with our movements, pluck us uncomprehending
+from the station we had struggled for, and make our sorrowful meat of our
+attained desires! The stars in their courses pivot and swing on these
+subtle attractions, ancient as themselves. Judith Barrier, tearing the
+gaudy ribbon from her hat and casting it upon the road under her horse's
+feet, stood to learn what the priests of Isis knew thousands of years
+ago, that red is the symbol of pleasure and of mere animal comfort, while
+blue is the colour of pure reason.
+
+Halfway up the trail they rode into a cloud that rested trembling on the
+mountain-side, passed through it and emerged upon fitful sunlight. Near
+the top there came a sudden shower which descended with the souse of an
+overturned bucket. It won small attention from Judith, but Pete and Beck
+resented it in mule fashion, with a laying back of ears and lashing out
+of heels. These amenities were exchanged for the most part across the
+intervening sorrel nag and his rider, and Selim replied promptly and in
+kind, almost unseating Judith.
+
+"You Selim!" she cried jerking the rein. "You feisty Pete! You no-account
+Beck! What ails you-all? Cain't you behave?" and once more she lapsed
+into dreaming. It was Selim who, wise and old, stopped at Aunt Nancy
+Card's gate and gave Judith an opportunity to descend if such were her
+preference.
+
+On the porch of the cabin sat a tall, lean, black-eyed old man smoking
+his pipe, Jephthah Turrentine himself. Nancy Card, a dry, brown little
+sparrow of a woman, occupied a chair opposite him, and negotiated a pipe
+quite as elderly and evil-smelling as his own.
+
+The kerchief folded about her neck was notably white; her clean
+check-apron rustled with starch; but the half-grey hair crinkling
+rebelliously from its loose coil was never confined by anything more
+rigorous than a tucking comb. In moments of stress this always slipped
+down, and had to be vigorously replaced, so that stray strands were apt
+to be tossing about her eyes--fearless, direct blue eyes, that looked out
+of her square, wrinkled, weather-beaten little face with the sincere gaze
+of an urchin. Back of her chair lay a bundle of white-oak splits for use
+in her by-trade of basket-weaver; above them hung bundles of drying
+herbs, for Nancy was a sick-nurse and a bit of an herb-doctor. She had
+made a hard and a more or less losing fight against poverty--the men folk
+of these hardy, valiant little women seem predestined to be shiftless.
+
+It came back to Judith dimly as she looked at them--she was in a mood to
+remember such things--that her uncle had courted Nancy Card when these
+two were young people, that they had quarrelled, both had married, reared
+families, and been widowed; and they were quarrelling still! Acrimonious
+debate with Nancy was evidently such sweet pain that old Jephthah sought
+every opportunity for it, and the sudden shower in the vicinity of her
+cabin had offered him an excuse to-day.
+
+Nancy did not confine her practice to what she would have called humans,
+but doctored a horse or a cow with equal success. One cold spring a
+little chicken had its feet frozen in the wet barnyard so badly that it
+lost one of them, and Nancy, who had taken the poor mite into the house
+and nursed it till she loved it, constructed for it a wooden leg
+consisting of a small, light peg strapped to the stump. And thereafter
+Nicodemus, a rooster who must now belie the name since he could not cling
+to a perch with his single foot, became an institution in the Card
+household.
+
+Jephthah Turrentine was a natural bone-setter, and was sent for far and
+near to reduce a dislocation or bandage a broken limb. In the pursuit of
+this which came to be almost a profession, he acquired a good knowledge
+of tending upon the sick, and the bitterness of rival practitioners was
+added to the score between him and Nancy. The case of Nicodemus furnished
+the man with a chance to call the woman a chicken doctor, and the name
+appealing to the humorous side of mountain character stuck to her,
+greatly to her disgust.
+
+Aunt Nancy's dooryard was famous for its flowers, being a riot of pied
+bloom from March till December. Even now fire-in-the-bush and bridal
+wreath made gay the borders.
+
+"Good land, Jude Barrier!" called Nancy herself. "You're as wet as a
+drownded rat. 'Light and come in."
+
+Old Turrentine permitted his niece to clamber from Selim, and secure him
+and both mules.
+
+"Whar's the boys?" he inquired in a great, sonorous bass, the deep,
+true-pitched voice promised by the contours of strong bony arches under
+heavy brows and the strong nose-bridge.
+
+"In jail," responded Judith laconically, turning to enter the gate. Then,
+as she walked up the hard-trodden clay path between the tossing, dripping
+heads of daffodils, "Uncle Jep, did you know Creed Bonbright's daddy?"
+
+"In jail!" echoed Nancy Card, making a pretence of trying to suppress a
+titter, and thereby rendering it more offensive. "Ain't they beginnin'
+ruther young?"
+
+Tall old Jephthah got to his feet, knocked the ashes from his pipe and
+put it in his pocket.
+
+"Who tuck 'em?" he inquired briefly, but with a fierce undernote in his
+tones. "What was they tuck fer?"
+
+"I never noticed," said Judith, standing on the step before them,
+wringing the wet from her black calico riding skirt. "Nobody named it to
+me what they was tuck fer. I was talkin' to Creed Bonbright, and he
+'lowed to find out. He said that was his business."
+
+"Creed Bonbright," echoed her uncle; "what's he got to do with it? He's
+been livin' down in Hepzibah studyin' to be a lawyer--did he have Jeff
+and Andy jailed?"
+
+Judith shook her head. "He didn't have nothing to do with it," she
+answered. "He 'lowed they would be held for witnesses against some men
+Haley had arrested. But he's goin' to come back and live on Turkey
+Track," she added, as though that were the only thing of importance in
+the world. "He says we-all need law in the mountings, and he's a-goin' to
+bring it to us."
+
+"Well, he'd better let my boys alone if he don't want trouble," growled
+old Jephthah but half appeased.
+
+"I reckon a little touch of law now an' agin won't hurt yo' boys," put in
+Nancy Card smoothly. "My chaps always tuck to law like a duck to water. I
+reckon I ain't got the right sympathy fer them that has lawless young
+'uns."
+
+"Yo' Pony was arrested afore Andy and Jeff," Judith remarked suddenly,
+without any apparent malice. "He was the first one I seen comin' down the
+road, and Dan Haley behind him a-shootin' at him."
+
+Jephthah Turrentine forebore to laugh. But he deliberately drew out his
+old pipe again, filled it and stepped inside for a coal with which to
+light it.
+
+"Mebbe yo' sympathies will be more tenderer for me in my afflictions of
+lawless sons after this, Nancy," he called derisively over his shoulder.
+
+"Hit's bound to be a mistake 'bout Pony," declared the little old woman
+in a bewildered tone. "Pone ain't but risin' sixteen, and he's the
+peacefullest child----"
+
+"Jest what I would have said about my twin lambs," interrupted old
+Jephthah with twinkling eye, as he appeared in the doorway drawing
+mightily upon the newly lighted pipe, tossing his great beard from side
+to side of his mighty chest. "My chaps is all as peaceful as kittens; but
+some old woman gits to talkin' and gives 'em a bad name, and it goes from
+lip to lip that the Turrentine boys is lawless. Hit's a sad thing when a
+woman's tongue is too long and limber, and hung in the middle so it works
+at both ends; the reppytations hit can destroy is a sight."
+
+"But a body's own child--they' son! They' bound to stan' up for him,
+whether he's in the right or the wrong," maintained Nancy stoutly.
+
+"Huh," grunted Jephthah, "offspring is cur'ous. Sometimes hit 'pears like
+you air kin to them, and they ain't kin to you. That Pony boy of your'n
+is son to a full mealsack; he's plumb filial and devoted thataway to a
+dollar, if so be he thinks you've got one in yo' pocket. The facts in the
+business air, Nancy, that you've done sp'iled him tell he's plumb rotten,
+and a few of the jailings that you so kindly ricommend for my pair won't
+do him no harm."
+
+Nancy tossed up her head to reply; but at the moment a small boy,
+followed by a smaller girl, coming around the corner of the house,
+created a diversion. The girl, a little dancing imp with a frazzle of
+flying red hair and red-brown eyes, catching sight of Judith ran to her
+and flung herself head foremost in the visitor's lap, where Judith cooed
+over her and cuddled her, rumpling the bright hair, rubbing her crimson
+cheek against the child's peachy bloom.
+
+"Little Buck and Beezy," said Nancy Card, addressing them both, "Yo' unc'
+Pony's in jail. What you-all goin' to do about it?"
+
+The small brown man of six stopped, his feet planted wide on the sward,
+his freckled face grave and stern as became his sex.
+
+"Ef the boys goes down for to git him out, I'm goin' along," Little Buck
+announced seriously. "Is they goin', granny?"
+
+"I'll set my old rooster on the jail man, an' hit'll claw 'im," announced
+Beezy, reckless of distance and likelihood. "My old rooster can claw dest
+awful, ef he ain't got but one leg."
+
+Nancy chuckled. These grandchildren were the delight of her heart.
+
+The rain had ceased for the moment; the old man moved to the porch edge,
+sighting at the sky.
+
+"I don't know whar Blatch is a-keepin' hisself," he observed. "Mebbe I
+better be a-steppin'."
+
+But even as he spoke a tall young mountaineer swung into view down the
+road, dripping from the recent rain, and with that resentful air the best
+of us get from aggressions of the weather. Blatchley Turrentine, old
+Jephthah's nephew, was as brown as an Indian, and his narrow, glinting,
+steel-grey eyes looked out oddly cold and alien from under level black
+brows, and a fell of stiff black hair.
+
+When the orphaned Judith, living in her Uncle Jephthah's family, was
+fourteen, the household had removed from the old Turrentine place--which
+was rented to Blatchley Turrentine--to her better farm, whose tenant had
+proved unsatisfactory. Well hidden in a gulch on the Turrentine acres
+there was an illicit still, what the mountain people call a blockade
+still; and it had been in pretty constant operation in earlier years.
+When Jephthah abandoned those stony fields for Judith's more productive
+acres, he definitely turned his own back upon this feature, but Blatch
+Turrentine revived the illegal activities and enlisted the old man's boys
+in them. Jeff and Andy had a tobacco patch in one corner where the ground
+suited, and in another field Jim Cal raised a little corn. Aside from
+these small ventures, the place was given over entirely to the secret
+still. The father held scornfully aloof; his attitude was
+characteristic.
+
+"Ef I pay no tax I'll make no whiskey," he declared. "You-all boys will
+find yourselves behind bars many a time when you'd ruther be out
+squirrel-huntin'. Ef you make blockade whiskey every fool that gits mad
+at you has got a stick to hold over you. You are good-Lord-good-devil to
+everybody, for fear they'll lead to yo' still; or else you mix up with
+folks about the business and kill somebody an' git a bad name. These here
+blockaded stills calls every worthless feller in the district; most o'
+the foolishness in this country goes on around 'em when the boys gits
+filled up. I let every man choose his callin', but I don't choose to be
+no moonshiner, and ef you boys is wise you'll say the same."
+
+As Blatchley came up now and caught sight of the animals tethered at the
+fence he began irritably:
+
+"What in the name of common sense did Andy and Jeff leave they' mules
+here for? I can't haul any corn till I get the team and the waggon
+together."
+
+"Looks like you've hauled too many loads of corn that nobody knows the
+use of," broke out the irrepressible Nancy. "Andy and Jeff's in jail, and
+some fool has tuck my little Pone along with the others."
+
+Blatch flung a swift look at his uncle; but whatever his private
+conviction, to dishonour a member of his tribe in the face of the enemy,
+on the heels of defeat, was not what Jephthah Turrentine would do.
+
+"The boys is likely held for witnesses, Jude allows," the elder explained
+briefly. "You take one mule and I'll ride 'tother," he added. "I'll he'p
+ye with the corn."
+
+This was a great concession, and as such Blatchley accepted it.
+
+"All right," he returned. "Much obliged."
+
+Then he glanced unconcernedly at Judith, and, instead of making that
+haste toward the corn-hauling activities which his manner had suggested,
+moved loungingly up the steps. Beezy, from her sanctuary in Judith's lap,
+viewed him with contemptuous disfavour. Her brother, not so safely
+situated, made to pass the intruder, going wide like a shying colt.
+
+With a sudden movement Blatchley caught the child by the shoulders. There
+was a pantherlike quickness in the pounce that was somehow daunting from
+an individual of this man's size and impassivity.
+
+"Hold on thar, young feller," the newcomer remarked. "Whar you a-goin'
+to, all in sech haste?"
+
+"You turn me a-loose," panted the child. "I'm a-goin' over to my Jude."
+
+"Oh, she's yo' Jude, is she? Well they's some other folks around here
+thinks she's their Jude--what you goin' to do about it?"
+
+All this time he held the small, dignified atom of humanity in a
+merciless grip that made Little Buck ridiculous before his beloved, and
+fired his childish soul to a very ecstasy of helpless rage.
+
+"I'll--kill--you when I git to be a man!" the child gasped, between tears
+and terror. "I'll thest kill you--and I'll wed Jude. You turn me
+a-loose--that's what you do."
+
+Blatch laughed tauntingly and raised the little fellow high in air.
+
+"Ef I was to turn you a-loose now hit'd bust ye," he drawled.
+
+"I don't keer. I----"
+
+Around the corner of the cabin drifted Nicodemus, the wooden-legged
+rooster, stumping gravely with his dot-and-carry-one gait.
+
+"Lord, Nancy, thar comes the one patient ye ever cured!" chuckled old
+Jephthah. "I don't wonder yo're proud enough of him to roof him and
+affectionate him for the balance of his life."
+
+"I reckon you'd do the same, ef so be ye should ever cure one," snapped
+Nancy, rising instantly to the bait, and turning her back on the others.
+"As 't is, ef they hilt the buryin' from the house of the feller that
+killed the patient I reckon Jude wouldn't have nothin' to do but git up
+funeral dinners."
+
+Little Buck, despairing of granny's interference, began to cry. At the
+sound Judith came suddenly out of a revery to spring up and catch him
+away from the hateful restraining hands.
+
+"I don't know what the Lord's a-thinkin' about to let sech men as you
+live, Blatch Turrentine!" she said almost mechanically. "Ef I was
+a-tendin' to matters I'd 'a' had you dead long ago. Ef you're good for
+anything on this earth I don't know what it is."
+
+"Oh, yes you do," Blatchley returned as the old man started down the
+steps. "I'd make the best husband for you of any feller in the two Turkey
+Tracks--and you'll find it out one of these days."
+
+The girl answered only with a contemptuous glance.
+
+"Come again--when you ain't got so long to stay," Nancy sped them sourly.
+"Jude, you'd better set awhile and get your skirts dry." She looked after
+Blatch as he moved up the road, then at little Buck, so ashamed of his
+trembling lip. Her face darkened angrily. She turned slowly to Judith.
+
+"What you gwine to do with that feller, Jude?" she queried
+significantly.
+
+"Do? Why, nothin'. He ain't nothin' to me," responded the girl
+indifferently.
+
+"He ain't, hey? Well, he's bound to marry ye, honey," said the older
+woman.
+
+"Huh, he ain't the first--and won't be the last, I reckon," assented
+Judith easily.
+
+"Ye'd better watch out fer that man, Jude," persisted Nancy, after a
+moment's silence. "He'll git ye, yet. I know his kind. He ain't a-keerin'
+fer yo' ruthers--whether you want him or no. He jest aims to have
+_you_."
+
+"Well, I reckon he'll about have to aim over agin," observed the unmoved
+Judith.
+
+"An' Elder Drane? Air ye gwine to take him?--I know he's done axed ye,"
+pursued Nancy hesitantly.
+
+"'Bout 'leven times," agreed Judith with perfect seriousness. "No--I
+wouldn't have the man, not ef he's made of pure gold." She added with a
+sudden little smile and a catch of the breath: "Them's awful nice chaps
+o' his; I'd most take him to git them. The baby now--hit's the sweetest
+thing!" And she tumbled Beezy tumultuously in her lap, then suddenly
+inquired, apparently without any volition of her own, "Aunt Nancy, did
+you know Creed Bonbright's folks?"
+
+"Good Lord, yes!" returned old Nancy. "But come on inside and set, Jude.
+This sun ain't a-goin' to dry yo' skirt. Come in to the fire. Don't take
+that thar cheer, the behime legs is broke, an' it's apt to lay you
+sprawling. I've knowed Creed Bonbright sence he wasn't knee-high to a
+turkey, and I knowed his daddy afore him, and his grand-daddy, for the
+matter of that."
+
+Avoiding the treacherous piece of furniture against which she had been
+warned, Judith slipped out of her wet riding-skirt and arranged it in
+front of the fire to dry, turning then and seating herself on the broad
+hearth at Nancy's knee, where she prompted feverishly,
+
+"And is all the Bonbrights moved out of the neighbourhood?"
+
+The old woman drew a few meditative whiffs on her pipe.
+
+"All gone," she nodded; "some of 'em killed up in the big feud, and some
+moved away--mostly to Texas." Presently she added:
+
+"That there Bonbright tribe is a curious nation of folks. They're always
+after great things, and barkin' their shins against rocks in the way.
+Creed's mammy--she was Judge Gillenwaters's sister, down in
+Hepzibah--died when he was no bigger'n Little Buck, and his pappy never
+wedded again. We used to name him and Creed Big 'Fraid and Little 'Fraid;
+they was always round together, like a man and his shadder. Then the
+feuds broke out mighty bad, and the Blackshearses got Esher Bonbright one
+night in a mistake for some of my kin--or so it was thort. Anyhow, the
+man was dead, and Creed lived with me fer a spell till his uncle down in
+Hepzibah wanted him to come and learn to be a lawyer."
+
+"Lived right here--in this house?" inquired Judith, looking around her,
+as she rose and turned the riding-skirt.
+
+"Lord, yes--why not? You would a-knowed all about it, only your folks
+never moved in from the Fur Cove neighbourhood till the year Creed went
+down to the settlement."
+
+The girl sank back on the hearth, but continued to gaze about her, and
+the tell-tale expression in her eyes seemed to afford Nancy Card much
+quiet amusement.
+
+"Do you reckon he'll live with you again when he comes back into the
+mountains?" she inquired finally.
+
+"I reckon he'll be weddin' one of them thar town gals and fetchin' a wife
+home to his own farm over by yo' house," suggested the inveterate tease.
+
+Judith went suddenly white, and then red. "You don't know of anybody--you
+hain't heard he was promised, have you?" she hesitated.
+
+"I ain't hearn that he was, and I ain't hearn that he wasn't," returned
+Nancy serenely. "The gal that gits Creed Bonbright'll be doin' mighty
+well; but also she may not find hit right easy for to trap him. I'll
+promise ef he does come up hyer again I'll speak a good word for you,
+Jude. The Lord knows I don't see how you make out to live with that thar
+old man. You'll deserve a crown and a harp o' gold sot with diamonds ef
+you stan' it much longer."
+
+Judith put on the now thoroughly dried riding-skirt, and the two women
+went outside together.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Aunt Nancy," she said, as she led the sorrel nag to the
+edge of the porch and made ready to mount. "I'll be over and bring the
+pieces for you to start me out on that Risin' Sun quilt a-Wednesday."
+
+It was late afternoon as she took her homeward way across the level of
+the broad mountain-top to the Turrentine place. She left the
+main-travelled road and struck directly into a forest short-cut. After
+the rain earth and sky were newly washed; the clear, sweetened air was
+full of the scent of damp loam and new-ploughed fields; the colours about
+her were freshened and glad, and each distant bird-note rang clear and
+vivid. To Mrs. Rhody Staggart and her likes at Hepzibah she might be a
+crude, awkward country girl; here she was a princess in her own domain;
+and it was a noble realm through which she moved as she went forward
+under the great trees that rose straight and tall from a black soil,
+making pillared aisles away from her on every side. The fern was thick
+under foot--it would brush her saddle-girth, come midsummer. Down the
+long vistas under the greening trees, where the moist air hung thick, her
+bemused eyes caught the occasional roseflash of azalea through the pearly
+mist, her nostril was greeted by their wandering, intensely sweet
+perfume, with its curious undernote of earth smell.
+
+She smiled vaguely at the first butterfly she had seen, and again as she
+noted the earliest lizard basking in the sun-warmed hollow of a big rock.
+Absently her gaze sought for cinnamon fern in low woods, sweet fern in
+the thickets, and exquisite maidenhair just beginning to uncurl from the
+black leaf mould of dripping brakes.
+
+Like a woman in a dream she made her progress, riding through the
+wonderful stillness of the vast wild land, an ocean on which each
+littlest sound was afloat, so that each was given its true value almost
+like a musical tone. An awful, beautiful silence this, brooding back of
+every sound; nothing in such a place gives forth mere senseless noise;
+the ripple of frogs in marsh and spring branch fall upon the sense as
+sweet as bird-songs. The clamour of little falls, the solemn suggestion
+of wind in the pines, the sweet broken jangle of cow-bells, a catbird in
+a tree--a continuous yet zigzag sort of warble, silver and sibilant notes
+alternating,--the rare wild turkey's call along a deeply embowered
+creek--one by one all these came to Judith's dreaming ears, clear,
+perfect, individual, on the majestic sea of silence about her.
+
+She turned Selim's head at a little intersecting trail, and rode
+considerably out of her way to pass the old Bonbright place and brood
+upon its darkened windows and grass-besieged doorstone. Some day all that
+would be changed. Still in her waking dream she unsaddled Selim at the
+log barn, and turned him loose in his open pasture. She laid off her town
+attire, put on her cotton working-dress, kindled afresh the fire on the
+broad hearthstone and got supper. Her Uncle Jephthah and Blatch
+Turrentine came in late, weary from their work of hauling corn to that
+destination which old Nancy had announced as disreputably indefinite. The
+second son of the family, Wade, a man of perhaps twenty-four, was with
+them, and had already been told of the mishap to Andy and Jeff.
+
+Old Jephthah sat at the head of the board, his black beard falling to his
+lap, his finely domed brow relieved against a background of shadows.
+Judith needed the small brass lamp at the hearthstone, and a tallow
+candle rather inadequately lit the supper-table. The corners of the room
+were in darkness; only the cloth and dishes, the faces and hands of those
+about the table showed forth in sudden light or motion.
+
+Hung on the rough walls, and glimpsed in occasional flickers only, were
+Judith's big maple bread-bowl, the churn-dash, spurtle, sedge-broom, and
+a round glass bottle for rolling piecrust; cheek by jowl with old
+Jephthah's bullet moulds and the pot-hooks he had forged for Judith.
+There were strings of dried pumpkin, too, and of shining red peppers. On
+a low shelf, scarce visible at all in the dense shadow, stood a keg of
+sorghum, and one beside it of vinegar, flanked by the butter-keeler and
+the salt piggin with its cedar staves and hickory hoops. And there, too,
+was the broken coffee-pot in which garden seeds were hoarded.
+
+"What's all this I hear about Andy and Jeff bein' took?" inquired a
+plaintive voice from the darkened doorway whose door, with its heavy,
+home-made latch, swung back against the wall on its great, rude, wooden
+hinges, as abruptly out of the shadow appeared a man who set a plump hand
+on either jamb and stared into the room with a round, white, anxiously
+inquiring face. It was Jim Cal, eldest of the sons of Jephthah
+Turrentine, married, and living in a cabin a short distance up the slope.
+"Who give the information?" he asked as soon as he had peered all about
+the room and found no outsider present.
+
+"Well, we hearn that _you_ did, podner," jeered Blatch.
+
+"Come in and set," invited the head of the household, with the
+mountaineer's unforgetting hospitality. "Draw up--draw up. Reach and take
+off."
+
+"Well--I--I might," faltered the fleshy one, sidling toward the table and
+getting himself into a seat. Without further word his father passed the
+great dish of fried potatoes, then the platter of bacon. Judith brought
+hot coffee and corn pone for him. She did not sit down with the men,
+having quite enough to do to get the meal served.
+
+Unheedingly she heard the matter discussed at the table; only when Creed
+Bonbright's name came up was she moved to listen and put in her word.
+Something in her manner of describing the assistance Bonbright offered
+seemed to go against Blatch's grain.
+
+"Got to look out for these here folks that's so free with their offers o'
+he'p," he grunted. "Man'll slap ye on the back and tell ye what a fine
+feller ye air whilst he's feelin' for your pocket-book--that's town
+ways."
+
+The girl was like one hearkening for a finer voice amid all this
+distracting noise; she could hear neither. She made feverish haste to
+clear away and wash her dishes, that she might creep to her own room
+under the eaves. Through her open casement came up to her the sounds of
+the April night: a heightened chorus of little frogs in a rain-fed
+branch; nearer in the dooryard a half-dozen tree-toads trilling
+plaintively as many different minors; with these, scents of growing,
+sharpened and sweetened by the dark. And all night the cedar tree which
+stood close to the porch edge below moved in the wind of spring, and,
+chafing against the shingles, spoke through the miniature music in its
+deep, muffled legato, a soft baritone note like a man's voice--a lover's
+voice--calling to her beneath her window.
+
+It roused her from fitful slumbers to happy waking, when she lay and
+stared into the dark, and painted for herself on its sombre background
+Creed Bonbright's figure, the yellow uncovered head close to her knee as
+he stood and talked at the foot of the mountain trail. And the voice of
+the tree in the eager spring airs said to her waiting heart--whispered it
+softly, shouted and tossed it abroad so that all might have heard it had
+they been awake and known the shibboleth, murmured it in tones of
+tenderness that penetrated her with bliss--that Creed was
+coming--coming--coming to her, through the April woods.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+Suitors
+
+
+April was in the mountains. All the vast timbered slopes and tablelands
+of the Cumberlands were one golden dapple, as yet differentiated by
+darker greens and heavier shadows only where some group of pine or cedar
+stood. April in the Cumberlands is the May or early June of New England.
+Here March has the days of shine and shower; while to February belongs
+the gusty turbulence usually attributed to March. Now sounded the calls
+of the first whippoorwills in the dusk of evening; now the first
+mocking-bird sang long before day, very sweetly and softly, and again
+before moonrise; hours of sun he filled with bolder rejoicings,
+condescending in his more antic humour to mimic the hens that began to
+cackle around the barn. Every thicket by the water-courses blushed with
+azaleas; all the banks were gay with wild violets.
+
+Throughout March's changeful emotional season, night after night in those
+restless vehement impassioned airs, the cedar tree talked ardently to
+Judith. Through April's softer nights she wakened often to listen to it.
+It went fondly over its first assurances. And the time of Creed
+Bonbright's advent was near at hand now. Thought of it made light her
+step as she went about her work.
+
+"Don't you never marry a lazy man, Jude."
+
+The wife of Jim Cal Turrentine halted on the doorstep, a coarse white cup
+containing the coffee she had come to borrow poised in her hand as she
+turned to harangue the girl in the kitchen.
+
+"I ain't aimin' to wed no man. Huh, I say marry! I'm not studyin' about
+marryin'," promptly responded Judith in the mountain girl's unfailing
+formula; but she coloured high, and bent, pot-hooks in hand, to the great
+hearth to shift the clumsy Dutch oven that contained her bread.
+
+"That's what gals allers says," commented Iley Turrentine discontentedly.
+"Huldy's forever singin' that tune. But let a good-lookin' feller come in
+reach and I 'low any of you will change the note. Huldy's took her foot
+in her hand and put out--left me with the whole wash to do, and Jim Cal
+in the bed declarin' he's got a misery in his back. Don't you never wed a
+lazy man."
+
+"Whar's Huldy gone?" inquired Judith, sauntering to the door and looking
+out on the glad beauty of the April morning with fond brooding eyes. The
+grotesque bow-legged pot-hooks dangled idly in her fingers.
+
+"Over to Nancy Cyard's to git her littlest spinnin' wheel--so she _said_.
+I took notice that she had a need for that wheel as soon as ever she
+hearn tell that Creed Bonbright was up from Hepzibah stayin' at the
+Cyards's."
+
+Had not Iley been so engrossed with her own grievances, the sudden heat
+of the look Judith turned upon her must have enlightened her.
+
+"Huldy knowed him right well when she was waitin' on table at Miz.
+Huffaker's boarding-house down at Hepzibah," the woman went on. "I ain't
+got no use for these here fellers that's around tendin' to the whole
+world's business--they' own chil'en is mighty apt to go hongry. But thar,
+what does a gal think of that by the side o' curly hair and soft-spoken
+ways?"
+
+For Judith Barrier at once all the light was gone out of the spring
+morning. The bird in the Rose of Sharon bush that she had taken for a
+thrush--why, the thing cawed like a crow. She could have struck her
+visitor. And then, with an uncertain impulse of gratitude, she was glad
+to be told anything about Creed, to be informed that others knew his hair
+was yellow and curly.
+
+"Gone?" sounded old Jephthah's deep tones from within, as Mrs. Jim Cal
+made her reluctant way back to a sick husband and a house full of work
+and babies. "Lord, to think of a woman havin' the keen tongue that Iley's
+got, and her husband keepin' fat on it!"
+
+"Uncle Jep," inquired Judith abruptly, "did you know Creed Bonbright was
+at Nancy Card's--stayin' there, I mean?"
+
+"No," returned the old man, seeing in this a chance to call at the cabin,
+where, beneath the reception that might have been offered an interloper,
+even a duller wit than his might have divined a secret cordial welcome.
+"I reckon I better find time to step over that way an' ax is there
+anything I can do to he'p 'em out."
+
+"I wish 't you would," assented Judith so heartily that he turned and
+regarded her with surprise. "An' ef you see Huldy over yon tell her she's
+needed at home. Jim Cal's sick, and Iley can't no-way git along without
+her."
+
+"I reckon James Calhoun Turrentine ain't got nothin' worse 'n the old
+complaint that sends a feller fishin' when the days gits warm," opined
+Jim Cal's father. "I named that boy after the finest man that ever walked
+God's green earth--an' then the fool had to go and git fat on me! To
+think of me with a _fat_ son! I allers did hold that a fat woman was bad
+enough, but a fat man ort p'intedly to be led out an' killed."
+
+"Jude, whar's my knife," came the call from the window in a masculine
+voice. "Pitch it out here, can't you?"
+
+Judith took the pocket-knife from the mantel, and going to the window
+tossed it to her cousin Wade Turrentine, who was shaping an axe helve at
+the chip pile.
+
+"Do you know whar Huldy's gone?" she inquired, setting her elbows on the
+sill and staring down at the young fellow accusingly.
+
+"Nope--an' don't care neither," said Wade, contentedly returning to his
+whittling. He was expecting to marry Huldah Spiller, Iley's younger
+sister, within a few months, and the reply was thus conventional.
+
+"Well, you'd better care," urged Judith. "You better make her stay home
+and behave herself. She's gone over to Nancy Card's taggin' after Creed
+Bonbright. I wouldn't stand it ef I was you."
+
+"I ain't standin'--I'm settin'," retorted Wade with rather feeble wit;
+but the girl noted with satisfaction the quick, fierce spark of anger
+that leaped to life in his clear hazel eyes, the instant stiffening of
+his relaxed figure. Like a child playing with fire, she was ready to set
+alight any materials that came within reach of her reckless fingers, so
+only that she fancied her own ends might be served. Now she went uneasily
+back to the hearthstone. Her uncle, noting that she appeared engrossed in
+her baking, gave a surreptitious glance into the small ancient mirror
+standing on the high mantel, made a half-furtive exchange of coats, and
+prepared to depart.
+
+Up at the crib Blatch Turrentine was loading corn, and Jim Cal came
+creeping across from his own cabin whence Iley had ejected him. He stood
+for a while, humped, hands in pockets, watching the other's strong body
+spring lithely to its task. Finally he began in his plaintive,
+ineffectual voice.
+
+"Blatch, I take notice that you seem to be settin' up to Jude. Do ye
+think hit's wise?"
+
+The other grunted over a particularly heavy sack, swung it to the waggon
+bed, straightened himself suddenly, and faced his questioner with a look
+of dark anger.
+
+"I'd like to see the feller that can git her away from me!" he growled.
+
+"I wasn't a-meanin' that," said Jim Cal, patiently but uneasily shifting
+from the right foot to the left. "I'll admit--an' I reckon everybody on
+the place will say the same--that she's always give you mo' reason than
+another to believe she'd have ye. Not but what that's Jude's way, an'
+she's hilt out sech hopes to a-many. What pesters me is how you two would
+make out, once you was wed. Jude's mighty pretty, but then again she's
+got a tongue."
+
+"Her farm hain't," chuckled Blatch, pulling a sack into place; "and I
+'low Jude wouldn't have after her and me had been wed a short while."
+
+"I don't know, Blatch," maintained the fleshy one, timid yet persisting.
+"You're a great somebody for havin' yo' own way, an' Jude's mighty high
+sperrity--why, you two would shorely fuss."
+
+"Not more than once, we wouldn't," returned Blatch with a meaning laugh.
+"The way to do with a woman like Jude is to give her a civil beatin' to
+start out with and show her who's boss--wouldn't be no trouble after
+that. Jude Barrier has got a good farm. She's the best worker of any gal
+that I know, and I aim for to have her--an' this farm."
+
+Within the house now Judith, her cheeks glowing crimson as she bent above
+the heaped coals, was going with waxing resentment over the catalogue of
+Huldah Spiller's personal characteristics. Her hair, huh! she was mighty
+particular to call it "aurbu'n," but a body might as well say red when
+they were namin' it, because red was what it was. If a man admired a
+turkey egg he would be likely to see beauty in Huldah's complexion--some
+folks might wear a sunbonnet to bed, and freckle they would! A vision of
+the laughing black eyes and white flashing teeth that went with Huldah
+Spiller's red ringlets and freckles, and made her little hatchet face
+brilliant when she smiled or laughed, suddenly put Judith on foot and
+running to the door.
+
+"Uncle Jep," she called after the tall receding form, "_Oh_, Uncle Jep!"
+
+He turned muttering, "I hope to goodness Jude ain't goin' to git the
+hollerin' habit. There's Iley never lets Jim Cal git away from the house
+without hollerin' after him as much as three times, and the thing he'd
+like least to have knowed abroad is the thing she takes up with for the
+last holler."
+
+"Uncle Jep," came the clear hail from the doorway, "don't you fail to
+find Huldy and send her straight home. Tell her Iley's nigh about give
+out, and Jim Cal's down sick in the bed--hear me?"
+
+He nodded and turned disgustedly. What earthly difference did it make
+about Jim Cal and Huldah and Iley? Why should Judith suddenly care? And
+then, being a philosopher and in his own manner an amateur of life, he
+set to work to analyze her motives, and guessed obliquely at them.
+
+The sight of his broad, retreating back evidently spurred Judith to fresh
+effort. "Uncle Jep!" she screamed, cupping her hands about her red lips
+to make the sound carry. "Ef you see Creed Bonbright tell him--howdy--for
+me!"
+
+The sound may not have carried to the old man's ears, but it reached a
+younger pair. Blatch Turrentine was just crossing through the grassy yard
+toward the "big road," and Broyles's mill over on Clear Fork, where his
+load of corn would be ground to meal with which to feed that blockaded
+still on the old Turrentine place which sometimes flung a delicate trail
+of smoke out over the flank of the slope across the gulch. As he heard
+Judith's bantering cry, Blatch pulled up his team with a muttered curse.
+He looked down at her through narrowed eyes, jerking his mules savagely
+and swearing at them in an undertone. He was a well-made fellow with a
+certain slouching grace about him as he sat on his load of corn; but
+there were evil promising bumps on either side of his jaws that spoke of
+obstinacy, even of ferocity; and there was something menacing in his
+surly passivity of attitude. He looked at the girl and his lip lifted
+with a peculiar sidelong sneer.
+
+"Holler a little louder an' Bonbright hisself'll hear ye," he commented
+as he started up his team and rattled away down the steep, stony road.
+
+Sunday brought its usual train of visitors. The Turrentine place was
+within long walking distance of Brush Arbor church, and whenever there
+was preaching they could count on a considerable overflow from that
+direction. The Sunday after Creed Bonbright put in an appearance at Nancy
+Card's, there was preaching at Brush Arbor, but Judith, nourishing what
+secret hopes may be conjectured, refused to make any preparation for
+attending service.
+
+"An' ye think ye won't go to meeting this fine sunshiny Sabbath mornin',
+Sister Barrier?" Elder Drane put the query, standing anxious and
+carefully attired in his best before Judith on the doorstep of her home.
+
+She shook her dark head, and looked past the Elder toward the distant
+ranges.
+
+"I jest p'intedly cain't git away this morning," she said carelessly.
+
+The Elder combed his sandy whiskers with a thoughtful forefinger. Not
+thus had Judith been wont to reply to him. Always before, if there had
+been denial, there were too, reasons adduced, shy looks from the corners
+of those dark eyes and tender inquiries as to the health of his
+children.
+
+"Is they--is they some particular reason that you cain't go this
+morning?" the widower inquired cautiously.
+
+There was, and that particular reason lay as far afield as the Edge and
+Nancy Card's place, but Judith Barrier did not see fit to name it to this
+one of her suitors, who had brought her perhaps more glory than any
+other. She was impatient to be rid of him. Like her mother Earth, having
+occupied her time for lo! these several years in the building of an ideal
+from such unpromising materials as were then at hand, she was ready to
+sweep those tentative makings--confessed failures now that she found the
+type she really wanted--swiftly, ruthlessly to the limbo of oblivion.
+
+Elihu Drane stood high among his neighbours; he was a man of some
+education as well as comfortable means. His attention had been worth
+retaining once; now she smiled at him with a vague, impersonal sweetness,
+and repeated her statement that she couldn't go to church.
+
+"I've got too much to do," she qualified finally. "Looks like the work in
+this house never is finished. And there's chicken and dumplin's to cook
+for dinner."
+
+The Elder's pale blue eyes brightened. "Walk down to the gate with me,
+won't you?" he said hopefully, "I've got somethin' to talk to you
+about."
+
+When they were out of earshot of the house, he began eagerly, "Sister
+Barrier you're workin' yourse'f to death here, in the sweet days of your
+youth. I did promise the last time that I never would beg you again to
+wed me, but looks like I can't stand by and hold my peace. If you was to
+trust yourse'f to me things would be different. I never did hold with a
+woman killin' herse'f with hard work. My first and second had everything
+that they could wish for, and I was good and ready to do more any time
+they named what it was. I've got a crank churn. None of these old
+back-breaking, up-and-down dashers for me. I hired a woman whenever my
+wife said the word. I don't think either of mine ever killed a chicken or
+cut a stick of firewood from the time they walked in the front door as a
+bride till they was carried out of it in their coffins."
+
+He stared eagerly into the downcast face beside him, but somewhere Judith
+found strength to resist even these dazzling propositions.
+
+"I ain't studyin' about gittin' wedded," she told him most untruthfully.
+"Looks like I'm a mighty cold-hearted somebody, Elder Drane. I jest can't
+fix it no way but to live here with my Uncle Jep and take care of him in
+his old days. Oh, would you wait a minute?" as they reached the
+horse-block and the Elder began to untie his mount with a discouraged
+countenance. "Jest let me run back to the house--I won't keep you a
+second. I got some little sugar cookies for Mart and Lucy."
+
+Mart and Lucy were the Elder's children. He stood looking after her as
+she ran lithely up the path, and wondered why she could love them so much
+and him so little. She came back laughing and a bit out of breath.
+
+"I expect we'll have company to-day," she told him comfortably. "We
+always do when there's preaching at the church, and I 'low I'd better
+stay home and see to the dinner."
+
+The Elder had scarcely made his chastened adieux when the Lusk girls came
+through the grove walking on either side of a young man.
+
+The Lusk girls were Judith's nearest neighbours--if you excepted Huldah
+Spiller at Jim Cal's cabin, and at the present Judith certainly was in
+the mind to make an exception of her. The sisters were seldom seen apart;
+narrow shouldered, short waisted, thin limbed young creatures, they were
+even at seventeen bowing to a deprecating stoop. Their little faces were
+alike, short-chinned with pink mouths inclined to be tremulous, the eyes
+big, blue, and half-frightened in expression, and the drab hair drawn
+away from the small foreheads so tightly that it looked almost grey. They
+inevitably reminded one of a pair of blue and white night-moths, scarcely
+fitted for a daylight world, and continually afraid of it.
+
+"Cousin Lacey's over from the Far Cove," called Pendrilla before they
+reached Judith. "Ain't it fine? Ef we-all can git up a play-party he says
+he'll shore come ef we let him know in time."
+
+The young fellow with them, their cousin Lacey Rountree, showed
+sufficient resemblance to mark the family type, but his light eyes were
+lit with reckless fires, and his short chin was carried with a defiant
+tilt.
+
+"What you foolin' along o' that old feller for, Judith?" he asked jerking
+an irreverent thumb after the departing Elder.
+
+"I wasn't fooling with him," returned Judith, her red lips demure, her
+brown eyes laughing above them through their thick fringe of lashes.
+"Elder Drane was consulting me about church matters--sech as children
+like you have no call to meddle with."
+
+Young Rountree smiled, "I'll bet he was!" picking up a stone and firing
+it far into the blue in sheer exuberance of youthful joy. "Did he name
+anything about a weddin' in church?"
+
+"Elder Drane is a mighty fine man," asserted Judith, suddenly sober. "Any
+gal might be glad to git him. But its my belief and opinion that his
+heart is buried with his first--or his second," and she laughed out
+suddenly at the unintentional humorous conclusion she had made.
+
+"See here, Jude," the boy put it boldly as the four young people strolled
+toward the house, "you're too pretty and sweet to be anybody's thirdly.
+Next time old man Drane comes pesterin' round you, you tell him that
+you're promised to me--hear?"
+
+Again Judith laughed. It is impossible to talk seriously to a boy with
+whom one has played hat-ball and prisoner's base, whose hair one has
+pulled, and who has, in retort courteous, rolled one in the dust.
+
+"I'm in earnest if I ever was in my life," asserted Lacey, taking it
+quite as a matter of course that Cliantha and Pendrilla should be made
+party to his courting.
+
+And the two little old maids of seventeen looked with wondering
+admiration at Judith's management of all this masculine attention--her
+careless, discounting smile for their swaggering young cousin, her calm
+acceptance of imposing Elder Drane's humble and persistent wooing.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+Building
+
+
+Judith awakened that morning with the song of the first thrush sounding
+in her ears. Day was not yet come, but she knew instantly it was near
+dawn, so soon as she heard the keen, cool, unmatched thrush voice. Not
+elaborate the song like the bobolink, nor passionate like the
+nightingale, nor with the bravura of the oriole; but low or loud, its
+pure tones are always penetrating, piercing the heart of their hearer
+with exquisite sweetness.
+
+The girl lay long in the dark listening, and it seemed to her half
+awakened consciousness that this voice in the April dawn was like Creed
+Bonbright. These notes, lucid, passionless, that yet always stirred her
+heart strangely, and the selfless personality, the high-purposed soul
+that spoke in him, they were akin. The crystal tones flowed on; Judith
+harkened, the ear of her spirit alert for a message. Yes, Creed was like
+that. And her feeling for him too, it partook of the same quality, a
+thing to climb toward rather than concede.
+
+And then after all her tremulous hopes, her plannings, the dozen times
+she had taken a certain frock from its peg minutely inspecting and
+repairing it, that it might be ready for wear on the great occasion, the
+first meeting with Creed found Judith unprepared, happening in no wise as
+she would have chosen. She was at the milking lot, clad in the usual dull
+blue cotton gown in which the mountain woman works. She had filled her
+two pails and set them on the high bench by the fence while she turned
+the calves into the small pasture reserved for them and let old Red and
+Piedy out.
+
+He approached across the fields from the direction of his own house, and
+naturally saw her before she observed him. It was early morning. The sky
+was blue and wide and high, with great shining piles of white cloud
+swimming lazily at the horizon, cutting sharply against its colour.
+Around the edges of the cow-lot peach trees were all in blossom and
+humming with bees, their rich, amethystine rose flung up against the gay
+April sky in a challenge of beauty and joy. The air was full of the
+promises of spring, keen, bracing, yet with an undercurrent of languorous
+warmth. There was a ragged fleece of bloom, sweet and alive with droning
+insects, over a plum thicket near the woods,--half-wild, brambly things,
+cousin on the one hand to the cultivated farm, and on the other to the
+free forest,--while beyond, through the openings of the timber, dogwood
+flamed white in the sun.
+
+Judith came forward and greeted the newcomer, all unaware of the picture
+she made, tall and straight and pliant in her simple blue cotton, under
+the wonderful blue-and-white sky and the passionate purple pink of the
+blossoms, with the scant folds of her frock outlining the rounded young
+body, its sleeves rolled up on her fine arms, its neck folded away from
+the firm column of her throat, the frolic wind ruffling the dark locks
+above her shadowy eyes. There were strange gleams in those dark eyes; her
+red lips were tremulous whether she spoke or not. It was as though she
+had some urgent message for him which waited always behind her silence or
+her speech.
+
+"I thought I'd come over and get acquainted with my neighbours,"
+Bonbright began in his impersonal fashion.
+
+"Uncle Jep and the boys has gone across to the far place ploughing
+to-day," said Judith. "They's nobody at home but Jim Cal and his
+wife--and me." She forebore to add the name of Huldah Spiller, though her
+angry eye descried that young woman ostentatiously hanging wash on a line
+back of the Jim Cal cabin.
+
+"I won't stop then this morning," said Bonbright. "I'll get along over to
+the far place. I wanted to have speech with your uncle. He was at Aunt
+Nancy's the other day and we had some talk; he knows more about what I'm
+aiming at up here then I do. A man of his age and good sense can be a
+sight of help to me."
+
+"Uncle Jep will be proud to do anything he can," said Judith softly.
+"Won't you come in and set awhile?"
+
+She dreaded that the invitation might hurry him away, and now made hasty
+use of the first diversion that offered. He had broken a blooming switch
+from the peach-tree beneath which he stood, and she reproached him
+fondly.
+
+"Look at you. Now there won't never be no peaches where them blossoms
+was."
+
+He twisted the twig in his fingers and smiled down at her, conscious of a
+singular and personal kindness between them, aware too, for the first
+time, that she was young, beautiful, and a woman; before, she had been
+merely an individual to him.
+
+"My mother used to say that to me when I would break fruit blows," he
+said meditatively. "But father always pruned his trees when they were in
+blossom--they can't any of them bear a peach for every bloom."
+
+She shook her head as though giving up the argument, since it was after
+all a matter of sentiment. Her dark, rich-coloured beauty glowed its
+contrast to his cool, northern type.
+
+At present neither spoke more than a few syllables of the spiritual
+language of the other, yet so powerful was the attraction between them
+that even Creed began to feel it, while Judith, the primitive woman, all
+given over to instinct, promptly laid about her for something to hold and
+interest him.
+
+"The young folks is a-goin' to get up a play-party at our house sometime
+soon," she hazarded. "I reckon you wouldn't come to any such as that,
+would you?"
+
+"I'd be proud to come," returned Creed at once. But he spoiled it by
+adding, "I've got to get acquainted with people all over again, it's so
+long since I lived here; and looks like I'm not a very good mixer."
+
+"Will you sure come?" inquired Judith insistently, as she saw him
+preparing to depart.
+
+"I sure will."
+
+"You could stay over night in your own house then--ain't you comin' back,
+ever, to live there?"
+
+"Why, yes, I reckon I might stay there over night, but it's too far from
+the main road for a justice's office."
+
+"Well, if you're going to try to sleep in the house, it ort to be opened
+up and sunned a little; you better let me have the key now," observed
+Judith, assuming airs of proprietorship over his inept masculinity.
+
+Smiling, he got the key from his pocket and handed it to her. "Help
+yourself to anything you want for the party, or any other time," he said
+in mountain fashion.
+
+She looked down at that key with the pride of one to whom had been given
+the freedom of a city. Its possession enabled her to bear it with a fair
+degree of equanimity when Huldah Spiller, having "jest slung her clothes
+anyway onto that line," as Judith phrased it to herself, came panting and
+laughing across the slope between the two houses and called a gay
+"Howdy!" to the visitor. The lively little red haired flirt professed
+greatly to desire news of certain persons in Hepzibah, and as Creed was
+departing sauntered unconcernedly beside him as far as the draw-bars,
+detaining him in conversation there as long as possible. She had an
+instinctive knowledge that Judith, looking on, was deeply disturbed.
+
+Creed set his justice's office about a hundred yards from Nancy Card's
+cabin, on the main road that led through the two Turkey Track
+neighbourhoods out to Rainy Gap and the Far Cove settlement. The little
+shack was built of the raw yellow boards which the new saw-mill was
+ripping out of pine trees over on the shoulder of Big Turkey Track above
+Garyville. Most of the mountain dwellers still preferred log houses, and
+the lumber was sent down the mountain by means of a little gravity
+railway, whose car was warped up after each trip by a patient old mule
+working in a circular treadmill.
+
+God knows with what high hopes the planks of that humble shanty were put
+in place, with what visions sill and window-frame were shaped and joined,
+Aunt Nancy going out and in at her household tasks calling good counsel
+over to him; Beezy, the irrepressible, adding shaving curls to her red
+frazzle; Little Buck, furnished with hammer and tacks, gravely assisting,
+pounding his fingers only part of the time. Hens were coming off. Old
+Nancy had a great time with notionate mothers hatching out broods under
+the floor or in the stable loft, and the plaintive cheep-cheep! of the
+"weedies" added its note to the chorus of sounds as the children followed
+them about, now and then catching up a ball of fluff to pet it,
+undeterred by indignant clucks from the parent.
+
+As Creed whistled over his work, he saw a shadowy train coming down the
+road, the people whom he should help, his people, to whose darkness he
+should bring light and counsel. They knew so little, and needed so much.
+True, his own knowledge was not great; but it was all freely at their
+service. His heart swelled with good-will as he prepared to open his
+modest campaign of usefulness.
+
+To come into leadership naturally a man should be the logical outgrowth
+of his class and time, and this Creed knew he was not. Yet he had
+pondered the matter deeply, and put it thus to himself: The peasant of
+Europe can only rise through stages of material prosperity to a point of
+development at which he craves intellectual attainment, or spiritual
+growth. But the mountaineer is always a thinker; he has even in his
+poverty a hearty contempt for luxury, for material gain at the expense of
+personality. With his disposition to philosophy, fostered by solitude and
+isolation, he readily overleaps those gradations, and would step at once
+from obscurity to the position of a man of culture were the means at
+hand.
+
+"Bonbright," remonstrated Jephthah Turrentine, in the first conversation
+the two held upon the subject, "Ye cain't give people what they ain't
+ready to take. Ef our folks wanted law and order, don't you reckon they'd
+make the move to get it?"
+
+"That's it exactly, Mr. Turrentine," responded Creed quickly. "They need
+to be taught what to want."
+
+"Oh, they do, do they?" inquired Jephthah with a humorous twitch of the
+lips. "Well, ef you're a-goin' to set up to teach, hadn't you better have
+a school-house, place of a jestice's office?"
+
+"Maybe you're right. I reckon you are--exactly right," Creed assented
+thoughtfully. "I'd studied about that considerable. I reckon I'm a more
+suitable age for a schoolmaster than for a justice; and the children--but
+that would take a long time; and I wanted to give the help where it was
+worst needed."
+
+"Oh, well, 'tain't a hangin' matter," old Jephthah smiled at the younger
+man's solemn earnestness. "Ef this new fangled buildin' o' yours don't
+get used for a jestice's office we can turn it into a school-house; we
+need one powerful bad."
+
+The desultory, sardonic, deep-voiced, soft-footed, mountain carpenters
+who worked leisurely and fitfully with Creed were always mightily amused
+by the exactness of the "town feller's" ideas.
+
+"Why lordy! Lookee hyer Creed," remonstrated Doss Provine, over a
+question of matching boards and battening joints, "ef you git yo' pen so
+almighty tight as that you won't git no fresh air. Man's bound to have
+ventilation. Course you can leave the do' open all the time like we-all
+do; but when yo're a-holdin' co't and sech-like maybe you'll want to shet
+the do' sometimes--and then whar'll ye git breath to breathe?"
+
+"I reckon Creed knows his business," put in the old man who was helping
+Doss, "but all these here glass winders is blame foolishness to _me_. Ef
+ye need light, open the do'. Ef somebody comes that you don't want in,
+you can shet it and put up a bar. But saw the walls full o' holes an' set
+in glass winders, an' any feller that's got a mind to can pick ye off
+with a rifle ball as easy as not whilst ye set by the fire of a
+evenin'."
+
+He shook a reprehending head, hoary with the snows of years, and
+containing therefore, presumably, wisdom. He had learned the necessary
+points of life in his environment, and as always occurs, the younger
+generation seemed to him lavishly reckless.
+
+It was only old Jephthah's criticisms that Creed really minded.
+
+"Uh-huh," allowed Jephthah, settling his hands on his hips and surveying
+the yellow pine structure tolerantly; "mighty sightly for them that likes
+that kind o' thing. But I hold with a good log house, becaze it's apt to
+be square. These here town doin's that looks like a man with a bile on
+his ear never did ketch me. Ef ye hew out good oak or pine timber ye
+won't be willin' to cut short lengths for to make such foolishness."
+
+Creed would often have explained to his critics that he did not expect to
+get into feuds and have neighbours pot-hunting him through his glass
+windows, that he needed the light from them to study or read, and that
+his little house was as square as any log hut ever constructed; but they
+lumped it all together and made an outsider of him--which hurt.
+
+Word went abroad to the farthest confines of the Turkey Track
+neighbourhoods, carried by herders who took sheep, hogs, or cows up into
+the high-hung inner valleys of Yellow Old Bald, or the natural meadows of
+Big Turkey Track to turn them loose for the season, recited where one or
+two met out salting cattle, discussed by many a chip pile, where the
+willing axe rested on the unsplit block while the wielder heard how Creed
+Bonbright had done sot up a jestice's office and made peace between the
+Shallidays and the Bushareses.
+
+"But you know in reason hit ain't a-goin' to hold," the old women at the
+hearthside would say, withdrawing their cob pipes to shake deprecating
+heads. "The Bushareses and Shallidays has been killin' each other up
+sence my gran'pap was a little boy. They tell me the Injuns mixed into
+that there feud. I say Creed Bonbright! Nothin' but a fool boy. He better
+l'arn something before he sets up to teach. He don't know what he's
+meddlin' with." All this with a pride in the vendetta as an ancient
+neighbourhood institution and monument.
+
+The office of the new justice never became, as he had hoped it would, a
+lounging place for his passing neighbours. He had expected them to drop
+in to visit with him, when he might sow the good seed in season without
+appearing to seek an occasion for so doing. But they were shy of him--he
+saw that. They went on past the little yellow pine office, on their
+mules, or their sorry nags, or in shackling waggons behind oxen, to
+lounge at Nancy Card's gate as of old, or sit upon her porch to swap news
+and listen to her caustic comments on neighbourhood happenings. And only
+an occasional glance over the shoulder, a backward nod of the head, or
+jerk of the thumb, told the young justice that he was present in their
+recollection.
+
+But there was one element of the community which showed no disposition to
+hold aloof from the newcomer. About this time, by twos and threes--never
+one alone--the virgins of the mountain-top sought Nancy Card for flower
+seed, soft soap recipes, a charm to take off warts, or to learn exactly
+from her at what season a body had better divide the roots of day
+lilies.
+
+Old-fashioned roses begin blooming in the Cumberlands about the first of
+May, and when this time came round Nancy's garden was a thing to marvel
+at. The spring flowers were past or nearly so, and the advent of the
+roses marked the floral beginning of summer. In the forest the dogwood
+petals now let go and fell silently one by one through the shadowed
+green. But over Nancy's fence of weather-beaten, hand-rived palings
+tossed a snow of bloom so like that here they were not missed at all; and
+the mock orange adds to the dogwood's simple beauty the soul of an
+exquisite odour. Small, heavily thorned roses, yellow as the daffodils
+they had succeeded, blushing Baltimore Belles, Seven Sisters all over the
+ricketty porch--one who loved such things might well have taken a day's
+journey for sight of that dooryard in May.
+
+"Well, I vow!" said the old woman one day peering through her window that
+gave on the road, "ef here don't come Huldy Spiller and the two Lusks.
+Look like to me I have a heap of gal company of late. Creed, you're a
+mighty learned somebody, cain't you tell me the whys of it?"
+
+Creed, sitting at a little table deep in some books and papers before
+him, heard no word of his friend's teasing speech. It was Doss Provine,
+at the big fireplace heating a poker to burn a hole through his
+pulley-wheel, who turned toward his mother-in-law and grinned foolishly.
+
+"I reckon I know the answer to that," he observed. "The boys is all a
+warnin' me that a widower is mo' run after than a young feller. They tell
+me I'll have to watch out."
+
+"I say watch out--_you_!" cried Nancy, wheeling upon him with a comically
+disproportionate fury. "Jest you let me ketch you settin' up to any of
+the gals--you, a father with two he'pless chaps to look after, and nobody
+but an old woman like me, with one foot in the grave, to depend on!"
+
+There was one girl however who, instead of multiplying her visits to the
+Card cabin with Creed's advent, abruptly ceased them. Judith Barrier was
+an uncertain quantity to her masculine household; unreasonably elated or
+depressed, she led them the round of her moods, and they paid for the
+fact that Creed Bonbright did not come across the mountain top visiting,
+without being at all aware of where their guilt lay. After that interview
+at the milking lot one thought, one emotion was with her always. Always
+she was waiting for the next meeting with Creed. Through the day she
+heard his voice or his footstep in all the little sounds of the woods,
+the humble noises of the farm life; and at night there was the cedar
+tree.
+
+Now the cedar tree had affairs of its own. When, with the egotism of her
+keen, passionate, desirous youth, the girl in the little chamber under
+the eves listened to its voice in April, it was talking in the soft air
+of the vernal night about the sap which rose in its veins, spicy,
+resinous, odoured with spring, carrying its wine of life into the
+farthest green tips, till all the little twigs were intoxicated with it,
+and beat and flung themselves in joy. And the tree's deep note was a song
+of abiding trust. There was a nest building within its heart--so well
+hidden in that dense thicket that it was safe from the eye of any
+prowler. Hope and faith and a great devotion went to the building. And
+the tree, rich and happy in its own life, cherished generously that other
+life within its protecting arms. Its song was of the mating birds, the
+building birds, the mother joy and father joy that made the nest ready
+for the speckled eggs and the birdlings that should follow.
+
+But to the listening girl the cedar tree was a harp that the winds
+struck--a voice that spoke in the night of love and Creed.
+
+Finally one morning she saddled Selim and, with something in her pocket
+for Little Buck and Beezy, set out for Hepzibah--reckon they's nothin' so
+turrible strange in a body goin' to the settlement when they' out o' both
+needles _an_' bakin' soda!
+
+As she rode up Nancy herself called to her to 'light and come in, and
+finally went out to stand a moment and chat; but the girl smilingly shook
+her head.
+
+"I got to be getting along, thank ye," she said. "I can't stop this
+mornin'. You-all must come and see us, Aunt Nancy."
+
+"Why, what's Little Buck a-goin' to do, with his own true love a-tearin'
+past the house like this and refusin' to stop and visit?" complained
+Nancy, secretly applauding the girl's good sense and dignity.
+
+"Where _is_ my beau?" asked Judith. "I fetched him the first June apples
+off the tree."
+
+"Judy's brought apples to her beau, and now he's went off fishin' with
+Doss and she's got nobody to give 'em to," old Nancy called as Creed
+stepped from the door of his office and started across to the cabin.
+"Don't you want 'em, Creed?"
+
+The tall, fair young fellow came up laughing.
+
+"Aunt Nancy knows I love apples," he said. "If you give me Little Buck's
+share I'm afraid he'll never see 'em."
+
+Judith reached in her pocket and brought out the shiny, small red globes
+and put them in his outstretched hand.
+
+"I'll bring Little Buck a play-pretty from the settlement," she said
+softly. "He'll keer a sight more for hit than for the apples. I wish I'd
+knowed you liked 'em--I'd brought you more. Why don't you come over and
+see us and git all you want? We've got two trees of 'em."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Red Rose and the Briar
+
+
+ALL through April Judith's project of a play-party languished. She had to
+pull steadily against the elders, for not only were the men hard at it
+making ready for the putting in of the year's crops, but it was gardening
+time as well, when even the women and children are pressed in to help at
+the raking up and brush piling. Wood smoke from the clearing fires
+haunted all the hollows. Everybody was preparing for the making of the
+truck patch. Down on the little groups would drop a cloud and blot out
+the bonfire till it became the mere glowing point at the heart of a
+shaken opal--for if you are wise you burn brush on a rainy day.
+
+Old Jephthah opposed the plan for the girl's festivity on another ground.
+"I've got no objection to a frolic, Jude," he observed quietly, on
+hearing the first mention of the matter, "but I wouldn't have no
+play-party at this house. Hit's too handy to that cussed still of
+Blatch's. A passel of fool boys is mighty apt to go over thar an' fill
+theirselves up with corn whiskey, an' the party will just about end up in
+a interruption."
+
+He said no more, and Judith made no reply. Though ordinarily she would
+have hesitated to go against her uncle's expressed wishes, her heart was
+too much set on this enterprise to allow of easy checking. She made no
+reply, but her campaign on behalf of the merrymaking went steadily on.
+
+"I wonder you can have the heart to git up play-parties and the like when
+Andy and Jeff's a-sufferin' in the jail," Pendrilla Lusk plucked up
+spirit to say when the plan was first mooted to her.
+
+Andy and Jeff, the wild young hawks, with the glamour upon them of
+lawless, adventurous spirits, and bold, proper lovers, equally fascinated
+and terrified the Lusk girls--timid, fluttering pair--and were in their
+turn attracted to them by an inevitable law of nature.
+
+"I don't see how it hurts the boys for us to have a dance," rejoined
+Judith with asperity. "If we was all to set and cry our eyes out, it
+wouldn't fetch 'em back on the mountain any quicker." Then with a teasing
+flash, "I'll tell 'em when they git home what you said, though."
+
+"Now, Jude, you're real mean," pleaded Cliantha Lusk sinking to her knees
+beside Judith and raising thin little arms to clasp that young woman
+around the waist. "You ain't a-goin' to tell them fool boys any sech
+truck as that, air ye? Pendrilly jest said it for a sayin'. We'd love to
+come to yo' play-party, whenever it is. I _say_ Andy and Jeff! Let 'em
+git out of the jail the way they got in."
+
+This is the approved attitude of the mountain virgin; yet Cliantha's
+voice shook sadly as she uttered the independent sentiments, and
+Pendrilla furtively wiped her eyes in promising to attend the
+play-party.
+
+All this was in April. By the time May came in, that dread of a belated
+frost which amounts almost to terror in the farmer of the Cumberlands was
+ended; the Easter cold and blackberry winter were over, and all the
+garden truck was planted. Everybody began whole-heartedly to enjoy the
+time of year. The leaves were full size, but still soft; the wind made
+hardly any noise among them. In the pasture lot and fence corners near
+the house, meadow flowers began to star the green. The frog chorus, so
+loud and jubilant in early spring, had subsided now except at night, when
+their treble was accompanied by the bass "chug-chug" of the bull-frogs.
+The mornings were vocal with the notes of yellow hammer, cuckoos; the
+cooing of doves, the squawk of the jay, and the drum of the big
+red-headed woodpecker sounded through the summer woods; while always in
+the cool of the day came the thrush's song. The early corn was in by mid
+April. About the first full moon of May the main crop was planted.
+
+Early in June Judith, walking in the wood, brought home the splendid red
+wood lily, and a cluster too of "ratsbane," with its flowers like a
+little crown of white wax.
+
+The spring restlessness was over throughout all the wild country; life no
+longer stirred and rustled; the leaves hung still in the long sunny
+noons. The air was clear, rinsed with frequent showers; the woods were
+silent except for birds and cow bells. The crops were laid by. The
+huckleberries ripened; the "sarvices" hung thick in the forest. Even the
+blackberries were beginning to turn and Andy and Jeff had been back at
+home more than a week, when Judith finally succeeded in getting her
+forces together and her guests promised. Many of them would have to walk
+four or five miles to sing and play for a few hours, tramping back at
+midnight to lie down and catch what sleep they could before dawn waked
+them to another day of toil. Thursday evening was set for the event. On
+Wednesday the Lusk girls coming in to discuss, found Judith with shining
+eyes and crimson cheeks, attacking the simple housework of the cabin.
+
+"I wish't you'd sing while I finish my churnin'," the girl said, "I'm so
+flustered looks like I can't sca'cely do anything right."
+
+The sisters clasped hands and raised their childish faces. Cliantha had a
+thin, high piping soprano like a small flute, and Pendrilla sang
+"counter" to it. They were repositories of all the old ballads of the
+mountains--ballads from Scotland, from Ireland, from England, and from
+Wales, that set the ferocities and the love-making of Elizabeth's time or
+earlier most quaintly amidst the localities and nomenclature of the
+Cumberlands.
+
+"Sing 'Barb'ry Allen,'" commanded Judith as she swung the dasher with
+nervous energy.
+
+The July sunshine filtered through the leaves of the big muscadine vine
+that covered and sheltered the tiny side porch. Bees boomed about the
+ragged tufts of clover and Bouncing Bet that fringed the side yard. The
+old hound at the chip pile blinked lazily and raised his head, then
+dropped it and slumbered again. Within, the big room was dim and cool.
+The high, thin, quavering voices celebrated the love and woe of cruel
+Barbara Allen. Judith's dark eyes grew soft and brooding; the nervous
+strokes of her dasher measured themselves more and more to the swing of
+the old tune.
+
+"I don't see how anybody can be hardhearted thataway with a person they
+love," she said softly as the song descended to its doleful end.
+
+The next morning Judith hurried her work that she might get through and
+go over to the Bonbright house, there to put in execution her
+long-cherished plan of cleaning it and making it fit for Creed's
+occupancy that night. Old Dilsey Rust, their tenant, came in to help at
+the Turrentine cabin always on occasions like this, or with the churning
+or washing; and penetrated with impatience the girl finally left her
+assistant in charge of matters and set forth through the woods and across
+the fields, the little key which she had carried ever since that morning
+in early April in her pocket like a talisman. At last it was to open her
+kingdom to her. Behind the bolt that it controlled lay not only the home
+of Creed's childhood, but supposably the home of his children. Judith's
+heart beat suffocatingly at the thought.
+
+Halfway across she met Huldah Spiller coming up from the Far spring with
+a bucket of sulphur water which was held to be good for Jim Cal's
+rheumatism.
+
+"Whar ye goin'?" asked Huldah, looking curiously at the broom over
+Judith's shoulder, the roll of cloths and the small gourd of soft soap
+she carried.
+
+"I'm a-goin' whar I'm a-goin'," returned Judith aggressively. But the
+other only smiled. It did not suit her to be offended at that moment.
+Instead, "What are you goin' to wear to-night, Judy?" she inquired
+vivaciously. It was one of the advantages of waiting on table at a
+boarding house in the settlement--pieced out perhaps by the possession of
+red hair--that Huldah had the courage to address Judith Barrier as
+"Judy."
+
+The hostess of the evening's festivities was half in the mind to pass on
+without reply; then her curiosity as to Huldah's costume got the better
+of her, and she compromised, with a laconic,
+
+"My white frock--what are you?"
+
+"Don't you know I went down to Hepzibah after you said you was goin' to
+have a play-party?" asked Huldah, tossing her head to get the red curls
+out of her eyes. "Well, Iley had give me fifty cents on my wages--"
+Huldah worked as a servant in her sister's family, which is not uncommon
+in the mountains--"an' I tuck it and bought me ten yard of five-cent
+lawn, the prettiest blue you ever put yo' eyes on."
+
+"Blue!" A sudden shock went over Judith. She had forgotten; and here
+Huldah Spiller would wear a blue dress, and she--oh, the stupidity, the
+bat-like, doltish, blindness of it!--would be in white, because it was
+now too late to make a change. Out of the very tragedy of the situation
+she managed to pluck forth a smile.
+
+"I was aimin' to wear blue ribbons," she said finally. It had just come
+into her head that she could pull the blue bow from her hat--that blue
+bow with which she had zealously replaced the despised and outcast
+red--and so make shift.
+
+"Blue's my best feller's favourite colour," contributed Huldah, picking
+up the bucket which she had set down, and starting on. "He 'lows it goes
+fine with aurbu'n hair."
+
+"Wade never said that," muttered Judith to herself as she took her way to
+the Bonbright place.
+
+But after all one could not be long out of tune with such a summer day.
+The spicy odour of pennyroyal bruised underfoot, came to her nostrils
+like incense. Even the sickly sweet of jimson blossoms by the draw-bars
+of the milking lot was dear and familiar, while their white trumpets
+whispered of childish play-days and flower-ladies she had set walking in
+procession under the shadow of some big green leaf. Blue--the soft stars
+of spider-wort opening among the rocks reminded her of the hue; blue
+curls and dittany tangled at the path edge; but the very air itself was
+beginning to wear Creed's colour and put on that wonderful, luminous blue
+in which the Cumberlands of midsummer melt cerulean into a sky of lapis
+lazuli. Creed's colour--Creed's colour--her dark eyes misted as they
+searched the far reaches of the hills and found it everywhere.
+
+Jephthah Turrentine used to say that if a man owned enough mountain land
+to set his foot on, he owned the whole of the sky above him; it was a
+truer word than this old mountain dweller could have known, since the
+mere possessor of a city lot, where other tall roofs cut the horizon
+high, must content himself with less of the welkin.
+
+Judith opened the door, went in, closed it behind her, and gazed about.
+There lay over everything a fine dust; there was the look of decay which
+comes with disuse; and the air bore the musty odour of a shut and long
+uninhabited house. The Bonbright home had been a good one for the
+mountains, of hewn logs, and with four rooms, and two great stone
+chimneys. Inside was the furniture which Mary Gillenwaters brought to it
+as a bride when her mountain lover came down to Hepzibah and with the
+swift ardour of his tribe--this Bonbright's fires of eloquence were all
+kindled upon the altar of his mating romance--charmed the daughter of its
+one merchant. These added to the already fairly complete plenishings,
+many of which had come over the mountains from Virginia when Sevier
+opened up the new State, gave an air of abundance, even of sober elegance
+to the room.
+
+Reverently Judith moved among the dumb witnesses and servitors of
+Bonbright generations. Here was the spinning-wheel, here the cards, and
+out in the little room off the porch stood the loom. She had dreams of
+replacing these with a sewing machine. Nobody wove jeans any more--but a
+good carpet-loom now, _that_ might be made useful. Unwilling to hang the
+bedding on bushes for fear of a chance tear from twig or thorn, she
+rigged a line in the back yard, and spread quilt and homespun blanket,
+coarse white sheets and pillowcases that were yellowing with age, out for
+the glad gay wind to play with, for the sunshine to sweeten.
+
+"What a lot of feather beds!" she murmured as she tallied them over.
+"That there ticking is better than you can buy in the stores. My, ain't
+these light and nice!"
+
+All the warm, sunny afternoon she toiled at her self-appointed labour of
+love. She swept and dusted, she scrubbed and cleaned, with capable
+fingers, proud of the strength and skill that made her a good housewife;
+then bringing in the fragrant, homely fabrics, made up the beds and
+placed all back in due order.
+
+"He's boun' to notice somebody's been here and put things to rights," she
+said over and over to herself. "If it looks sightly, and seems like home,
+mebbe he'll give out the notion of stayin' at Nancy Card's, and come and
+live here." She brooded on the bliss of the idea as she worked.
+
+Under the great mahogany four-poster in the front room was slipped a
+trundle-bed that she drew out and looked at with fond eyes. No doubt
+Creed's boyish head had lain there once. She wished passionately that she
+had known him then, all unaware that we never do know our lovers when
+they and we are children. Even those playfellows who are destined to be
+mates find, all on a day, that the familiar companion who has grown up
+beside each has changed into quite a different person.
+
+She rolled the trundle-bed back into place and turned to lift a pile of
+bedding that lay apparently on a chest. When it was raised it revealed
+the clumsy old cradle that had rocked three generations of Bonbrights.
+She stood looking down at it with quickening pulse, then reached a
+fluttering hand and touched its small pillow tenderly. Here had rested
+that golden head, so many years ago; beside it his mother had sat and
+rocked. At the thought Judith was on her knees, her hands falling
+naturally upon the side and rocking the small bed. In a strange conflict
+of dreamy emotion, she swayed it back and forth a moment, and then--what
+woman could resist it?--began to croon an old mountain cradle song.
+Suddenly the westering sun got to the level of a half shrouded window and
+sent a beam in across Judith's bent head.
+
+"My land!" she whispered, getting to her feet. "I ain't got no call to
+stay foolin' here all day. Dilsey'll jest about burn them cakes I told
+her to bake, and I ain't fixed my blue bow for my hair yet."
+
+She swept a glance around the speckless room, gathered up her
+paraphernalia of cleaning, passed out, locked the door, and set her face
+toward home.
+
+In Mary Bonbright's garden, now given over to weeds as the gardens of
+dead women are so apt to be, there had grown a singular, half wild rose.
+This flower was of a clear blood red, with a yellow heart which its five
+broad petals, flinging wide open, disclosed to view, unlike the crimped
+and guarded loveliness of the more evolved sisters of the green-house.
+Mowed down spring after spring by the scythe of Strubley, the renter, the
+vigorous thing had spread abroad, and as Judith stepped from the door its
+exultant beauty caught her eye. Flaming shields of crimson, bearing each
+its boss of filagree gold, the hosts of the red rose stood up bravely in
+the choking grass to which the insensate scythe blade had so often
+levelled them, and shouted to the girl of love and joy, and of youth
+which was the time for both. Wide petalled, burning red, their golden
+hearts open to sun and bee, they were the blossoms for the earth-woman.
+She ran and knelt down beside them.
+
+He had said that his favourite colour was blue--but there are no blue
+roses. She did not follow it far enough to guess that the man who was
+content with the colour of the sky might not get his gaze down close
+enough to earth to care for roses. She bent above them gloating on their
+fierce, triumphant splendour. Was there ever such a colour? But the stems
+were dreadfully short. A sudden purpose grew in her mind. With hasty,
+tremulous fingers she gathered an apronful of the blossoms. Once more she
+unlocked the front door, hurried back to that bed which she had so
+lovingly spread, and on its white coverlet began arranging a great,
+glowing wreath, fashioned by setting a circle of red roses petal to
+petal.
+
+As she worked Cliantha Lusk's ballad came into her head, and she sang it
+under her breath.
+
+    "'And they grew and they grew to the old church top
+    Till they couldn't grow any higher,
+    And there they twined in a true lover's knot,
+    The red rose and the briar.'
+
+"No--that ain't it--
+
+    "'And there they twined in a true lover's knot,
+    For all true lovers to admire.'"
+
+True lovers--she crooned the word over and over. It was sweet to say it.
+She thrilled through all her strong young body with the delight of what
+she was doing.
+
+"He'll wonder who put 'em there," she whispered to herself. "Ef nothin'
+else don't take his eye, these here is shore to."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+The Play-Party
+
+
+Long lanes of light crossed the grass from window and door of the
+Turrentine house; Judith's play-party was in full swing. They were
+dancing or playing in the big front room which was lit only by the rich
+broken shimmer and shine from a fire of pine sticks in the cavernous
+black chimney. Though it was early July the evening, in those altitudes,
+had its own chill, and the heat from this was not unpleasant, while its
+illumination became necessary, for all the lamps and candles available
+were in use out where the tables were spread.
+
+Old Jephthah held state in his own quarters, a detached log cabin
+standing about thirty feet from the main structure, and once used
+probably to house the loom or for some such extra domestic purpose. Here
+too a fire smoldered on the hearthstone, for the head of the Turrentine
+clan was tormented by rheumatism, that plague of otherwise healthy
+primitive man. He lounged now on the doorstep, smoking, ready to
+intercept and entertain any of the older men who might come with their
+women folk. Occasionally somebody rode up, or came tramping down the
+trail or through the woods--a belated merrymaker hurrying in to ask who
+had arrived and who was expected.
+
+To the father's intense disgust Jim Cal had elected to sit with the
+elders that night, and obstinately held his place before the hearthstone
+in the cabin room. Jephthah Turrentine's sons were none of them
+particularly satisfactory to their progenitor. A man of brains, a
+creature to whom an argument was ever more than the mere material thing
+argued about, these male offspring, who took their traits naturally after
+the spindle side, vexed him with resemblance to their handsome,
+high-tempered, brainless mother. But Jim Cal was worse than a bore to his
+father; the old fellow regarded a son who weighed above two hundred
+pounds as a disgrace. And to-night the fact that the door of his room
+commanded a sidelong view of the tables which were being spread, and
+about which Iley circled and scolded, furnished so fair a reason for
+James Calhoun's selection of it as an anchorage that his father was the
+more offended.
+
+"You thar, Unc' Jep?" sounded Blatchley Turrentine's careless voice from
+the dark.
+
+"I make out to be," returned his uncle lazily.
+
+Blatchley came into the circle of dim light about the door, Andy and Jeff
+at his shoulder. Wade followed a moment later.
+
+"Why ain't you-all boys down thar whar the gals is at, playin'?" inquired
+Jim Cal fretfully. "Looks like to me ef I was a young feller an' not
+wedded I wouldn't hang around whar the old men was."
+
+"Is Creed Bonbright comin' over here to-night?" inquired Andy abruptly,
+in obedience apparently to a nudge from Blatch.
+
+"I reckon he is," observed the old man dispassionately. "Jude has purty
+well bidden the whole top of the mountain."
+
+"Is Pone Cyard comin'?" put in Jeff. The twins usually spoke alternately,
+the sum of their conversation counting thus for one.
+
+"That I can't say," returned the old man with mildly ironic emphasis.
+"Mebbe him and the chaps and the lame rooster--_and_ Nancy--will come
+along at the tail of the procession."
+
+"Well," persisted Andy, breaking a somewhat lengthened silence in which
+all the newcomers stood, and through which their breathing could be
+distinctly heard, "well I think Creed Bonbright has got the impudence! He
+come to the jail, whar me and Jeff was at, an' he had some talk with us,
+an' I let him know my mind. He stood in with that marshal--I know it--and
+so does Jeff. Pone Cyard got out quicker becaze Bonbright tipped the
+marshal the wink; but I don't hold with him nor his doin's."
+
+The parent of the twins regarded them both with sardonic black eyes half
+shut. "_You_ don't? And who-all might you be, young fellers?" he asked.
+"This here Bonbright man has come up on Turkey Track to give us a show at
+law. If they's persons engaged in unlawful practices on this here
+mountain top, mebbe he'll knock up against 'em. Them that keeps the law
+and lives decent has no reason to fear the law. Ain't that what you say,
+Blatch?" turning suddenly to his nephew.
+
+The big swart mountaineer drew up his shoulders with a sort of shrug.
+
+"Ef you stand in with Bonbright, Unc' Jep," he said, bluntly, "we might
+as well all go down to Hepzibah and give ourselves up. You've done rented
+me the land, and yo' boys is in the still with me--air ye a-goin' to
+stand from under, and have the marshal forever keepin' us on the jump?"
+
+Old Jephthah looked wordless contempt at the nephew who knew little
+enough to impute such a course to him.
+
+"That's what I say," put in Jim Cal's thin, querulous tones from the back
+of the room--the voice of a fat man in trouble; can anyone say why the
+sorrows of the obese are always comic to the rest of the world? "A body
+cain't sleep nights for thinkin' what may chance."
+
+"Oh,--air you thar, podner?" inquired Blatch, with a sort of ferocious
+banter in his tone which he frequently used toward his fleshy associate.
+"I thort ye was down in the bed sick."
+
+"I was," said Jim Cal sulkily; "but Iley she said--Iley 'lowed----"
+
+Blatch burst into a great horse laugh, which the others joined.
+
+"I know'd in reason ye'd be down when they came any trouble at the
+still," he commented. "Hit always affects yo' health thataway; but I
+didn't know Iley had seed reason to dig ye out. What you goin' to do
+about Bonbright, Unc' Jep--stand in with him?"
+
+"Well--you _air_ a fool," observed the old man meditatively. "Who named
+standin' in with Bonbright, or standin' out agin' him? When I rented you
+my farm for five year I had no thought of yo' starting up that pesky ol'
+still on it. But I never was knowed to rue a trade. My daddy taught me
+when I made a bad bargain to freeze the tighter to it, and I've no mind
+to do other."
+
+"They'd been a still thar," said Blatch defensively.
+
+The old man nodded.
+
+"Oh, yes," he agreed. "Hit had been,--I put it thar. I've made many a run
+of whiskey in my young days--and I've seed the folly of it. I reckon you
+fool boys'll have to see the folly of it too befo' yo've got yo' satisfy.
+As for Creed Bonbright, he 'pears to think that if we have plenty of law
+in the Turkey Tracks we'll all go to heaven in a hand-basket. Mebbe he's
+right, and then agin mebbe he's wrong; but this I know, ain't anybody
+goin' to jump on him in my house, and he gets a fair show when fightin'
+time comes."
+
+"Well, if he ain't standin' in with the marshal, what does he--" began
+Andy's high-pitched boyish voice, when somebody called, "Good evening,"
+in pleasant tones, and Bonbright himself got off a light-stepping mule,
+tethered him to the fence, and came toward the cabin.
+
+He had just returned from a meeting of the County Court at Hepzibah,
+where he did good service in representing the needs of his district,
+fighting hard for more money for schools--the plan heretofore had been to
+let them have only their own pro rata of the school tax.
+
+"It'll pay you a heap better to educate the mountain people than to hire
+their keep in jail," he said to his fellow justices of the valley. "The
+blue-backed speller is the best cure for crime in the mountains that I
+know of."
+
+He failed to get this; but he succeeded in another matter, one less near
+his heart, but calculated to appeal perhaps more strongly to his
+constituents; he secured the opening of a highway for which the people in
+the two Turkey Tracks had struggled and prayed more than twenty years. It
+was with the pride of this victory strong in him that he had set out for
+Judith's play-party. The young fellow might have been pardoned a half
+wistful belief that this first success was the entering wedge and would
+lead swiftly to that standing with his neighbours lacking which he was
+helpless. Yet the sons of the house replied but gruffly to his greeting,
+and, as though his coming had been a signal, the younger group promptly
+disappeared in the direction of the main cabin.
+
+At the old man's hearty invitation, Creed seated himself on the doorstep,
+while his host went in for a coal from the smouldering hearth to light
+his pipe, and joined the guest a moment later.
+
+"Well sir, and how's the law coming on these days?" inquired old Jephthah
+somewhat humorously.
+
+"I reckon it's doing pretty well," allowed Creed. "The law's all right,
+Mr. Turrentine; it's what our people need; and if there comes any failure
+it's bound to be in me, not in the law."
+
+"That's right," old Jephthah commended him. "Stand up for yo' principles.
+Ef you go into a thing, back it. I never could get on with these here
+good-Lord-good-devil folks. I like to know whar a man's at--cain't hit
+him unless 'n you do."
+
+"That's what I say," piped Jim Cal's reedy voice from the interior. "Is
+it true that you've done made up the Shalliday fuss over that thar cow,
+Creed? I thort a jestice of the peace was to he'p folks have fusses,
+place o' settlin' 'em up."
+
+"That's what everybody seems to think," replied Creed rather dolefully.
+"I can't say I'm very proud of my part in the Shalliday matter. It seemed
+to be mighty hard on the widow; but the law was on her brother-in-law's
+side; so I gave my decision in favour of Bill Shalliday, and paid the
+woman for the cow. And now they're both mad at me."
+
+Old Jephthah narrowed his eyes and chuckled in luxurious enjoyment of the
+situation.
+
+"To be shore they air. To be shore they air," he repeated with unction.
+"Ain't you done a favour to the both of 'em? Is they anything a man will
+hate you worse for than a favour? If they is I ain't met up with it
+yet."
+
+"That's what I say," iterated Jim Cal. "What's the use o' tryin' to he'p
+folks to law and order when they don't want it, and you've got to buy 'em
+to behave? When you git to be a married man with chaps, like me, you'll
+keep yo' money in yo' breeches pocket and let other folks fix it up
+amongst themselves about their cows an' sech."
+
+"I had hoped to get a chance to do something that amounted to more than
+settling small family fusses," Creed said in a discouraged tone. "I hoped
+to have the opportunity to talk to many a gathering of our folks about
+the desirability of good citizenship in a general way. This thing of
+blockaded stills keeps us forever torn up with a bad name in the valley
+and the settlement."
+
+Old Jephthah stirred not a hair; Jim Cal sat just as he had; yet the two
+were indefinably changed the moment the words "blockaded still" were
+uttered.
+
+"Do you know of any sech? Air ye aimin' to find out about em?" quavered
+the fat man finally, and his father looked scornfully at him, and the
+revelation of his terror.
+
+"No. I don't mean it in that personal way," Creed answered impatiently.
+"Mr. Turrentine, I wish you'd tell me what you think about it. You've
+lived all your life in the mountains; you're a man of judgment--is there
+any way to show our people the folly as well as the crime of illicit
+distilling?"
+
+Jephthah surveyed with amusement the youth who came to an old moonshiner
+for an opinion as to the advisability of the traffic. He liked the
+audacity of it. It tickled his fancy.
+
+"Well sir," he said finally, "the guv'ment sets off thar in Washington
+and names a-many a thing that I shall do and that I shan't do.
+Howsomever, they is but one thing hit will come here and watch out to see
+ef I keep rules on--and that's the matter o' moonshine whiskey.
+Guv'ment," he repeated meditatively but with rising rancour, "what has
+the guv'ment ever done fer me, that I should be asked to do so much for
+hit? I put the case thisaway. That man raises corn and grinds it to meal
+and makes it into bread. I raise corn and grind hit to meal and make
+clean, honest whiskey. The man that makes the bread pays no tax; guv'ment
+says I shall pay a tax--an' I say I will not, by God!"
+
+The big voice had risen to a good deal of feeling before old Jephthah
+made an end.
+
+"Nor I wouldn't neither," bleated Jim Cal in comical antiphon.
+
+In the light from the open doorway Creed's face looked uneasy.
+
+"But you don't think--you wouldn't--" he began and then broke off.
+
+Old Jephthah shook his head.
+
+"I ain't got no blockade still," he asserted sweepingly. "I made my last
+run of moonshine whiskey many a year ago. I reckon two wrongs don't make
+a right."
+
+Creed's dismay increased. Inexperienced boy, he had not expected to
+encounter such feeling in the discussion of this the one topic upon which
+your true mountaineer of the remote districts can never be anything but
+passionate, embittered, at bay.
+
+"You name the crime of makin' wildcat whiskey," the old man's deep,
+accusing voice went on, after a little silence. "It ain't no crime--an'
+you know it--an' no guv'ment o' mortal men can make a crime out'n it. As
+for the foolishness of it," he dropped his chin on his breast, his black
+eyes looked out broodingly, his great beard rose against his lips and
+muffled his tones, "I reckon the foolishness of a thing is what each
+feller has to find out for hisself," he said. "Daddies has been tryin'
+since the time of Adam to let their knowin' it sarve for their sons; but
+ef one of 'em has made the plan work yit, I ain't heard on it. Nor the
+guv'ment can't neither. A man'll take his punishment for a meanness an'
+l'arn by it; but to be jailed for what's his right makes an outlaw of
+him, an' always will. Good Lord, Creed! What set you an' me off on this
+tune? Young feller, you ort to be down yon dancin' with the gals, instead
+of here talking foolishness to a old man like me."
+
+Creed arose to his tall young height and glanced uncertainly from his
+host to the lighted room from which came the sounds of fiddle and
+stamping feet. It was a little hard for a prophet on his own mountain-top
+to be sent to play with the children; yet he went.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+Kisses
+
+
+With the advent of the four Turrentine boys festivities had taken on a
+brighter air, the game became better worth while.
+
+"Wade, you've got to fiddle," cried Judith peremptorily. A chair was set
+upon a table in the corner, the rather reluctant Wade hoisted to it, and
+soon "Weevily Wheat," as the twitting tune comes from the country
+fiddler's jigging bow, was filling the room.
+
+"I reckon I ought to have asked your ruthers before I took Wade out of
+the game," Judith said to Huldah Spiller as they joined hands to begin.
+
+"Like I cared!" retorted Huldah, tossing her red head till the curls
+bobbed. She was wearing the new blue lawn dress, made by a real store
+pattern cut out of tissue paper, and was supremely conscious of looking
+her best.
+
+The Lusk girls in spotted calico frocks, the dots whereof were pink on
+Cliantha's dress, and blue on Pendrilla's, had bridled and glanced about
+shamefaced when Andy and Jeff came in; they now "balanced" demurely with
+down dropped eyes as the game moved to the music.
+
+Judith had left the supper preparations with the elder women, pieced out
+by the assistance of old Dilsey Rust, and was most active in the games.
+In the white muslin, washed and ironed by her own skilful, capable
+fingers, with the blue bow confining the heavy chestnut braids at the
+nape of her neck, her dark beauty glowed richly. Now the players shifted
+to "Drop the Handkerchief." Judith delighted in this game because,
+fleeter of foot, quicker of hand and eye than the others, she continually
+disappointed any daring swain who thought to have a kiss from her. Her
+shining eyes were ever on the doorway, till Blatch Turrentine left his
+seat at the back of the room and elected to lounge there watching the
+play with the tolerant air of a man contemplating the sports of children.
+It apparently gave him satisfaction that Judith time after time eluded a
+pursuer, broke into the ring and left him to wander in search of a less
+alert and resolute fair.
+
+"Cain't none of the boys kiss yo' gal," panted Huldah Spiller, pausing
+beside him. "I doubt mightily ef ye could do it yo'self 'less'n she had a
+mind to let ye'."
+
+Judith heard, and the carmine on her cheek deepened and spread, while the
+dark eyes above gleamed angrily.
+
+"Come on and play, Blatch," called Wade, jigging away valiantly at his
+fiddle. "We all know who it is you want to kiss--most of us is bettin'
+that you're scared to try."
+
+"Play!" echoed Blatchley in a contemptuous tone. "I say play! When I want
+to buss a gal, I walk up and take my ruthers--like this."
+
+Again that daunting panther quickness of movement from the big slouching
+figure; the powerful lines seemed to melt and flow as he flung himself in
+Judith's direction, and cast one arm firmly about her in such a way that
+it pinioned both her elbows to her side.
+
+"You turn me a-loose!" she cried, even as Little Buck had cried. "That
+ain't fair. I wasn't ready for ye, 'caze ye said ye wouldn't play. You
+turn me a-loose or ye'll wish ye had."
+
+"No fair--no fair!" came the cries from the boys in the ring. "Either you
+stay out or come in. Jude's right."
+
+"Well, some of ye put me out," suggested Blatchley, significantly. He had
+brought a jug of moonshine whiskey over from the still and it was flowing
+freely, though unknown to Old Jephthah, in the loft where most of his
+possessions were kept.
+
+No man moved to lay finger on him. He held Judith--scarlet of face and
+almost in tears--by her elbows, and lowered his mocking countenance to
+within a few inches of her angry eyes.
+
+"Now kiss me pretty, and kiss me all yo'self. I ain't got nothin' to do
+with this; hit's yo' play. You been wantin' to git a chance to kiss me
+this long while," he asserted with derisive humour. "Don't you hold off
+becaze the others is here; that ain't the way you do when we're--"
+
+"Wade--Jim Cal! Won't some o' you boys pull this fool man away," appealed
+Judith. "I wish somebody'd call Uncle Jep. You can hold yo' ugly old face
+there till yo' hair turns grey," she suddenly and furiously addressed her
+admirer. "I'll never kiss ye."
+
+"Oh, yes you will--you always do," Blatchley maintained. "Ef I was to
+tell the folks how blame lovin' ye are when jest you and me is alone
+together----"
+
+He looked over his shoulder to enjoy the triumph of the moment. Blatchley
+Turrentine's delight was to traverse the will of every other human being
+with his own preference. Judith's gaze, tormented, tear-blurred, followed
+his and saw across the shoulders of the others, the shine of Creed
+Bonbright's fair hair, in the doorway. The sight brought from her an
+inarticulate cry. It fired Blatchley to take the kiss which he had vowed
+should be given him. As he bent to do so, Creed stepped forward and laid
+a hand upon his shoulder. The movement was absolutely pacific, but the
+fingers closed with a viselike grip, and there was so sharp a backward
+jerk that the proffered salute was not delivered.
+
+In the surprise of the moment Judith pulled herself free and stood at
+bay. For an instant the two men looked into each other's eyes. Creed's
+blue orbs were calm, impersonal, and without one hint of yielding or
+fear.
+
+"If you don't play fair," he said in argumentative tone, "there's no use
+playing at all. Let's close up the ring and try it again."
+
+All eyes in the room turned to Blatchley Turrentine, the women in a
+flutter of terrified apprehension, the men with a brightening of
+interest; surely he would resent this interference in some notable
+manner. But Blatch was in fact too deadly to be merely high-tempered,
+quick in anger. For a moment he stared at Bonbright, trying to look him
+down; then those odd, whitey-grey eyes narrowed to mere slits. He laid
+the matter up in his mind; this was not the time for settling it--here
+before Judith Barrier and the women. He did not mean to content himself
+with mere fisticuffs, or even a chance pocket-knife which might double in
+his grasp and cut his own hand. To the immense surprise of everybody he
+stretched out his long arms, caught carelessly at the fingers of a player
+on either side of him, and, mending the line, began to move in rhythmic
+time to the fiddle.
+
+It was soon observable that Creed Bonbright's presence caused Huldah
+Spiller's spirits to mount several notes in the octave. Whether it was
+that her own betrothed was looking on, and this an excellent chance to
+show him that even the town feller felt her charm, or merely Creed's
+personal attractions could hardly be guessed.
+
+"Come on," she cried recklessly, "let's play 'Over the River to Feed my
+Sheep.' Strike up the tune, Wade."
+
+The game she mentioned was also a forfeit play, with the difference that
+the kiss was more certain, being taken of mere choice--though delivered,
+of course, with due maidenly reluctance and a show of resisting--whenever
+the girl facing one could be caught over the line. All the young people
+played it; all the elders deprecated it. At the bottom of Judith's heart
+lay one reason for making a play-party and bidding Creed Bonbright to it;
+and now Huldah Spiller was blatantly calling out the unconfessed, the
+unconfessable; Wade was sullenly dropping into the old Scotch air; the
+long lines were forming, men opposite the girls--and the red-headed minx
+had placed herself directly across from Creed!
+
+The laughing chains swayed back and forth to the measure of the
+music--advancing, retreating, pursuing, evading, choosing, rejecting, in
+a gay parody of courtship. Voices were added to that of the fiddle.
+
+    "Hit's over the river to feed my sheep,
+         Hit's over the river to Charley;
+    Hit's over the river to feed my sheep
+        An' to kiss my lonesome darling,"
+
+they sang.
+
+Shadows crouched in the corners, flickering, dancing, threatening to come
+out and play, then shrinking back as the blaze leaped and the room
+widened. The rough brown walls took the shine and broidered themselves
+with a thread of golden tracery. In such an illumination the eyes shone
+with added luster, flying locks were all hyacinthine, the frocks might
+have been silks and satins.
+
+In the movement of the game girls and boys divided. The girls tossed
+beribboned heads in unwonted coquetry, yet showed always, in downcast
+eyes and the modest management of light draperies, the mountain ideal of
+maidenhood. Across from them the line of youthful masculinity swayed;
+tall, lean, brown-faced, keen-eyed young hunters these, sinewy and light
+and quick of movement, with fine hands and feet, and a lazy pride of
+bearing. A very different type from that found in the lowlands, or in
+ordinary rustic communities.
+
+Judith noted the other players not at all; her hot reprehending eyes were
+on the girl in the blue dress. She did not observe that she herself was
+dancing opposite Andy, while Pendrilla Lusk dragged with drooping head in
+the line across from the amiably grinning Doss Provine. Finding herself
+suddenly in the lead and successful, Huldah began to preen her feathers a
+bit. She withdrew a hand from the girl on her right to arrange the small
+string of blue glass beads around her neck.
+
+"Jest ketch to my skirt for a minute," she whispered loudly. "I reckon
+hit won't rip, though most of 'em is 'stitches taken for a friend'--I was
+that anxious to get it done for the party. Oh, Law!"
+
+And then--nobody knew how it happened--she was over the line, her hold on
+the hands of her mates broken, she had tripped and fallen in a giggling
+blue lawn heap fairly at Bonbright's feet. He was in a position where the
+least gallant must offer the salute the game demanded, but to make
+assurance doubly sure Huldah put out her hands like a three-year-old,
+crying,
+
+"He'p me up, Creed, I b'lieve I've sprained my ankle."
+
+The young fellow from Hepzibah was in a mood for play. After all he was
+only a big boy, and he had been long barred out from young people's
+frolics. Here was a gay, toward little soul, who seemed to like him. He
+stooped and caught her by the waist, picking her up as one might a small
+child, and holding her a moment with her feet off the floor. Something in
+the laughing challenge of her face as she protested and begged to be put
+down prompted him as to what was expected. He kissed her lightly upon the
+cheek before he released her.
+
+As he set her down he encountered Wade Turrentine's eye. A spark of tawny
+fire had leaped to life in its hazel depth. The fiddler still clung
+faithfully to his office. If he missed a note now and again, or played
+off key, he might be forgiven. It is to be remembered that he sawed away
+without a moment's pause throughout the entire episode.
+
+Creed reached out to join the broken line and touched Jeff's arm. The boy
+flung away from the contact with a muttered word. He looked helplessly at
+Judith, but she would not glance at him; head haughtily erect, long
+lashes on crimson cheeks, red lip curled to an expression of offence and
+disdain, the young hostess mended the line by joining the hands of the
+two girls on each side of her.
+
+"You-all can go on playin' without me," she said in a constrained tone.
+"I got to see to something in the other room."
+
+"See here, Mister Man," remarked Blatch, as Judith prepared to leave.
+"You're mighty free and permisc'ous makin' rules for kissin' games, but I
+take notice you don't follow none of 'em yo'se'f."
+
+Judith halted uncertainly. To stop and defend Creed was out of the
+question. She was about to interpose with the general accusation that
+Blatch was trying to pick a fuss and break up her play-party, when Iley's
+voice, for once a welcome interruption, broke in from the doorway.
+
+"Jude, we ain't got plates enough for everybody an' to put the biscuit
+on," called Jim Cal's wife. "Ax Creed Bonbright could we borry a few from
+his house."
+
+Judith closed instantly with the diversion. She moved quickly toward the
+door; Bonbright joined her.
+
+"Why yes," he said. "You know I told you to help yourself. Let me go over
+now and get what you want. Is there anything else?"
+
+"That's mighty kind of you, Creed," Judith thanked him. "I reckon I
+better go along with ye and see. I don't think of anything else just now.
+Iley, we'll be back quick as we can with all the plates ye need."
+
+Together they stepped out into the soft dusk of the summer night,
+followed by the narrowed gaze of Blatch Turrentine's grey eyes.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+On the Doorstone
+
+
+Behind them the play was resumed in the lighted room; the whining of the
+fiddle, the thud and stamp of many feet, came to them softened and
+refined by a little distance. They were suddenly drawn together in that
+intimacy of two who leave the company and the lights on a special
+expedition. Judith made an impatient mental effort to release the
+incident of Huldah and the kiss, which had so unreasonably irritated
+her.
+
+"If we was to go acrosst fields hit would be a heap better," she advised
+softly, and they moved through the odorous, myriad-voiced darkness of the
+midsummer night, side by side, without speech, for a time. Then as Creed
+halted at a dim, straggling barrier which crossed their course and laid
+down a rail fence partially that she might the more easily get over in
+her white frock, she returned to the tormenting subject once more,
+opening obliquely:
+
+"You and Huldy Spiller is old friends I reckon. Don't you think she's a
+powerful pretty girl?"
+
+"Mighty pretty," echoed Creed absently. All girls were of an even
+prettiness to him, and Huldah Spiller was a pleasant little thing. He was
+wondering what he had done back there in the play-room that had set them
+all against him.
+
+"Her and Wade is goin' to be wedded come September," put in Judith
+jealously.
+
+"Yo' cousin will be getting a mighty fine wife."
+
+The mountain man is apt to make his comments on the marriages of his
+friends with dignified formality, and Creed uttered the accustomed phrase
+without heat or enthusiasm; but it seemed to Judith that he might have
+said less--or more.
+
+"Well, I never did like red hair," the girl managed to get out finally;
+"but I reckon hit's better than old black stuff like mine."
+
+"My mother's hair was sorter sandy," Creed answered in his gentle,
+tolerant fashion. "Mine favours it." And he had not the wit to add that
+dark hair, however, pleased him best.
+
+Judith stepped beside him for some moments in mortified silence.
+Evidently he was green wood and could by none of her old methods be
+kindled. Then, their eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, they came
+out into a modified twilight in the clearing about the Bonbright house.
+"You better unlock the door and go in first," suggested Judith, in a
+depressed tone.
+
+"Why, I ain't got the key," Creed reminded her. "I left it with
+you--didn't you bring it?"
+
+They drew unconsciously close together in the dark with something of the
+guilty consternation of childish culprits. A mishap of the sort ripens an
+acquaintance swiftly.
+
+"What a gump I was!" Judith breathed with sudden low laughter. He could
+see her eyes shining in the gloom, and the dim outline of her figure. "I
+knowed well an' good you didn't have the key--hit's in the blue bowl on
+the fire-board at home."
+
+"I ought to have thought of it," asserted Creed shouldering the blame.
+"And I'm sorry; I wanted to show you my mother's picture."
+
+"An' _I'm_ sorry," echoed Judith, remembering fleetingly the swept and
+garnished rooms, the wreath of red roses; "I had something to show you,
+too."
+
+Nothing was said of the dishes for the merrymakers at Judith's house.
+Another interest was obtruding itself into the simple, practical
+expedition, crowding aside its original purpose. The girl looked around
+the dim, weed-grown garden, its bushes blots of deeper shadow upon the
+darkness, its blossoms vaguely conjectured by their odour.
+
+"There used to be a bubby bush--a sweet-scented shrub--over in that
+corner," Creed hesitated. "I'd like to get you some of the bubbies. My
+mother used to pick 'em and put 'em in the bureau drawers I remember, and
+they made everything smell nice."
+
+He had taken her hand and led her with him, advancing uncertainly toward
+the flowers. He felt her shiver, and halted instantly.
+
+"Yo' cold!" he said. "Let me take my coat off and put it around ye--I
+don't need it. You got overheated playing back there, and now you'll
+catch a cold."
+
+"Oh, no," disclaimed Judith, whose little shudder had been as much from
+excitement as from the sharp chill of the night air after the heated
+play-room. "I reckon somebody jest walked over my grave--I ain't cold."
+
+But he had pulled off the coat while he spoke, and now he turned to put
+it about her, and drew her back to the doorstep. Judith was full of a
+strange ecstasy as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. The lover's
+earliest and favourite artifice--the primitive kindness of wrapping her
+in his own garment! Even Creed, unready and unschooled as he was, felt
+stir within him its intimate appeal.
+
+A nebulous lightening which had been making itself felt behind the
+eastern line of mountains now came plainly in view, late moon, melancholy
+and significant, as the waning moon always is. By its dim illumination
+Creed saw Judith Barrier standing at the door of his own house, smiling
+at him tremulously, with the immemorial challenge in her dark eyes. To
+that challenge the native man in him--the lover--so long usurped by the
+zealot, the would-be philanthropist, rose thrilling, yet still bewildered
+and uncertain, to respond. Something heady and ancient and eternally
+young seemed to pass into his soul out of the night and the moonlight and
+the shining of her eyes. He was all alive to her nearness, her
+loveliness, to the sweet sense that she was a young woman, he a young
+man, and the loveliness and the dearness of her were his for the
+trying--for the winning. His breath caught in his throat.
+
+"Wait a minute," he whispered hurriedly, though she had not moved. With
+eager hands he wrapped the coat close about her. "Let's sit here on the
+doorstep and talk awhile. There are a heap of things I want to ask you
+about--that I want to tell you."
+
+Young beauty and belle that she was, Judith had been sought and courted,
+in that most primitive society, since she was fourteen. She was love's
+votary by birthright, and her wit and her emotions were schooled in
+love's game: to lure, to please, to exploit, to defend, evade, deny; in
+each postulant seeking, testing, trying for the right man to whom should
+be made love's final surrender. But Creed, always absorbed in vague
+altruistic dreams, had no boyish sweethearting behind him to have taught
+him the ways of courtship.
+
+Fire-flies sparkled everywhere, thickest over the marshy places. A mole
+cricket was chirring in the grass by the old doorstone. Sharp on the soft
+dark air came the call of that woodland night bird which the mountain
+people say cries "chip-out-o'-white-oak," and which others translate
+"chuck-wills-widow."
+
+"I--" he began, hesitated momentarily, then daunted, grasped at the
+familiar things of his life--"I don't get on very well up here. I'm
+afraid I've made a failure of it; but"--he turned to her in a curious,
+groping entreaty, his hat in his hands, the dim moonlight full on his
+fair head and in his eager eyes--"but if you would help me--with you--I
+think I ought to----"
+
+"I say made a failure!" cooed Judith in her rich, low tones. "You ax me
+whatever you want to know. You tell me what it is that you're aimin' to
+do--I say made a failure!"
+
+Her trust was so hearty, so wholesale, she filled so instantly the
+position not only of sweetheart but of mother to a small boy with an
+unsatisfactory toy--that would always be Judith Barrier--that Creed's
+heart--the man's heart--a lonely one, and beginning to feel itself
+misunderstood and barred out from its kind--melted in his bosom. There
+was silence between them, a silence vibrant with the coming utterance.
+But even as the dark, fond, inviting eyes and the troubled, kindling blue
+ones encountered, as Creed lifted the girl's hand timidly, and essayed
+speech, the voice of that one who had stepped on her grave harshly
+aroused them both.
+
+"I vow--I thort it was thieves, an' I was a-goin' to see could I pick off
+you-all," drawled Blatchley Turrentine's level tones from the shadow of
+the garden. Mutely, with a sense of chill and disappointment that was
+like the shock of a physical blow to each, the two young creatures got to
+their feet and turned to leave the place, preparing to go by the high
+road, without consultation. As they passed him near the gate, Blatch
+Turrentine fell in on the other side of the girl and walked with them
+silently for a time.
+
+"Iley sont me over," he said finally. "She was skeered you-all wouldn't
+bring any plates."
+
+Neither Judith nor Creed offered any explanation. Instead:
+
+"Well, I don't see how you're goin' to help anything," said the girl
+bitterly--any presence must have been hateful to her which interrupted or
+forestalled what Creed would certainly have said, that for which her
+whole twenty years had waited.
+
+"Oh, I've got the plates," chuckled Blatch, jingling a bulky package
+under his arm.
+
+"Why, how did you----" began Judith in amazement.
+
+"Uh-huh, I've got my own little trick of gittin' in whar I choose to go,"
+declared Turrentine. He leaned around and looked meaningly at the man on
+her other side, then questioned, "How long do you-all reckon I'd been
+thar?" and examined them keenly in the shadowy half light.
+
+But neither hastened to disclaim or explain, neither seemed in any degree
+embarrassed, though to both his bearing was plainly almost intolerable.
+Thereafter they walked in silence which was scarcely broken till they
+reached the gate and Iley came shrilling out to meet them demanding,
+
+"Did you get them thar plates from Miz. Lusk's, you Blatch Turrentine?"
+
+Judith looked at him with angry scorn. It was the old tyrannical trick
+which she had known from her childhood up, the attempt to maintain an
+ascendency over her by appearing to know everything and be
+everywhere--"like he was the Lord-a'mighty Hisself," she muttered
+indignantly, as Creed joined a group of young men, and she passed in to
+her necessary activities as hostess.
+
+Judith Barrier's play-party won to its close with light hearts and light
+feet, with heavy hearts which the weary body would fain have denied, with
+love and laughter, with jealousy and chagrin, with the slanted look of
+envy, of furtive admiration, or of disparagement, from feminine eyes at
+the costumes of other women, just as any ball does.
+
+The two who had trembled upon the brink of some personal revelation, a
+closer communion, were not again alone together that evening. Amid the
+moving figures of the others, now to his eyes as painted automatons,
+Creed Bonbright watched with strong fascination in which there was a
+tincture that was almost terror, the beautiful girl who had suddenly
+emerged from her class and become for him the one woman.
+
+So adequate, so competent, Judith dominated the situation; passing among
+her guests, the thick dark lashes continually lowered toward her crimson
+cheeks. Some subtle sense told her that the spell was working. Smiles
+from this sweet inner satisfaction curved her red lips. No need to
+look--she knew how his eyes were following her. The exultant knowledge of
+it sang all through her being. Gone were her perturbations, her chilling
+uncertainties. She was at once stimulated and quieted.
+
+Their good-byes were said in the most public manner, yet one glance
+flashed between them which asked and promised an early meeting.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+Foeman's Bluff
+
+
+It was near midnight when Creed sought his patient mule at the rack, to
+find that Doss Provine had ridden the animal away.
+
+"He said you was a-goin' to stay at yo' own house to-night, an' he 'lowed
+ye wouldn't need the mule, an' he was mighty tired. He 'lowed hit was a
+mighty long ja'nt out to the Edge whar he was a-goin'," contributed Blev
+Straley, who seemed to have been admitted to Provine's confidence.
+
+"Mighty long ja'nt--I say long ja'nt!" ejaculated old man Broyles, who
+was engaged in saddling his ancient one-eyed mare. "Ef I couldn't spit as
+fur as from here to the Edge I'd never chaw tobacker agin! Plain old
+fashioned laziness is what ails Doss Provine. I'd nacher'ly w'ar him out
+for this trick, Bonbright, ef I was you."
+
+"Well, I did aim to stay over at my house to-night," said Creed, "But I
+can't. I've got a case to try in the morning, soon, that I've got to look
+up some points on yet to-night. I reckon I'll have to foot it out to Aunt
+Nancy's."
+
+As Creed spoke a fellow by the name of Taylor Stribling, a sort of
+satellite of Blatchley Turrentine's came slouching from the shadows of
+the nearby smoke-house. He watched old man Broyles ride away, and Blev
+Straley take a leisurely departure.
+
+"Mighty bad ye got to hoof it, Creed," he observed. "Ef you've a mind to
+come with me I can show you a short cut through the woods by Foeman's
+Bluff. Hit's right on the first part of my way."
+
+Creed had been long out of the mountains or he would have known that a
+short cut which led by Foeman's Bluff would certainly be a strange route
+toward Nancy Card's cabin; but it was characteristic of the man that
+without question or demur he accepted the proffered friendly turn at its
+face value, and he and Stribling at once took the way which led across
+the gulch to the still. They walked for some time, Stribling leading,
+Creed following, deep in his own thoughts.
+
+"Looks like this is a queer direction to be going," he roused himself to
+comment wonderingly as they dipped into the sudden hollow.
+
+"The trail turns a piece up yon," explained the guide briefly.
+
+Again they toiled on in silence, crossing the dry boulder-strewn bed of a
+stream, travelling always in the dense darkness of the tall timber,
+finally striking the rise, which was so abrupt and steep that they had to
+catch by the path-side bushes to pull themselves up. It was lighter here,
+as the trail mounted toward a region of rocky bluffs where there was no
+big timber, running obliquely across the great promontory that had got
+the name of Foeman's Bluff, from old Ab Foeman whose hideout, still
+unknown, was said to be somewhere in its front.
+
+"Ain't it mighty curious to be goin' up so?" Creed panted. "Aunt Nancy's
+place lies lower than the Turrentines'. By the road it's down hill mighty
+near all the way."
+
+"Thishyer's a short cut," growled the other evasively. "Mind how you
+step. Hit's a fur ways down thar ef a body was to fall."
+
+With the words they came out suddenly on the Bluff itself where the
+trail widened into a natural terrace, and the great rock, solemn with
+majestic peace, faced an infinity of sky with bared brow. As they
+emerged into the light Creed took off his hat and lifted his
+countenance, inhaling the beauty of the summer night. The late moon
+had climbed a third of the way up the heavens; now she looked down with
+a chastened, tarnished light, yet with a dusky, diminished beauty that
+held a sort of mild pathos. Great timbered slopes, inky black in this
+illumination, fell away on every hand down to where the mists lay
+death-white in the valley; behind them was a low, irregular bulk of
+brush-grown rock; and all about the whirr of katydids, a million voices
+blended into one. From a nearby thicket came to them the click and liquid
+gurgle, "Chip-out-o'-white-oak!" It sent Creed's heart and fancy questing
+back to the past hour with the girl on the doorstone. What would he have
+asked, she answered, if Blatch had not interrupted them? He scarcely heard
+the wavering cry of a screech-owl that followed hard upon the
+remembered notes. Stribling, however, noted the latter promptly, and
+began edging toward the shadow as his companion spoke.
+
+"This is mighty sightly," said Creed, looking about him musingly; "I do
+love a moonshiny night."
+
+For a moment there was only the noise of the katydids, backgrounded and
+enfolded by the deep silence of the great mountains. Then someone broke
+out into what was evidently a forced laugh, a long-drawn, girding,
+mirthless haw-haw, the laboured insult of which stung Creed into a
+certain resentment of demeanour.
+
+"What's the joke?" he inquired dryly, turning toward Taylor Stribling.
+But Stribling had silently melted away among the shadows of distant trees
+along the trail. It was Blatchley Turrentine who stood before him
+thrusting forward a jeering face in the uncertain half light, while three
+vaguely defined forms moved and shouldered behind him. The apparition was
+sinister, but if Blatch looked for demonstrations of fear he was
+disappointed.
+
+"What's the joke?" Creed repeated.
+
+"I couldn't hold in when I heared your pretty talk," drawled Blatch,
+setting his hands on his hips and barring the way. "Whar might you be
+a-goin', Mr. Creed Bonbright?"
+
+"Home," returned Creed briefly. "Get out of my road, and I'll be obliged
+to you."
+
+"Yo' road--_yo'_ road!" echoed Blatch. "Well, young feller, besides this
+here road runnin' acrosst the south eend o' the property that I've rented
+on a five-year lease, ef so be that yo're a-goin' to Nancy Cyard's house
+this is a mighty curious direction for you to be travellin' in."
+
+"I was told it was a short cut," said Bonbright controlling his temper. A
+man who was justice of the peace, going home to get ready to try a case
+on the morrow, must not embroil himself.
+
+"Good Lord!" scoffed Blatch. "You claim to be mountain raised, and tell
+me you think this is a short cut from whar you was at to Nancy Cyard's? I
+reckon you'll have to make up another tale."
+
+Bonbright became suddenly aware that he was surrounded, two of the men
+who were with Turrentine having slipped past him and appearing now as
+blots of blacker shadow against the trees on either side of the path by
+which he had come. Turrentine and the remaining man barred the way ahead;
+on the one side was the sheer descent of the bluff; on the other the
+rough, broken rise.
+
+It was like a bad dream. With his usual forthright directness he spoke
+out.
+
+"What is it you want of me--all of you? This meeting never came about by
+chance."
+
+Blatch shook his head. "Yo' mighty right it didn't," he said. "Me an' the
+boys has a word to speak with you, and when we ketch you walkin' on our
+land in the middle o' the night--with whatever intentions--we think the
+time has come for talkin'."
+
+"Andy! Jeff! Is that you?" Creed, the rash, called over his shoulder to
+the two behind him.
+
+An inarticulate growl answered, and then a boyish voice began,
+
+"Yo' mighty free with folks' names, you Creed Bonbright. Me and my
+brother both told you what we thought o' you when you come to the jail. I
+told you then you'd be run out of the Turkey Tracks ef you tried to come
+up here. We don't want no spies."
+
+"Spies!" echoed Creed with a rising note of anger in his voice. "Who said
+I was a spy? What should I be spying on?"
+
+"Yo' friend Mr. Dan Haley might 'a' said you was a spy," suggested Andy's
+higher pitched tones. "As for what you'd be a-spyin' on you know best.
+We're all mighty peaceable, law-abidin' folks in the Turkey Tracks. I
+don't know of nothin' that we're apt to break the law about 'less'n it
+would be beatin' up and runnin' out a spy that----"
+
+The childish bravado of this speech evidently displeased Blatch, who
+wanted the thing done and over with. His heavier, grating tones broke
+in,
+
+"They's jest one thing to be said to you, Creed Bonbright. You've got to
+get out of the Turkey Tracks--and get quick. Air ye goin'?"
+
+"No!" Creed flung back at him. "When I take my orders from you it will be
+a mighty cold day. I came up here in the Turkey Tracks to do a good work
+among my own people. I'm going to stay here and do it in my own way. Is
+that you, Wade Turrentine? What have you got to say to me?"
+
+The second of the men who faced him stirred uneasily at the mention of
+his name. It rankled in the expectant bridegroom's heart that all he
+could complain of concerning Creed Bonbright was that Huldah had thrown
+herself in his way and forced a kiss upon him--not that Bonbright had
+been the amatory aggressor!
+
+"I say what Blatch says," growled Wade as though the words stuck in his
+throat.
+
+More and more the whole thing was like a nightmare to Creed; he felt as
+though with sufficient effort he might throw it off and wake. The four
+men hung at the path-side eyeing him, motionless if he were still, moving
+only if he stirred. Even this scarcely gave him a complete understanding
+of the gravity of his situation.
+
+"Well," he said finally, "I'm going on home. If any of you boys has
+anything to say to me, to-morrow or any day after--you know where to find
+me."
+
+He made as though to pass; but Blatch Turrentine stepped swiftly to the
+middle of the pathway and stood breathing a little short.
+
+"No, by God, we don't!" he panted. "Ef we let you to go this night--we
+don't know whar we'll ever find you again. Mebbe you've got yo' budget
+made up--on yo' way to yo' friend Mr. Dan Haley right now. _Ye don't go
+from here_!"
+
+Instinctively Creed fell back a step. It was out at last--this was
+neither more nor less than a waylaying. Did they mean to kill him? Blatch
+Turrentine had crouched where he stood, and even as the question went
+through the victim's mind, he launched himself with that sudden frightful
+quickness bodily upon Creed.
+
+It would seem that the slighter man must be borne down by the onset. But
+Bonbright gathered himself, his arms shot out and gripped his assailant
+midway. Struggling, panting, gasping, stamping, they wrenched and swayed,
+the three who watched them holding aloof. Then with a sheer effort of
+strength Creed tore the heavier man from his footing and lifted him clear
+of the ground.
+
+With a little sobbing oath Andy ran in. Bonbright could have heaved the
+man he held over his shoulder in that terrific fall well known to deadly
+wrestling. Wade's stern, "Sst! Git back there!" stopped the boy. Even as
+Creed's muscles knotted themselves to the supreme effort came sudden
+memory of what he must stand for to these people. It was his right to
+defend his own life; he must not, in any extremity, take that of another.
+His grip relaxed. Turrentine partially got his feet again; his arms were
+free; the right made a swift movement, and Creed caught the gleam of a
+knife-blade. Without volition of his own he flung all his weight and
+strength into one mighty movement that hurled man and weapon from him.
+
+Plunging, staggering, clutching at the air, Turrentine gave ground. The
+moonlight flickered on the blade in his upflung hand as, with a strangled
+hoarse cry he reeled backward over the bluff.
+
+There was a rending sound of breaking branches, a noise of rolling rocks;
+then deadly silence. For a long moment the men left standing on the cliff
+strained eyes and ears to where Blatch had gone down, then,
+
+"Keep off!" shouted Creed as the three others began silently to close in
+on him. "Stand back, boys. We've had enough of this. Draw off and let me
+get down and see what's happened to him." He kept slowly backing away,
+striving not to be hemmed in against the rock behind him. The others
+warily followed.
+
+"Let you down and finish him, ye mean--don't ye?" screamed Andy with all
+a boy's senseless rage.
+
+"You're a fine one to bring law and order into the Turkey Tracks," Wade
+taunted savagely. "You've brought murder--that's what you've done."
+
+"He drew a knife on me," cried Bonbright. "You all saw that. I only
+shoved him away. I never meant to throw him over the bluff."
+
+"Nobody seen no knife but you, Creed Bonbright," Jeff doggedly
+asseverated. "All three of us seen you fling Blatch over the bluff. You
+ain't in no court of law now. Yo' lies won't do you no good. Yo' where we
+kill the feller that done the killin'."
+
+"How?" said Creed, still backing, feeling his way slowly, seeking for
+some break in the rise behind, the others coming a little closer. "By
+jumpin' on to him somewhere out at night, four to one--or even three to
+one?"
+
+"Yes, by God! thataway, ef we cain't do it no better way," panted Wade.
+
+Years before--heaven knows how many--a little seep of water began to
+gather between two huge stones in the small broken bluff behind Creed.
+Winter after winter the crevice through which the trickle came enlarged,
+the water caught in a natural basin and froze with all its puny might to
+heave the stones apart. The winter before this slow process had closed
+leaving a wedge of rock trembling upon its base, ready to fall into a
+crevice. Yet the opening was masked with vine leaves, and when the spring
+rains finally washed away the mould and the crude doorway tottered and
+sank, the gap thus left was unnoted, invisible to the sharpest eye.
+
+Bonbright pressing close against the rock to pass, stepping warily when
+it was forward, but hugging his barrier as a safety, missed his footing,
+and slipped almost without a sound into this opening. For a moment he
+sustained himself holding to tree roots, hearkening to the voices of
+those above him.
+
+"Wade--you fool! What did you let him get a-past you for?"
+
+And then Wade's heavier tones, "I didn't. He run back yo' way."
+
+He could hear their footsteps pounding to and fro, their hoarse cries
+which finally settled down into a demand for a lantern.
+
+"We can't find Blatch nor do nothing for him, nor git on the track of
+Bonbright nor nothin' else, without a lantern. You Jeff, run round to the
+still; me and Andy'll go back and fetch pap."
+
+Creed sought cautiously for footing, lost all hold, and began a headlong
+descent.
+
+Low limbs thrashed his face and body; again and again his head was dashed
+against rocks or tree stems; his forehead was gashed; the blood poured
+into his eyes; he rolled and bounded and slid down and down and down the
+crevice, and into the ravine, bruised, bleeding, breathless, blinded and
+choked by blood and earth and gravel. He was more than half unconscious
+when he brought up at last with a rib-smashing thump upon a sapling, and
+there he clung like a dazed animal, gasping.
+
+Slowly, as his breath came back to him, and he cleared the blood and dust
+from his eyes, Creed became aware of a dim glow coming through the bushes
+in one direction. For some time he watched it, making ready to get away
+as quickly as possible, since this must be on Blatch Turrentine's land,
+and the light came probably from some of Blatch's party searching for
+Turrentine himself, or for Creed.
+
+But when he noted that the illumination was steady and stationary, he
+began to move hesitatingly in its direction. He had gone probably two or
+three hundred feet when he came to a place whence he had an unobstructed
+view. The light shone out from the cramped opening of a cave. He went
+nearer in a sort of daze. There was nobody to intercept him, Blatch and
+the boys, whom he had left on the bluff above, when he so unexpectedly
+descended from it, being the only sentinels out. No approach was looked
+for from the quarter where he now was, and he found himself, gazing
+directly into Blatch Turrentine's blockaded still. He could distinctly
+see Jim Cal and the fellow Taylor Stribling moving about within the cave.
+They were attending to a run of whiskey. While Bonbright stood
+motionless, not yet fully comprehending the sinister colour his presence
+might wear, there was the thud of running footsteps, Jeff Turrentine
+rounded the boulder on the other side of the cave and called aloud to
+those within,
+
+"Jim Cal! Taylor! Buck! Creed Bonbright's killed Blatch--flung him clean
+over the bluff--and got plumb away from us! Bring a lantern you-all.
+We've got to hunt for Blatch in under Foeman's Bluff--I'll show you
+whar."
+
+Silently Creed drew back into the dense undergrowth. He knew where he
+was, now. As he retreated swiftly in the opposite direction from that in
+which Jeff had approached, he could vaguely hear the excited voices at
+the still, questioning, replying, denouncing, exclaiming. Presently he
+came out upon the main trail, rounded the Gulch, heading for the big road
+and Nancy Card's cabin, his soul sick within him at the events of the
+evening, bitterly regretting the explicit and unwelcome knowledge of the
+secret still which had been forced upon him, feeling himself now a spy
+indeed--a spy and a murderer.
+
+He walked with long nervous strides; beaten and bruised though he was, he
+was unconscious of fatigue; the grief and regret that surged within him
+were as an anodyne to physical pain, and it was less than half an hour
+later that he opened the door of Nancy Card's cabin, his white face
+scratched and bleeding, his torn hands, too, covered with blood, his
+clothing rent and earth-stained, his eyes wild and pain-bright.
+
+"Good Lord, boy! What's the matter with ye?" cried the old woman, coming
+toward him in terror, both hands out. "I sot up for ye, 'caze Pony he
+jest come from Hepzibah an' said that spiled-rotten Andy an' that feisty
+Jeff 'lowed ye was a spy an' they was a-goin' to run ye out of the Turkey
+Tracks."
+
+She laid hold of him and examined him with anxious eyes.
+
+"I was plumb werried about ye. I knowed in reason they was a-goin' to be
+trouble at that fool play-party."
+
+"No, I ain't hurt, Aunt Nancy," said Creed desolately, and he stared past
+her at the wall. "But looks to me like I'm cursed. I meant so well----"
+He choked on the word. "I'd just had a talk with--She said--we--I thought
+that everything was about to come right. And now--I've killed Blatch
+Turrentine, and I've just got away from the others. They was all after
+me."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+A Spy
+
+
+Old Jephthah was winding the clock when the door--which he had closed
+some time ago after the last retiring guests--flung violently open, Andy
+paused, flying foot on the threshold, and gasped out hoarsely,
+
+"Pap--Creed Bonbright's killed Blatch and got away from us!"
+
+The Lusk girls had staid to help Judith clear up, intending to remain
+over night unless Andy and Jeff returned in time to take them home. The
+three young women working at the table lifted pale faces; Pendrilla let
+fall the plate in her hand and broke it. Unconscious of the fact, she
+stood staring with open mouth at the fragments by her feet. Jephthah took
+one more turn mechanically, then withdrew the key and laid it down.
+
+"Whar at?" he inquired briefly.
+
+"Up on our place," said Wade who now appeared at the boy's side.
+"Bonbright throwed him over Foeman's Bluff."
+
+"How come it?" queried the head of the tribe.
+
+"They was a fussin'," began Andy, but his father interrupted him in a
+curious tone.
+
+"Foeman's Bluff," he repeated. "What tuck Bonbright thar at this time o'
+night?"
+
+"That's what I say," panted Jim Cal's voice in the darkness outside. He
+had come straight from the still instead of going with Jeff and the
+others to search; and for all his flesh he had overtaken his brothers.
+But there was none now to demand sardonically why he fled the seat of war
+and ran to the paternal shelter for re-enforcements. "Ef folks go nosin'
+around whar they ain't wanted, sometimes they git what they don't like,"
+he concluded.
+
+Judith, very pale, had parted her lips to utter words of indignant
+defence, and denial of this broad imputation, but before she could speak
+Huldah Spiller irrupted into the room, her red curls flying, her bodice
+clutched about her in such a fashion as to suggest she had been
+undressing when the news reached her.
+
+The mountain woman with temperament is reduced to the outlets of such
+occasions as these, or revival seasons and funerals; and Huldah Spiller,
+having abandoned the protesting Iley with her babies, whom the mother
+could not leave alone, meant to make the most of the occasion.
+
+"You-all ain't got no right to talk the way you do about Creed," the
+red-haired girl burst out. "Him and me's been friends ever sence I went
+to Hepzibah, and there ain't a better man walks the earth. Ef he done
+anything to Blatch hit was becaze Blatch laywayed him an' jumped on him,
+an' he had to. Oh, Lord!" and she began to weep, "I wish't my daddy was
+here--I jest wish Pap Spiller was here. Pore Creed! Ef you-all git yo'
+hands on him, mad thisaway, the Lord knows what will be did!"
+
+Jephthah regarded his postulant daughter-in-law from under lowered, bushy
+brows.
+
+"Kin you make her hush?" he inquired of Wade.
+
+"I ain't got no interest in makin' her hush nor makin' her holler,"
+returned Wade contemptuously. Dishonoured before his clan, his male
+dignity sadly shorn, his woman shrieking out the wrongs and excellences
+of another man--and that man a young and well-favoured enemy--his
+bitterness may be forgiven.
+
+"Fetch the lantern," ordered Jephthah briefly. "We-all have got to git
+over thar and see to this business."
+
+"Well, I'll hush--but I'm goin' along," volleyed Huldah.
+
+"Le's us go too, Jude," pleaded Cliantha Lusk in a trembling whisper.
+"I'm scared to be left here in the house with the men all gone. He might
+take a notion to come and raid the place and kill us. They do thataway in
+feud times. My gran' mammy----"
+
+"Do hush!" choked Judith. But she hurried out in the wake of the
+departing men, Cliantha clinging to one arm, Pendrilla to the other.
+
+They left the doors open, the candles flaring, and nobody to guard but
+the toothless old hound who slept and snored on the chip pile.
+
+The journey to Foeman's Bluff, following the flicker of the lantern in
+Wade's hand, with the voices of the men coming back to her, hoarse,
+fragmentary, ejaculatory, reciting Creed's offences asseverating that
+they had expected nothing else, was like a nightmare to Judith. When
+Cliantha screamed and clung to her and said she thought she saw Creed
+Bonbright in the bushes by the path-side, Judith shook her off angrily,
+but let the clamouring little thing creep back and make her peace.
+
+"I forgot about you and Blatch--Oh, po' Judy!" moaned Cliantha. "Ef hit
+was me goin' to s'arch for the murdered body of my true love I don't know
+as I could put foot befo' foot!"
+
+"The trail's mighty narrow here--I'll go in front," said Judith. She
+freed herself, and thereafter walked alone with bent head.
+
+As they descended into the hollow Andy began to hoo-ee; and finally he
+was answered from the neighbourhood of the bluff. Up this they climbed,
+since on this side they were cut off from the region below it by an
+impassable gulley. Halting on the top and looking down, they could see a
+lantern moving about and catch faint sound of the men's voices.
+
+"Who's down thar?" Jephthah's big rolling bass sent out the call. There
+was an ominous hesitation before Jeff's perturbed tones replied,
+
+"Hit's me, pap, me an' Buck Shalliday an' Taylor Stribling."
+
+Andy found a tall tree at the bluffs edge, and began to descend through
+its branches with the swiftness and agility of a monkey.
+
+"How is he--is he alive?"
+
+The old man put the query at the edge of the gulf, stooping, peering
+over. Jim Cal sat down suddenly and began wiping his forehead. The
+moonlight showed his round face very pale under its beaded sweat.
+
+"Andy'll git hisself killed!" whimpered Pendrilla.
+
+And Huldah broke into loud hysteric weeping, on the tide of which
+"Creed--Pap Spiller--Blatch Turrentine" were cast up now and again.
+
+"Hush, cain't ye?" demanded Jephthah, angrily; "I cain't hear one word
+they answer me down thar. Hello, boys. Is he livin'?"
+
+Andy had evidently reached the searchers at the foot of the cliff. Loud,
+confused voices came up to those above. Finally,
+
+"W'y, Pap, we ain't never found him," Jeff called.
+
+"Ye _what_?" demanded the father incredulously.
+
+"We ain't--never--found him," reiterated Jeff doggedly.
+
+The old man drew back sharply with a look of swift anger in his face.
+
+"Well, ef ye hain't found him by now ye better quit lookin', hadn't ye?"
+he suggested as he straightened to his full height and turned his back.
+
+"Creed Bonbright's jest about been here an' hid the body, that's what
+he's done," Taylor Stribling clamoured after him in futile explanation.
+But the old man gave no heed. Lantern in hand, he was already addressing
+himself to a careful examination of the scene of the struggle. The torn
+vines where Creed had fallen through the fissure instantly caught his
+eye.
+
+"Come up here, you-all!" he turned and shouted toward the gulf. He swung
+his lantern far out over the crevice. "Look at that," he said quietly.
+"Thar's whar yo' man got away from ye." He handed the lantern to Wade,
+and swung himself lightly down where Creed had fallen.
+
+"Better let me go, Pap," said Wade, and Judith mutely stared after the
+old man as he disappeared into the dark.
+
+For fifteen minutes or more the watchers on the cliff waited and
+trembled, straining ears and eyes. In that time they were joined by those
+from the foot of the bluff, all but Stribling, who, the boys said, had
+"gone on home." Then they heard sounds of clambering in the cleft, and
+the old man's face appeared in the well of inky shadow, pale, the black
+eyes burning, the great black beard flowing backward to join the darkness
+behind him. Wade held his lantern high. It lit a circle of faces on which
+terror, anger, and distress wrought. Judith could scarcely look at her
+uncle, and a great trembling shook her limbs, so that she laid hold of a
+little sapling by which she stood, and closed her eyes.
+
+"Well," said the old man on a falling note, and his voice sounded
+hollowly from the cleft, "well, I reckon this does settle it--whether
+Blatch is hurt or no. How many of ye was a-workin' in the still
+to-night?"
+
+"I was," quavered Jim Cal; "me and Taylor Stribling and Buck Shalliday.
+Blatch had left a run o' whiskey that had to be worked off, and when he
+didn't come I turned in to 'tend to it--why, Pap?"
+
+"Ef Bonbright wanted to find out about the still he shore made it, that's
+all," answered Jephthah. "Ye can see right into it from whar he went. Ef
+you-all boys wants to stay out o' the penitentiary I reckon Creed
+Bonbright's got to leave the Turkey Tracks mighty sudden," and he swung
+himself heavily to the level of the cliff.
+
+"That's what I say," whispered Jim Cal, pasty pale and quivering. "We've
+got it to do."
+
+Old Jephthah looked darkly upon his sons.
+
+"Well, settle it amongst ye, how an' when. I'll neither meddle nor make
+in this business. I don't know how all o' this come about, nor what
+you-all an' Blatch Turrentine air up to. You've made an outsider o' me,
+an' an outsider I'll stay. Ef ye won't tell me the truth, don't tell me
+no lies. Come on, gals."
+
+He strode into the homeward trail, the four girls falling in behind his
+tall figure. Judith was sick with misery and uncertainty; the Lusk girls
+looked back timidly at Andy and Jeff; even Huldah was mute.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+The Warning
+
+
+Five o'clock Friday morning found Creed, pale, hollow-eyed, a strip of
+Nancy's home-made sticking plaster over the cut on brow and cheek, but
+otherwise composed and as usual, at the pine table in his little shack,
+working over the references which applied to the case he was to try that
+morning. But an hour later brought old Keziah Provine to the door to
+borrow the threading of a needle with white thread.
+
+"I hearn they had an interruption," she began, pushing in past Nancy and
+the two children, "but thar--you kin hear anything these days and times.
+They most gen'ally does find trouble at these here play-parties, that's
+why I'm sot agin 'em."
+
+Poor old soul, it was not on account of her rheumatic legs, her toothless
+jaws, nor her half-blind eyes that she objected to play-parties, of
+course.
+
+"I got no use for 'em," she pursued truthfully, "specially when they're
+started up too close to a blockade still. They named it to me that Creed
+had done killed one of the Turrentine boys--is that so?"
+
+"No," returned Nancy stoutly. "By the best of what I kin git out o'
+Creed, him and Blatch was walkin' along, an' Blatch missed his footin'
+and fell off o' Foeman's Bluff. Creed tried to he'p him, an' fell an' got
+scratched some. I reckon the Turrentines'll tell it different, but that's
+what I make out from what Creed says."
+
+"Lord, how folks will lie!" admired Keziah, piously. "Now they tell that
+Blatch was not only killed up, but that some one--Creed, or some o' them
+that follers him--tuck the body away befo' they could git to it. They say
+they was blood all over the bushes, an' a great drug place whar Blatch
+had been toted off. One feller named a half-dug hole sorter like a grave;
+but thar! I never went over to see for myse'f, an' ye cain't believe the
+half o' what ye hear."
+
+"Well, I'd say not," snapped Nancy. "Not ef hit was sech a pack o' lies
+as that."
+
+Thread in hand old Keziah lingered till Arley Kittridge came with his
+mother's baking-pan and request for a little risin'. Arley it seemed had
+been commissioned to find out what he could on behalf of the Kittridge
+family. And so it went till breakfast-time.
+
+How these things travel in a neighbourhood where there is no telephone,
+postman, milkman, nor morning paper, and where the distances are
+considerable, is one of the mysteries of the mountains--yet travel they
+do, and when time came for court to open Creed found that he had a crowd
+which would at any other juncture have been highly gratifying.
+
+Every man that came in glanced first at the cut on his cheek, swiftly
+noted the pale face, sunken, purple-rimmed eyes, the scratched hands,
+then looked hastily away. Several made proffers of an alliance with him,
+being at outs with the Turrentines. All reiterated the story of the
+missing body.
+
+"You done exactly right," old Tubal Kittridge told him. "With a man like
+Blatchley Turrentine, hit's hit first or git hit. I wonder he ever let ye
+git as far as Foeman's Bluff; but if you made good use o' yo' time, I
+reckon you found out what you aimed to," and he winked laboriously at
+poor Creed's crimsoning countenance.
+
+"I wasn't trying to find out anything, Mr. Kittridge. Blatch forced the
+quarrel upon me. I was on my way home at the time."
+
+"Well, a lee-tle out of yo' way, wasn't ye?" objected Kittridge, slightly
+offended at not being offered Bonbright's confidence.
+
+The case on the docket, one that had interested Creed deeply, being the
+curious matter of a mountain creek which in the spring storms had changed
+its direction, scoured off a good field and flung it to the opposite side
+of the road, thus giving it to a new owner, dragged wearily. Who cared
+about the question of a few rods of mountain land, even if it had raised
+good tobacco, when the slayer of one of the bullies of the neighbourhood
+sat before them--a man who had not only killed his victim but had, within
+fifteen minutes, hidden all traces of the body--and the opening of a new
+feud was taking place before their eyes?
+
+At noon Creed, in despair, adjourned his court, setting a new date for
+trial, explaining that this Turrentine matter ought to be looked into,
+and he believed it was not a proper day for him to be otherwise engaged.
+Then he sought old Tubal Kittridge.
+
+"There's something I want you to do for me," he said.
+
+"Shore--shore; anything in the world," Kittridge agreed eagerly.
+
+"Aunt Nancy won't hear of my going over to the Turrentines'," hesitated
+Creed. "I looked for them to be here--some of them--long before this."
+
+"Huh-uh; ah, Law, no--they won't come in the daytime," smiled Kittridge.
+
+Creed looked annoyed.
+
+"They will be welcome, whenever they come," he asserted. "What I want you
+to do is to go to Jephthah Turrentine and say to him that I thought I
+ought to go over, and that I'll do so now if he wants me to--or I'll meet
+him here at the office, or anywhere he says."
+
+"Huh-uh--uh!" Old Tubal shook his head, his eyes closed in quite an
+ecstasy of negation. "You cain't git Jep Turrentine in the trap as easy
+as all that," he said half contemptuously. "Why, he'd know what you was
+at a leetle too quick."
+
+Bonbright looked helpless indignation for a moment, then thought better
+of it and repeated:
+
+"I want you to go and tell him that I'm right here, ready to answer for
+anything I've done, and that I would like to talk to him about it. Will
+you do it?"
+
+"Oh,--all right," agreed Kittridge in an offended tone. "There's plenty
+would stand by ye; there's plenty that would like to see the Turrentines
+run out of the country; but if ye want to fix it some new-fangled way I
+reckon you'll have to." And to himself he muttered as he took the road
+homeward, "I say go to the Turrentines with sech word at that! That boy
+must think I'm as big a fool as he is."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the Turrentine home life dragged on strangely. Jephthah in his own
+cabin, busied himself overhauling some harness. The boys had been across
+at the old place, presumably making a thorough inspection of the scene of
+the trouble. Judith went mechanically about her tasks, cooking and
+serving the meals, setting the house in order. Only once did she rouse
+somewhat, and that was when Huldah Spiller flounced in and flung herself
+tempestuously down in a chair.
+
+"How you come on, Judy?" inquired the red-haired damsel.
+
+"About as usual," returned Judith coldly, and would fain have added,
+"none the better for seeing you."
+
+"I jest had to run over and see how you was standin' it," Huldah pursued
+vivaciously. "I cried all night--didn't you?"
+
+"What for?" inquired Judith angrily.
+
+"Oh--I don't know. I'm jest thataway. Git me started an' thar's no
+stoppin' me. But then I've knowed Creed so mighty long--him an' me was
+powerful good friends, and my feelin's is more tenderer than some folks's
+anyhow."
+
+"Huldy," said Judith in a tone so rigidly controlled that it made the
+other jump, "ef you'll jest walk yo'self out of here I'll be obliged to
+you. I've stood all I can. I don't want to say anything plumb bad to you,
+but ef you set thar an' talk to me like that for another minute I will."
+
+"Oh, you po' thing!" cried Huldah, jumping to her feet. "I declare to
+goodness I forgot all about you an' Blatch. Here I've been carryin' on
+over Creed Bonbright--and you mighty near a widder. You po' thing!"
+
+Judith faced around with such blazing eyes from the biscuits she was
+moulding that Huldah beat a hasty retreat, dodged out of the door, and
+ran up the slope. At Jim Cal's cabin she paused and looked about her
+uncertainly. Iley had the toothache, and for various reasons was proving
+a poor audience for her younger sister's conversation. The day had been a
+trying one to Huldah's excited nerves, a sad anti-climax after the
+explosions of the night before. It was five o'clock. The men were all
+over at the old place. If she but had an excuse to follow them, now. Why,
+the whole top of the Bald above Foeman's Bluff, and the broad shelf below
+it, were covered with huckleberry bushes! She put her head in at the
+door. Iley looked up from the hot brick which she was wrapping in a wet
+cloth with ten drops of turpentine on it preparatory to applying the same
+to her cheek above the swollen tooth.
+
+"Ef you say 'Creed Bonbright'--or 'kill'--or 'Blatch Turrentine,'--to me,
+I vow I'll hit ye," she warned shrilly. "I ain't never raised hand on ye
+yet sence ye was a woman grown, but do it I will!"
+
+"I wasn't goin' to say nothin' about nothin'," asserted Huldah
+sweepingly. "I was jest goin' to ax did ye want any huckleberries, and
+git a pail to pick some."
+
+She sought out a small tin lard bucket as she spoke, and Iley's silence
+presumably assenting, within twenty minutes was picking away eagerly on
+the Bald above the bluff.
+
+Below her stretched meadows drunk with sun--breathless. A rain crow
+called from time to time "C-c-c-cow! cow! cow!" The air was still heavy
+with faint noon-day smells, the sky tarnished with heat.
+
+"I wonder where in all creation them boys has got theirselves to," she
+ruminated as she peered about, dragging green berries and leaves into her
+bucket, for which Mrs. Jim Cal would afterward no doubt scold her
+soundly. "'Pears to me like I hearn somebody talkin' somewhars."
+
+She pushed cautiously down to the edge of the rocks where the bushes grew
+scatteringly, pretending to herself that she wanted a bit of wild
+geranium that flourished in a crevice far below the top. Setting down her
+pail she threw herself on her face, her arms over the edge, and reached.
+But the fingers hung suspended, opened in air, her mouth open too, and
+she listened greedily to faint sounds of men's voices.
+
+"I'll bet it's old Ab Foeman's hideout that nobody but him and the
+Cherokees knowed of," she muttered to herself. "Some one's found it
+and--Lord, look at that!"
+
+From the bushes below her, coming apparently out of the living rock
+itself, crept Andy, and then Jeff Turrentine. Now she could see the
+narrow, door-like opening of the cave which had given them up, and
+realised how, from below, it passed for a mere depression in the rock.
+
+Huldah drew back silently, inch by inch, and instinctively pulled her
+black calico sunbonnet over her red curls as she crouched down among the
+huckleberry bushes. When she looked again Andy and Jeff had disappeared,
+but she could see the head and shoulders of a man who still lay at the
+cave's mouth--and that man was Blatch Turrentine!
+
+At first she shuddered, thinking that she had come upon the dead body;
+then she noted a tiny trail of smoke, and, by craning a little farther
+around, saw that Blatchley lay at ease with a pipe in his mouth,
+smoking.
+
+"The triflin', low-down, lyin' hound!" she muttered to herself. "I'm
+a-goin' this very minute and tell Creed Bonbright."
+
+She hesitated, glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the
+Turrentine cabin, then bent dubiously and set up her overturned bucket.
+Not a berry had spilled from it, yet the sight of its mishap gave her an
+idea. Quietly slipping through the bushes till she was far enough away to
+dare run, she hurried home to the cabin.
+
+"Iley," she gasped, as soon as she put her head in at the door, "I upsot
+my berry pail and lost most of the fruit. Can you make out with that?"
+and she set the little bucket on the table.
+
+"I reckon I'll have to, ef you've got so work-brickle ye won't pick any
+more," returned Iley.
+
+"I would--I'd git ye all ye need," protested Huldah with unexpected
+meekness, "but I'm jest obliged to go over to--" she had all but said
+Creed Bonbright's, but she caught herself in time and concluded lamely.
+"I jest have obliged to run down to Clianthy Lusk's and see can she let
+me have her crochet needle for to finish up my shawl."
+
+She delayed for no criticism or demur on Iley's part, but was off with
+the last word, and once out of sight of Jim Cal's cabin she took a short
+cut through the woods and ran; but in spite of her best efforts darkness
+began to gather before she won to the high road, for the evening had
+closed in early, thick and threatening; a mountain thunder-storm was
+brewing. Opposite a tempestuous, magnificent sunset, there had reared in
+the eastern sky a tremendous thunder-head, a palace of a thousand snowy
+domes, turning to gold, and then flushing from base to crown like a
+gigantic many-petalled rose. It swept steadily up and over, hiding the
+sky, and leaving the earth in almost complete darkness. There were low
+rolls of thunder, at first mellow and almost musical, crashing always
+louder and stronger as they came nearer. The wind thrashed and yelled
+through the tossing forest; and as she approached the Card cabin she
+heard the banging of barn shutters, the whipping of tree boughs against
+the windows. There were the first spears of rain flung at roof and door;
+and it was in the torrent itself which followed fast that Huldah beat
+upon that closed door, giving her name and demanding entrance. Within,
+Creed Bonbright sprang up from where he sat with a book in his hand, his
+eyes fixed on vacancy, and would have answered her, but Old Nancy put a
+hasty palm over his lips.
+
+"Hush--for God's sake," she whispered.
+
+They stood in the lighted cabin, all on foot by this time, and listened
+intently, tall Creed, the little grey-haired woman clinging to him and
+restraining him, Doss with his light eyes goggling, and Little Buck and
+Beezy hand in hand, studying their grandmother's face, not their
+father's.
+
+"Who is it?" quavered Nancy. "I'm all alone in here, and I'm scared to
+let wayfarers in."
+
+"It's me--Huldy Spiller--Aunt Nancy," called back the voice in the rain.
+
+"Well, I vow! You know how things air, Huldy--what do ye want, chile?"
+
+"I want Creed Bonbright. I've got something to tell him."
+
+"Thar--ye see now," breathed the old woman, turning toward Creed. Then
+she raised her voice.
+
+"He ain't here, honey," she lied unhesitatingly.
+
+"Why don't ye go to his office--that's whar he stays at."
+
+"Oh, for the Lord's sake--Aunt Nancy!" came back the girl's shrill,
+terrified tones. "I've done been to the office; I know in reason Creed
+ain't there, or he'd a-answered me. Please let me in; I'm scared some of
+the Turrentines'll come an' ketch me."
+
+At this Creed strode to the door, Nancy dragging back on his arm and Buck
+and Beezy seconding her with all their small might, while Provine
+spluttered ineffectually in the background.
+
+"Hit's a lie," hissed Nancy. "She's a decoy. Ef you open that thar do'
+with the light on ye, they'll shoot ye over her shoulders. Hit was did to
+my man thataway in feud times. Don't you open the do' Creed."
+
+"Why, Aunt Nancy," remonstrated Creed, almost smiling, "this isn't like
+you. There's nothing but a girl there in the rain. Keep out of range if
+you're scared. I'm sure going to open that door."
+
+[Illustration: "They stood in the lighted cabin and listened intently."]
+
+As he made ready to do so Nancy flew back to the table and blew out the
+light, and the next minute Huldah Spiller, dripping like a mermaid, was
+standing in the middle of the darkened room, and Doss Provine, breathing
+short, was barring the door behind her.
+
+"Who's here?" gasped the girl peering about the gloom. "What air you-all
+a-goin' to do to me?"
+
+Nancy relighted the lamp and set it on the table, and Huldah discovered
+with a long-drawn sobbing sigh of relief that there was no one save the
+immediate family present.
+
+"I came quick as I could," she began in the middle of her story, grasping
+Creed by the arm and shaking him in the violence of her emotion and
+insistence. "Blatch Turrentine's alive. Andy and Jeff have got him hid
+out. I seed him myse'f with my own eyes, in a hideout thar below Foeman's
+Bluff, not more'n a hour ago. I'll bet he aims to layway you, ef he
+cain't git ye hung for murderin' of him. You got to git out o' here. It
+was as much as my life was worth to come over and tell ye. I'm afraid to
+go back. I'm goin' right on down to Hepzibah and stay thar."
+
+"Come up closeter to the fire," commanded Nancy, who had watched the girl
+keenly throughout her recital. "Doss, put some sticks on and git a little
+blaze so she can dry herself. Huldy, you're a good girl to come over and
+warn Creed--when was you aimin' to go to Hepzibah?" She looked up from
+the hearth where she knelt with the frankest inquiring gaze.
+
+"To-night--right now," half whimpered Huldah. "I'm scared to go back. I'm
+scared to be here on the mountain at all."
+
+"And did ye aim to have Creed go along of ye?" old Nancy questioned
+mildly.
+
+"Yes--yes--he'd better," agreed Huldah hysterically. "Hit's the onliest
+way for him now."
+
+Nancy caught Creed's eye above the girl's drenched head, and shook her
+own warningly. Leaving Doss to look after the newcomer, she drew the
+young justice into the kitchen.
+
+"Whatever ye do," she warned him hastily, "don't you put out with that
+red-headed gal in the dark. Things may be adzackly as she says--looks to
+me like she thinks she's a-speakin' the truth; but then agin the
+Turrentines might a' sent her for to draw you out. They wouldn't like to
+shoot ye in my cabin, 'caze they know me and my kinfolks would be apt to
+raise a fuss; but halfway down the mountain with this sweetheart of
+Wade's--huh-uh, boy; I reckon they could tell their own tale then, of how
+you come by yo' death. Don't you go with her."
+
+"I wasn't aiming to, Aunt Nancy," said Creed quietly. "As soon as I heard
+that Blatch Turrentine was alive, I intended to go right over and have a
+talk with old Jephthah. He's a fair-minded man, and if he is informed
+that his nephew is living I think he and I can come to terms."
+
+"Fa'r-minded man!" echoed Nancy contemptuously. "Jephthah Turrentine a
+fa'r-minded man! Well, Creed, ef I hadn't no better eye for a fat chicken
+than you have for a fa'r-minded man, you wouldn't enjoy yo' dinner at my
+table as well as you do. I say fa'r-minded! This thing has got into a
+feud, boy, and in a feud you cain't trust nobody--_nobody_!"
+
+Creed went back into the room, and Nancy reluctantly followed him. Huldah
+was getting dry and warm, and that fluent tongue of hers was impatiently
+silent. As soon as she saw the returning pair she began to repeat again
+the details of her information--how she had glimpsed the hidden man
+through the bushes, how she knew in reason he could be none other than
+Blatch. Nancy exchanged a glance of intelligence with Creed.
+
+"Ye see!" she murmured, aside. "Ef she _ain't_ a decoy they've sont, she
+don't know nothin' for sartin."
+
+"I'm scared of all the Turrentines," Huldah declared. "They're awful
+folks. From the old man down to Jude, they scare me. I reckon Jude's had
+a big hand in this," she went on excitedly. "Her and Blatch is goin' to
+wed shortly, and she'd be shore to know any meanness he was into. I'll be
+glad to git shet of sech. When you're ready to be a-steppin' Creed, I
+am."
+
+She looked up at the young fellow with a sort of unwilling worship.
+
+"I don't aim to go with you, Huldah," he said gently. "You love Wade
+Turrentine, and Wade loves you; you was to be wedded this fall. I don't
+aim for any affairs of mine to part you two."
+
+The girl hung her head, painfully flushed, her eyes full of tears.
+
+"I don't care nothin' about Wade," she choked. "Him and me has----"
+
+"I reckon you've quarrelled" said Creed, sympathetically. "That needn't
+come to anything. I'm going over and talk to Jephthah Turrentine
+to-morrow morning, and I want you to come with me!"
+
+"No," said Huldah getting to her feet and looking strangely at him. "The
+rain's about done now; the moon'll be comin' up in half a hour--I'm
+a-goin' on down to Hepzibah, like I said I was. Ef Wade Turrentine wants
+me, he knows whar to come for me. Ef he thinks of me as he said he did
+the last time we had speech together--w'y, I never want to put eyes on
+his face again. Oh--Creed, I wish't you'd come with me!"
+
+"But it was me you quarrelled about," remonstrated Bonbright with that
+sudden clear vision which ultra-spiritual natures often show, and that
+startling forthrightness of speech which amazes and daunts the
+mountaineer. "I'm the last man you ought to leave the mountain with,
+Huldah, if you want to make up with Wade."
+
+"How--how did you know?" whispered the girl, staring at him. "Well,
+anyhow, I ain't never a-goin' back thar."
+
+She could not be prevailed on to go to bed with Aunt Nancy, when Doss
+Provine and the children were asleep, and Creed had gone to his quarters
+in the little office building, but sat by the fire all night staring into
+the embers, occasionally stirring them or putting on a stick of wood. At
+the earliest grey of dawn she waked Nancy, bidding the elder woman fasten
+the door after her. Declining in strangely subdued fashion her hostess's
+offer of hot coffee, she stepped noiselessly out and, with a swift look
+about, dived into the steep short-cut trail which led almost straight
+down the face of Big Turkey Track, from turn to turn of the main road.
+
+A cloud clung to the Side; the foliage of only the foremost trees emerged
+from its blur, and these were dimmed and flatted as though a soft white
+veil were tangled among their leaves. Into this white mystery of dawn the
+girl had vanished.
+
+Nancy looked curiously after her a moment, then glanced swiftly about as
+Huldah had done, her eyes dwelling long on Creed's little shack, standing
+peaceful in the morning mists. Softly she turned back, and closed and
+barred the door.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+In the Lion's Den
+
+
+At seven o'clock, despite entreaties and warnings, Creed mounted his mule
+and set out for the Turrentine place.
+
+"Don't you trust nothin' nor nobody over thar," Nancy followed him out to
+the gate to reiterate. "Old Jephthah Turrentine's as big a rascal as
+they' is unhung. No--I wouldn't trust Judith neither (hush now, Little
+Buck; you don't know what granny's a-talkin' about); she's apt to git
+some fool gal's notion o' being jealous o' Huldy, or something like that,
+and see you killed as cheerful as I'd wring a chicken's neck. (For the
+Lord's sake, Doss, take these chil'en down to the spring branch; they
+mighty nigh run me crazy with they' fussin' an' cryin'!) Don't you trust
+none on 'em, boy."
+
+"Why, Aunt Nancy, I trust everybody on that whole place, excepting
+Blatchley Turrentine," said Creed sturdily. "Even Andy and Jeff, if I had
+a chance to talk to them, could be got to see reason. They're not the
+bloodthirsty crew you make them out. They're good folks."
+
+She looked at him in exasperation, yet with a sort of reluctant approval
+and admiration.
+
+"Well," she sighed, as she saw him mount and start, "mebbe yo' safer
+goin' right smack into the lion's den, like Dan'el, than you would be to
+sneak up."
+
+Summer was at full tide, and the world had been new washed last night.
+Scents of mint and pennyroyal rose up under his mule's slow pacing feet.
+The meadow that stretched beyond Nancy's cabin was a green sea, with
+flower foam of white weed and dog-fennel; and the fence row was a long
+breaker with surf of elder blossom, the garden a tangle of bean-vine
+arbours. The corn patch rustled valiantly; the pastures were streaked
+with pale yellow primroses; and Bob Whites ran through the young crops,
+calling.
+
+Creed rode forward. A gay wind was abroad under the blue sky. Every
+tiniest leaf that danced and flirted on its slender stem sent back gleams
+of the morning sunlight from its wet, glistening surface. The woods were
+full of bird songs, and the myriad other lesser voices of a midsummer
+morning sounded clear and distinct upon the vast, enfolding silence of
+the mountains.
+
+It seemed beyond reason out in that gay July sunshine that anything dark
+or tragic could happen to one. But after all man cannot be so different
+from Nature which produces him, and the night before had given them a
+passionate, brief, destructive thunder-storm. Creed noted the ravages of
+it here and there; the broken boughs, the levelled or uprooted herbage,
+the washed and riven soil, as his mule moved soberly along.
+
+At the Turrentine cabin all was quiet. The young men of the house had
+been out the entire night before guarding the trails that Creed Bonbright
+should not leave the mountains secretly. A good deal of moonshine whiskey
+went to this night guarding, particularly when there was the excuse of a
+shower to call for it, and the watchers of the trails now lay in their
+beds making up arrears of sleep. Jephthah stood looking out of his own
+cabin door when, about fifteen minutes ahead of Creed, Taylor Stribling
+tethered his half-broken little filly in the bushes at the edge of the
+clearing, and ran across the grassy side yard.
+
+"Bonbright's out an' a-headin' this way!" he volleyed in a hoarse whisper
+as he approached the head of the clan.
+
+"Who's with him?" asked Jephthah, turning methodically back into the room
+for the squirrel gun over the door.
+
+"Nobody. He ain't got no rifle. I reckon he's packin' a pistol, though,
+of course. Nancy Cyard bawled an' took on considerable when he started.
+Shall I call the boys?"
+
+"No," returned Jephthah briefly, replacing the clean brown rifle on its
+fir pegs. "No, I don't need nobody, and I don't need Old Sister. I reckon
+I can deal with one young feller alone."
+
+He walked unhurriedly toward the main house. Stribling stood looking
+after him a moment, uncertainly. The spy's errand was performed. He had
+now his dismissal; it would not do to be seen about the place at this
+time. He went reluctantly back to the waiting filly, mounted and turned
+her head toward a high point that commanded the big road for some
+distance. A little later Jephthah Turrentine sat in the open
+threshing-floor porch of the main house smoking, Judith within was busy
+looking over and washing a mess of Indian lettuce and sissles in a
+piggin, when Creed rode into the yard.
+
+The ancient hound thumped twice with a languid tail on the floor; Judith,
+back in her kitchen, stayed her hand, and stared out at the newcomer with
+parted lips which the blood forsook; Jephthah's inscrutable black eyes
+rose to Creed's face and rested there; nothing but that aspect, pale,
+desolate, ravaged, the strip of plaster running from brow to cheek,
+marked the difference between this visit and any other.
+
+Yet the old house seemed to crouch close, to regard him askance from
+under lowering eyes, as though through all its timbers ran the message
+that the enemy was here.
+
+"Good morning," he hailed.
+
+"Howdy. 'Light--'light and come in," Jephthah adjured him, without
+rising, "I'm proud to see ye."
+
+His own countenance was worn and haggard with sleeplessness and anxiety,
+but with the mountaineer's dignified reticence he passively ignored the
+fact, assuming a detached manner of mild jocularity.
+
+Creed, under inspection from six pairs of eyes, though there was only one
+individual visible to him, got from his mule, tethered the animal, and
+came and seated himself on the porch edge.
+
+"Aunt Nancy didn't want me to come over this morning," he began with that
+directness which always amazed his Turkey Track neighbours and put them
+all astray as to the man, his real meaning and intentions.
+
+"Well, now--didn't she?" inquired the other innocently. "Hit was a fine
+mornin' for a ride, too, and I 'low ye' had yo' reasons for comin' in
+this direction--not but what we're proud to see ye on business or on
+pleasure."
+
+"Are any of the boys about?" asked Creed, suddenly looking up.
+
+"I don't know adzackly whar the boys is at," compromised Jephthah,
+soothing his conscience with the fiction that one might be lying in one
+bed and another in some place to him unknown. "Was there any particular
+one you wanted to see?"
+
+"I was looking for Wade," said Creed briefly, and a silent shock went
+through one of the men kneeling on the bed inside the log wall, peering
+through a chink at the visitor.
+
+Judith could bear the strain no longer. Torn by diverse emotions, she
+snatched up a bucket, ran out of the back door and down to the spring.
+Returning with it, and her composure somewhat repaired, she dipped a cool
+and dripping gourdful, walked swiftly through the front room and stood
+abruptly before Creed, presenting it with almost no word of greeting,
+only the customary, "Would ye have a fresh drink?"
+
+"Thank you," said Creed taking the gourd from her hand and lifting his
+eyes to her face. He needed no prompting now; his own heart spoke very
+clearly; he knew as he looked at her that she was all the world to
+him--and that he was utterly lost and cut off from her.
+
+Jephthah, on the porch, and those unseen eyes within, watched the two
+curiously, while Creed drank from the gourd, emptied out what water
+remained, and returned it to Judith, and she all the while regarded him
+with a burning gaze, finally bursting out:
+
+"What do you want to see Wade about? Is it--is it Huldy?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Judith, it's Huldah," Creed assented quietly.
+
+"I don't know as its worth while talkin' to Wade about that thar gal,"
+put in Jephthah meditatively. "She sorter sidled off last night and left
+the place, and I think he feels kinder pestered and mad like. My boys is
+all mighty peaceful in their dispositions, but it ain't the best to talk
+to any man when he's had that which riles him."
+
+"Whar is Huldy Spiller?" demanded Judith standing straight and tall
+before the visitor, disdaining the indirection of her uncle's methods.
+"Is she over at you-all's?"
+
+"That's what I wanted to talk to Wade about," returned Creed evasively.
+"Huldah's a good girl, and I'm sorry if he thinks--I'd hate to be the one
+that----"
+
+For a moment Judith stared at him with incredulous anger, then she
+wheeled sharply, went into the house and shut the door. Creed turned
+appealingly to the older man. He had great faith in Jephthah Turrentine's
+good sense and cool judgment. But the young justice showed in many ways
+less comprehension of these, his own people, than an outsider born and
+bred. Jephthah Turrentine was no longer to be reckoned with as a man--he
+was the head of a tribe, and that tribe was at war.
+
+"I don't know as that thar gal is worth namin' at this time," he
+vouchsafed, almost plaintively. "Ef she had taken Jim Cal's Iley 'long
+with her, I could fergive the both of 'em and wish ye joy. As it is,
+she's neither here nor thar. Ef you had nothin' better to name to my son
+Wade, mebbe we'd as well talk of the craps, and about Steve Massengale
+settin' out to run for the Legislature."
+
+Creed stood up, and in so doing let the little packet of papers he held
+in his hand drop unnoted to the grass. He scorned to make an appeal for
+himself, yet it seemed worth while to let his adversaries know that he
+was aware what they would be at.
+
+"Who found Blatch Turrentine's body and removed it?" he asked abruptly.
+
+Blatch's body,--unknown to his uncle and Judith--at that moment reposing
+comfortably upon a bed in the loft room adjoining the porch, heaved with
+noiseless chuckles.
+
+Old Jephthah's eyes narrowed. "We 'low that ye might answer that question
+for yo'self," he said coolly. "Word goes that you've done hid the body,
+so murder couldn't be proved."
+
+The visitor sighed. He was disappointed. He had hoped the old man might
+have admitted--to him--that Blatch had not been killed.
+
+"Mr. Turrentine," he began desperately, "I know what you people believe
+about me--but it isn't true; I'm not a spy. When I came upon that still,
+I was running for my life. I never wanted to know anything about
+blockaded stills."
+
+"Ye talked sort o' like ye did, here earlier in the evenin'," said the
+old man, rearing himself erect in his chair, and glaring upon the fool
+who spoke out in broad daylight concerning such matters.
+
+"I didn't mean that personally," protested Creed. "I wish to the Lord I
+didn't know anything about it. I'm sorry it chanced that I looked in the
+cave there and saw your son----"
+
+"You needn't go into no particulars about whar you looked in, nor what
+you seed, nor call out no names of them you seed," cut in the old man's
+voice, low and menacing; and around the corner of the house Jim Cal,
+where he had stolen up to listen, trembled through all the soft bulk of
+his body like a jelly; and into his white face the angry blood rushed.
+
+"Wish ye didn't know nothin? Yes, and you'll wish't it wuss'n that befo'
+yo're done with it," he muttered under his breath.
+
+"I don't intend to use that or any other information against a neighbour
+and a friend," Creed went on doggedly. "But they can't make me leave the
+Turkey Tracks. I'm here to stay. I came with a work to do, and I mean to
+do it or die trying."
+
+The old man's head was sunk a bit on his breast, so that the great black
+beard rose up of itself and shadowed his lower face. "Mighty fine--mighty
+fine," he murmured in its voluminous folds. "Ef they is one thing finer
+than doin' what you set out to do, hit's to die a-tryin'. The sort of
+sentiments you have on hand now is the kind I l'arned myself out of the
+blue-backed speller when I was a boy. I mind writin' em out big an' plain
+after the teacher's copy."
+
+Creed looked about him for Judith. He had failed with the old man, but
+she would understand--she would know. His hungry heart counselled him
+that she was his best friend, and he glanced wistfully at the door
+through which she had vanished; but it remained obstinately closed as he
+made his farewells, got dispiritedly to his mule and away.
+
+Judith watched his departure from an upper window, smitten to the heart
+by the drooping lines of the figure, the bend of the yellow head.
+Inexorably drawn she came down the steep stairs, checking, halting at
+every step, her breast heaving with the swift alternations of her mood.
+The door of the boys' room swung wide; her swift glance descried Wade's
+figure just vanishing into the grove at the edge of the clearing.
+
+The tall, gaunt old man brooded in his chair, his black eyes fixed on
+vacancy, the pipe in his relaxed fingers dropped to his knee. Up toward
+the Jim Cal cabin Iley, one baby on her hip and two others clinging to
+her skirts, dodged behind a convenient smoke-house, and peered out
+anxiously.
+
+Judith stepped noiselessly into the porch; the old man did not turn his
+head. Her quick eye noted the paper Creed had dropped. She stooped and
+picked it up unobserved, slipped into the kitchen, studying its lines of
+figures which meant nothing to her, caught up her sunbonnet and, glancing
+warily about, made an exit through the back door. She ran through a long
+grape-arbour where great wreathing arms of Virgin's Bower aided to shut
+the green tunnel in from sight, then took a path where tall bushes
+screened her, making for the short cut which she guessed Creed would
+take.
+
+Down the little dell through which she herself had ridden that first day
+with what wonderful thoughts of him in her heart, she got sight of him,
+going slowly, the lagging gait of the old mule seeming to speak his own
+depression. The trees were all vigorous young second growth here, and
+curtained the slopes with billows of green. The drying ground sent up a
+spicy mingling of odours--decaying pine needles, heart leaf, wintergreen
+berries, and the very soil itself.
+
+Bumblebees shouldered each other clumsily about the heads of milk-weed
+blossoms. Cicada droned in long, loud crescendo and diminuendo under the
+hot sun of mid forenoon. A sensitive plant, or as Judith herself would
+have said, a "shame briar," caught at her skirts as she hastened. Dipping
+deeper into the hollow, the man ahead, riding with his gaze upon the
+ground, became aware of the sound of running feet behind him, and then a
+voice which made his pulses leap called his name in suppressed, cautious
+tones. He looked back to see Judith hurrying after him, her cheeks aflame
+from running, the sunbonnet carried in her hand, and her dark locks
+freeing themselves in little moist tendrils about her brow where the tiny
+beads of perspiration gathered.
+
+"You dropped this," she panted, offering the paper when she came abreast
+of him.
+
+For a moment she stood by the old mule's shoulder looking up into the
+eyes of his rider. It was the reversal of that first day when Creed had
+stood so looking up at her. Some memory of it struggled in her, and
+appealed for his life, anyhow, from that fierce primitive jealousy which
+would have sacrificed the lover of the other woman.
+
+"I--I knowed the paper wasn't likely anything you needed," she told him.
+"I jest had to have speech with you alone. I want to warn you. The boys
+is out after you. They ain't no hope, ef the Turrentines gits after you.
+Likely we're both watched right now. You'll have to leave the
+mountains."
+
+Creed got quickly from the mule and stood facing her, a little pale and
+very stern.
+
+"Do you hold with them?" he asked. "I had no intention of killing Blatch.
+The quarrel was forced on me, as they would say if they told the truth."
+
+"Well, they won't tell the truth," said Judith impatiently. "What differ
+does it make how come it? They're bound to run ye out. Hit's a question
+of yo' life ef ye don't go. I--I don't know what makes me come an' warn
+ye--but you and Huldy had better git to the settlement as soon as ye
+can."
+
+Creed saw absolutely nothing in her coupling of his name with Huldah
+Spiller's, but the fact that both were under the displeasure of the
+Turrentines. She searched his face with hungry gaze for some sign of
+denial of that which she imputed. Instead, she met a look of swift
+distress.
+
+"I've got to see Wade about Huldah," Creed asserted doggedly. "I promised
+her--I told her----"
+
+Judith drew back.
+
+"Well, see Wade then!" she choked. "There he is," and she pointed to the
+wall of greenery behind which her quicker eyes had detected a man who
+stole, rifle on shoulder, through the bushes toward a point by the
+path-side.
+
+"What do I care?" she flung at him. "What is it to me?--you and your
+Huldy, and your grand plans, and your killin' up folks and a-gittin' run
+out o' the Turkey Tracks! Settle it as best ye may--I've said my last
+word!"
+
+Her breast heaved convulsively. Bitter, corroding tears burned in her
+flashing eyes; rage, jealousy, thwarted passion, tenderness denied, and
+utter terror of the outcome--the time after--all these tore her like wild
+wolves, as she turned and fled swiftly up the path she had come.
+
+The pale young fellow with the marred, stricken face, standing by the
+mule, looked after her heavily. Those flying feet were carrying away from
+him, out of his life, all that made that life beautiful and blest. Yet
+Creed set his jaw resolutely, and facing about once more, addressed
+himself to the situation as it was.
+
+"Wade--Wade Turrentine!" he called. "Come out of there. I see you. Come
+out and talk to me."
+
+With all the composure in life Wade slouched into the opening of the
+path.
+
+"You've got good eyes," was his sole comment. Then, as the other seemed
+slow to begin, "What might you want speech with me about?" he inquired.
+
+"It's about Huldah," Creed opened the question volubly now. "You love
+her, and she loves you. She came over to warn me because we are old
+acquaintances and friends, and I guess she don't want you to get into
+trouble. Is it true that her life is not safe if she stays here on the
+mountain?"
+
+Wade's pleasant hazel eyes narrowed and hardened.
+
+"You're a mighty busy somebody about things that don't consarn ye," he
+remarked finally.
+
+"But this does concern me," Creed insisted. "I can't be the cause of
+breaking up a match between you and Huldah----"
+
+He would have gone further, but Wade interrupted shaking his head.
+
+"No--I reckon you cain't. Hit'd take more than you to break up any match
+I was suited with. Mebbe I don't want no woman that's liable to hike out
+and give me away whenever she takes the notion."
+
+"Oh, come now, Wade," said Bonbright, with good-natured entreaty in his
+voice. "You know she wouldn't give you away. She didn't mean any harm to
+you. I'll bet you've done plenty of things twice as bad, if Huldah had
+the knowing of them."
+
+"Mebbe I have," agreed Wade, temperately, and suddenly one saw the
+resemblance to his father. "Mebbe I have--but ye see I ain't the one
+that's bein' met up with right now. I ain't carin' which nor whether
+about Huldy Spiller; but _you've_ got to walk yo'self from the Turkey
+Tracks--and walk sudden and walk straight, Mr. Creed Bonbright--or you'll
+come to more trouble with the Turrentines. I tell ye this in pure good
+will."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+In the Night
+
+
+In dark silence Judith made ready a late breakfast for the boys, leaving
+her coffee-pot as of custom on its bed of coals in the ashes, hot bread
+in the Dutch oven, and a platter of meat on the table. Jeff and Andy
+straggled in and ate, helping themselves mutely, with sidelong glances at
+her stormy face.
+
+During the entire forenoon Wade was off the place, but the twins put in
+their time at the pasture over the breaking of a colt to harness. Old
+Jephthah was in his room with the door shut. Jim Cal, almost immediately
+on Creed's departure, had retired to the shelter of his own four walls,
+and, sick and trembling, taken to his bed, after his usual custom when
+the skies of life darkened.
+
+Dinner was got ready with the same fury of mechanical energy. During its
+preparation Iley stole to the door and looked in. The only women on the
+place, held outside the councils of the men, she longed to make some
+unformulated appeal to Judith, to have at least such help and comfort as
+might come from talking over the situation with her. But when the
+desolate dark eyes looked full into hers, and uttered as plainly as words
+the question that the sister dreaded, Jim Cal's wife turned and fled.
+
+"She might as well 'a' said 'Huldy,'" whimpered the vixen, plucking at
+her lip and hurrying back, head down, to her own cabin.
+
+The day dragged its slow length. The sun in the doorway had crept to the
+noon-mark, and away again. Flies buzzed. A cicada droned without. The old
+hound padded in to lie down under the bed.
+
+After dinner Jephthah went away somewhere, and the boys gathered in their
+room, whence Judith could hear the clink and snap which advised her that
+the guns were having a thorough overhauling, cleaning, and oiling. She
+looked helplessly at the door. What could she do? Follow Creed as Huldah
+had done? At the thought, all her bitterness surged back upon her. What
+had she been able to accomplish when she stood face to face alone with
+him on the woods-path? Nothing. She turned and addressed herself once
+more savagely to her tasks. That was what women were for--women and
+mules. Men had the say-so in this world. She--she the owner of this
+house, its real mistress--was to cook three meals a day for the men
+folks, and see nothing and say nothing.
+
+Supper was the only meal at which the entire family gathered that day. It
+was eaten in an almost unbroken silence, the younger boys plainly
+hesitating to speak to either Judith or their father. Save for elliptical
+requests for food, the only conversation was when Wade offered the
+opinion that it looked like it might rain before morning, and his father
+replied that he did not think it would. Leaving the table without further
+word, Jephthah returned to his own quarters; the boys drifted away one by
+one giving no destination.
+
+The light that used to wink out in friendly fashion from the smaller
+cabin across the slope was darkened. Jim Cal had crawled out of bed after
+a somewhat prolonged conversation with Wade. A little later he had
+sullenly harnessed up a mule of Blatch's and, with Iley and the children,
+started for old Jesse Spiller's, out at Big Buck Gap, the sister
+maintaining to the last that Huldah must certainly have gone out to
+pap's, and would be found waiting for them at the old home.
+
+There was nobody left on the place but Judith and her uncle. The girl
+went automatically about her Saturday evening duties, working doggedly,
+trying to tire herself out so that she might sleep when the time came
+that there was nothing to do but go to bed. As she passed from her
+storeroom, which she had got Wade to build in the back end of the
+threshing-floor porch, to the great open fireplace where a kettle hung
+with white beans boiling that would be served with dumplings for the
+Sunday dinner, as she took down and sorted over towels and cloths that
+were not needed, but which made a pretext for activity, her mind ground
+steadily upon the happenings of the past days. She could see Creed's face
+before her as he had looked the night of the play-party. What coarse,
+crude animals the other men were beside him! She could hear his voice as
+it spoke to her in the dark yard at the Bonbright place, and her breath
+caught in her throat.
+
+She must be up and away; she must go to him and warn him, protect him
+against these her fierce kindred.
+
+Then suddenly came the vision of Creed's laughing mouth as he bent to
+claim the forfeited kiss when Huldah Spiller had openly pushed herself
+across the line "and mighty nigh into his arms." Huldah had run hot-foot
+to warn him. Arley Kittridge brought word of having seen her dodge into
+the Card orchard on her way to the house on the evening before, and
+nobody had had sight of her since.
+
+Judith's was a nature swayed by impulse, more capable than she herself
+was aware of noble action, but capable also of sudden, irrational
+cruelty. Just now her soul was at war with itself, embittered by rage, by
+what she had done, by what she had left undone, by her helplessness, by
+what she desired to do. Finally, despairing of any weariness bringing
+sleep--she had tried that the night before and failed--she put by her
+work and went up to her room, undressed and lay down in the dark.
+
+For a long time she interrogated the blackness about her with wide open
+eyes. The house was strangely still. She could hear the movement and
+squawk of a chicken in one of the trees in the side yard when some fellow
+lodger disturbed it, or a sudden breeze shook the limb upon which it
+roosted. She wondered if the boys had come back yet and slipped in
+quietly. Had she slept at all? About eleven o'clock there arose an
+unquiet, gusty, yet persistent wind, that moved the cedar tree against
+the edge of the porch roof and set it complaining. For a time it moaned
+and protested like a man under the knife. Then its deep baritone voice
+began to cry out as though it were calling upon her. The tree had long
+ceased to mean anything other than Creed to Judith, and now its outcry
+aroused her to an absolute terror. Again and again as the wind the tree,
+so those tones shook her heart with their pain and love and anguish of
+entreaty.
+
+Finally she arose in a kind of torture, slipped on her clothes and went
+through all the rooms. They were silent and empty. Not a bed had been
+disturbed. She breathed loud and short in irrepressible excitement.
+
+"They're all over at the still," she whispered, clutching at the breast
+of her dress, and shivering. But the old man never went near the still,
+she knew that. For a while she struggled with herself, and then she said,
+"I'll just go and listen outside of Uncle Jep's door. That won't do any
+harm. Ef so be he's thar, then the boys is shore at the still. Ef he
+ain't----"
+
+She left her mentally formed sentence unfinished and, on feet that fear
+winged, stole through the side yard, across the long, lush, uncut grass
+to her uncle's door.
+
+The old man must have been a light sleeper, or perhaps he was awake
+before she approached, for he called out while she yet stood irresolute,
+her hand stretched toward the big wooden latch.
+
+"Who's thar?"
+
+Startled, abashed, she replied in a choked, hesitating tone.
+
+"It's only me--Jude. I reckon I'm a fool, Uncle Jep. I know in reason
+there ain't nothin' the matter. But I jest couldn't sleep, and I got up
+and looked through the house, and the boys is all gone, and I got sorter
+scared."
+
+He was with her almost instantly.
+
+"I reckon they're all over 'crost the gulch," he said in his usual
+unexcited fashion, though she noted that he did not go back into his
+room, but joined her where she lingered in the dark outside.
+
+"Of course they air," she reassured herself and him. "Whar else could
+they be?"
+
+"Now I'm up, I reckon I mought go over yon myself," the old man said
+finally. "My foot hurts me this evening; I believe I'll ride Pete. I took
+notice the boys had all the critters up for an early start in the
+mornin'."
+
+Both knew that this was a device for investigating the stables, and
+together they hurried to the huddle of low log buildings which served to
+house forage and animals on the Turrentine place. Not a hoof of anything
+to ride had been left. The boys would not have taken mules or horse to go
+to the still--so much was certain. In the light of the lantern which
+Jephthah lit the two stood and looked at each other with a sort of
+consternation. Then the old man fetched a long breath.
+
+"Go back to the house, Jude," he said not unkindly, putting the lantern
+into her hand; and without another word he set off down the road running
+hard.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+The Raid
+
+
+Earlier that same Saturday evening, while Judith Barrier was fighting out
+her battle, and trying to tire down the restless spirit that wrung and
+punished her, Nancy Card, mindful of earlier experiences in feud times,
+was getting her cabin in a state of defence.
+
+"You know in reason them thar Turrentines ain't a-goin' to hold off
+long," she told Creed. "They're pizen fighters, and they allus aim to hit
+fust. No, you don't stay out in that thar office," as Creed made this
+proffer, stating that it would leave her and her family safer. "I say
+stay in the office! Why, them Turrentines would ask no better than one
+feller for the lot of 'em to jump on--they could make their brags about
+it the longest day they live of how they done him up."
+
+So it came to pass that Creed was sitting in the big kitchen of the Nancy
+Card cabin while Judith wrought at her fruitless labours in her own home.
+Despite the time of year, Nancy insisted on shutting the doors and
+closing the battened shutters at the windows.
+
+"A body gets a lot of good air by the chimney drawin' up when ye have a
+bit of fire smokin'," she said. "I'd ruther be smothered as to be shot,
+anyhow."
+
+Little Buck and Beezy, infected by the excitement of their elders,
+refused peremptorily to go to bed. "Let me take the baby," said Creed
+holding out his arms. "She's always good with me. She can go to sleep in
+my lap."
+
+"Beezy won't go to sleep in _nobody's_ lap," that young lady announced
+with great finality. "Beezy never go to sleep _no_ time--_nowhere_."
+
+"All right," agreed the young fellow easily, cutting short a futile
+argument upon the grandmother's part. "You needn't go to sleep if you can
+stay awake, honey. You sit right here in Creed's lap and stay awake till
+morning and keep him good company, won't you?"
+
+The red head nodded till its flying frazzles quivered like tongues of
+flame. Then it snuggled down on the broad breast, that moved rhythmically
+under it, and very soon the long lashes drooped to the flushed cheeks and
+Beezy was asleep.
+
+Aunt Nancy had picked up Little Buck, but that young man had the
+limitations of his virtues. Being silent by nature he had not so much to
+keep him awake as the loquacious Beezy, and by the time his father on the
+other side of the hearth had dropped asleep and nearly fallen into the
+fire a couple of times, been sternly admonished by the grandmother, and
+gone to fling himself face down upon a bed in the corner, Little Buck was
+sounder asleep than his sister.
+
+The old woman got up and carried her grandson to the bed, laid him down
+upon it and, taking basin and towel, proceeded to wipe the dusty small
+feet before she took off his minimum of clothing and pushed him in
+between the sheets.
+
+"Minds me of a foot-washin' at Little Shiloh," she ruminated. "Here's me
+jest like the preacher and here's Little Buck gettin' all the sins of the
+day washed off at once."
+
+She completed her task, and was taking Beezy from Creed's arms to lay her
+beside her brother on the bed, when a tap--tap--tapping, apparently upon
+the window shutter, brought them both to their feet, staring at each
+other with pale faces.
+
+"What's that?" breathed Nancy. "Hush--hit'll come again. Don't you answer
+for your life, Creed. Ef anybody speaks, let it be me."
+
+Again the measured rap--rap--rap!
+
+"You let my Nick in," murmured Beezy sleepily, and Creed laughed out in
+sudden relief. It was the wooden-legged rooster, coming across the little
+side porch and making his plea for admission as he stepped.
+
+Something in the incident brought the situation of affairs home to Creed
+Bonbright as it had not been before.
+
+"Aunt Nancy," he said resolutely, "I'm going to leave right now and walk
+down to the settlement. I've got no business to be here putting you and
+the children in danger. It's a case of fool pride. They told me down at
+Hepzibah that I'd be run out of the Turkey Tracks inside of three months
+if I tried to set up a justice's office here. I felt sort of ashamed to
+go back and face them and own up that they were right--that I had been
+run out. I ought to have been too much of a man to feel that way. It
+makes no difference what they say--the only thing that counts is that I
+have failed."
+
+"You let me catch you openin' that do' or steppin' yo' foot on the road
+to-night!" snorted Nancy belligerently. "Why, you fool boy, don't you
+know all the roads has been guarded by the Turrentines ever since they
+fell out with ye? They 'lowed ye would run of course, and they aimed to
+layway ye as ye went. I could have told 'em ye wasn't the runnin' kind;
+but thar, what do they know about----"
+
+She broke off suddenly, her mouth open, and stood staring with
+fear-dilated eyes at Creed.
+
+"Hello!" came the hail from outside.
+
+Nancy let the baby slip from her arms to the floor, and the little thing
+stood whimpering and rubbing her eyes, clinging to her grandmother's
+skirts.
+
+"Hush--hush!" cautioned the old woman, barely above her breath.
+
+"Hello! Hello in thar! You better answer--we see yo' light. Hello in
+thar!"
+
+"Whose--voice--is that?" breathed old Nancy.
+
+"It sounded like Blatch Turrentine's," Creed whispered back as softly.
+
+"Hit do," she agreed with conviction.
+
+Suddenly a shot rang out, and Doss Provine sat up on the edge of the bed
+with a gurgle of terror. Little Buck wakened at the same instant, and ran
+to his grandmother.
+
+"I ain't scared, Granny," he asseverated, "I kin fight fer ye."
+
+"Hush--hush!" cautioned Nancy, bending to gather in the sun-burned tow
+head at her knee.
+
+Another shot followed, and after it a voice crying,
+
+"You've got Creed Bonbright in thar. You let him come out and talk to us,
+or we'll batter yo' do' in."
+
+"You Andy--you Jeff!" shouted the old woman in sudden rage. "Ef you want
+Creed Bonbright you know whar to find him. You go away and let my do'
+alone."
+
+"You quit callin' out names, Nancy Cyard," responded the first, menacing
+voice out of the darkness. "We know Bonbright's in thar, and we aim to
+have him out--or burn yo' house--accordin' to yo' ruthers."
+
+Creed had parted his lips to answer them, when old Nancy sprang at him
+and set her hand over his open mouth.
+
+"You hush--and keep hushed!" she whispered urgently.
+
+"I just wanted to call to the boys and tell them I'm here," Creed
+whispered to her. "Aunt Nancy, I'm bound to go out there and talk to them
+fellows. I cain't stay in here and let you and the children suffer for
+it."
+
+"Aw, big-mouthed, big-talkin' brood--what do I keer for them?" demanded
+Nancy, tossing her head with a characteristic motion to get the grey
+curls away from her fearless blue eyes; whereupon the tucking comb
+slipped down and had to be replaced, "You ain't a-goin' out thar," she
+whispered vehemently from under her raised arm, as she redded back the
+straying locks with it. Nancy had the reckless, dare-devil courage those
+blue eyes bespoke. Presuming a bit, perhaps, on her age and sex, she yet
+ran risks that many men would have shunned without deeming themselves
+cowards. "You ain't a-goin' out thar, I tell ye," she reiterated. "I
+wouldn't let ye ef they burnt the house down over our heads. Pony'll be
+along pretty shortly from Hepzibah, and when he sees 'em I reckon he's
+got sense enough to git behind a bush and fire at 'em--that'll scatter
+'em."
+
+As if inspired to destroy this one slender hope, the voice outside spoke
+again, tauntingly.
+
+"Nancy Cyard, we've got yo' son Pony here--picked him up on the road--an'
+ef yo'r a mind to trade Creed Bonbright for him, we'll trade even. Better
+dicker with us. Somepin' bad might happen this young 'un."
+
+At the words, Creed wheeled and made for the door, Nancy gripping him
+frantically but mutely.
+
+"Creed--boy--honey!"--she breathed at last, "they's mo' than one kind o'
+courage. This is jest fool courage--to go an' git yo'se'f killed up. Them
+Turrentines won't hurt Pone. But you--oh, my Lord!"
+
+"I reckon ye better let him go, maw," Doss Provine chattered from the
+bed's edge where he still crouched. "Hit's best that it should be one,
+ruther than all of us."
+
+Old Nancy flung him a glance of wordless contempt. Beezy ran and tangled
+herself in the tall young fellow's legs, halting him.
+
+"Creed," the old woman urged, still below her breath, holding to his arm.
+"Creed, honey, as soon as you open that do' and stand in the light, yo'r
+no better than a dead man. Listen!"
+
+All caution had been thrown aside by the besiegers. Hoarse voices
+questioned and answered outside, sounds of stumbling footsteps surrounded
+the house.
+
+"Boys," called Creed in that clear, ringing voice of his that held
+neither fear nor great excitement, "I'm coming out to talk to you. Aunt
+Nancy, take the children away. You've got it to do."
+
+"Well, come on," replied the voice without. "Talk--that's all we want.
+You'll be as safe outside as in--and a damn' sight safer."
+
+Nancy gathered up her youngsters, flung them in a heap into their
+father's lap, and, overturning and putting out the candle as she went,
+sprang to the hearth to quench a small flame which had risen among the
+embers there.
+
+"Ye might have some sense!" she panted angrily. "The idea of walkin'
+yo'se'f into a lighted doorway for them fellers to shoot at! For God's
+sake don't open that do' till I get the lights out!"
+
+But Creed was not listening. He had pulled the big pine bar that held the
+battened door in place, and now flung it wide, stepping to the threshold
+and beginning again,
+
+"Boys----"
+
+He uttered no further word. A rifle spoke, a bullet sang, passed through
+the cabin and buried itself in the old-fashioned chimneypiece. Creed fell
+where he stood. As he went down across the threshold, Nancy whirling
+around to the door, bent over his prostrate form.
+
+Outside, the ruddy, shaken shine from a couple of lightwood torches which
+stood alone, where they had been thrust deep into the garden mould made
+strange gouts and blotches of colour on Nancy's flower beds. A group of
+men halted, drawn together, muttering, just beyond the palings. Each had
+a handkerchief tied across the lower part of his face, a simple but
+effectual disguise.
+
+Her groping hand came away from the prostrate man, red with blood; she
+dashed it across her brow to clear her eyes of blowing hair. At the
+moment a figure burst through the grove of saplings by the roadside, a
+tall old man whose long black beard blew across his mighty chest that
+laboured as he ran. His hat was off in his hand, his face raised; he had
+no weapon. With a gasp of relief Nancy recognised him, yet rage mounted
+in her, too.
+
+"Yes--come a-runnin'," she muttered fiercely. "Come look at what you and
+yo'rn have done!"
+
+As he leaped into the clearing the old man's great black eyes, full of
+sombre fire, swept the scene. They took in the prone figure across the
+threshold, the blood upon the doorstone, and on Nancy's brow and hair.
+
+"Air ye hurt? Nancy, air ye hurt?" he cried, in such a tone as none there
+had ever heard from him.
+
+"Am I hurt?--No!" choked the old woman, trying to get a hold on Creed's
+broad shoulders and drag him back into the room. "I ain't hurt, but it's
+no credit to them wolves that you call sons of yo'rn. They've got Pone
+out thar, ef they hain't shot him yit. And they've killed the best man
+that ever come on this here mountain. Oh, Creed--my pore boy! You Doss
+Provine! Come here an' he'p me lift him." She reared herself on her knees
+and glared at the group by the gate. "He had no better sense than to take
+ye for men--to trust the word ye give, that he was safe when he opened
+the do'. Don't you come a step nearer, Jep Turrentine," she railed out at
+him suddenly, as the old man drew toward the gate. "I've had a plenty o'
+you an' yo' sons this night. They're jest about good enough to shoot me
+while I'm a-tryin' to git this po' dead boy drug in the house, an' then
+burn the roof down over me an' my baby chil'en. You Doss Provine, walk
+yo'se'f here an' he'p me."
+
+Doss, who found the presence of Jephthah Turrentine reassuring, whatever
+his mother-in-law might say, slouched forward, and between them they
+lifted the limp figure.
+
+"God knows I don't blame ye, Nancy," muttered the old man in his beard,
+as the heavy door was dragged shut, and the bar dropped into place. Then
+he advanced upon the men at the palings.
+
+At Jephthah's first appearance the tallest of these had dropped swiftly
+back into the shadows on the other side of the road and was gone.
+Unsupported, the four or five who were left shuffled uneasily, beneath
+the old man's fierce eye.
+
+"Where's Pone Cyard?" he demanded.
+
+"We hain't tetched him, pap. We never seed him. We said that to draw
+'em."
+
+"Huh!" ejaculated Jephthah, as though further comment were beyond him.
+"Git yo' ridin' critters," he gave the short, sharp order. "Fetch Pete to
+me." And he whirled his back, and stalked out into the main road.
+
+A hundred yards or so up, there was a sound of hoofs and tearing bushes,
+as the boys came through the greenery with their mules. Pete was led up
+and the bridle-rein presented in meek silence. By the dim, presaging
+light of the little waning moon, delaying somewhere down below the
+shoulder of Big Turkey Track, old Jephthah took it, set foot in stirrup,
+and made ready to swing to saddle. Then he slowly withdrew the foot and
+turned back.
+
+"Take them cussed rags off o' yo' faces!" he burst out in a fury of
+contempt. "Now. Who laid out this night's work? Well, speak up--how come
+it?"
+
+Dead silence answered. Of the three who faced him not one--lacking the
+leader who had skulked away at Jephthah's approach--could have explained
+just why he was there. And none of them would betray the man who had led
+them there and left them to answer as best they might for their actions
+to the head of the tribe.
+
+"Uh-huh, I thort so," nodded the old man bitterly, as they yet stood
+mute. "Ain't got a word to say for yo'selves. No, and they ain't a word
+to be said. Yo' sons in my house. I was thar--I was standin' with ye
+about this business. Why couldn't this be named to me? What call had ye
+to sneak around me--to make a fool o' me, an' shame me?"
+
+He waited. Receiving no response, he concluded as he got to the mule's
+back,
+
+"You do me thisaway once mo'--jest once mo'--and hit will be a plenty."
+
+With that he gave Pete the rein, and the mule's receding heels flung dust
+in the dismayed countenances he left behind him.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+Council of War
+
+
+The Turrentine clan was gathering for consultation, Judith knew that. It
+was Sunday, and much of this unwonted activity passed as the ordinary
+Sabbath day coming and going. But there was a steady tendency of tall,
+soft-stepping, slow-spoken, keen-eyed males toward old Jephthah's
+quarters, and Judith had got dinner for the two long-limbed, black-avised
+Turrentine brothers, Hawk and Chantry, from over in Rainy Gap; and old
+Turrentine Broyles, a man of Jephthah's age, had ridden in from Broyles's
+Mill that morning.
+
+With the natural freedom of movement that Sunday offers, information from
+the Card neighbourhood came in easily. Inevitably Judith learned all the
+details of last night's raid; and everybody on the place knew that Creed
+Bonbright was alive, and that he was not even seriously wounded. He had
+been observed through the open door of Nancy's cabin moving about the
+rooms inside. Arley Kittridge declared that he had seen Bonbright, in the
+grey of early morning, his head bound up and his left arm in a sling,
+cross from Nancy's house to his office and back again, alone.
+
+Sunday brought the Jim Cals home, too. Iley, humiliated and savage,
+bearing in her breast galling secret recollections of Pap Spiller's
+animadversions on her management of Huldah, raged all day with the
+toothache, and a pariah dog might have pitied the lot of the fat man.
+
+All day, as Judith cooked, and washed her dishes, and entertained her
+visitors, the events of last night's raid were present with her. When at
+the table one of the boys stretched a hand to receive the food she had
+prepared, she looked at it with an inward shuddering, wondering, was this
+the hand that fired the shot?
+
+All day as she talked to her women visitors of patchwork patterns, or the
+making of lye soap, as she admired their babies and sympathised with
+their ailments, her mind was busy with the inquiry what part she should
+take in the final inevitable crisis. She remembered with a remorse that
+was almost shame how, at their last interview, she had plucked back from
+Creed her rescuing hand in jealous anger. That big mother kindness that
+there was in her spoke for him, pleaded loud for his life, when her hot
+passionate heart would have had revenge for his slight.
+
+Yes, she had to save Creed Bonbright if she could, and to be of any use
+to him she must know what was planned against him. It was dark by the
+time the women-folk had gone their ways and the men remaining had
+assembled definitely in old Jephthah's separate cabin. No gleam of light
+shone from its one window. Judith watched for some time, then taking a
+bucket as a pretext walked down the path to the cow-lot, which led her
+close in to the cabin. She could hear as she approached the murmur of
+masculine voices. Secure from observation in the darkness, she crept to
+the window and listened, her head leaned against the wooden shutter. Old
+Jephthah was speaking, and she realised from his words that she had
+chanced upon the close of their council.
+
+The big voice came out to her in carefully lowered tones.
+
+"Well, Broyles, yo' the oldest, an that's yo' opinion. Hawk an' Chantry
+says the same. Now as far as I'm concerned--" the commanding accents
+faltered a little--"I'm obliged to agree with you. The matter has got
+where we cain't do no other than run him out. I admit it. I'll say yes to
+that."
+
+Judith trembled, for she knew they spoke of Creed.
+
+"Well, Jep, you better not put too many things in the way," came accents
+she recognised as Turrentine Broyles's, "or looks like these-here boys is
+liable to find theirselves behind bars befo' snow flies."
+
+"Huh-uh," agreed the old man's voice. "I know whar I'm at. I ain't lived
+this long and got through without disgrace or jailin' to take up with it
+at my age; but they don't raid no more cabins. I freed my mind on that
+last night; I made myself cl'ar; an' that's the one pledge I ax for. Toll
+him away from the place and layway him, if you must, to run him out. But
+they's to be no killin', an' no mo' shootin' up houses whar they is women
+and chil'en. This ain't no feud."
+
+"All right--we've got yo' word for it, have we?" inquired Buck Shalliday
+eagerly. "You'll stand by us?"
+
+Suddenly a brand on the hearth flamed up, and Judith peering through a
+crack of the board shutter had sight of her uncle standing, his height
+exaggerated by the flickering illumination, tall and black on the
+hearthstone. About him the faint light fell on a circle of eager, drawn
+faces, all set toward him. As she looked he raised his hand above his
+head and shook the clenched fist.
+
+"I've got obliged to," he groaned. "God knows I had nothing against Creed
+Bonbright. And I can't say as I've got anything against him yit. But I've
+got a-plenty against rottin' in jail. I'd ruther die."
+
+"Will ye come with us, pap?" Jim Cal instantly put the question, and as
+he spoke the light went suddenly out.
+
+"No," returned old Jephthah doggedly. "I won't make nor meddle. I've give
+you my best advice; I sont for Hawk an' Chantry, here, an' for Turn
+Broyles, to do the same. We've talked it over fa'r an' squar', aimin' to
+have ye do this thing right--" He broke off, and then amended sombrely,
+"--As near right as sech a thing can be did. But you-all boys run into
+this here agin' my ruthers, an' you'll jest have to git out yo'selves.
+All I say is, no killin', and no raidin' of folks' homes."
+
+"No _mo'_ killin', ye mean,--don't ye?" asked Jim Cal. The fat man,
+goaded beyond reason, was ready to turn and fight at last.
+
+"No, I don't," answered his father. "When I mean a thing I can find the
+words to say it without any advice. As for Blatch bein' killed--you boys
+think yo' mighty smart, but you'd show yo' sense to tote fair with me and
+tell me all that's goin' on. I wasn't born yesterday. I've seen
+interruptions and killin's befo' I seen any of you. An' I'll say right
+here in front o' yo' kinfolks that's come to he'p you out with their
+counsels--an' could do a sight better ef you'd tell 'em the truth--that I
+never did think it was likely that Creed Bonbright made away with a body
+inside of fifteen minutes. That tale's too big for me--but I'm askin' no
+questions. Settle it your own way--but for God's sake settle it. Him
+knowin' what he does an' havin' been did the way you boys have done him,
+he's got to go. Run him out--an' run him out quick. Don't you dare tell
+me how, nor when, nor what!"
+
+Judith started back as the sounds within told her that the men were
+groping their way to the door. As she stood concealed by darkness, they
+issued, made their quiet adieux, and went over to the fence where she
+could hear the stamping of the tethered animals. Cut off from the house,
+she retreated swiftly down the path toward the stable and would have
+entered, but some instinct warned her back. As she paused uncertain,
+hearing footsteps approaching from behind, indefinably sure that there
+was danger in front, there sounded a cautious low whistle. Those who came
+from the cabin answered it. She drew back beneath one of the peach-trees
+by the milking-pen--the very one from which Creed had broken the
+blossoming switch, with which she reproached him. Flat against its trunk
+she crouched, as six men went past her in the gloom.
+
+"Who's here?" demanded a voice like Blatch Turrentine's, and at the sound
+she began suddenly to shudder from head to foot. Then she pulled herself
+together. This was no ghost talking. It was the man himself.
+
+"Me," answered Jim Cal's unmistakable tones, "an' Wade, an' Jeff, an'
+Andy. Buck and Taylor's both with us--and that's all."
+
+The man within opened the grain-room door, and the six newcomers
+entered.
+
+"Whar's old man Broyles, an' Hawk an' Chantry?" questioned Blatch.
+
+"They rid off home," said Shalliday.
+
+"Well, what does Unc' Jep say?" demanded Blatch, plainly not without some
+anxiety.
+
+Before anyone could answer,
+
+"Hark ye!" came Jim Cal's tones tremulously. "Didn't I hear somebody
+outside? Thar--what was that?"
+
+In her excitement and interest Judith had moved nearer with some noise.
+
+"I vow, podner," came Blatch's rich, rasping tones. "Ef I didn't know it
+was you I'd be liable to think they was a shiverin' squinch-owl in here
+with us. Buck, step out and scout, will ye? Git back as soon as ye can,
+'caze we're goin' to have a drink."
+
+She heard the rattle of a tin cup against the jug. As she moved carefully
+down the way toward the spring, Blatch's voice followed her, saying
+unctuously:
+
+"Had to go through hell to get this stuff--spies a-follerin' ye about,
+an' U.S. marshals a-threatenin' ye with jail--might as well enjoy it."
+
+She dipped her bucket in the spring branch, and bore it dripping up the
+path a short way. If Buck Shalliday met her, she had an errand and an
+excuse for her presence which might deceive him. When she came within
+sight of the stables once more she set down her bucket and stood
+listening long. Something moved outside the logs. They had posted their
+sentry then. She groaned as she realised that what she had heard was
+inadequate and insufficient. The knowledge was there to be had for a
+little daring, a little cunning.
+
+Just as she had become almost desperate enough to walk up to the place
+and make pretence of being one with them, a stamp from the figure outside
+the corner told her that it was a tethered mule instead of a man.
+Emboldened she stole nearer, and found a spot where she could crouch by
+the wall so hidden among some disused implements that she might even have
+dared to let them emerge from their hiding-place and pass her. Again
+Blatch was speaking.
+
+Blatchley Turrentine had come to his uncle's house, a youth of
+seventeen--a man, as mountain society reckons things. At that time Andy
+and Jeff were seven-year-olds, Wade a big boy of thirteen; and even Jim
+Cal, of the same years but less adventurous in nature, had been so
+thoroughly dominated by the newcomer that the leadership then established
+had never been relinquished. And now the artfully introduced whiskey had
+done its work; these boys were quite other than those who had gone in
+sober and grave less than half an hour before, their father's admonitions
+and the counsels of old man Broyles and their Turrentine kindred lying
+strongly upon them.
+
+Judith heard no demur as Blatch detailed their plans.
+
+"They's no use to go to Unc' Jep with what I've been a-tellin' ye," the
+voice of natural authority proclaimed. "I tell ye Polk Sayles says he's
+seen Bonbright meet Dan Haley about half way down the Side--thar whar Big
+Rock Creek crosses the corner of the Sayles place--mo' than once sense
+he's been on the mountain. Now with what that man knows, and with the
+grudges he's got, you let him live to meet Dan Haley once mo' and even
+Unc' Jep is liable to the penitentiary--but tell it to Unc' Jep an' he
+won't believe ye. He's got a sort of likin' for the feller."
+
+"That's what I say," Jim Cal seconded in a voice which had become
+pot-valiant. "Pap is a old man, and we-all that air younger have obliged
+to take care on him."
+
+At any other time these pious sentiments would have brought a volley of
+laughter from Blatchley, but this evening Judith judged from the sounds
+that he clapped the fat man on the shoulder as he said heartily:
+
+"Mighty right you air, James Calhoun. Unc' Jep is one of the finest men
+that ever ate bread, but his day is pretty well over. Ef we went by him
+and old man Broyles and Hawk and Chantry, we'd find ourselves in trouble
+mighty shortly. They's but one way to toll Bonbright out to whar we want
+him. We've got to send word that Unc' Jep will meet him at moonrise and
+talk to him. The fool is plumb crazy about talkin' to folks, and looks
+like he cain't get it through his head that Unc' Jep ain't his best
+friend. It'll fetch him whar nothin' else will."
+
+"And we've got to hunt up something else for you to ride, Blatch, ef Jim
+Cal an' me takes the mules," Jeff remarked. "Jude mighty nigh tore up the
+ground when she found we'd had Selim last night. She give it out to each
+and every that nobody is to lay a hand on him day or night from this
+on."
+
+The girl outside heard Blatch's hateful laugh, and knew with a great
+throb of rage who had ridden her horse the night before.
+
+There was a stir among the men seated, Judith conjectured, on the
+grain-room floor, and a little clinking, as the jug of corn whiskey was
+once more brought into play by Blatch. Presently,
+
+"All right," said Buck Shalliday. "I'll bring Lige's mule. And I'll have
+a message got to Bonbright that Jephthah Turrentine wants to see and talk
+with him out at Todd's corner at moonrise a-Monday night. Will that suit
+ye?"
+
+"Hit'll answer," returned Blatch. "Let's see," he calculated; "that'll be
+about two o'clock. Ef he comes up to the scratch we'll git Mr. Man as he
+goes by the big rock in the holler acrosst from the spring. That rock and
+the bushes by it gives plenty of cover. They's bound to be light enough
+to see him by, with the moon jest coming up, and I want to hear from
+every man present that he'll shoot at the word. I don't want any feller
+in the crowd that'll say he didn't pull trigger on Bonbright. Ef we all
+aim and shoot, nary a one of us can say who killed him--and killed he's
+got to be."
+
+The listening girl hoped for some demur, but Blatch Turrentine and his
+potent counsellor, the jug, dominated the assembly, and there came a
+striking of hands on this, a hoarse murmuring growl of agreement. She
+doubled low to avoid being seen against the sky and hurried back toward
+the cabin as she heard the men preparing to leave the grain-room.
+
+Brave as any one of them there, enterprising and full of the spirit of
+leadership, Judith addressed herself promptly to saving Creed Bonbright.
+She went straight to her uncle's cabin. No mountaineer ever raps on a
+door. Judith shook the latch, at first gently, then, getting no response,
+more and more imperatively, at length opening and walking in, with a
+questioning, "Uncle Jep?"
+
+There was no answer, no sound or movement. With hasty fingers she raked
+together the brands of the fire; they flickered up and showed her an
+untenanted room. The bed was untouched, the old man's hat and coat were
+gone. The pegs above the door where Old Sister always rested were empty.
+
+Instantly there flashed upon Judith the intuition that her uncle,
+heartsick and ill-affected toward the quarrel, had silently withdrawn
+until it should have been settled one way or another. Well, she must work
+alone.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+A Message
+
+
+When Judith stole noiselessly into the house and up to her room, she
+could hear the boys preparing for bed in their own quarters, with
+unwonted jesting and laughter, and even some occasional stamping about
+which suggested horse-play; and her lip curled angrily as she recalled
+Blatch's jug of corn whiskey.
+
+She lay thinking, thinking; and at length there evolved itself in her
+mind a plan for getting Creed safely out of the mountains by way of an
+ancient Cherokee trail that ran down the gulch through a distant corner
+of the old Turrentine place. By this route they would reach the railroad
+town of Garyville, quite around the flank of Big Turkey Track from
+Hepzibah. She could do that. She knew every step of the way. The trail
+was a disused, forgotten route of travel, long fenced across in several
+places, and scoured out of existence at certain points by mountain
+streams; but she had known every foot of it in years past; she could
+travel it the darkest night; and Selim was her own horse; she need ask
+nobody.
+
+When she got so far, came the pressing question of how to send word to
+Creed. She must see and warn him before the men put their plan into
+practice. But she was well aware that she herself was under fairly close
+espionage, and that her first move in the direction of Nancy Card's cabin
+would bring the vague suspicions of her household to a certainty. Where
+to find a messenger? How to so word a message that Creed would answer it?
+These were the questions that drove sleep from her pillow till almost
+morning.
+
+She rose and faced the dawn with haggard eyes. Unless she could do
+something this was the last day of Creed's life. In a tremor of
+apprehension she got through her morning duties, cooking and serving a
+breakfast to the three boys, who made no comment on their father's
+absence, and whose curious looks she was aware of upon her averted face,
+her down-dropped eyelids. She felt alone indeed, with her uncle gone, and
+the boys who had been as brothers to her almost since babyhood suddenly
+become strangers, their interests and hers hostile, destructive to each
+other.
+
+Woman will go to woman in a pinch like this, and in spite of her
+repugnance at the thought of Huldah, Judith late in the afternoon made
+her way over to the Jim Cal cabin and asked concerning its mistress'
+toothache.
+
+"Hit's better," said Iley briefly. Her head was tied up in a medley of
+cloths and smelled loud of turpentine, camphor, and a lingering bouquet
+of assafoetida. She was not a hopeful individual to enlist in a
+chivalrous enterprise.
+
+"Huldy git back yet?" Judith asked finally.
+
+"No, an' she needn't never git back," snapped Iley. "Her and Creed
+Bonbright kin make out best they may. I don't know as I mind her bein'
+broke off with Wade. One Turrentine in the fambly's enough fer me."
+
+"Air her and Creed Bonbright goin' to be wedded?" inquired Judith
+scarcely above her breath.
+
+"_Air_ they?" echoed Xantippe, settling her hands on her hips and
+surveying Judith with an angry stare, the dignity of which was sadly
+impaired by a yellow flannel cloth-end which persisted in dabbling in her
+eye. "Well, I should hope so! I don't know what gals is comin' to in this
+day an' time--follerin' 'round after the young men like you do. Ef I'd a'
+done so when I was a gal my mammy'd have took a hickory to me. That's
+what she would. Here's Jim Cal be'n rarin' around here like a chicken
+with its head off 'caze Huldy run away with Creed Bonbright, and here
+_you_ air askin' me do I think Creed and Huldy is apt to marry. What kind
+of women do ye 'low the Spiller gals is, anyhow?"
+
+Judith turned away from so unpromising an ally. She was accused of
+running after Creed Bonbright. When he got her message it would be with
+Huldah Spiller beside him to help him read it. The thought was bitter. It
+gave that passionate heart of hers a deadly qualm; but she put it down
+and rose above it. Huldah or no Huldah, she could not let him die and
+make no effort.
+
+Leaving Jim Cal's cabin she walked out into the woods, and only as she
+turned at the edge of the clearing and looked back to find Iley furtively
+peering after her from the corner of the house did she realise that the
+woman's words had been dictated because she had been taken into the
+confidence of the men and set to keep an eye on Judith.
+
+At the conviction a feeling of terror began to gain ground. She was like
+a creature enmeshed in a net weak in its cordage, but many-stranded and
+hampering; turn whichever way she would some petty restriction met her.
+She moved aimlessly forward, reasonably sure that she was not followed or
+observed, since she was going away from rather than toward the Card
+place. About a mile from the cabin of old Hannah Updegrove, a weaver of
+rag carpet, she suddenly came upon two little creatures sitting at a
+tree-foot playing about one of those druidical-looking structures that
+the childhood of the man and the childhood of the race alike produce. It
+was Little Buck and Beezy come to spend the day with old Hannah who, on
+their father's side, was kin of theirs, and making rock play-houses in
+the tree-roots to put over the time. Judith ran to the children, gathered
+them close, and hugged them to her with whispered endearments in which
+some tears mingled.
+
+Then for half an hour followed the schooling of Little Buck for the
+message which he was to carry, and which Beezy must be so diverted that
+she would not even hear.
+
+Judith plaited grass bracelets for the fat little wrists, fashioned
+bonnets of oak leaves, pinning them together with grass stems, and then
+sending Beezy far afield to gather flowers for their trimming. On long
+journeys the little feet trudged, to where the beautiful, frail, white
+meadow lilies rose in clumps from the lush grass of the lowlands. She
+fetched cardinal flowers from the mud and shallow water beyond them, or
+brought black-eyed Susans from the sun of open spaces. And during these
+expeditions Judith's catechism of the boy went on.
+
+"How you goin' to git home, Little Buck?"
+
+"Pappy's a-comin' by to fetch us."
+
+"When?"
+
+"A little befo' sundown?"
+
+"You goin' straight home?"
+
+"Yes, Jude, we' goin' straight home to Granny, why?"
+
+"Never mind, honey. Is Creed there at yo' house?"
+
+A silent nod.
+
+"Is--honey, tell Jude the truth--is it true that he ain't bad hurt? Could
+he ride a nag?"
+
+Little Buck looked all around him, drew close to his big sweetheart, and
+pulled her down that he might whisper in her ear.
+
+"I know somethin' that Granny and Creed don't know I know, but I mus'n't
+tell it to anybody--only thest you. Creed--no, he ain't so awful bad
+hurt--he walks everywheres most--he's a-goin' to take the old nag and go
+over to Todd's corner to see yo' Unc' Jep, about moonrise to-night. They
+said that--Granny an' Creed. An' they fussed. Granny, she don't want him
+to go; but Creed, he thest will--he's bull-headed, Creed is."
+
+Judith caught her breath. They had got the message to him then, and he
+was going. Well, her appointment with him must be first.
+
+"Little Buck, honey, ef you love me don't you forget one word I say to
+you now," she whispered chokingly, holding the child by both hands.
+
+He rounded eyes of solemn adoration and acquiescence upon her.
+
+"You say to Creed Bonbright that Judith Barrier says he must come to her
+at the foot of Foeman's Bluff--on yon side--as soon after dark as he can
+git there. Tell him to come straight through by the short cut; hit'll be
+safe; nobody'll ever study about him comin' in this direction. As soon
+after hit's plumb dark as he can git there--will ye say that? Will ye
+shore tell Creed an' never tell nobody but Creed?"
+
+"But he won't go," said Little Buck wisely. "Granny's scared to have him
+go to talk to yo' Unc' Jep, but she'd be a heap scareder to have him come
+to you, 'caze you' one o' the Turrentines too--ain't ye, Judith?"
+
+Judith's face whitened at the weakness of her position.
+
+"I would come, Judith, becaze I love you an' you love me--but Creed, he
+won't," said the boy.
+
+"You tell him Little Buck," she whispered huskily, terror and shame
+warring in her face, "tell him that I do love him. Tell him I said for
+God's sake to come--if he loves me."
+
+The child's eyes slowly filled. He dropped them and stood staring at the
+ground, saying nothing because of the blur. Finally:
+
+"I'll tell him that--ef you say I must," he whispered. And loving, tender
+Judith, in her desperate preoccupation, never noted what she had done to
+her little sweetheart.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+The Old Cherokee Trail
+
+
+"The supper's all ready for you boys," Judith called in to Wade whose
+whistle sounded from his own room. "Hit's a settin', kivered, on the
+hearth; the coffee-pot's on the coals. Would you-all mind to wait on
+yo'selves, an' would you put the saddle on Selim for me? I'm goin' over
+to Lusks'. I'll eat supper there; I may stay all night; but I'll be home
+in the mornin' soon to git you-all's breakfast."
+
+"Why--why, pap 'lowed----"
+
+"Well, Uncle Jep ain't here. Ef you don't want to----"
+
+"Oh, that's all right Judith. Of course it's all right. But you say
+you're goin' to ride to Lusks'?--to ride?" hesitated Wade uneasily.
+Judith flung up her head and stared straight at him with angry eyes.
+
+"Yes," she said finally, "when I leave this place for over night I'd
+ruther know whar my hoss is at. I'll take him along."
+
+"Oh,--all right," her cousin hastened to agree; "I never meant to make
+you mad, Jude. Of course I'd jest as soon saddle up for you. I don't
+wonder you feel thataway. I never like to have anybody use my ridin'
+critter."
+
+Judith had made her point. She let it pass, and went sombrely on with her
+preparation for departure. Wade still hesitated uneasily. Finally he said
+deprecatingly,
+
+"Ef ye don't mind waitin' a minute I'll eat my supper, an' ride over with
+ye--I was a-goin' after supper anyhow; I want to see Lacey Rountree ef
+he's not gone back home yit."
+
+"I'll be glad to have ye," answered Judith quietly. "I don't mind
+waitin'." And Wade, plainly relieved, hurried out to the stables.
+
+They rode along quietly in the late summer afternoon; the taciturn habit
+of the mountain people made the silence between them seem nothing
+strange. Arrived at the Lusks', both girls came running out to welcome
+their visitor. She saw Wade's sidelong glance take note of the fact that
+Grandpap Lusk led away Selim to the log stable. Lacey Rountree was gone
+home to the Far Cove, and Wade lingered in talk with Grandpap Lusk a
+while at the horse-block, then got on his mule and, with florid
+good-byes, rode back home, evidently at rest as to Judith.
+
+The evening meal was over. Judith helped Cliantha and Pendrilla prepare a
+bit of supper for herself, aided in the clearing away and dish-washing,
+and after they had sat for a while with Granny Lusk and the old man in
+the porch, listening to the whippoorwills calling to each other, and all
+the iterant insect voices of a July night, went to their own room.
+
+"Girls," said Judith softly, drawing the two colourless little creatures
+to the bed, and sitting down with one on each side of her, "girls," and
+her voice deepened and shook with the strain under which she laboured, "I
+want you to let me slip out the back door here, put my saddle on Selim,
+and go home, quiet, without tellin' the old folks. I was goin' home by
+daylight in the mornin' anyhow, to get the boys' breakfast," as the girls
+stared at her in wordless surprise. "I've got a reason why I'd ruther go
+now--and I'd ruther the old folks didn't know. Will ye do this for me?"
+
+The sisters looked at each other across their guest's dark eager face,
+and fluttered visibly. They would have been incapable of deceit to serve
+any purpose of their own; they were too timid to have initiated any
+actions not in strict accordance with household laws; but the same gentle
+timidity which made them subservient to the rules of their world, made
+them also abject worshippers at the shrine of Judith's beauty and force
+and fire.
+
+"Shore, shore," they both whispered in a breath.
+
+"I hate to have ye go Jude--" began Cliantha; but Pendrilla interrupted
+her.
+
+"An' yit ef Jude would ruther go--and wants to slip out unbeknownst, why
+we wouldn't say nothin' about it, and jest tell granny and grandpap in
+the mornin' that she left soon to git the boys' breakfast."
+
+They watched her pass quietly out the back door and toward the log
+stable, their big blue eyes wide with childish wonder and interest.
+Judith with her many suitors, moving in an atmosphere of romance, was to
+them a figure like none other, and she was now in the midst of tragic
+doings; the glamour that had always been upon her image was heightened by
+the last week's occurrences. They turned back whispering and shut the
+door.
+
+Thus it was that Judith found herself on Selim, moving, free from
+suspicion or espionage, toward the point below Foeman's Bluff where she
+had sent word to Creed to meet her.
+
+The big oaks shouldered themselves in black umbels against the horizon;
+pointed conifers shot up inky spires between them. The sky was only
+greyish black, lit by many stars, and Judith trembled to note that their
+dim illumination might almost permit one to recognise an individual at a
+few paces distance. Without misadventure she came to the spot designated,
+urged Selim in under the shadow of a tree, dismounted, and stood beside
+him waiting. Would Creed come? Would Huldah persuade him that the message
+was only a decoy? Would he come too late? Would some of the boys
+intercept him, so that he should never come at all?
+
+At the last thought she started and leaned out recklessly to search the
+dark path with desperate eyes. Perhaps she had better venture forward and
+meet him. Perhaps after all it would be possible for her to get closer to
+Nancy Card's. Then in the midst of her apprehensions came the sound of
+shod hoofs.
+
+She had chosen this point for two reasons: first the old trail she meant
+to follow down the mountain passed in close to the spot; and second it
+was the last place they would expect Bonbright to approach; his way to it
+would never be guarded. But of course she ran the risk of Blatch himself
+or some of his friends and followers appearing. And now she held her
+breath in intense anxiety as the trampling came nearer.
+
+There appeared out of the dense shadow of the bluff a man walking and
+leading a mule by its bridle. She knew the mule, because she got the
+silhouette of it against the sky, and directly after she saw that the man
+who led it was tall, with a bandaged head, which he carried in a manner
+unmistakable, and one shoulder gleaming white--she guessed that that was
+because his coat was off where the bandages lay under his white shirt and
+over the wound in his shoulder. It was Creed. With a throb of unspeakable
+thankfulness she realised that she had till now dreaded that if he came
+at all Huldah would be with him. She moved out from the dense shadow.
+
+"Whar--whar's Huldy?" she questioned before she would trust herself to
+believe. But Creed, full of the wonder of her message, dropped the mule's
+bridle and came toward her his uninjured arm outstretched. He put the
+inquiry by almost impatiently.
+
+"Huldah? She went on down to Hepzibah soon Saturday morning," he said. "O
+Judith, did you mean it--that word you sent me by Little Buck?"
+
+He came swiftly up to her, snatching her hand eagerly, pressing it hard
+against his breast, leaning close in the twilight to study her face.
+
+"You couldn't mean it," he hurried on passionately, tremulously, "not
+now; you just pity me. Little Buck cried when he told me what you said,
+honey. He was jealous. But he needn't have been--need he Judith? You just
+pity me."
+
+Creed's manner and his words were instant reassurance to Judith's womanly
+pride. But immediately on the relaxation of that pain rose clamouring her
+anxiety for his safety--his life.
+
+"Yes, yes, Creed," she murmured vehemently. "I did mean it--I sure meant
+every word of it. But we got to get right away from here. Do ye reckon ye
+can stand it to ride as far as the foot of the mountain? Ye got to
+go--and I'm here to take ye."
+
+They drew out of the path and into the deep blackness beneath the trees.
+There was but a hundredth chance that anybody would be passing here, or
+watching this point, yet that hundredth chance must be guarded against.
+
+Poor Creed, he detained her, he clung to her hands hungrily, and invoked
+the sound of her voice. So much hate had daunted him, the strength and
+sweetness of her presence, the warm tenderness of her tones, were like
+balm to his lacerated spirit.
+
+"I couldn't go to-night--dear----" he faltered, abashed that the first
+word he uttered to her must be a denial. "You're mighty sweet and good to
+offer to take me--I don't know what I have ever done that you should risk
+this for me--but I'm to have a chance to talk to your Uncle Jephthah at
+moonrise to-night, and I can't turn my back on that. He's a fair-minded
+man and I'll make this thing right yet."
+
+Judith shuddered. "Don't you never believe it," she urged in a panting
+whisper. "Uncle Jep hadn't a thing on earth to do with that word goin' to
+you. He's left home. I can't find him nowhars, or I'd have went straight
+to him and begged him to help me out when I found what the boys was
+aimin' to do. Hit was Blatch planned it all. I tell ye Creed, Blatch
+Turrentine is alive--you never killed him when you flung him over the
+bluff--and while he lives you can't stay here. He's bound to kill ye."
+
+"Have you seen Blatch, yourself, Judith?" Creed asked quickly.
+
+"Oh, laws, no. He's a layin' out in the woods somewheres, aimin' to make
+Uncle Jep believe you killed him. But I heard him plain enough--I heard
+him and the boys fix it all up--hid out from Uncle Jep down in the
+grain-room. There's to be seven of 'em a-waitin' down by the big hollow,
+and when they git you betwixt them an' the sky at moonrise they're all
+promised to shoot at once, so that nary man dast to go back on the others
+when you're killed."
+
+Wounded, appalled, the young fellow drew back from her and clung to the
+saddle of the old mule, with a boyish desire to hide his face against the
+arm which he threw over it.
+
+"How they hate me!" he breathed at last. "Oh, I've failed--I've failed. I
+meant so well by them all--and I've got nothing but their hate. But I
+won't run. I never ran from anything yet. I'll stay here and take what
+comes."
+
+Perhaps in his extremity the despair of this speech was but an
+unconscious reaching out for Judith's expressed affection, the warmth and
+consolation of her love. If this were so, the movement brought him what
+he craved. In terror she laid hold upon him, holding to his unwounded
+arm, pressing her cheek upon his shoulder, making her protest in swift
+passionate sentences.
+
+"What good will it do for you to get yourself killed--tell me that? Every
+one of them men will be murderers, when you've stayed and seen it
+through. Lord, what differ is it whether sech critters as them love you
+or hate you? 'Pears to me I would ruther have their ill-will as their
+good-will. Don't you have no regards for them that is good friends to
+you? _I_ care. _I_ understand what it was you was tryin' to do. I thort
+it was fine. Air you goin' to break my heart by stayin' here to git
+yourself killed? Oh, don't do it, Creed. You let me take you out of the
+mountains, or I'll never know what it is to sleep in peace."
+
+His arm slipped softly round her waist and drew her close against his
+side, so close that the two young creatures, standing silent in the midst
+of the warm summer night, could almost hear the beating of each other's
+heart. In spite of their desperate situation they were tremulously
+happy.
+
+"I thank my God for you, Judith," murmured Creed, bending to lay his
+cheek timidly against hers. "Never was a man in trouble had such a sweet
+helper. It's mighty near worth it all to have found you. Maybe you never
+would have cared for me at all if this hadn't come about--if I hadn't
+needed you so bad."
+
+Judith's lavish heart would have hastened to break its alabaster jar of
+ointment at love's feet with the impetuous avowal that he had been dear
+to her since first she looked on him. But there was instant need of
+haste; the situation was full of danger; that confession, with all its
+sweetness, might well wait a more secure time and place. She got to her
+horse glowing with hope, feeling herself equal to the dubious enterprise
+before them.
+
+"Whatever you say honey," Creed assured her. "Do with me as you will. I'm
+your man now."
+
+They had wheeled their mounts toward the open.
+
+"Hark! What's that?" whispered Judith.
+
+The quavering cry of a screech-owl came across the gulch to them. The
+girl crouched in her saddle, shivering slightly, and stroking Selim's
+nose so that he might make no stir nor sound.
+
+"They use--that--for a signal," she breathed at last. "The boys is out
+guardin' the trails. And 'pears like they're a-movin'. We got to go
+quick."
+
+They set forth in silence; Judith riding ahead, skirted at a considerable
+distance the buildings on the old Turrentine place, then followed down a
+rocky stream-bed, dry now and leading abruptly into a ravine. Here the
+girl took her bearings by the summits she could see black against the
+star-lit sky, and, avoiding the open, made for the old Indian trail which
+would lead them directly down to Garyville. They could ride abreast
+sometimes, and they began to talk together in these broken intervals.
+
+"And Little Buck cried when he told you," Judith said, in that tender,
+brooding voice of hers. "That was my fault. I'm mighty sorry. I wouldn't
+'a' hurt the child's feelings for anything; but I never thought."
+
+"I fixed it up with him some," said her lover, quickly. "I told him you
+only said that because I was hurt and you was sorry for me. I thought I
+was telling the truth."
+
+"Uncle Jep feels mighty bad about this business," she began another time,
+hastening to offer what consolation she could. "Nothin' would have made
+him willin' to it, but the fear that when you brought the raiders up he'd
+get took hisself. He ain't had nothin' to do with stillin' for more'n six
+year, but of course hit's on his land, and the boys is his sons. He says
+he's too old to go to the penitentiary."
+
+Creed reached out in the gloom and got the girl's hand.
+
+"Oh, Judith, darling!" he said eagerly. "Let me tell you right now, and
+make you understand--I never had any more notion of bringing raiders into
+the mountains than you have yourself. I do know that blockaded stills and
+what they mean are the ruin of this country; but honey, you've got to
+believe me when I say I never wanted to get any information about them or
+break them up."
+
+The girl harkened, with close attention to the man--the lover--but with
+simple indifference to the gist of what he was saying. It was plain that
+she would have loved and followed him had he been a revenue officer
+himself.
+
+"I'll tell Uncle Jep," she said presently. "He'll be mighty proud. He
+does really set a heap of store by you, and they all know it. But I ain't
+never goin' to let you talk like that to him," she added, the note of
+proud possession sounding in her voice. "Ef you're goin' to live in the
+mountains you'll have to learn not to have much to say about moonshine
+whiskey and blockaded stills--you never do know who you might be
+hittin'."
+
+"You'll take good care of me, won't you Judith?" he said fondly, pressing
+the hand he held. "And I reckon I need it--I surely do manage to get into
+misunderstandings with people. But that wasn't the trouble with Blatch
+Turrentine--he never thought any such thing as that I was a spy. He was
+mad at me about something else--and I don't know yet what it was."
+
+Judith laughed softly, low in her throat, so far had they come from the
+uncertainty, strain, and distress of an hour before. When next the trail
+narrowed and widened again, she came up on his left, the side of the
+injured arm, but which brought her nearer to him, leaned close and laying
+her hand on his shoulder, whispered,
+
+"I reckon I know. I reckon you'll have to blame me with Blatch's
+meanness."
+
+"Why, of course that was it!" exclaimed Creed. He looped the bridle on
+his saddle horn, reached up and drew her hand across his shoulders and
+around his neck. "That's what comes of getting the girl that everybody
+else wants," he said with fond pride. "But nobody else can have her now,
+can they? Say it Judith--say it to me, dear."
+
+Judith made sweet and satisfying response, and they rode in silence a
+moment. Then she halted Selim thoughtfully.
+
+"This path takes off to Double Springs, Creed," she said, mentioning the
+name of a little watering place built up about some wells of chalybeate
+and sulphur water. "We might--do ye think mebbe we'd better go there?"
+
+Creed, who felt his strength ebbing, calculated the distance. They had
+seen, as they made the last turn under the bluff, the lights flaring at
+the Garyville station. Double Springs was more than a mile farther. "I
+reckon Garyville will be the best, dear," he returned gently. Then, "I
+wish I had cut a little better figure in this business--on account of
+you," he added wistfully. "You're everything that a man could ask. I
+don't want you to be ashamed of me."
+
+"Ashamed of you!" Judith's deep tones carried such love, such scorn of
+those who might not appreciate the man of her choice, that he was fain to
+be comforted.
+
+"If we had known each other better from the first I reckon you would have
+kept me out of these fool mistakes I've made," the young fellow said
+humbly.
+
+"You ain't made no mistakes," Judith declared with reckless loyalty,
+"Hit's the other folks--Blatch Turrentine and them that follers him--no
+good person could git along with them. Are you much tired Creed? Does yo'
+shoulder pain you?"
+
+"No, dear," he said softly, laying his cheek against the hand which he
+had drawn around his neck. "Nothing pains me any more. I'm mighty
+happy."
+
+And together thus they rode forward in darkness, toward Garyville and
+safety.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+Bitter Parting
+
+
+In the sickly yellow flare of the kerosene lamps around the Garyville
+station Judith got her first sight of Creed's face: sunken, the blood
+drained from it till it was colourless as paper, the eyes wild, purple
+rimmed, haggard--it frightened her. She was off of Selim in a moment,
+begging him to get down and sit on the edge of the platform with her,
+here on the dark side where nobody would notice them, and they could
+decide what was to be done next.
+
+He dismounted slowly, stumblingly, gained the edge of the platform, and
+there sat with drooping head. Judith tied the two animals and ran to sit
+beside him.
+
+"Ye ain't goin' to faint air ye?" she asked anxiously. "Lean on me,
+Creed. I wish't I knew what to do for ye!"
+
+The young fellow, half unconscious indeed, put his head down upon her
+shoulder with a great shuddering sigh.
+
+"I'll be better in a minute, dear," he whispered. "I reckon I got a
+little tired--riding so far."
+
+For some time Judith sat there, Creed's head on her shoulder, the black
+night all about them, the little lighted station empty save for the
+clicking of the telegraph instrument, and the footsteps of the station
+master who had opened up for the midnight train. She was desperately
+anxious and at a loss which way to turn. And yet through all her being
+there rolled a mighty undernote of joy. As to the dweller on the coast
+the voice of the sea is the undertone to all the sounds of man's
+activities, so beneath all her virginal hesitancies, her half terror of
+what she had done, surged and sang the knowledge that Creed was hers, her
+avowed lover. She, Judith, had him here safe; she had brought him away
+out of the mountains, from those who would have harmed him--and those who
+would have loved him too well. In all her plannings up to this time she
+had never quite been able to see clearly what should come after getting
+Creed down into the valley. Over her stormily beating heart now there
+rose and fell a little packet of bills, savings above necessary
+expenditures on the farm, and her own modest expenses, savings which had
+been accumulating since Uncle Jephthah rented the place, and now amounted
+to some hundreds of dollars. These she had put in the bosom of her frock
+when she set out on this enterprise, with, as she now realised, the
+vaguest expectation of ever returning to her uncle's house.
+
+"Creed," she whispered, "air ye better?"
+
+"Yes," responded her charge, "yes--I'm better." But he made no movement
+to raise his head, and with eyes long accustomed to darkness she was able
+to see that his lids were still closed.
+
+"Creed," she began again, "what shall I do for you now? Must I go ask at
+the hotel will they give you a room? Have you--have you got money with
+you?"
+
+Bonbright roused himself.
+
+"I'm all right now," he said in a strained tone. "Yes, dear, I've got
+some money with me, and a little more in the bank at Hepzibah. I can get
+hold of that any time I want to. I don't know just what I'll do," he
+looked around him bewildered. This had not been his plan, and the long
+ride down the mountain, and above all the happiness of being with Judith,
+of her avowals had made him forgetful of its exigencies. "I reckon I'll
+make out. You needn't worry about me any more, Judith. I'm safe down
+here."
+
+These words sounded dreadfully like a dismissal to the girl. She locked
+her hands hard together in her lap and fought for composure. An older or
+a more worldly woman would have said to him promptly that she could not
+leave him in this case, and that if they were ever to be married it must
+be now. But all the traditions of the mountain girl's life and upbringing
+were against such a course. She gazed at him helplessly.
+
+"I ain't got but one friend on this earth, looks like," began Creed
+wearily, as he got to his feet, "and now I'm obliged to send her away
+from me."
+
+It was more than Judith could bear. She lifted her swimming eyes to him
+in the dusk; he was recovering self command and strength, but he was
+still white, shaken, the bandaged head and shoulder showing how close he
+had been to death. Her love overbore virgin timidity and tradition.
+
+"Don't send me away then," she said in the deepest tones of that rich,
+passionate voice of hers. "Ef hit's me you're namin' when you speak of
+having but one friend--don't send me away, Creed."
+
+He came close and caught her hand, looking into her face with wondering
+half comprehension of her words. That face was dyed with sudden, burning
+red. She hoped and expected that he would make the proffer which must
+come from him. When he did not, she burst out in a vehement, tense
+whisper,
+
+"If--if you love me like you said you did----"
+
+Creed hesitated, bewildered. He was too ill to judge matters aright, but
+he knew one thing.
+
+"I do love you," he said with mounting firmness. "I may be a mighty poor
+sort of a fellow--I've begun to think so of late--but I love you."
+
+Judith put out both hands blindly toward him whispering,
+
+"And I love you. I don't want nothin' but to be with you an' help you,
+an' take keer of you. I'll never leave you."
+
+For a moment the young fellow felt only the dizzy rapture of her frank
+confession. In that instant he saw himself accepting her sacrifice,
+taking her in his arms; in anticipation he tasted the sweetness of her
+lips. Then pure reason, that shrew who had always ruled his days, spoke
+loud, as the bitterness of his situation rolled back upon him.
+
+"No--no!" he cried. "Judith--honey--I can't do that. Why, I'd be robbing
+you of everything in the world. Your kin would turn against you. Your
+farm would be lost to you, I reckon--I don't know when I'll be able to go
+back and claim mine."
+
+In the moment of strained silence that followed this speech, with a sense
+of violent painful revulsion the girl pushed him back when he would
+timidly have clung to her. What woman ever appreciated prudence in a
+lover? It is not a lover's virtue. Her farm--her farm! He could listen to
+her confession of love for him, and speculate upon the chances of her
+losing her farm by it! She had one shamed, desperate instant when she
+would have been glad to deny the words she had spoken. Then Creed,
+reading her anger and despair by the light of his own sorrows, said
+brokenly:
+
+"You feel--you're offended at me now--but Judith, you wouldn't love me if
+I had taken you at your word, and ruined all your chances in life.
+I--Judith--dear--I'll make this thing right yet. I'll come back--and
+you'll forgive me then."
+
+With a sudden flaring up of strength he took quiet mastery of the
+situation. He kissed her tenderly, but sadly, not such a kiss as either
+could ever have imagined their first would be.
+
+"I love you too well to let you wed a man that's fixed like I am--a man
+that's made such a failure of life--a fugitive--a fellow that has nothing
+to offer you, and no more standing with your people than a hound dog. I
+love you better than I do myself or my comfort--or even my life."
+
+In anguished silence Judith received the caress; dumb with misery she got
+to her horse. Creed stood looking up at her for their last words, when,
+with a rattle and clang, the train from the North swept in and halted.
+Selim jibed and fought the bit as any sensible mountain horse feels
+himself entitled to do under similar circumstances; but Judith heeded him
+almost not at all.
+
+"My Lord--who's that?" she cried, staring toward the lighted train where
+the figure of a man mounted the platform.
+
+"What is it?" queried Creed.
+
+"Hit looked like Blatch," whispered the girl; "but I reckon it couldn't
+a-been."
+
+"Blatch!" echoed Creed, all on fire in an instant--where now was her poor
+invalid whose head she had pillowed, of whom she had thought to take
+care? "Blatch Turrentine!--Good-bye, honey--you mustn't be seen with me.
+If Blatch is here I've got to find and face him. You see that, don't
+you?--You understand."
+
+And he turned and left her so. Oh, these men, with their quarrels and
+their nice points of honour--while a woman's heart bleeds under the
+scuffling feet!
+
+She watched him hurry to the train, his staggering step advertising how
+unfit he was for any such attempt, watched him mount the platform where
+she had seen the man that looked like Blatch; and then the conductor
+swung his lantern, the wheels began to revolve, she half cried out, and
+Selim at the end of his patience, bolted with her and never stopped
+running till he had topped the rise above the village.
+
+Here, with some ado, she got him quieted, brought to a standstill, got
+off and tightened the girth, for the saddle was slipping dangerously. She
+climbed on once more, mounting from a fallen tree, and was moving again
+up the trail when, down toward Garyville, someone called her name.
+
+"Judith!"
+
+She did not turn her head. She knew to whom the voice belonged. As he
+rode up to her:
+
+"What you doin' here, Blatch Turrentine?" she demanded fiercely, "an'
+what'll the boys say to you for slippin' away from 'em to-night?"
+
+He took her inferred knowledge of all his enterprises without a word of
+comment. Bringing his mule up closer to her where she sat on Selim he
+answered:
+
+"The boys know whar I'm at. We got word last evenin' that the man I sell
+to was waitin' for me in Garyville. He don't know nobody but me in the
+business, and nobody but me could do the arrent. I hauled a load down,
+an' I would have been back in plenty time, ef I hadn't met you and
+Bonbright right thar whar that old Cherokee trail comes into the
+Garyville road."
+
+Judith started, her face burned in the darkness, but she said nothing.
+Blatch peered curiously at her as he went on:
+
+"I reckon you never took notice of the waggon that was under the bluff
+thar by the turn, but that was my waggon, and I was a-settin' on it. I
+wheeled myse'f round, when I seed 'twas Bonbright, and follered you two
+down to Garyville, and put up my mules."
+
+Again he peered sharply at her.
+
+"Jude," as she still sat silent, "I won't tell the boys what kept me--I
+won't tell them nary thing about you. I'll just let on that I happened to
+see Bonbright at Garyville."
+
+"You tell what you're a mind to," said Judith bitterly. "I don't keer
+what you say."
+
+Blatchley took the retort coolly. But his light grey eyes narrowed under
+the black brows.
+
+"Bonbright seemed mightily upsot," he commented. "Went off on the train
+an' left his mule a-standin'."
+
+_Went off on the train!_ Judith's heart leaped, then stood still.
+
+"Ye needn't werry about it--I had Scomp put it up, 'long o' my other 'n.
+He'll send 'em both up a Wednesday. I reckon it ain't to be wondered at
+Bonbright was flustered. Who do you 'low he went with on the railroad
+train? Jude, air you so easy fooled as to think it was a new notion for
+him to go to Garyville? Didn't he name it to you that it was a better
+place than Double Springs?"
+
+Leaning close and watching her face, he saw in it confirmation.
+
+"Shore. They was a little somebody on the railroad train waitin' to go on
+with him--after he'd done kissed you good-bye--and _left_ you!"
+
+Judith sat, head up, staring at him. Her less worthy nature was always
+instantly roused by this man's approach. Savage resentment, jealousy,
+hate, stirred in her crushed spirit; they raised their heads; their
+movement crowded out grief and humiliation. It must be true--she had
+proposed Double Springs, and he had said Garyville would be better. He
+had refused in so many words her offer of herself. He had kissed her----
+
+"No!--no!--no!" she cried to the man before her, "don't you look at
+me--don't you speak to me."
+
+"Why, Judith," he protested, hanging on Selim's flank and talking to her
+as she whirled the sorrel into the road and put him at the slope at a
+pace which that petted animal very much resented, "why Judith, ef one
+feller goes back on you thataway you be mad at him--he's the one to be
+mad at. Here's me, I stand willin' to make it up. Creed Bonbright has
+shamed you--he's left you; but you could make him look like a fool if you
+would only say the word--and you and me would----"
+
+"Now you go back!" Judith turned upon him as one speaks to a dog who is
+determined to follow. "I ain't nary 'nother word to say to you. Leave me
+alone!"
+
+"But Judith, hit ain't safe for you to be ridin' up here in the night
+time, thisaway," Blatch insisted. "Lemme jest go along with you----"
+
+"I'll be a mighty heap safer alone than I'd be with you," Judith told
+him, urging Selim ahead, "and anybody that knows you well will say so.
+You--go--back."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+Cast Out
+
+
+Judith reached the Top in the grey, disillusioning light of early dawn.
+The moon, a ghastly wraith, was far down in the west, the east had not
+yet taken any hint of rose flush, but held that pallid line of greyish
+white that precedes sunrise.
+
+She clambered across the Gulch, her tired horse stumbling with drooping
+head over the familiar stones, and rode slowly up to the home place. The
+huddle of buildings looked gaunt, deserted, inhospitable. There was light
+here enough to see the life which in daytime made all homelike, but which
+now, quenched and hidden, left all desolate, forbidding. As sleep takes
+on the semblance of death, so the sleeping house took on the semblance of
+desertion. The chickens were still humped on their perches in the trees,
+the cows had not come up to the milking-pen, their calves lay in a little
+bunch by the fence fast asleep. To the girl's heavy heart it seemed a
+spot utterly forlorn in the chill, sad, ironic half-light of the
+slow-coming morning.
+
+She rode directly to the barn, unsaddled, and put her horse out. As she
+was coming back past her uncle's cabin, she saw the old man himself
+sitting in the door. He was fully dressed; his hat lay on the doorstone
+beside him, and against the jamb leaned Old Sister. He looked up at her
+with a sort of indifferent, troubled gaze.
+
+"So you got back, Jude," he said quietly.
+
+"Yes, Uncle Jep," she returned as quietly.
+
+He made no comment on her riding skirt which she held up away from the
+drenching dew. He asked no questions as to where she had been, or what
+her errand. She noted that he looked old and worn.
+
+"I'm mighty sorry it happened," he began abruptly, quite as though he was
+continuing a conversation which they had intermitted but a few moments,
+"mighty sorry; but I don't see no other way. I've studied a heap on it.
+Folks that stirs up trouble, gits trouble. I----"
+
+He broke off and sat brooding.
+
+"I'm glad you ain't mad at me for the part I've tuck in it," Judith began
+finally.
+
+"Don't tell me." He raised a hasty, protesting hand. "I don't want to
+know nothin' about it. All is, _I_ couldn't have things according to my
+ruthers, and they had to go as they must. Hit ain't what a man means that
+makes the differ--hit's what he does that we count. Them that stirs up
+trouble, finds trouble."
+
+"I reckon so, Uncle Jep," said the girl, drooping as she stood.
+
+"They ain't been a roof between my head and the sky sence I left this
+house," the old man's big voice rumbled on monotonously, hollowly. "I
+tromped the ridges over to'ds Yeller Old Bald. I left mankind and their
+works behind me, and I have done a power of thinking; but I can't make
+this thing come out no other way."
+
+He ceased and sat looking down. The girl could fancy his solitary meals
+where he cooked what he had killed and ate it, to lie down under the sky
+and sleep. Women are denied this fleeing to the desert to be alone with
+God and their sorrow. She envied him the privilege. She had no heart to
+repeat to him Creed's statements that he was not a spy. That was all
+past--wiped out by the parting between her and her lover.
+
+"Yes, Uncle Jep," she uttered low, and with bent head she moved
+dejectedly on toward the house.
+
+Here all the boys were sleeping noisily after their vigils of the night
+before. About three o'clock, or a little after, they had come home to
+find their father turning in at the gate. With their disappointment fresh
+upon them they broke through his command of silence, and Wade told him
+how they and Blatch had planned the ambush, how Blatch had been called
+away, how they had waited in the hollow for Creed, who had promised to
+"come and talk to them," how he had never come, but how Arley Kittridge a
+few minutes ago had ridden up to notify them that Bonbright was gone from
+Nancy Card's, and that the mule was gone with him. None of the watchers
+could say what direction he took, except to give earnest assurances that
+he had not left by any trail leading down the mountain. "He's bound to be
+over here somewhars," Wade concluded, "and Blatch not havin' got back
+from Garyville, they two has met somewhars."
+
+The old man listened in silence, and when his son had made an end offered
+neither comment nor reply. He passed over without a word the revelation
+of the deceit about Blatch's supposed killing. It was as though, weary
+and foredone, he dismissed the young fellows to the logic of events--to
+life itself--for response, explanation, or punishment.
+
+Judith changed her dress, bathed her pale face, and set about preparing
+breakfast. And that was a strange meal when she had finally put it on the
+table and bidden them to it. The sons sat in their places like chidden
+schoolboys, furtively studying their father's ravaged visage, looking at
+each other and muttering requests or replies. They were all aware of the
+ugliness of their several offences. Creed's strange disappearance,
+Blatch's failure to return, the utter collapse of their errand, these had
+shaken them terribly.
+
+About a third of the way through the meal Jim Cal shuffled in.
+
+"Do you mind givin' me some breakfast, Jude?" he asked humbly. "Iley an'
+the chaps is all sound asleep. I hate to wake 'em, an' I never was no
+hand to do for myse'f."
+
+"Set and welcome," said Judith, mechanically placing a chair for the one
+who had been most resolute of all that Creed must die. So it was that
+they were all seated about the board when Blatch Turrentine, without a
+word, made his appearance in the door. Without moving his head Jephthah
+turned those sombre eyes of his upon his nephew, and regarded him
+steadily. The younger man stopped where he was on the threshold.
+
+"So ye ain't dead?" inquired his uncle finally.
+
+"I reckon that ain't news to you, is it?" asked Blatch, making as though
+to come in and take his place at the table.
+
+For a moment the loyalty of the tribal head, the hospitality of the
+mountaineer, warred in old Jephthah's heart with deep, strong resentment
+against this man. Then he said without rising,
+
+"Yes, hit's news. But you may take it that hit's news I ain't heard. I
+reckon we'll just leave it that you _air_ dead. The lease on the ground
+over thar runs tell next spring. I'll not rue my bargain, but no son of
+mine sets his foot on yo' land and stays my son, and you don't put yo'
+foot in this house again. You give it out that you was dead--stay dead."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Blatch. "Yo' a-blamin' the whole business on me, air
+ye? Well, that's handy. What about them fine fellers that's settin' at
+meat with ye now? I reckon the tale goes that I led 'em into all their
+meanness."
+
+Jim Cal dropped his head and stared at the bit of cornbread in his pudgy
+fingers; Wade glanced up angrily; the twins stirred like young hounds in
+leash; but Jephthah quieted them all with a look.
+
+"Blatch," began the head of the house temperately, even sadly, "yo' my
+brother's son. Sam and me was chaps together, and I set a heap of store
+by him. Sam's been gone more than ten year, and in that time I've aimed
+to do by you as I would by a son of my own. I felt that hit was something
+I owed to Sam. But ef I owed hit hit's been paid out. Yo' Sam's son, but
+also yo' a Blatchley, and I reckon the Blatchley blood had to show up in
+ye. My boys is neither better nor worse than others, but when I say that
+I don't aim to have you walk with 'em, I say what is my right. What I
+owed yo' daddy, and my dead brother, has been paid out--hit's been paid
+plumb out."
+
+Now that it was made plain, Blatch took the dismissal hardily. Perhaps he
+had been more or less prepared for it, knowing as he would have phrased
+it that his uncle wanted but half a chance to break with him. He was
+aware, too, that the secret of his illicit traffic was safe in the old
+man's hands, and that indeed Jephthah would strain a point to defend him
+for the name's sake if for nothing else.
+
+"All right," he said, "ef them's yo' ruthers, hit suits me. What do
+you-all boys say?--I reckon Unc' Jep'll let ye speak for yo'selves--this
+one time."
+
+"I say what pap says," came promptly from Wade. And, "Jeff an' me thinks
+it's about time pap's word went with his boys," put in the younger and
+more emotional Andy.
+
+"All right, all right," agreed Blatch in some haste, finding the battle
+to go thus sweepingly against him. "I wont expect no opinions from you,
+podner, tell you've had time to run home an' ax Iley what air they. Ye
+ain't named Judith, Unc' Jep," he went on, glancing to where the girl
+knelt on the hearthstone dishing up corn pones from the Dutch oven.
+"Cain't she come over and visit me when she has a mind?"
+
+"Judith's her own mistress. She can use her ruthers," returned Jephthah
+briefly, "but I misdoubt that you'll be greatly troubled with her
+company."
+
+"Help me git my things out of the cupboard thar, Jude, won't ye?" asked
+Blatch civilly enough.
+
+Without reply, without glancing at him, Judith preceded him into the
+fore-room, opened the doors and sought out his clean clothing, making it
+into a neat pile on the table.
+
+"You come over and see me sometimes, won't ye, Judy?" whispered the tall
+man as he bundled these up. "I won't tell who I seen you with."
+
+Judith looked at him with wordless contempt. Her own pain was so great
+that even anger was swallowed up in it.
+
+"Tell anybody you're a mind to," she said listlessly. "I ain't
+a-carin'."
+
+"I may git word of him, Jude," persisted Blatch as he was departing. "Ef
+I do would you wish to hear it? Ef you say yes, I'll send ye notice."
+
+Again she glanced at him with that negligent disdain. What could he do to
+her now who had lost all? She was beyond the reach of his love or his
+malice.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+A Conversion
+
+
+And now Judith's days strung themselves on the glowing thread of
+midsummer weather like black beads on a golden cord, a rosary of pain.
+She told each bead with sighs, facing the morning with a heavy heart that
+longed for darkness, lying down when day was over in dread of the night
+and a weariness that brought no sleep. And the cedar tree, swayed in the
+raw autumn air, talking to itself sombrely of the empty nest in its
+heart, sounded upon her wakeful ears a note of desolation and despair.
+For all the Turkey Tracks soon knew that Blatch Turrentine was sound and
+whole; all Hepzibah knew it eventually--and Creed Bonbright neither
+returned nor made any sign.
+
+The embargo being removed, Judith went straight to Nancy Card.
+
+In the preoccupation of her sorrow, she might have forgotten Little
+Buck's wounded heart; but when as of custom Beezy came rioting out to
+meet her, the man child hung back with so strange a countenance that she
+needs must note it.
+
+"Come here, honey," she urged tenderly--her own suffering made her very
+pitiful to the childish grief.
+
+Little Buck came slowly up to his idol, lifting doubtful eyes to her
+face. The girl's ready arm went swiftly round the small figure.
+
+"Are you pestered about that word I sent Creed Bonbright by you?" she
+whispered.
+
+The little boy nodded solemnly, and you could see the choke in his
+throat.
+
+"Well, you don't need to be," she reassured him. "I had to send jest that
+word, Little Buck--jest that very word; nothin' less would 'a' brought
+him."
+
+Again the child nodded, twisting around to look in her face, his own
+countenance clearing a bit.
+
+"But it don't make any differ between you an' me, does it, honey?" she
+pursued. "You're Jude's man, jest the same as you ever was, ain't ye? You
+wouldn't never need to be jealous of anybody; 'cause you know all the
+time that Judy loves you."
+
+Silently the small man put his arms round her neck and hugged her
+hard--an unusual demonstration for Little Buck. And during her entire
+stay he hung close about, somewhat to Nancy's annoyance, seeming to find
+plentiful joy in the contemplation of his recovered treasure.
+
+The loss of Creed had meant a good deal to Nancy. More like a son than a
+boarder in her house, he had brought with him a sense of support and
+competence such as the hard-worked little woman had never known. With his
+going, she was back again in the old helpless, moneyless situation, with
+Pony on her hands a growing problem and anxiety, and Doss Provine but a
+broken reed on which to lean. Such inquiries after Creed as they managed
+to set afoot fetched no return.
+
+"Hit ain't like Creed to be scared and keep runnin'," she would repeat
+pathetically. "I know in reason something awful has chanced to that boy.
+Either that, or it's like they're all beginning to say, he's wedded and
+gone to Texas same as his cousin Cyarter done. Cyarter Bonbright run away
+with a gal on the night she was to have wedded another feller--tuck her
+right out of the country and went to Texas. That's Bonbright nature: they
+ain't much on sweet-heartin' an' sech, but when they git it, they git it
+hard."
+
+She laid a loving hand on the girl's shoulder, and leaned around to look
+frankly into the beautiful, melancholy, dark face with the direct, honest
+grey eyes that would admit no concealments between herself and those whom
+she really cared for.
+
+"I speak right out to you, Jude," she said kindly, "'caze I see how hit's
+been between you an' Creed, an' hit'll hurt you less if you get used to
+the idy of givin' him up. Him treated the way he was, I don't know as I'd
+blame him."
+
+But Judith could have blamed him. It was only when despair pressed too
+hard that she could say she would be glad to know he was alive even
+though he belonged to somebody else. Yet to credit Blatch's story for a
+moment, to think he had gone that night with Huldah Spiller, was to open
+the heart's door on such a black vista of treachery and double-dealing in
+Creed's conduct, to so utterly discredit his caring for herself, that she
+had no defence but to disbelieve the whole tale, and this she was
+generally able to do.
+
+But as far away as Hepzibah a small event was preparing that should break
+the monotony of Judith's grievous days. Venters Drane, the elder's
+twelve-year-old boy, going to school in the village, fell ill of
+diphtheria. When word was brought to the father--a widower and wise--he
+loaded his three younger children and their small belongings into the
+waggon and drove over to the Turrentine place.
+
+"I jest p'intedly ain't got nary another place to leave 'em, Sister
+Barrier, nor nary another soul on earth that I could trust 'em with like
+I could with you," he said wistfully, after he had explained the
+necessities of the case. "I'm on my way down now to get Venters and bring
+him home--look at that, will ye!" as the baby made a dash for Judith who
+stood by the wheel looking up.
+
+"They're mighty welcome, Elder Drane," Judith declared warmly, receiving
+the little fellow in open arms. "I'll be glad to do for 'em."
+
+Martin and Lucy were old-fashioned, repressed, timid children, with the
+pathetic outlook of young persons brought up by a melancholy, ancient
+hireling. But the baby, glowing-eyed, laughing-mouthed rogue, staggering
+valiantly on sturdy, emulous legs, taking tribute everywhere with all
+babyhood's divine audacity, walked straight into her heart. He slept
+beside her at night, for him she darkened and quieted the house of
+afternoons, lying down with him to watch his slumbers, to brood with
+mother fondness upon the round, rosy, small face, and the even, placid
+breathing.
+
+Drane had brought such clothing as they had, but Judith found them
+ill-provided, and set to work for them at once. Being a capable
+needlewoman she soon had them apparelled more to her liking, and the
+labour physicked pain. Sitting in the porch sewing, with the baby
+tumbling about the floor at her feet and Mart and Lucy building
+play-houses in the yard under the trees, Judith began dimly to realise
+that life, somewhere and at some time, might lack all she had so
+passionately craved, all she so piercingly regretted, and yet hold some
+peace, some satisfaction. True she was still desolate, robbed,
+despairing, yet with the children to tend there were hours when she
+almost lost sight of her own sorrow, in the sweet compulsion of doing for
+them.
+
+Jim Cal shook his head over these arrangements. "Looks like to me ef I
+was a widower with chaps, trying to wed a fine lookin', upheaded gal like
+Jude, I'd a' kep' the little 'uns out of her sight as much as I could,
+'stid of fetchin' 'em right to her. Hit seems now as though she muched
+them greatly, but she's sartin shore to find out what a sight o' trouble
+chaps makes, and ain't any woman wantin' more work than she's 'bleeged to
+have."
+
+Lacking active concerns of his own, James Calhoun was always greatly
+interested in those of the persons about him. Judith's doings, on account
+of her reticence, beauty and high spirit, proved a theme of unending,
+mild interest.
+
+"Jude," he opened out one day as he sat on the edge of the porch while
+his cousin was busy with some sewing for her little visitors, "did ye
+hear 'bout Lace Rountree?"
+
+Judith never moved her eyes from her work. "I know they's sech a person,"
+she said evenly, "if that's what you mean."
+
+"No, but have ye heared of how he's a-doin' here lately?" persisted the
+fat man. "I don't know as anybody has named anything special to me about
+Lacey Rountree or his doin's," Judith returned with a rising irritation.
+"Why should they?"
+
+Jim Cal heaved a wheezy sigh. "'Caze yo' said to be the cause of it," he
+expounded with lugubrious enjoyment. "Lace Rountree is fillin' hisse'f up
+on corn whiskey and givin' it out to each and every that he's goin' plumb
+straight _di_-rect to the dav-il, an' all on yo' accounts--'caze you
+wouldn't have 'im. Now what do you make out o' that?"
+
+"I make out that some folks are mighty big fools," retorted Judith with
+asperity. "Lace Rountree is no older than Jeff and Andy--he's two years
+younger'n I am--why, he's like a child to me. I never no more thought of
+Lace Rountree than I'd think of--well, not so much as I would of Little
+Buck Provine."
+
+"Uh-huh," agreed Jim Cal shaking his head dolefully, "that's the way you
+talk; but you-all gals had ort to have a care how you toll fellers on.
+Here's Huldy got Wade so up-tore about her that he's a-goin' to dash out
+and git him a place on the railroad whar he's mighty apt to be killed up;
+and you----"
+
+"I what?" prompted Judith sharply, as he came to a wavering pause.
+
+"Well--they was always one man that you give good reason to expect you'd
+wed him. I myse'f have heared you, more'n forty times I reckon, say to
+Blatch Turrentine--or if not say it in so many words, at least----"
+
+"Cousin Jim," broke in Judith, carefully ignoring this last charge, "so
+far as that Lace Rountree is concerned, did you ever know of a reckless
+feller that come to no good but what he had some gal at whose door he
+could lay it all? I vow I never did. They ain't a drinkin' whiskey becaze
+they like it; they don't git into no interruptions becaze they're
+mad--it's always 'count o' some gal that has give 'em the mitten. I'll
+thank you not to name Lace Rountree to me again, nor--nor anybody else,"
+as she saw his eyes wander to the sewing in her lap.
+
+"Well, Drane's old enough to look out for hisse'f," said Jim Cal, rising
+and trying his joints apparently for a movement toward home. "Ef you
+choose to toll him on by takin' care of his chaps, that's yo' lookout,
+and his lookout--'taint mine; but 'ef I was givin' the man advice, I'd
+say to him that he might about as well take 'em home, or hunt up some
+other gal to leave 'em with, 'caze yo' apt to much the chil'en and then
+pop the do' in the daddy's face."
+
+The weeks brought piecemeal confirmation of Jim Cal's dismal forebodings.
+Elihu Drane took advantage of every pretext to haunt about the roof that
+sheltered his children. Though he was not with the sick boy, he made the
+presence of a "ketchin' town disease" in his home, reason for not coming
+near the little ones, but called Judith down to the draw-bars to talk to
+him. When he had her there at such disadvantage, he so pertinaciously
+urged his unwelcome suit that he made her finally glad to be rid of the
+children, to see him, when Venters was once more well, take them away
+with him and give her respite from his importunities.
+
+In the case of Wade, too, the fat man's pessimistic expectations were
+realised; the young man did, early in August, dash out and secure a place
+on the railroad. Mountain people write few letters. They heard nothing
+from him after the first message which told them where he was employed
+and what wages he was to have.
+
+It was September when Iley announced to Judith that she had word from
+some of Pap Spiller's kin who were living in Garyville, that
+acquaintances of theirs from Hepzibah, coming down to the circus at the
+larger town, had given them roundabout and vague news of Huldah. The girl
+had delayed in Hepzibah but a few days. The story as it came up on the
+mountain was that she had married "some feller from Big Turkey Track, and
+gone off on the railroad."
+
+"Them Tuels is mighty po' hands to remember names," Iley said. "But all
+ye got to do is to look around and take notice of anybody that's gone
+from Big Turkey Track here lately. Ye can fix it to suit yo'se'f. But I
+reckon Huldy has made a good match, and I'm satisfied."
+
+Judith looked upon the floor in silence. In silence she left the cabin
+and took her way to her own home. And that night, while the cedar tree
+talked to her in the voice of love--Creed's voice--she fought with
+dragons and slew them, and was slain by them.
+
+When Blatchley Turrentine had asserted this thing to her at Garyville,
+she found somewhere--after her first gust of unreasoning resentment was
+past--strength to disbelieve it utterly. But now it came again in more
+plausible guise. It gained likeliness from mere repetition. And hardest
+of all to bear, she was totally unsupported in her trust. She knew Creed,
+knew his love for her; yet to cling to it was to fly in the face of
+probabilities, and of everything and everybody about her. The lover who
+is silent, absent from her who loves him, at such a time, runs tremendous
+risks.
+
+It was the set or turn of the year's tide; sunsets were full, rich,
+yellow, and a great round, golden moon swung in the evening sky above the
+purple hills. A soft, purring monotone of little tree crickets in the
+night forest replaced the shriller insect chorus of midsummer. Garden
+patches, about through their summer yield, were a tangle of bubble-tinted
+morning glories, the open woods misty with wild asters, bell flowers
+trembling from the crevices of rocks; and along fence-row and watercourse
+turkey-pea, brook sunflower, queen of the meadow, and joepye-weed made
+gay the land.
+
+Such farm work as remained was only garnering--fodder-pulling, pea-hay
+and millet hay to gather; with a little sowing of wheat, rye, or turf
+oats.
+
+In late midsummer and early fall revivalists, preachers, and exhorters go
+through the Cumberlands holding protracted meetings in the little
+isolated churches. At this time of year the men as well as the women are
+most at liberty. To a people who live scattered through a remote and
+inaccessible region, who have few and scanty public gatherings and
+diversions, this season of religious activity offers the one emotional
+outlet which their conception of dignity permits them, and it is
+proportionately precious in their eyes. In addition to the women and the
+girls and boys, who usually make up the rank and file of religious
+gatherings elsewhere, here at this favoured season old fellows, heads of
+families and life-long pillars of the Church, give up their entire time
+to the meetings. The family is put into the waggon with a basket of
+dinner, and they make a day of it. Services hold as late as twelve and
+one o'clock, and after them this contained, stoic folk will go home
+through the woods, carrying pine torches, singing, shouting, laughing,
+sobbing.
+
+Hiram Bohannon came into the two Turkey Tracks this year and held
+services at Brush Arbour church. He was very much in earnest, Brother
+Bohannon, a practical man with a rough native eloquence that spoke loud
+to his hearers.
+
+Every afternoon the wild, sweet hymns rang out over the little cup-like
+valley in which Brush Arbour church stood. The month was extremely warm,
+and they used the outside brush arbour from which the schoolhouse-church
+received its name.
+
+Judith went day and night in a feverish attempt to get away from herself
+and her sorrows. Even the fact that Elihu Drane was very much to the fore
+in these gatherings could not deter her. Sitting in the open there, her
+hands clasped upon her knee, her sombre eyes on the ground, or
+interrogating the distance with an unseeing stare, she would let hymn and
+sermon, prayer and the weeping and shouting which always close night
+meeting, go past her ears well-nigh unheard. Before those darkened,
+bereaved eyes, turn where they would, Love's ever-renewed idyl of rustic
+courtship was enacting, since Big Meetin' was the time and occasion of
+all the year for Corydon to encounter Phyllis, to stroll or sit beneath
+the trees with her, possibly to "carry her home."
+
+Andy and Jeff began taking the Lusk girls to meeting, and within a week's
+time two very pale young men--the twins always acted in concert--stumbled
+up the earthen aisle between the puncheon seats to join the group at the
+mourners' bench and ask for the prayers of the congregation. Brother
+Bohannon knew what quarry he had netted, and he hurried down at once,
+half in doubt that this was another scheme of these young daredevils to
+make game of his meeting. But both boys were on their knees, and the
+tears with which they began confessing to him past sins, the penitence of
+their shaking voices, proclaimed the genuineness of their conversion.
+
+Cliantha and Pendrilla left behind--they had been sober church members
+since they were twelve years old--fluttered to Judith and demanded her
+instant attention to the miracle.
+
+"Oh, Judith, ain't it jest too good to be true?" panted little Cliantha.
+"Jeff never did lack anything of bein' the best man that ever walked this
+earth except to jine the church--an' now look at him!"
+
+"And Andy, too," put in Pendrilla jealously. "I do believe Andy is a
+prayin' the loudest--I'm shore he is."
+
+Judith roused herself. "I'm mighty glad--for the both of ye," she said
+kindly.
+
+And then she looked at their tremulous, happy faces, at the kneeling boys
+up among the press of figures about the pulpit, and burst into a storm of
+weeping. Where was her lover? Where was Creed? Dead--or he had forgotten
+her.
+
+"Are you under conviction of sin, sister?" inquired one of the helpers.
+
+Judith let it pass at that, and flung herself on her knees beside the
+bench to wait until the last hymn and the dismissal.
+
+Brother Bohannon was an extremely practical Christian; his creed applied
+to every day in the year and to the most commonplace acts. He adjured his
+converts not only to quit their meanness, but to go and acknowledge past
+errors, to repair such evil as they could, and if possible to seek
+forgiveness from man, certain that God's forgiveness would follow. Such
+counsel as this brought the twins to their father's cabin early on the
+morning after their conversion at Brush Arbour church.
+
+"Pap," began Andy standing before his parent with an odd suggestion of
+the small boy caught in mischief, "me and Jeff are aimin' to join the
+church."
+
+"That's right, son," said the old man rising and clapping a hearty hand
+on each young shoulder. "I'm mighty proud to hear it. Hit's a good way
+for fellers like you to start out in this world."
+
+"Well, befo' we do so," Jeff took up the burden, "the preacher says we
+ort to confess our sins and git forgiveness from them we have done wrong
+by. Creed Bonbright ain't here. Mebbe he's never goin' to be back any
+mo'. We talked it over and 'lowed we'd better come tell you, pap."
+
+At Creed Bonbright's name a pathetic change went over old Jephthah's
+pleased countenance. He had received the opening words with satisfaction,
+not untinctured by the mild, patronising indulgence we show to children.
+But when Bonbright was mentioned he sat back in his chair, nervously
+knocking the ash from his pipe, anxiously staring at the boys.
+
+"I'm mighty proud," he repeated, "to hear what you say." He spoke gravely
+and with dignity; but a note of uncontrollable eagerness stole into his
+voice, as he added in a lower tone, "What mought you-all have to tell me
+about Creed Bonbright?"
+
+"Pap, we done you a meanness in that business," hastened Jeff. "We had no
+call to lie to you like we done, and send the feller word in yo' name."
+
+"Wade, he was mad about his gal," agreed Andy thoughtfully, "but what
+possessed me and Jeff I'll never tell ye. Spy or no spy, we done that man
+wrong."
+
+Jephthah looked expectantly and in silence from one young face to the
+other.
+
+"Blatch let on to you hit was the still; but of course we knowed hit was
+Jude that ailed him. He got Taylor Stribling to toll Creed to Foeman's
+Bluff that night," Jeff supplied. "Blatch picked the quarrel, and drawed
+a knife when they was wrastlin', and when Bonbright pushed Blatch away
+from him, he fell over the cliff. That's God's truth about the business,
+pappy, ef I ever spoke it. Me an' Andy an' Wade was all into it."
+
+The boyish countenance was pale, and Jeff drew a nervous hand across his
+brow as he concluded. There followed a lengthened silence. Old Jephthah
+sat regarding his own brown right hand as it lay upon his knee.
+
+"Ye tolled him thar," he said finally. "Ye tolled him thar. Then Creed
+Bonbright wasn't no spy." He lifted his head. "I never could make it
+figure up right for that feller to be a spy. Curious he was, and he had
+some idees that I couldn't agree with; but a spy----"
+
+He broke off suddenly, and one saw how strong had been the bond between
+him and the young justice, how greatly he cared that the memory of the
+man even should be cleared.
+
+The boys looked at each other, and with a gulp Jeff began again:
+
+"I reckon you knowed well enough we stood in with Blatch when he hid out
+and let folks believe the killin' had been did. We knowed you seen
+through it all; but when ye git started in a business like that, one
+thing leads on to another, and befo' you're done with it, ye do a plenty
+that you'd ruther not."
+
+"Well, hit's over and cain't be he'ped, but you've done what's right at
+last," Jephthah assured them. "The church is a mighty good thing for
+young fellers like you. A good wife'll do a sight to he'p along."
+
+He looked at them kindly. He had never liked his boys half so well.
+
+"I'm mighty proud of the both of ye," he concluded heartily. "Ef Creed
+Bonbright ever does come back in the mountains, we'll show him that the
+Turrentines can be better friends than foes to a man."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI
+
+The Baptising
+
+
+October had led forth her train across the Cumberlands. One night the
+forest was fairly green, but early risers next morning found that in the
+darkness while they slept the hickories had been touched to gold, the
+oaks smitten with a promise of the glowing mahogany-red which was to be
+theirs. Sourwood and sumach blazed; the woodbine flung its banner of
+blood, chestnuts were yellow where the nuts dropped through them from
+loosened burs. The varying dark greens of balsam and fir, pine and cedar,
+heightened by contrast the glow of colour, while the dim blue sky above
+set its note of tender distance and forgetfulness. On a thousand mountain
+peaks smoked and smouldered, flared and flamed the altar fires of
+autumn.
+
+After that each day saw a deepening of the glory in the hills. It was
+like a noble overture a multitudinous chorus made visible. The marvel of
+it was that one sense should be so clamorously challenged while the other
+was not addressed. The ear hearkened ever amid that grand symphony of
+colour for some mighty harmony of sound. But even the piping song-birds
+were gone, and the cry of a hawk wheeling high in the blue, the voice of
+a woman calling her cow, these sounded loud in the autumnal hush.
+
+The streams were shrunken to pools whose clear jade reaches reflected the
+blazing banners above them, and offered mimic seas for the sailing of
+painted argosies when the wind shook the leaves down. There was a fruity
+odour of persimmon and wild grape forever in the air. The salmon-pink
+globes stood defined against the blue on leafless twigs, while the frost
+sweetened them to sugary jelly, and the black wild grape by the
+water-courses yielded an odour that was only less material than the
+flavour of its juices. Every angle of the rail fences became a parterre
+with golden-rod, cat-brier, and the red-and-yellow pied leaves of
+blackberries, while a fringe of purple and white asters thrust fragile
+fingers through the rails below, or the stout iron-weed pushed its
+purple-red blooms into view at the head of tall, lance-like stems.
+
+Judith walking in the woods one day found a great nest of Indian pipe.
+She bent listlessly to pick the waxen mystic blossoms, thinking to
+herself that they were like some beautiful dead thing; and then she came
+upon a delicate flush on the side of their clear, translucent pearl, and
+wondered if it were an omen.
+
+It was a gorgeous October Sabbath when the boys were baptised. Baptisms
+always took place from Brush Arbour in a sizable pool of Lost Creek which
+flows through one corner of the little valley that holds the church
+building. The sward which ran down to its clear mirror was yet green, but
+the maples and sourwoods above it were coloured splendidly. Among their
+clamant red and yellow laurel and rhododendron showed glossy green, and
+added to the gay tapestry. The painted leaves let go their hold on twig
+or bough and dropped whispering into the water, like garlands flung to
+dress the coming rite.
+
+Morning meeting was over. The women-folks who had come far spread dinner
+on the grass near the church, joining together occasionally, the children
+wandering about in solemn delight with a piece of corn pone in hand,
+whispering among the graves in the tiny God's acre, spelling out the
+words upon some wooden head-board, or the rarer stone.
+
+The Big Spring was the customary gathering place of the young people
+before church, and during intermissions, about its clear basin, on the
+slopes above the great rock from under which it issued, might be seen a
+number of couples, the boys in Sunday best of jeans or store-bought
+clothing, the girls fluttering in cheap lawns or calicoes, and wearing
+generally hats instead of the more becoming sunbonnet. Judith had been
+used to lead her following here, and the number of her swains would have
+been a scandal in any one else: but there was a native dignity about
+Judith Barrier that kept even rural gossip at bay. This morning, however,
+when Elder Drane gave her the customary invitation to walk down there for
+a drink, she refused, and all during the first service the widower had
+sat tall and reproachful on the men's side and reminded her of past
+follies. She was aware of his accusing eyes even when she did not look in
+his direction, and uncomfortably aware too that others saw what she saw.
+
+Throughout the pleasant picnic meal, shared with its group of neighbours,
+the sight of Andy and Jeff with Cliantha and Pendrilla aggravated a dull
+pain which dragged always in her heart, and when dinner was over and they
+had packed the basket once more, and set it in the back of the waggon,
+she left them, to wander by herself on the farther side of Lost Creek,
+sitting down finally in the shade of a great sourwood, and looking
+moodily at the water. All afternoon she sat there wrapt in her own
+emotions, forgetful of time and place. The congregation straggled back
+into the little log church, and the second service was begun. The
+preacher's voice came floating out to her softened by distance, and with
+it the sound of singing; as the meeting drew to its close an occasional
+more vociferous "Amen!" or "Glory!" or "Praise God!" made itself heard.
+The sun was beginning to slant well from the west when she got suddenly
+to her feet with the startled realisation that afternoon preaching was
+over, the people were pouring from the church door, streaming across the
+green toward the baptising pool. They were in the middle of a hymn.
+
+    "Oh, wanderer return--return,"
+
+came their musical tones across the water. The grey-haired old preacher
+was in the lead, his black coat blowing about him, the congregation
+spreading out fan-wise as they followed after, Andy and Jeff arm in arm,
+the half-dozen others who were to be baptised walking with them.
+
+Her fretted, pining spirit had no appreciation left for the appeal of the
+picture. She gazed, and looked away, and groaned. "Oh, wanderer return,"
+they sang--almost her heart could not bear the words.
+
+She sighed. Ought she to cross the foot-log and be with them when the
+boys were dipped? But while she hesitated the singers struck up a
+different hymn, a louder, more militant strain. Brother Bohannon was at
+the water; he was wading in; he was up to his knees now--up to his
+waist.
+
+"Send 'em in, Brother Drane," she heard him call. "This is about deep
+enough. That's right--give me the young men first. When the others see
+them dipped they'll have no fear."
+
+Elihu Drane took Andy's arm, and another helper laid hold of Jeff.
+
+"Sing--sing brethren and sisters," admonished the preacher. "Make a
+joyful noise unto the Lord. This is the time for Hallelujahs. Ef ye don't
+sing now, when will ye ever?"
+
+Andy spoke low in the elder's ear, whereupon he was released, and turned
+to his brother; hand-in-hand the two stepped into the water alone. Judith
+saw the pale, boyish faces, strangely refined by the exaltation of spirit
+which was upon them, as the twins waded out toward the preacher. Bohannon
+called to Jeff, shook hands with him, shouted, "Praise God, brother.
+Glory! Glory! Now--make yo'se'f right stiff. Let me have ye. Don't be
+scared. I won't drop ye. I've baptised a many before you was born, son."
+His right hand was lifted dripping above the dark head. "I baptise ye,
+Thomas Jefferson Turrentine, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and
+the Holy Ghost, Amen."
+
+"Amen--Amen!" came the deep chorus from the bank, the high, plaintive
+women's voices undertoned by the masculine bass.
+
+The black coat sleeve went around the white-clad shoulders, the preacher
+dropped his new convert gently backward into the shining water, dipped
+him, and Jeff who was not an excellent swimmer for nothing, came up
+quiet, smiling, and stood aside to wait for his brother.
+
+"Sing--sing!" cried the preacher. "Here goes another soul on its way to
+glory," and he reached forth to take Andy. A moment later he sent him,
+drenched, but washed clean of his sins, so far as mountain belief goes,
+after his twin. The hallelujahs burst forth to greet the boys: joyful
+shouts, amens, and some sobbing when, hand-in-hand--even as they had gone
+in--they came up out of the water.
+
+"Mighty pretty to look at, ain't it?" said a voice at Judith's shoulder.
+
+She turned to find Blatch Turrentine standing behind her.
+
+"I reckon Andy and Jeff is goin' to be regular little prayin' Sammies
+from this out," jeered the newcomer.
+
+"Granny Lusk has given her consent for them and the gals to be wedded,"
+remarked Judith softly. To her--and perhaps to Cliantha and Pendrilla
+also--the main importance of the twins' conversion was in this
+permission, which had been withheld so long as they were wild and had a
+bad name.
+
+"I heared of another weddin' that might interest ye," Blatch insinuated.
+"Want to come and walk a piece over by the Big Spring, Judy?"
+
+Judith turned uncertainly. The boys had passed on up to the sheds to get
+on dry clothing. It was nearly time for her to be going back to the
+waggon. Bohannon was dipping Doss Provine's sister Luna. A group of
+trembling, tearful candidates, mostly young girls, were being heartened
+and encouraged for the ordeal by the helpers on the bank.
+
+"Tell me here--cain't ye?" she said listlessly.
+
+"I heared from a feller that got it from another feller," Blatch began
+smilingly, "that Huldy Spiller an' Creed Bonbright was wedded and gone to
+Texas. I reckon hit's true, becaze the man that told me was aimin' to buy
+the Bonbright farm."
+
+Judith did not cry out. She hoped her colour did not change very much,
+for Blatch's eyes were on her face. After a while she managed to say in a
+fairly steady voice,
+
+"Does Wade know? Have ye sent any word to him?"
+
+"No," drawled Blatch. "Unc' Jep aimed to break off with me, and he left
+you the only one o' the family that dared speak with me. Mebbe you would
+like to write an' tell Wade?"
+
+"I don't know," sighed Judith hopelessly. "What's the use?"
+
+"Farewell," said Blatch, using a common mountain form of adieu. "I reckon
+Unc' Jep won't want to see me standin' around talkin' to ye. You tell
+Wade," significantly. "The sooner he gets Huldy out of his head the
+better for him. No use cryin' over spilt milk. They's as good fish in the
+sea as ever come out of it."
+
+He looked long at her downcast face.
+
+"Jude, the man that told me that about Bonbright," he said, speaking
+apparently on sudden impulse, "'lowed that the feller had left you--give
+ye the mitten. You're a fool ef ye let that be said, when his betters is
+wantin' ye."
+
+Without another word, without a glance, he turned and slouched swiftly
+away down the path behind the fringe of bushes by the creek side.
+
+The baptising was over. Judith, crossing the stream, saw her uncle's
+waggon, Beck and Pete already hitched to it, being loaded with Jim Cal
+and his tribe. Andy and Jeff were horseback with the Lusk girls. She
+hurried forward to join them and make ready for departure when, to her
+dismay, she encountered Drane at the foot of the slope coming toward
+her.
+
+"Wasn't that thar Blatchley Turrentine?" inquired the elder.
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"I didn't see him in the church," Drane pursued.
+
+"I reckon he wasn't there," assented Judith lifelessly, making as though
+to pass on.
+
+"He jest came here to have speech with you, did he?" inquired the man,
+nervously, brushing his sandy whiskers with unquiet fingers.
+
+"I reckon he did," acknowledged Judith without coquetry, without
+interest.
+
+"Jude!" burst out the widower, "I promised you I never would again ax you
+to wed; but I'm obliged to know ef you're studyin' about takin' that
+feller."
+
+"No," said Judith, resenting nothing, "I never did aim to wed Blatch
+Turrentine, and I never will."
+
+The elder stood directly in her path, blocking the way and staring down
+at her miserably for a long minute.
+
+"That's what you always used to tell me," he remarked finally with a
+heavy sigh. "Back in them days when you let me hope that I'd see you
+settin' by my fireside with my children on your knees, you always talked
+thataway about Blatch--I reckon you talked thataway of me to him."
+
+Judith's pale cheek slowly crimsoned. She looked upon the ground. "I'm
+mighty sorry," she said slowly.
+
+Elihu Drane's faded eyes lighted with fresh fires. He caught the hand
+that hung by her side.
+
+"Oh, Jude--do you mean it?" he cried. "Do you care? You don't know how
+the chaps all love ye and want ye. That old woman I've got doin' for 'em
+ain't fittin' to raise 'em. Everybody tells me I've got to marry and give
+'em a mother, but I cain't seem to find nobody but you. If you feel
+thataway--if you'll----"
+
+Judith drew her hand away with finality, but her eyes were full of
+pitying kindness. She knew now what she had done to this man. By the
+revealing lamp of her own suffering she read his. Back in the old days
+she had counted him only one more triumph in her maiden progress.
+
+"No," she said gravely, "I ain't studyin' about marryin' anybody. I'm
+mighty sorry that I done thataway. I'm sorry, and ashamed; but I have to
+say no again, Elder Drane. There ain't never goin' to be no other
+answer."
+
+"Hit's that feller Bonbright," declared the elder sternly as he stood
+aside to let her pass. "Good Lord, why ain't the man got sense enough to
+come back and claim his own!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+Ebb-Tide
+
+
+Life closed in on Judith after that with an iron hand. She missed sorely
+the children's demands upon her, their play and prattle and movement
+about the place. Huldah was gone. Wade was gone. She could get no news of
+Creed. The things to love and hate and be jealous of seemed to have
+dropped out of her existence, so that the heart recoiled upon itself, the
+spirit wrestled blindly in darkness with an angel which was but its own
+self in other guise.
+
+Day by day she turned from side to side for an exit from the fiery path
+she trod, and cried out to Heaven that she could not bear it--she could
+not stand it--there must be some way other than this!
+
+The Lusk girls and the Turrentine twins were to have a double wedding.
+The preparations for this event were torture to Judith. Everybody, it
+seemed, could be happy but her own poor self. Even the fact that Jeff and
+Andy were changed, kinder to her, more considerate, better men in every
+way, had its own sting. If this could have been so before, the wreck of
+her world need not have come about.
+
+Blatch kept rigorously to his own side of the Gulch, yet once in a while
+Judith met him on the highroad; and then, while he approached her with
+the carefullest efforts toward pleasing, he showed the effects of
+anxiety, the hard life, and the fact that he had begun to drink
+heavily--a thing he had never done before.
+
+Spring would terminate his lease of the Turrentine farm, and then he must
+seek other quarters for his illicit traffic. His situation was doubled in
+danger by the fact that it could not be disguised how his uncle had
+turned upon him. Now that one did not, supposably, incur the displeasure
+of the Turrentines by giving information concerning Blatch and his still,
+the enterprise was a much safer one, and he trembled in hourly terror of
+its being undertaken by some needy soul. This terror gave a certain
+ferocity to his manner. Also the man who had come in with him to take Jim
+Cal's place in the partnership was a more undesirable associate even than
+Buck Shalliday.
+
+Judith watched all these things with an idle lack of interest that was
+strangely foreign to her vivid human temperament. As time passed and she
+could hear nothing from Creed Bonbright, nor of him beyond what Blatch
+had told her, and the connection she made between it and Iley's report of
+Huldah's marriage, the inaction of her woman's lot was almost more than
+she could endure. Of an evening after her milking was over she would
+stand at the draw-bars under the wide, blue, twilight sky, and stare with
+her great, black, passionate eyes into the autumn dusk, and her whole
+being went forth with such an intensity of longing that it seemed some
+part of it must find Creed, wherever he was, and speak for her to him.
+
+After Iley's announcement in September Judith never approached her nor
+talked to her again, though the shrew was growing strangely mild and
+disciplined since Jim Cal had broken with Blatch Turrentine and was
+become a partner in his father's affairs--a husband who is out of the
+good books of other people is a scold-maker with the type of woman Jim
+Cal had married. To go near Pendrilla and Cliantha was to be overwhelmed
+instantly with the joyous details of their wedding preparations. Judith
+flinched from bringing her troubles before such happy eyes. She had but
+Aunt Nancy.
+
+It was bitter hard times at the little cabin on The Edge. Doss Provine
+had begun actively looking for a "second," and his courting operations
+sorely interfered with the making of the small crop. Nancy took the field
+behind the plough; but her efforts came late and availed little. There
+was scarcely food for their mouths; she was continually harassed by
+anxiety concerning Pony, who had got to running with a bad crowd in
+Hepzibah. And finally the thing happened which had not been since Big
+Turkey Track was a mountain and Nancy Card was born in that small cabin.
+At her wit's end, she took Little Buck and Breezy and went away to visit
+a married daughter whose husband worked in a machine-shop in a valley
+settlement, leaving Doss Provine to stay with his kin for the time. There
+was plenty at her daughter's table, and a warm welcome awaiting her and
+the children; besides, the man of the house had promised to find a job
+for her spoiled boy, and give him the masculine oversight and discipline
+he needed. At Hepzibah she gathered up that rather astonished young man,
+exerting for once the real authority that was in her, and with him set
+out on this formidable journey.
+
+Just once old Jephthah went past that closed door. Just once he looked on
+the little front yard spilling over its rived palings with autumn
+blossoms. And he came home so out of joint with life, in so altogether
+impossible a mood, that it was fairly unsafe to mention as innocent a
+matter as the time of day to him. Up to now perhaps he had not known what
+a very large place in his life those almost daily quarrels with his old
+sweetheart filled. Now the restlessness which had come with the trouble
+over Creed Bonbright was renewed; he wandered about aimlessly, with a
+good word for nothing and nobody, and opined darkly that his liver was
+out of order.
+
+"Aunt Nancy told me one time that she would almost be willin' to wed you
+to get a chance to give you a good course of spring medicine for that
+thar liver," remarked Judith casually. And then she looked up with a wan
+little smile, to find an expression in her uncle's eyes that set her
+wondering.
+
+Oh, dear Heaven--was it like that? Would she grieve for Creed all her
+life long, till she was an old, old woman? She declared it should not be
+so. Love would never be within her reach--within the reach of her utmost
+efforts--and escape her, leave her an empty husk to be blown by the wind
+of years to the dust pile of death. One day in this mood she broke down
+and talked to the Lusk girls.
+
+"He said he'd shore come back," she concluded hopelessly. "Well, anyhow,
+he named things that would be done when he come back. I call that a
+promise. I keep thinking he'll come back."
+
+Pendrilla sat, her great china-blue eyes fixed on Judith's tense, pale,
+working face, and the big tears of pure emotional enjoyment began to slip
+down her pink cheeks. In the glow of Judith's splendid, fiery nature, the
+two pale little sisters warmed themselves like timid children at a chance
+hearth. As the full, vibrant voice faltered into silence, Cliantha went
+forward and took her favourite position on her knees beside Judith, her
+arms raised and slipped around the taller girl's waist.
+
+"Oh," she began, with a sort of frightened assurance. "Ef my lover had
+gone from me thataway, and I didn't know whar he was at, an' couldn't git
+no news to him nor from him, I know mighty well and good what _I'd_ do."
+
+"What?" whispered Judith, young lioness that she was, reduced to taking
+counsel from this mouse, "what would you do, Clianthy?"
+
+"I'd make me a dumb supper and call him," asserted the Lusk girl with
+tremulous resolution.
+
+"A dumb supper!" echoed Judith, and then again, on a different key, "a
+dumb supper. I never studied about such as that."
+
+She brooded a moment on the thought, and the girls said nothing, watching
+her breathlessly.
+
+"Do you reckon hit'd do me any good?" she questioned then,
+half-heartedly. "Why, dumb suppers always seemed to me jest happy
+foolishness for light-hearted gals that had sweethearts."
+
+"Oh, no!" disclaimed Pendrilla, joining her sister on the floor at
+Judith's feet. "They ain't nothin' like foolishness about a shore-enough
+dumb supper. Why, Judith, Granny Peavey, our maw's mother, told us oncet
+about a dumb supper that her and two other gals made when she was but
+sixteen year old, and her sweetheart away from her in Virginny, and she
+didn't know whar he was at, an' they brought her tales agin him."
+
+"Well?" prompted Judith feverishly. "Did it do any good? Did she find out
+anything?"
+
+"Her and two others went to a desarted house at midnight--you know that's
+the way, Jude."
+
+Judith nodded impatiently.
+
+"They tuck 'em each some bread an' salt, an' a candle to put the pins in
+and name. They done everything backwards--ye have to do everything
+backwards at a dumb supper. I don't know what happened when the candle
+burned down to the other girls' pins--I forget somehow--but when the pin
+Granny had stuck in the candle an' named for her lover was melted out and
+fell, the do' opened and in he walked and set down beside her. They
+wasn't a word said betwixt 'em. He tasted her salt, an' he et her bread;
+and then he was gone like a flash! And at that very same identical time
+that thar young man was a-crossin' the mountains of Virginny. It drawed
+him--don't you see, Judith?--it drawed him to Granny. He came back to
+her, shore enough, three months after, and they was wedded. He was our
+grandpap, Adoniram Peavey--and every word of that's true."
+
+Judith sank lower in her splint-bottomed chair, looking fixedly above the
+flaxen heads at her knees, out through the open door, across the chip
+pile, and away to the bannered splendours of the autumn slopes.
+
+Cliantha laid her head in Judith's lap and began to whimper.
+
+"They's awful things chanced at them thar dumb suppers," she shivered. "I
+hearn tell of one gal that never had no true-love come, but jest a big
+black coffin hopped in at the do' and bumped around to her place and
+stopped 'side of her. My law, I believe I'd die ef sech as that should
+chance whar I was at!"
+
+Judith's introverted gaze dropped to the girl's face.
+
+"I reckon that gal died," she suggested musingly, "I don't know as I'd
+care much ef the coffin come for me. Unless--he--was to come, I'd ruther
+it would be the coffin. Pendrilly," with a sudden upflash of interest,
+"what is it that comes? Is it the man hisself--or a ghost?"
+
+"'T ain't a ghost--a shore-enough ha'nt," argued Pendrilla soberly,
+sitting back on her heels, "not unless 'n the man's dead, hit couldn't
+be. Hit wasn't no ha'nt of Grandpap Peavey--and yet hit wasn't grandpap
+hisself. I reckon it was a sort of seemin'--jest like a vision in the
+Bible. Don't you, Jude?"
+
+"I 'low," put in Cliantha doubtfully, "that if the right feller is close
+by when he's called by a dumb supper, he comes hisself. But ef he's away
+off somewhars that he cain't git to the place, then this here seemin'
+comes. An' ef he's dead and gone--why you'll see his ha'nt."
+
+"They's jest three of us," whispered Pendrilla. "Three is the right
+number--but I know in my soul I'd be scared till I wouldn't be no manner
+of use to anybody."
+
+"Hit's comin' close to Hollow Eve," suggested Cliantha. "That's the time
+to hold a dumb supper ef one ever should be held. Hit'll work then, ef it
+wouldn't on no other night of the year."
+
+"It has to be held in a desarted house," Pendrilla reiterated the
+condition. "Ef you was to hold a dumb supper, Jude, we could go to the
+old Bonbright house itse'f--ef we had any way to git in."
+
+"I've got the key," said Judith scarcely above her breath. "Creed left it
+with me away last April, to get things for the--for the play-party."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII
+
+The Dumb Supper
+
+
+It was the thirty-first of October, All Souls' eve, that mystic point of
+contact between the worlds when quick and dead are fabled to walk the
+ways of earth together, to meet eye to eye, and hold converse. A web of
+mountain legend clings dimly about this season.
+
+The spirit of it--weird, elfin--was abroad, the air was full of it as,
+alone out in the gusty darkness of the autumn night, at eleven o'clock,
+Judith walked swiftly toward the Lusk place. Wrapped in a little packet
+she carried bread and salt, and a length of candle. She went across
+fields, and thus cut down the distance till it was possible to walk it in
+fifteen minutes.
+
+As she approached the house, Speaker, a barely grown hound-pup, came
+rollicking out to meet her, leaping about her shoulder-high, frisking
+back toward the porch and waiting for her, all the while barking
+joyously.
+
+"My Lord!" said Pendrilla's sleepy small voice when Judith tapped on
+their window in the wing of the building where the girls roomed. "Ef that
+thar fool hound-pup ain't loose! I hope he don't wake up Grandpap. Cain't
+you make him hush, Judith?"
+
+Judith stooped and caressed the dog for a moment, quieting him. The girls
+presently appeared in the doorway fully dressed and, as it seemed, with
+their packets made, in addition to which Cliantha carried an old lantern
+unlighted in her hand.
+
+"I'll light it as soon as we get out in the road," she announced
+whisperingly.
+
+When they would have secured the dog that he might not follow them, they
+found that he, wise for his age, had disappeared.
+
+"I bet he's run down the road apiece; he'll be a-hidin' in the bushes
+waitin' for us," Cliantha opined pessimistically. But there was nothing
+to be done about it, and they set out, to be intercepted in just such
+manner as she foretold.
+
+"I vow, I ain't so mighty sorry Speaker's along of us," Pendrilla said
+after they had vainly browbeaten, threatened, and stoned the hound to
+drive him back through the gate. "He's a mighty heap of company and
+protection out thisaway in the night."
+
+"Girls," said Judith, suddenly halting them all in the little byroad
+which they were travelling, "don't you think we'd better cut across here?
+Hit'll be a lot nearer."
+
+"Grandpap's jest ploughed that thar field to put in his winter wheat,"
+objected Pendrilla. "Hit'll make mighty bad walkin'."
+
+"But we'll get there quicker," urged Judith feverishly, and that closed
+the argument. Between them the Lusk girls had succeeded in lighting the
+old lantern; by its illumination the party climbed the rail fence, and
+struggled for some distance across the loose hillocks of ploughed
+ground.
+
+"Hit wouldn't make such awful walkin' if it had been drug," Cliantha
+murmured. In the mountains they hitch a horse to a log or a large piece
+of brush and, dragging this over the ploughed ground, make shift to
+smooth it without a harrow.
+
+They had hobbled about one third of the toilsome way when there came a
+rush of galloping hoofs, the girls had barely time to crouch and cry out,
+Speaker barked loud, and suddenly half a dozen young calves ran almost
+into them.
+
+"Oh landy!" cried Pendrilla. "Ef them thar calves ain't broke the fence
+again! Grandpap will be so mad--and we don't darst to tell him that we
+know of it."
+
+"Come on," urged Judith. "We've got to get over there."
+
+But it was found when they would have moved forward that they could not
+shake off their unwelcome escort. The calves had been tended occasionally
+in the dusk by a man with a lantern, and they hailed this one as a beacon
+of hope. Finally even Judith, desperately impatient to be gone, agreed
+that they would have to turn back and put the meddlesome creatures into
+their pasture and lay up the fence before they could make any progress.
+
+"Hit'll save time," she commented briefly, as though time were the only
+thing worth considering now.
+
+At last, one after the other, they climbed the fence at the side of the
+Bonbright place. The air was soft, heavy with coming rain. Up through the
+weed-grown yard they went, greeted and beckoned by the odours of Mary
+Bonbright's garden, thyme and southernwood, herbs by the path-side,
+clumps of brave chrysanthemums, a wandering spray or two of late-blooming
+honeysuckle. Judith trembled and locked her teeth together in anguish as
+she remembered that other night in the odorous dusk when she and Creed
+had stood under these trees and sought in the darkness for the bush of
+sweet-scented shrub.
+
+The empty house bulked big and black before them in the gloom. She took
+the key from her pocket and opened the front door, Pendrilla and Cliantha
+clinging to her in an ecstasy of delicious terror. She stepped into the
+front room, struck a match, and lighted her candle. It was half-past
+eleven by the small nickel alarm-clock which she carried. Its busy,
+bustling, modern tick roused strange, incongruous echoes in the old
+house, and reproved their errand.
+
+Speaker made himself at home, coming in promptly, seeking out the corner
+he preferred, and turning around dog-fashion before he lay down and
+composed himself to half-waking slumbers.
+
+"I reckon in here will be the best place," murmured Cliantha, seeking a
+candlestick from the mantel for their light. "We could set around this
+table."
+
+"It's more better ef we-all set on the flo'," reminded Pendrilla
+doubtfully. "Don't ye ricollect? all the dumb suppers we ever hearn tell
+of was held thataway. Set on the flo' and put yo' bread and salt on the
+flo' in front of you."
+
+"Mebbe that's becaze they was held in desarted houses, and most generally
+desarted houses don't have no tables nor chairs in 'em," Cliantha
+speculated.
+
+From the moment the lantern revealed the room to them, Judith had stood
+drawn back against the wall curiously rigid, her hand at her lip, her
+over-bright eyes going swiftly from one remembered object to another.
+This fleeting gaze fixed itself at last on the inner door.
+
+"I'll go in the other room a minute for--for something," she whispered
+finally. "You gals set here. I'll be right back. I've got two candles."
+
+She lighted the second candle, left the girls arranging the dumb supper,
+and stole, as though some one had called her, into that room which she
+had made ready for Creed's occupancy on the night of the play-party. It
+had reverted to its former estate of dust and neglect. She looked about
+her with blank, desolate eyes which finally found upon the bed a withered
+brown something that held her gaze as she crept toward it--the wreath of
+red roses!
+
+There it was, the pitiful little lure she had put forward to Love, the
+garland she had set in place to show Creed how fine a housewife she was,
+how grandly she would keep his home for him. The brave red roses, the
+bold laughing red roses, their crimson challenge was shrivelled to
+darkened shreds, each golden heart was a pinch of black dust; only the
+thorny stems remained to show what queen of blossoms had been there.
+
+She knelt beside the bed, and when the Lusk girls, frightened at her long
+absence, crept timidly in to look for her, they found her strangling
+passionate sobs in its white covering.
+
+"It's most twelve o'clock, Jude," whimpered Cliantha.
+
+"Hit's come on to rain," supplied Pendrilla piteously, and a gusty
+spatter on the small-paned window confirmed her words, as the three girls
+went back into the room where the candle stood in the middle of the floor
+with the three portions of bread and salt about it.
+
+The pale little sisters glanced at each other, and then at Judith,
+wistfully, timorously, almost more in terror of her than of their
+anomalous situation, this new, unknown Judith who scarce answered when
+she was spoken to, who continually failed them, who looked so strangely
+about her and wept so much.
+
+"Pendrilly an' me has done put our pins in close to the bottom," Cliantha
+explained deprecatingly. "Hit wouldn't do any good to have Andy an' Jeff
+come trompin' in here--though I shore would love to see either or both of
+'em this minute," she concluded forlornly, as they set the door ajar and
+the long slanting lines of rain began to drive obliquely in at the
+opening.
+
+"Push the candle back whar the draught won't git a fair chance at it,"
+quavered Pendrilla. "We're obliged to have the do' open, or what comes
+cain't git in. An' we mustn't ne'er a one of us say a word from now on,
+or hit'll break the charm."
+
+Judith moved the candle and bent to thrust her pin in, close to the top
+where the melting wax might soon free it, concentrating all her soul in a
+passionate cry that Creed should come to her or send her some sign. Then
+she crouched on the floor next to Pendrilla and nearest to the door, and
+the three waited with pale faces.
+
+The wavering light of the candle, shaken by gusts which brought puffs of
+mist in with them, projected huge, grotesque shadows of the three heads,
+and set them dancing upon the walls. The hound-pup raised his head,
+cocked his ears dubiously, and whined under his breath.
+
+"What's that?" gasped Cliantha. "Didn't you-all hear somethin'?"
+
+Judith was staring at the candle flame and made no reply. Her big dark
+eyes had the look of one self-hypnotised.
+
+"Oh, Lordy! Ye ortn't to talk at a dumb supper--but I thort I hearn
+somebody walkin' out thar in the rain!" chattered Pendrilla.
+
+The old house creaked and groaned in the rising autumn storm, as old
+houses do. The rain drummed on the roof like fingers tapping. The wind
+stripped dry leaves from the bough, or scooped them up out of the hollows
+where they lay, and carried them across the window, or drove them along
+the porch, in a gliding, whispering flight that was infinitely eerie.
+
+In their terror the girls looked to Judith. They saw that she was not
+with them. Her gaze was on the pin in the candle. Back over her heart
+swept the sweetness of her first meeting with Creed. She could see him
+stand talking to her, the lifted face, the blue eyes--should she ever see
+them again?
+
+Then suddenly the flame twisted and bent, the tallow melted swiftly on
+one side, and Judith's pin fell to the floor.
+
+"Hit's a-comin'!" hissed Cliantha frantically.
+
+"Oh, Lord! I wish 't we hadn't--" Pendrilla moaned.
+
+The dog uttered a protesting sound between a growl and a yelp. He raised
+on his forelegs, and the hair of his head and neck bristled.
+
+Outside, a heavy stumbling step came up the walk. It halted at the
+half-open door. That door was flung back, and in the square of dripping
+darkness stood Creed Bonbright, his face death white, his eyes wide and
+fixed, the rain gemming his uncovered yellow hair.
+
+A moment he stood so, and the three stared at him. Then with a swish of
+leaves in the wind and a spatter of rain in their faces, the candle blew
+out. The girls screamed and sprang up. The hound backed into his corner
+and barked furiously. Whatever it was, it had crossed the threshold and
+was in the room with them.
+
+"Jude--Jude!" shrieked Cliantha. "Run! Come on, Pendrilly!"
+
+Judith felt a wavering wet hand fumbling toward her in the darkness. It
+clasped hers; the arm went around her; she raised her face, and the cold
+lips of the visitant met her warm tremulous ones.
+
+For an instant she had no thought but that Creed had returned from the
+dead to claim her--and she was willing to go. Then she was aware of a
+swift rush, as the fleeing girls went past them, and the patter of the
+hound's feet following. Slowly the newcomer's weight sagged against her;
+he crumpled and went to the floor, dragging her down in his fall.
+
+"Girls! Clianthy! Pendrilly!" she cried as she crouched there, clinging
+to the prostrate form. "Don't leave me--it's Creed himself. You got to
+he'p me!"
+
+[Illustration: "The door was flung back and in the darkness stood
+Creed Bonbright."]
+
+But the girls were gone like frightened hares. As she got to her feet in
+the doorway she could hear the sound of their flying footsteps down the
+lane. All was dead still in the room behind her, yet only an ear as fine
+as hers could have distinguished those light, receding footfalls that
+finally melted into the far multitudinous whisper and rustle of the
+storm.
+
+She turned back in the dark and knelt down beside him, passing a light,
+tender hand over his face and chest. He breathed. He was a living man.
+
+"Creed," she whispered loud and desperately. There was no movement or
+response.
+
+"Creed," raising her voice. "O my God! Creed, darlin' cain't you hear me?
+It's me. It's Jude--poor Jude that loves you so--cain't you answer her?"
+
+There came no reply. She lifted the cold hand, and when she let go of it,
+it fell. She leaped to her feet in sudden fear that he might die while
+she delayed here. With trembling fingers she struck a match and lit her
+candle. Her eye fell on the two pins the girls had thrust in it and named
+for Andy and Jeff. With a swift motion she plucked them out and threw
+them on the floor. She looked from the prostrate figure to the bed in the
+corner. No--she couldn't lift him to lay him there; but she ran and
+brought pillows and covers, raising his head upon the one, lapping him
+softly in the other.
+
+When all was done that she could do, there was the instant need to hurry
+home for help. She hated terribly to leave him alone in the dark, yet a
+lighted candle with a man so ill was a risk that she dared not run--he
+might move about and set the house on fire. When she closed the darkened
+room with its stark figure lying under the white covers, her heart sank
+and sank. She must turn the key upon him. There was no good in
+hesitating. Only her strong will, her high courage, sustained her as she
+locked the door, and turning ran, with feet that love and terror winged,
+toward her own home. The rain drenched her; the darkness seemed a thing
+palpable; she slipped and fell, got to her feet and ran on. Jephthah
+Turrentine, asleep in his own cabin, heard the sound of beating palms
+against his door, and a voice outside in the dark and the rain that cried
+upon him.
+
+"Uncle Jep! Uncle Jep! For God's sake get up quick and help me. Creed
+Bonbright's come home to his house, and I think he's dead or dyin' over
+there."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV
+
+A Case of Walking Typhoid
+
+
+"Uh--_huh_!" said the old man as he straightened up after a long
+examination of Creed. "I thort so. He's got a case o' walkin' typhoid,
+an' looks like he's been on his feet with it till hit's plumb wore him
+out."
+
+He stood staring down at the prostrate figure, which had neither sound
+nor movement, the fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to stir the
+chest.
+
+"Walkin' typhoid," he repeated. "I've met up with some several in my
+lifetime. Cur'ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he's been
+puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit's ended
+up in this here spell of fever."
+
+"Will he die, Uncle Jep?" whispered Judith, crouching beside him, her
+dark eyes roving desperately from the still form to her uncle's
+countenance. "What must we do for him?"
+
+"N-no--I reckon he has a chance," hesitated Jephthah. Then, glancing at
+her white, miserable face, "an' ef he has, hit's to git him away from
+here an' into bed right. Lord, I wish 't the boys had been home to he'p
+us out. Well, we'll have to do the best we can."
+
+As he spoke he put the word into action, getting a length of home-made
+carpet to put in the bottom of the waggon before he should lay in the
+feather-bed upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked, despite the look
+of acute anxiety, the old man's eye was brighter, his step was freer, his
+head was borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since the trouble
+came.
+
+Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed with her help to lift
+the unconscious man into the waggon and place him, his head in Judith's
+lap, for the journey home.
+
+"You mind now, Judy," he admonished, almost sternly, "ef he comes to
+hisse'f you speak to him mighty quiet and pleasant-like. Don't you set to
+cryin'--don't you make no fuss. 'Tain't every gal I'd trust thisaway.
+Nothin' worse for a sick man than to get him excited." He took the lines
+and drove with infinite care and caution, walking beside the horse.
+
+But his warning was unnecessary; Creed never roused from the lethargy in
+which his senses were locked. They got him safely home, the old man
+undressed him and laid him comfortably in that big show-bed in the front
+room that was given to any guest of honour.
+
+Morning was breaking when Judith, coming into the kitchen, found Andy and
+Jeff sitting by the fire, and Dilsey Rust in charge.
+
+"Yo' uncle sont fer me," the old woman said. "He 'lowed he needed yo'
+he'p takin' keer o' Bonbright."
+
+Judith sat with Creed while the others had breakfast. When her uncle went
+out, closing the door softly behind him, leaving her alone with her
+recovered treasure, she went and knelt down by the bed, and looked at its
+silent occupant with a bursting heart.
+
+Here was Creed, Creed for whom she had longed and prayed. He had come
+back to her. She stared at the wasted face, the transparent temples where
+the blue veins showed through, the black circles beneath the lashes of
+the closed eyes. No, no, this was not Creed, this dying man who mocked
+her longing with a semblance of her lover's return!
+
+There was a sound at the door. Andy and Jeff came awkwardly in, and while
+they all stood looking, Creed's eyes opened suddenly upon them. Andy put
+out a hand swiftly.
+
+"I'm mighty sorry for--for all that chanced," he said huskily.
+
+"So 'm I," Jeff instantly seconded him.
+
+Creed looked at them both with a little puzzled drawing of the brows;
+then the ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, and his hand that
+lay on the covers moved weakly toward theirs.
+
+"It's all right," he said, scarcely above a whisper--the first words he
+had uttered. "I told--Aunt Nancy--you were good--boys--" he faltered to a
+hesitating close, his eyelids drooped over the tired eyes; but they
+flashed open once more with a smile that included Judith and her uncle
+standing back of the two.
+
+"You're all--mighty--good--to me," said Creed Bonbright. And again he
+sank into that lethargic sleep.
+
+As the day advanced came the visitors that are the torment of a sick-room
+in the country. It would scarcely have been thought that a bare land like
+that could produce so many. Finally Judith went to her uncle and begged
+that Creed be no longer made a show of, and that old Dilsey set out food
+in the other room and entertain those who came, without promising that
+they should see the sick man.
+
+"Uh--huh," agreed Jephthah, understandingly, "I reckon yo' about right,
+Jude. Creed's obliged to lay there like a baby an' sleep ef he's to have
+any chance for his life. I don't want to fall out with the neighbours,
+but we'll see if we cain't make out with less visitin'."
+
+But this prohibition was not supposed to apply to Iley Turrentine, a
+member of the family. About eight o'clock that morning, having then for
+the first time heard of the arrival at the cabin, she came hurrying
+across the slope with the baby on her hip. Long abstinence had made keen
+that temper of hers, and here was a situation where virtue itself cried
+to arms. She was eager to give Creed Bonbright a piece of her mind.
+
+"You cain't go in unless'n you'll promise to be plumb quiet--not to open
+yo' mouth," Judith told her sharply. "Uncle Jep ain't here right now--but
+that's what he said."
+
+"Don't Bonbright know folks? Cain't a body talk to him? Is he plumb outen
+his head?" demanded Iley, somewhat taken aback.
+
+"He knew some of us a while ago," admitted Judith, "but mostly he doesn't
+notice nothing--jest stares right in front of him, and Uncle Jep said we
+mustn't let him be talked to nor werried."
+
+The big red-headed woman, considerably lowered in note, stepped inside
+the door of the sick-room, hushing the child in her arms. A moment she
+stood staring at the bed and its single occupant, at the pale face on the
+pillow, then she burst suddenly into tempestuous sobs and fled.
+
+Judith followed her out.
+
+"What's the matter, Iley? You never set much store by Creed
+Bonbright--what you cryin' about?" she asked.
+
+"Hit's--Huldy," choked the sister. "I reckon you thort I talked mighty
+big about the business the last time you an' me had speech consarnin'
+hit; but the facts air that I don't know a thing about whar she's at, nor
+how she's doin'. Judy, ef yo' a-goin' to take keer o' the man, cain't ye
+please ax him for me when did he see Huldy last, an'--an' is they
+wedded?"
+
+Judith assented. She knew what her uncle would think of such an inquiry
+being put to the sick man, yet her own heart so fiercely demanded
+knowledge on this point that she promised Iley she would ask the question
+as soon as she dared.
+
+The week that followed was a strange one to active Judith Barrier, used
+to out-door life under the sky for such a large part of her days. Now
+those same days were bounded by the four walls of a sick-room, the sole
+matter of importance in them whether the invalid took his gruel well,
+whether he had seemed better, whether her uncle spoke encouragingly of
+the eventful outcome of this illness. Old Jephthah himself nursed Creed,
+and Judith was but a helper; yet, such was her torture of uncertainty, of
+anxiety, that she often left to go to her own room and get some sleep,
+only to return and beg that she might be allowed to sit outside the
+threshold for the rest of the night and be ready if she were needed.
+
+"Ain't no use wearin' yourself out thataway," her uncle used to say
+kindly. "That won't do Creed no good, nor you neither. I wish to the Lord
+I had Nancy here to he'p me!"
+
+For in this day of real need he dropped all banter about Nancy's value in
+sick-room practice, and longed openly for her assistance. Creed had been
+in the house nearly a week and was showing marked improvement, when
+Judith got a message from Blatch Turrentine--Would she be at the
+draw-bars 'long about sundown? He had something to tell her.
+
+She paid no attention to the request, but it put her in mind to do
+finally what she had long contemplated--write to her cousin Wade. It was
+but a short scrawl, stating that Creed Bonbright was sick at their house,
+and not able to tell them anything concerning Huldah, and that Iley and
+the others were troubled. Would Wade please ask information in Hepzibah,
+and write to his affectionate cousin.
+
+Every day Iley made a practice of coming up and sitting dejectedly in the
+kitchen till Judith entered the room, when she would draw her
+mysteriously to one side and say:
+
+"Have ye axed him yet? What did he tell ye? I'm plumb wo' out and
+heart-broke' about it, Jude."
+
+Though Judith realised fully just how much of this display proceeded from
+a desire on Iley's part for notice, yet her own passionate, rebellious
+heart seconded the idle woman, and allowed the continual harping on that
+string to finally drive her to the set determination that, as soon as
+Creed could talk to her at all, she would ask him about Huldah.
+
+Had she lacked resolution, the patient himself would have supplied and
+hardened it. About this time he developed a singular form of low delirium
+in which he would lie with closed eyes, murmuring--murmuring--murmuring
+to himself in a hurried, excited whisper. And always the burden of his
+distress was:
+
+"I must get to her. Where is she? It's a long ways. Oh, I've got to get
+to her--there's nobody else."
+
+Kneeling by his bed, her burning gaze upon his shut eyes and moving lips,
+Judith racked her soul with questioning. Often she heard her own name in
+those fevered whisperings; once he said with sudden determination, "I'm
+going home." But she listened in vain for mention of Huldah.
+
+And what might that mean? All that she hoped? Or all that she dreaded?
+Oh, she could not bear this; she must know; she must--must--must ask
+him.
+
+The Evil One, having provided the counsel, was not slow in following it
+up with the necessary opportunity. Judith was sitting with Creed alone,
+on a Wednesday night--he had come to them the preceding Tuesday. Her
+uncle being worn out had planned to sleep till midnight, thus dividing
+the watch with her. About eleven o'clock Creed opened his eyes and asked
+in what seemed to her a fairly natural tone for a drink. She brought it
+to him, and when he had drank he began speaking very softly.
+
+"I'm glad I came back to the mountains," he said in a weak, whispering
+voice. "I promised you I'd come, and I did come, Judith."
+
+"Yes," answered Judith, putting down the glass and seating herself at the
+bedside, taking his hand and stroking it softly, studying his face with
+intent, questioning eyes. "You know where you are now, don't you,
+Creed?"
+
+He smiled at her.
+
+"I'm in the front room at your house where we-all danced the night of the
+play-party," he said. "I loved you that night, Judith--only I hadn't
+quite found out about it."
+
+The statement was made with the simplicity of a child--or of a sick man.
+It went over Judith with a sudden, sweet shock. Then her jealous heart
+must know that it was really all hers. Nerve racked as only a creature of
+the open can be after weeks of confinement in a sick-room, torn with the
+possessive passion of her earth-born temperament, she stood up suddenly
+and asked him in a voice of pain that sounded harsh and menacing,
+
+"Creed, whar's Huldy?"
+
+"I don't know," returned Creed tremulously. The blue eyes in their great
+hollows came up to her face in a frightened gaze. Instantly they lost
+their clearness; they clouded and filmed with that look of confusion
+which had been in them from the first.
+
+"You're married to her--ain't you?" choked Judith, horrified at what she
+had done, loathing herself for it, yet pushed on to do more.
+
+"Yes," whispered Creed miserably. "Sit down by me again, Judith. Don't be
+mad. What are you mad about? I forget--there was awful trouble, and
+somebody was shot--oh, how they all hate me!"
+
+The fluttering moment of normal conditions was gone. The baffled,
+confused eyes closed; the thin hands began to fumble piteously about the
+covers; the pale lips resumed their rapid motion, while from between them
+flowed the old, swift stream of broken whispers.
+
+Judith had quenched the first feeble flame of intelligence that flickered
+up toward her. She remained a moment staring down at her handiwork, then
+covered her face, and burst out crying. An ungentle grasp descended upon
+her shoulder. Her uncle, standing tall and angry behind her, thrust her
+from the room.
+
+"Thar now!" he said with carefully repressed violence, lest his tones
+should disturb the sick man. "You've raised up a pretty interruption with
+my patient. I 'lowed I could trust you, Jude. What in the world you
+fussin' with Creed about? For God's sake, did you see him? You've
+nigh-about killed him, I reckon. Didn't I tell you not to name anything
+to him to werry him?"
+
+"He says he's married Huldy," said Judith in a strangled voice.
+
+"Say! He'd say anything--like he is now," retorted her uncle,
+exasperated. "An' he'd shore say anything on earth that was put in his
+mouth. I don't care if he's married forty Huldy's; what I want is for him
+to get well. Lord, I do wish I had Nancy here, and not one of these fool
+young gals with their courtin' business and their gettin' jealous and
+having to have a rippit with a sick man that don't know what he's talkin'
+about," he went on savagely.
+
+But high-spirited Judith paid no attention to the cutting arraignment.
+
+"Do you think that's true--oh, Uncle Jep, do you reckon he didn't mean
+it?" was all she said.
+
+"I don't see as it makes any differ," retorted her uncle, testily.
+"Marryin' Huldy Spiller ain't no hangin' matter--but hit'll cost that boy
+his life ef you fuss with him and git him excited and all worked up."
+
+Judith turned and felt her way blindly up the steep little stair to her
+own room. That night she prayed, not in a formulated fashion, but to some
+vague, over-brooding goodness that she hoped would save her from cruelty
+to him she loved.
+
+The next morning Creed was plainly set back in his progress toward sound
+rationality, though there seemed little physical change. He recognised no
+one, and was much as he had been on those first days. While this
+condition of affairs held, and it lasted nearly a week, there was no need
+for Jephthah to repeat his caution. But one morning when Judith went in
+to relieve her uncle, Creed smiled at her again with eyes that knew.
+
+As soon as they were alone together, he asked her to come and sit by him,
+and told her with tolerable clearness how he had followed Blatch
+Turrentine onto the train at Garyville, how he had fainted there, and
+only recovered consciousness when they were halfway to the next station.
+
+"I was too bad off for them to leave me anywhere, and they carried me
+plumb to Atlanta. I was in the hospital there a long while. Looks like I
+might have written to you--but I thought the best I could do was to let
+you alone--I'd made you trouble enough," he ended with a wistful,
+half-hopeful glance at her face.
+
+Judith, taught by bitter experience, tried to meet this with the gentle,
+reassuring cheerfulness of the nurse. It was all right. He mustn't talk
+too much. He was here now. They didn't need any letter. But strive as she
+might she could not keep out of her voice a certain alien tone; and
+afterward the bitter thought dogged her that he had told her nothing
+definite. She knew nothing, after all, about his relations with Huldah;
+the girl might even, as Blatch declared, have been on the train, and gone
+to Atlanta with him, and he have held back this information.
+
+Perhaps, considering her temperament, Judith did as well as could have
+been expected in the three days that followed--days in which Creed seemed
+to make fair physical gain, but to grow worse and worse mentally. Never
+once did she put into words the query that ate into her very soul, quite
+innocent of the fact that it spoke in every tone of her voice, in every
+movement of her head or hand, and kept the ailing mind to which she
+ministered at tremble with the strain to answer.
+
+On the fourth day, fretted past endurance by the situation, Judith
+permitted herself some oblique hints and suggestions, on the heels of
+which she left to prepare his breakfast. Returning to the sick-room with
+the bowl of broth, she met the strange, unexpected, unsolicited reply to
+all these withheld demands. Creed greeted her with a half-terrified
+smile.
+
+"Did you meet her goin' out?" he asked.
+
+"Did I meet who, Creed?" inquired Judith, setting the bowl down on a
+splint-bottomed chair, spreading a clean towel across the quilts, and
+preparing for his breakfast. "Has there been somebody in here to see you
+a'ready?"
+
+"It was only Huldah," deprecated Creed. "You said--you asked--and she
+just slipped in a minute after you went out."
+
+Judith straightened up with so sudden a movement that the chair rocked
+and the contents of the bowl slopped dangerously.
+
+"Which way did she go?" came the sharp challenge.
+
+"Out that door," indicating with an air of childlike alarm the front way
+which led directly into the yard.
+
+Judith ran and flung it open. Nobody was in sight. Heedless of the sharp
+wintry air that blew in upon the patient, she stood searching the way
+over toward Jim Cal's cabin.
+
+"I don't see her," she called across her shoulder. "Mebbe she's in the
+house yet."
+
+She closed the door reluctantly and came back to the bedside.
+
+"No," said Creed plaintively, lifting a doubtful hand to his confused
+head, "she ain't here. She allowed you-all were mad at her, and I reckon
+she'll keep out of sight."
+
+"But she had to come to see you--her wedded husband," accused Judith
+sternly.
+
+He nodded mutely with a motion of assent. He seemed to hope that the
+admission would please Judith. The broth stood untouched, cooling on the
+chair.
+
+"Is she stayin' down at Jim Cal's?" came Judith's next question.
+
+"She never named it to me where she was stayin'," returned Creed wearily.
+As before, Judith's ill-concealed anger and hostility was as a sword of
+destruction to him; yet now he had more strength to endure with. "She
+just come--and now she's gone." He closed his eyes, and leaned his head
+back among his pillows. The white face looked so sunken that Judith's
+heart misgave her.
+
+"Won't you eat your breakfast now, Mr. Bonbright?" she said stiffly.
+
+"I don't want any breakfast, thank you. I can't eat," returned Creed very
+low.
+
+Judith pressed her lips hard together to refrain from mentioning Huldah
+again. She knew that she had injured Creed, yet for the life of her she
+could not get out one word of kindness. Finally she took her mending and
+sat down within sight of the bed, deceiving herself into the belief that
+he slept.
+
+The next day an almost identical scene pushed Judith's strained nerves to
+the verge of hysteria. In the afternoon when the old man came to relieve
+her he returned almost immediately from the sick-room, called her
+downstairs once more, and complained of Creed's progress.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked. "Look like somethin' has went wrong here
+right lately. Ever sence you got that fool notion in yo' head that Creed
+and Huldy was man and wife, he's been goin' down in his mind about as
+fast as his stren'th come up. The best thing you can do is to put it out
+of yo' head."
+
+"Well, they _air_ wedded," returned Judith passionately. "They ain't no
+use to fergit it, 'caze she's done been here--she's down at Jim Cal's
+right now; and when we-all are out of the room he says she slips in to
+visit him."
+
+The girl stood trembling; her rounded cheeks that used to blush with such
+glowing crimson were white; she was a figure to move any one who loved
+her to pity; but the old man regarded her with strong contempt.
+
+"Good Lord--is _that_ what's ailin' ye?" he burst out. "You might at
+least have had the sense you was born with, and asked somebody is Huldy
+here. You know in reason it shows that Creed's out of his head--when he
+tells you a tale like that. The Lord knows there's no fool in the world
+like a jealous woman. Do ye want to kill the boy?--or run him crazy?"
+
+Judith struggled with her tears.
+
+"Uncle Jep," she finally choked out without actually sobbing. "I won't
+say another word--now that I know. I ain't got nothin' agin' Creed
+Bonbright, nor his wife--why should I have?"
+
+Some ruth came into the scornful glance those old black eyes bent on
+her.
+
+"You're a good gal, Jude," Jephthah said softly, "ef ye air somethin'
+unusual of a fool in this business. But I reckon I got to take this boy
+out o' yo' hands someway. I'm obliged to leave Creed with ye for one
+short while--an' agin' my grain it goes to do it--an' go fetch him a
+nurse that won't take these tantrums. But mind, gal, it's Creed's reason
+I'm leavin' with you; mebbe his life--but sartain shore his reason. I
+won't be gone to exceed two days. Ye can hold out that long, cain't ye?"
+
+"I'll do the best I can, Uncle Jep," said Judith with unexpected
+mildness. "An' ef Huldy 's here----"
+
+"My Lord!" broke in Jephthah. "Why don't ye go to Iley an' set yo' mind
+at rest about Huldy?"
+
+"Hit is at rest," returned Judith darkly. "When Creed come here, Iley was
+at me every day to ask him whar was Huldy; but I take notice that sence
+that day he named Huldy visitin' him Iley ain't been a-nigh the place."
+
+The old man heaved a heavy sigh.
+
+"Well, ye say ye'll do yo' best? Hit's apt to be a good best, Jude. In
+two days, ef I live, I'll be back here, an' I'll bring he'p."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV
+
+A Perilous Passage
+
+
+It was a strange thing to Judith to be left alone in the house, in charge
+of it and the sick man. Old Dilsey did the cooking and all the domestic
+labour. Had Wade been at home, and the patient any other than Creed
+Bonbright, she would have had a capable assistant at the nursing. Andy
+and Jeff tried to be as kind as they could. But they were an untamed,
+untrained pair, helpless and hapless at such matters, and their
+approaching wedding kept them often over at the Lusk place. From Iley
+Judith held savagely aloof.
+
+It was on the second morning of her uncle's absence that Dilsey Rust
+brought again that message from Blatch, and Judith caught at it. She had
+done her best; she had refrained from any questions; but the night before
+Creed told her without asking that Huldah had been in to see him twice
+again. As her patient's physical strength notably increased, his appeal
+to her tender forbearance of course lessened, and the raw insult of the
+situation began to come home to her.
+
+She put a shawl over her head and ran swiftly down through the chill
+November weather to the draw-bars, where in the big road outside
+Turrentine slouched against a post waiting for her. The man spoke over
+his shoulder.
+
+"Howdy, Jude--you did come at last."
+
+"Ef yo' goin' to say anything to me, you'll have to be mighty quick,
+Blatch," she notified him, shivering. "I got to get right back."
+
+"They's somebody new--and yet not so new--a-visitin' in the Turkey Tracks
+that you'd like to know of," he prompted coolly. "Ain't that so?"
+
+"Huldy," she gasped, her dark eyes fixed upon his grey ones.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I 'lowed you'd take an intrust in that thar business, an' I thort as a
+friend you ort to be told of it," he added virtuously.
+
+"Where's she at?" demanded Judith.
+
+"Over at my house," announced Turrentine easily, with a backward jerk of
+his head.
+
+"At _yo'_ house!" echoed Judith; "at _yo'_ house! Why, hit ain't
+decent."
+
+"Huh," laughed Blatch. "I don't know about decent. She was out thar
+takin' the rain; she had nobody to roof her; an' I bid her in, 'caze I'm
+in somewhat the same fix myse'f."
+
+"No one to roof her," repeated Judith. "What's henderin' her from comin'
+over this side the Gulch?"
+
+"Well, seein' the way she's done Wade I reckon she 'lows she'd better
+keep away from his pap's house. She's at the outs with Iley--Jim Cal's
+lady sont her word she needn't never show her face thar agin. She gives
+it out to everybody that'll listen at her talk that she's skeered o' you
+'count o' Bonbright."
+
+Judith studied his face with half-incredulous eyes.
+
+"How long has she been there?" she interrogated keenly.
+
+Turrentine seemed to take time for reflection.
+
+"Lemme see," he ruminated, "she come a Wednesday night. Hit was rainin',
+ef you remember, an' I hearn something outside, and it scairt me up some,
+fer fear it was revenuers. When I found hit was Huldy, I let her in, an
+she's been thar ever sence."
+
+Wednesday night! It was Thursday morning that Creed had first announced
+the visit of his wife. Oh, it must be true! Judith trembled all through
+her vigorous young body with a fury of despair. As always, Blatchley had
+found the few and simple words to bid her worser angel forth. She even
+felt a kind of hateful relish for the quarrel. They had tricked her. They
+had made a fool of her. She had suffered so much. She longed to be
+avenged.
+
+"Judy," murmured Blatch softly, bending toward her but not laying a hand
+upon her, "you white as a piece o' paper, an' shakin' from head to foot.
+That's from stayin' shet up in the house yonder nussin' that feller
+Bonbright night an' day like a hirelin'. W'y, he never did care nothin'
+for ye only becaze ye was useful to him. Ye stood betwixt him an' danger;
+ye he'ped him out when he needed it wust. An' he had it in mind to fool
+ye from the first. Now him and Huldy Spiller has done it. Don't you let
+'em. You show 'em what you air. I've got a hoss out thar, and Selim's
+down in the stable. I'll put yo' saddle on him. Git yo' skirt, honey.
+Let's you and me ride over to Squire Gaylord's and be wedded. Then we'll
+have the laugh on these here smart folks that tries to fool people."
+
+He leaned toward her, all the power of the man concentrated in his gaze.
+Perhaps he had never wanted anything in his twenty-seven years as he now
+wanted Judith Barrier and her farm and the rehabilitation that a union
+with her would give him. Once this girl's husband, he could curtly refuse
+to rent to Jephthah Turrentine, who had, he knew, no lease. He could call
+into question the old man's stewardship, and even up the short, bitter
+score between them. He could reverse that scene when he was sent packing
+and told to keep his foot off the place.
+
+"Judy," he breathed, deeply moved by all this, "don't ye remember when we
+was--befo' ever this feller come--Why, in them days I used to think shore
+we'd be wedded."
+
+Judith rested a hand on the bars and, lips apart, stared back into the
+eager eyes of the man who addressed her. Blatchley had always had some
+charm for the girl. Power he did not lack; and his lawlessness, his
+license, which might have daunted a feebler woman, liberated something
+correspondingly brave and audacious in her. He had been the first to pay
+court to her, and a girl does not easily forget that.
+
+For a moment the balance swung even. Then it bore down to Blatch's side.
+She would go. Yes, she would. Creed might have Huldah. The girl might be
+his wife, or his widow. She, Judith Barrier, would show them--she would
+show them. Her parted lips began to shape to a reckless yes. The word
+waited in her mind behind those lips all formed. Her swift imagination
+pictured to her herself riding away beside Blatch leaving the sick man
+who had been cause of so many humiliations to her to die or get well.
+Blatch, watching narrowly, read the coming consent in her face. His hand
+stole forward toward the draw-bars.
+
+Her salvation was in a very small and commonplace thing. The picture of
+herself riding beside Blatch Turrentine brought back to her, with an
+awakening shock, the recollection of herself and Creed riding side by
+side, her arm across his shoulder, his drooping head against it. How
+purely happy she had been then--how innocent--how blest! What were these
+fires of torment that raged in her now? No, no! That might be lost to
+her; but even so, she could not decline from its dear memory to a mating
+like this. Without a word she turned and ran back to the house, never
+looking over her shoulder in response to the one or two cautious calls
+that Blatch sent after her.
+
+Judith's day was mercifully full of work. When Creed did not require her,
+Dilsey demanded help and direction, and one or two errands from outside
+kept her mind from sinking in upon itself. It was night-fall, Andy was
+lending her his awkward aid in the sick-room, when Jeff came in and
+beckoned the two of them out mysteriously.
+
+"How's Bonbright this evenin', Jude? Do you reckon I could have speech
+with him?" he asked in a troubled tone.
+
+Judith shook her head. Her own near approach to absolute failure in her
+charge that morning made her the more punctilious now.
+
+"No." She spoke positively. "Uncle Jep said he wasn't to be werried about
+anything."
+
+"Why, he's settin' up some, ain't he?" said the boy in surprise. "I thort
+he looked right peart."
+
+"Yes," agreed Judith dejectedly, "he's gettin' his strength all right; he
+does look well. But you ax him questions, or name anything to him to
+trouble him, an' it throws him right back. Uncle Jep says hit's more his
+mind than his body now. What is it ye want from Creed? Cain't I tend to
+it?"
+
+"I don't reckon a gal like you could he'p any," Jeff said doubtfully. His
+eye wandered toward his twin. "I reckon this is men's business. I've got
+word that Huldy Spiller--or some say Huldy Bonbright--is over at Blatch's
+cabin, and he's got her shut up."
+
+Judith's heart gave a great leap as of terror; the thing was out at
+last--people knew it. Then that heavily beating heart sank sickeningly;
+what difference to her, though all the world knew it? Yet she held to her
+trust.
+
+"Oh, shore not, Jeff. You cain't _nigh_ talk to him about nothin' like
+that," she maintained. "Uncle Jep made me promise that nothin' should be
+named to him to excite him."
+
+"Well, then," pursued Jeff, "pappy not bein' here, nor Wade, and Jim Cal
+over at Spiller's, an' the gal not havin' no men folks in reach, me an'
+Andy has got to look after this thing. Fact is, Blatch sent word that ef
+we wanted her we could come over and git her."
+
+"I don't know as we do want her--I don't know as we do," put in Andy.
+"And we both promised pappy that we wouldn't set foot on the land whilst
+Blatch had it rented."
+
+"Then ag'in," debated Jeff--"Oh, no, buddy, we cain't leave the gal thar.
+We're plumb obliged to find out if she wants to come away, anyhow."
+
+Andy turned to his cousin.
+
+"What do you say, Jude? Ort we to go?"
+
+Judith locked her hands hard together and held down her head, fighting
+out her battle. She longed to say no. She longed to shout out that Huldah
+Spiller might take care of herself, since she had been so unwomanly as to
+run after men and bring all this trouble on them. What she did say, at
+the end of a lengthened struggle, was:
+
+"Yes, I think both of you ort to go. Can it be did quiet? You got to
+think of her good name."
+
+Jeff nodded.
+
+"Well, how air we goin' to be sure that gal's over there?" inquired Andy,
+still half reluctant.
+
+"Oh, she's there," returned Judith heavily; and when the boys regarded
+her with startled looks, "I ain't seen her, but she's been on the
+mountain since Thursday. She's been slippin' over to visit--her--Creed
+named it to me then."
+
+"Well that does settle it," Andy concluded. "Reckon Blatch has shut her
+up for pure meanness. When was we to go? Was there any time sot?"
+
+"To-night," Jeff informed them. "Any time after ten o'clock'll do--that
+was the word I got."
+
+"Well, that'll be all right," agreed Andy; "I can fix Creed up for the
+night, and ef we git Huldy away in the dark nobody need know of the
+business--not even Bonbright."
+
+A slow flush rose in Judith's pale cheeks. But she offered no comment on
+this aspect of the case. She only said:
+
+"Just do what you think best, and don't name it to me again, please."
+Then, as both boys looked wonderingly at her, she added haltingly, "I've
+got enough to werry over--with a sick man here on my hands, an' Uncle Jep
+gone."
+
+She went to her room. When at midnight she slipped down as of custom to
+see how all fared in the sick-room, she found the patient sleeping
+quietly, and Andy ready for the trip across the Gulch. The boys were
+going unarmed; they felt no fear of treachery on Blatch's part--it could
+profit him nothing to injure either of them in so public a way, and
+indeed he had never shown them any ill-will.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI
+
+His Own Trap
+
+
+"I reckon that'll about do for you, my pretty young men," remarked
+Blatchley Turrentine as he put the last knot in the line with which he
+was securing Andy to a splint-bottomed chair.
+
+His concluding words were the refrain of a familiar old ballad, and he
+continued to hum this as he straightened up and set his hands on his
+hips, regarding the twins through wickedly narrowed eyes. He was flushed
+with drink and inclined, as always at such times, to swagger with a sort
+of savage playfulness.
+
+"Scalf, you ain't got yo' feller half tied," he broke out, jerking the
+cord around Jeff. "Why, Lord A'mighty! I could pull myse'f a-loose from
+that mess o' rope inside o' five minutes," and he set to work to make his
+cousin secure.
+
+"Do yo' own dirty work," growled Scalf. "Yo' the only one that's a-goin'
+to profit by it."
+
+It was after midnight. When the two boys had approached Blatch's cabin as
+agreed, they had been set upon from behind, pinioned, and taken to the
+cave where the still was. Here they now sat bound and helpless.
+
+"What do you aim to make out of it, Blatch?" asked Jeff, offering the
+first remark that had come from either of them since their capture.
+
+"Is--uh--" Andy glanced at Scalf, and strove to keep Huldah's name out of
+it--"is what we come for here yet?"
+
+Blatch burst into a great horse laugh and slapped his thigh.
+
+"What you come after," he repeated enjoyingly. "Lord--Lord! What you come
+after! You was easy got. I counted on Jude to set you on, and I see I
+never counted none too much."
+
+"What do you aim to make out of it?" persisted Andy.
+
+The light from the fire built at the back of the cave, whose smoke went
+up a cleft and entered the chimney of the cabin far above, illuminated
+the dark interior flickeringly. Blatch went to a jug on a shelf, noisily
+poured a drink into a tin cup, swallowed it, and then addressed himself
+to his cousins.
+
+"Yo' pappy ordered me off his land. My lease is up next month. I got to
+git out of here anyhow, and I aimed to raise a stir befo' I went. This
+here town podner what I got after you-all quit me," glancing negligently
+at Scalf, "has many a little frill to his plans, and he knows Dan Haley,
+the marshal, right well. Sometimes I misdoubt that he come up on Turkey
+Track to git in with me and git the reward that I'm told Haley has out
+for the feller that can ketch me stillin'."
+
+He wheeled and looked fully at Scalf with these words, and the town man
+made haste to turn his back, warming his hands at the blaze. Blatch
+laughed deep in his throat.
+
+"Scalf's on the make," he asserted with grim humour. "He needed somebody
+to give up to Dan Haley, and as I hain't got no likin' for learnin' to
+peg shoes in the penitentiary, I 'lowed mebbe the trade would suit
+you-all boys, an' I sont over for ye."
+
+The twins writhed in their chairs as much as their tight bandings would
+permit. How simple they had been to trust the mercy of a desperate man.
+And they knew Blatch Turrentine. In days past, they had been on the
+inside, pupils and assistants in such work as this. They stole sheepish
+looks at each other. But the message he had sent them was yet to be
+explained. If Huldah was not with him, how had he known she was on the
+mountain at all?
+
+"What made you send the word you did?" burst out Andy wrathfully.
+
+Blatch had moved over by the fire.
+
+"Oh, I hearn through old Dilsey Rust--that I've had a-listenin' at
+key-holes and spyin' through chinks--about Bonbright's talk concernin'
+Huldy, and I thort----"
+
+At these words ancient Gideon Rust, posted as sentinel outside the cave's
+entrance, keeping himself warily from view of the prisoners, craned
+forward and stared with fallen jaw, reckless of observation. Humble
+tenants, pensioners of Judith and the Turrentines, with these words
+Blatch had wantonly stripped the poor roof from above their grey heads,
+and turned them out defenceless, to the anger of that strong family. Come
+what would, he must protest.
+
+"Now Blatch," he whined, "you ort not to go a-namin' names like you do.
+You said that Dilsey nor me, nary one, needn't be known in this
+business."
+
+In his excitement he came fully into the light.
+
+"I hope you-all boys understand that I didn't aim to do ye a meanness.
+Yo' pap--I--I hope he won't hold this agin' us. The Turrentines has been
+mighty good friends to Dilsey--and here's Blatch lettin' on to 'em like
+she was a spy."
+
+"Well, what else is she?" asked Blatch with an oath. "What else are any
+of ye? The last one of ye would sell yo' own fathers and mothers. Don't I
+know ye? A man's only chance is to get ye scared of him, or give ye
+somebody else to tell tales on--and that's what I've done."
+
+He turned his attention once more to Andy and Jeff, and left the old man
+staring aghast, plucking at his beard.
+
+"I've bought me a good team, an' I'm goin' to move my plunder out of
+here," he told them. "I've done picked me a fine place over yon," jerking
+his head vaguely in the direction of the Far Cove. "Every stick and
+ravellin' that belongs to me I'll take, exceptin' the run of whiskey that
+I'll leave in the still here for to make the marshal shore he's got the
+right thing. You might expect him any time to-morrow. Old Gid here will
+lead him in, or Scalf, and the testimony they stand ready to give means
+penitentiary to you two."
+
+"I reckon you-all won't deny that you have made many a run of blockaded
+whiskey right here in this cave," put in Scalf, nervously.
+
+"That's so--that's so, boys, I've seed ye many a time," whimpered Gideon
+Rust, almost beside himself with terror. "I hope ye won't hold it ag'in
+us that we he'ped to have ye took instead of Blatch here. Blatch is a
+hard man to deal with--he's been too much fer me--and hit wouldn't do you
+all no manner of good ef he was took along with ye. I don't see that yo'
+any worse off ef he goes free."
+
+The twins looked at each other and forebore to reply. Blatch moved over
+to Scalf, and after some muttered parley with the town partner strode
+away into the dark. Scalf himself waited only long enough to be sure that
+Blatch had left, then slipped away, posting the old man down the path as
+lookout.
+
+Alone in the cave, it was long before either boy spoke. Then came a rush
+of angry comment and bitter reflection which interrogated the situation
+from all sides, tending always to the conclusion that it was mighty hard,
+when a man had given up his evil courses, when he had just joined the
+church and was about to get married, to have the whole ugly score to pay.
+They sat cramped and miserable in their splint-bottomed chairs and the
+hours wore away till dawn in this dismal converse. Pappy was right--he
+was mighty right. If they ever got out of this--But there, Blatch wasn't
+apt to make a failure.
+
+It was broad daylight when at last Blatch Turrentine brought his team up
+and as close to the cave's mouth as he dared. It was loaded already with
+a considerable amount of furniture and clothing from the cabin, and he
+climbed down the steep approach to take from the cave the jugged whiskey,
+and the keg or two which was aging there. His eyes were reddened; but the
+dark flush which had been on his face had now given place to a curious
+pallor. There was a new element in his mood, a different note in his
+bearing, a suggestion of furtive hurry and anxiety.
+
+He was not afraid of the marshal. Haley could not be on the mountain
+before noon. But he had left that behind in the little log stable from
+which his team came that cried haste to his going.
+
+Gord Bosang from whom he was to buy the horses was a man somewhat of
+Blatch's own ilk. Cavalierly called out of bed after midnight and offered
+only a partial cash payment--all that Blatch had been able to raise--he
+had angrily refused to let the team be taken off the place. Turrentine's
+situation was desperate. He must have the horses. In the quarrel that
+followed, he struck to clear this obstacle from his path; but whether he
+had left a dead man lying back there on the hay--whether it was a
+possible charge of murder he was now fleeing from--he had not stopped to
+find out. He had got back to his cabin with all haste, pitched his ready
+belongings into the wagon, and now he came down to the still to get the
+last, and see that all there was working out right.
+
+As his foot reached the opening he uttered a loud exclamation, then
+leaped into the cave. Both chairs were empty, the ropes lying cut beside
+them. He sprang back to the rude doorway and gave the usual signal--the
+screech-owl's cry. It was inappropriate at this time, yet he could not
+risk less, and he sent it forth again and again.
+
+Getting no answer he ventured cautiously to call Gideon Rust's name, and
+when this failed he looked about him and came to a decision. The boys
+were gone. The fat was in the fire. Yet--he returned to it--the marshal
+could not be there before noon. He had time to remove the whiskey if he
+worked hard enough. He glanced at the still. The worm and appurtenances
+were of value. He had saved money for nearly two years to buy the new
+copper-work. He wondered if he might empty and take it also.
+
+For half an hour he toiled desperately, carrying filled jugs up the steep
+and hiding them carefully in his loaded wagon. The kegs he could not move
+alone, and set to work jugging the fluid from them. Sweat poured down his
+face, to which, though he drank repeatedly from the tin cup, no flush
+returned. His teeth were set continually on his under lip. His breath
+came heavily as he lifted and stooped. In the midst of his labours a
+slight noise at the cave entrance brought him to his feet, staring in
+terror. The sight of trembling Gideon Rust in the opening reassured him.
+
+"Come in here, you old davil, and help me jug this whiskey," he cried
+out. "Whar's Scalf? How come you an' him to let them boys git away? What
+do you reckon I'm a-goin' to do to you for it?"
+
+"Why, is them fellers gone?" quavered the old man, craning his neck to
+look gingerly in. "I never seen nothin' movin' up here, but--they was a
+gal or so come norratin' past on the path; I 'lowed when I seed calicker
+that it mought be Huldy, you named her so free."
+
+"Well, shut yo' fool mouth and get yo'se'f to work," ordered Blatch.
+"I've got to be out o' this."
+
+He turned his back on old Gid and forgot him.
+
+"Ef I thort I had time I'd take my still with me," he ruminated, going
+close to it and laying a fond touch upon the copper-work. "I'm a mind to
+try it."
+
+"Hands up, Turrentine!" came a short sharp order from outside. Blatch
+whirled like a flash, and looked past Gideon Rust in the doorway. Over
+the old man's shaking shoulders, he saw the levelled rifles of the
+marshal and his posse.
+
+"Thar," whispered ancient Gideon fairly weeping, as they closed in on
+Turrentine and snapped the handcuffs on his wrists, "now mebbe ye won't
+name a pore old woman's name so free, ef you _have_ bought her to yo'
+will, and set her to spy on them that's been good friends to her."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII
+
+Love's Guerdon
+
+
+When Judith left Andy in charge of her patient and mounted the ladderlike
+stair to her own small room under the eaves, she felt no disposition to
+sleep. She did not undress, but sat down by the window and stared out
+into the black November night. Despite everything, there had come a sort
+of peace over her tumult, a stilling that was not mere weariness. She was
+like a woman who has just been saved from a shipwreck, snatched away from
+the imminent jaws of doom--chastened, and wondering a little. Intensely
+thankful for what she had escaped, she sat there in the dark, cold little
+room, Judith Barrier, safe from the sin of a godless union, from the life
+that would have been hers as Blatchley Turrentine's wife.
+
+In the light of her danger, familiar things took on a new face, strange,
+yet dear and welcome. She turned and gazed with childish eyes up at the
+decent beams of her rooftree, glad that they still sheltered her a maid,
+glad that the arms of her home were about her.
+
+With remorseless honesty she went back over her years. Always in the past
+months of suffering she had blamed this or that extraneous circumstance
+with her undoing; now she saw and recognised and acknowledged that
+nothing and nobody had brought disaster upon her but herself. It was not
+because Blatchley Turrentine was a bad, lawless man, not because the boys
+were reckless fellows, led and influenced by him, that all this trouble
+had come. If she, Judith Barrier, had dealt fairly and humbly by her
+world, she might have had the lover of her choice in peace as other girls
+had--even as Cliantha and Pendrilla had. But no, such enterprises as
+contented these, such stir as they made among their kind, would not do
+her. She must seek to cast her spells upon every eligible man within her
+reach. She must try her hand at subjugating those who were difficult,
+pride herself on the skill with which she retained half a dozen in
+anxious doubt as to her ultimate intentions concerning them.
+
+Her forehead drooped to the window pane and her cheeks burned as she
+recollected times and seasons and scenes that belonged to the years when
+Blatch was building up his firm belief that she loved him, and would
+sometime marry him. It had been a spirited, dangerous game to her then,
+nothing more.
+
+Her passionate, possessive nature was winning to higher ground, leaving,
+with pain and travail of spirit, the plane on which her twenty years had
+been lived. The past months of thwarting, failure, and heart-hunger had
+prepared for this movement, to-night it was almost consciously making.
+She was coming to the place where, if she might not have love, she could
+at least be worthy of it. The little clock which had measured her vigils
+that night of the dumb supper slanted toward twelve. She got to her feet
+with a long sigh. She did not know yet what she meant to do or to forbear
+doing; but she was aware, with relief, of a radical change within her, a
+something awakened there which could consider the right of Creed--even of
+Huldah; which could submit to failure, to rejection--and be kind. Slowly
+she gathered up her belongings and took her way downstairs.
+
+When the door of the sick-room closed behind the boys, she went and knelt
+down beside the bed and looked fixedly at the sleeper. With the birth of
+this new spiritual impulse the things Blatch Turrentine had said of Creed
+and Creed's intentions dropped away from her as fall the dead leaves from
+the bough of that most tenacious of oak trees which holds its withered
+foliage till the swelling buds of a new spring push it off. He was a good
+man. She felt that to the innnermost core of her heart. She loved him.
+She believed she would always love him. As for his being married to
+Huldah, she would not inquire how that came about, how it could have
+happened while she felt him to be promised to herself. There was--there
+must be--a right way for even that to befall. She must love him and
+forgive him, for only so could she face her life, only so could she patch
+a little peace with herself and still the gnawing agony in her breast.
+Long she knelt thus.
+
+Who that knows even a little the wonders of the subjective mind, who that
+has tested the marvellous communication between the mood of nurse and
+patient, will doubt that the sick man, lying passive, receptive, got now
+Judith's message of peace and relaxation. The girl herself, powerful,
+dominating young creature, had been fought to a spiritual standstill. She
+was at last forced to her knees, and the atmosphere which her passionate
+struggles had long disturbed grew serene about her. Even a wavering note
+of something more joyous than mere peace, a courage, a strength that
+promised happiness must have radiated from her to him. For Creed's eyes
+opened and looked full into hers with a wholly rational expression which
+had long been absent from their clear depths.
+
+"Judith--honey," he whispered, and fumbled vaguely for her hand upon the
+coverlet.
+
+"Yes, Creed--what is it? What do you want?" she asked tremulously, taking
+the thin fingers in her warm clasp.
+
+"Nothing--so long as I've got you," he returned contentedly. "Can't I sit
+up--and won't you sit down here by me and talk awhile?"
+
+Gently smiling, Judith helped him to sit up, and piled the pillows back
+of his head and shoulders, noting almost with surprise how well he
+looked, how clear and direct was his gaze.
+
+"I've been sick a long time, haven't I?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," the girl replied, drawing up a chair and seating herself. "Hit's
+more'n six weeks that Uncle Jep an' me has been takin' care of you."
+
+He lifted her hand and stroked it softly.
+
+"A body gets mighty tired of a sick fellow," he said wistfully.
+
+Judith's eyes filled at the pitiful little plea, but she could not offer
+endearments to Huldah's husband.
+
+"I ain't tired of you," she returned in a low, choked voice. "I most
+wisht I was. Creed----"
+
+She slipped from her chair dropping on her knees beside him.
+
+"Creed, I want to tell you now while I can do it that the boys is gone to
+get Huldy. She can take care of you after this--but I'll help. I ain't
+mad about it. I was aimin' to tell you that the next time she come in you
+should bid her stay. God knows I want ye to be happy--whether it's me or
+another."
+
+Bewilderment grew in the blue eyes regarding her so fixedly.
+
+"Huldah?" he repeated. And then again in a lower, musing tone, "Huldah."
+
+"Yes--yo' wife, Huldy Spiller," Judith urged mildly. "Don't you mind
+namin' it to me the first time she slipped in to visit you?"
+
+An abashed look succeeded the expression of bewilderment. A faint, fine
+flush crept on the thin, white cheek.
+
+"I--I do," Creed whispered, with a foolish little smile beginning to
+curve his lips; "but there wasn't a word of truth in it--dear. I've never
+seen the girl since she left Aunt Nancy's that Saturday morning."
+
+"What made you say it then?" breathed Judith wonderingly.
+
+"I--I don't know," faltered the sick man. "It seemed like you was mad
+about something; and then it seemed like Huldah was here; and then--I
+don't know Judith--didn't I say a heap of other foolishness?"
+
+The simple query reproved his nurse more than a set arraignment would
+have done. He had indeed babbled, in his semi-delirium, plenty of "other
+foolishness," this was the only point upon which she had been credulous.
+
+"Oh Creed--honey!" she cried, burying her face in the covers of his bed,
+"I'm so 'shamed. I've got such a mean, bad disposition. Nobody couldn't
+ever love me if they knew me right well."
+
+She felt a gentle, caressing touch on her bowed head.
+
+"Jude, darling," Creed's voice came to her, and for the first time it
+sounded really like his voice, "I loved you from the moment I set eyes on
+you. I didn't sense it for a spell, but I come to see that you were the
+one woman in the world for me. There never was a man done what went more
+against the grain than I the night I parted from you down at the railroad
+station and let you go back when you would have come with me--so
+generous--so loving--"
+
+He broke off with a choking sigh, and Judith raised her head in a sort of
+consternation. Were these the exciting topics that her Uncle Jep would
+have banished from the sick-room? she wondered. But no, Creed had never
+looked so nearly a well man as now. He raised himself from the pillows.
+
+"Don't!" she called sharply, as she sprang up and slipped a capable arm
+under his shoulders, laying his head on her breast. "You ort not to do
+thataway," she reproached him. "When you want anything I'll git it."
+
+"I don't want a thing, but this," whispered Creed, looking up into her
+eyes. "Nothing, only----"
+
+Judith read the mute prayer aright, and tears of exquisite feeling
+blinded her. As she looked at him, there was loosed upon her soul the
+whole tide of passionate tenderness which had gathered there since first
+she saw him standing, eager, fearless, selfless, on the Court House steps
+at Hepzibah. The yellow head lay on her arm now; those blue eyes which,
+in many bitter hours since that time, had seemed as unattainable to her
+love as the sky itself, were raised to her own, they were pleading for
+her kiss. She bent her face; the full red lips met Creed's. The weary
+longing was satisfied; the bitterness was washed away.
+
+They remained quietly thus, Creed drinking in new life from her nearness,
+from her dearness. When she would have lifted her head, his thin hand
+went up and was laid over the rounded cheek, bringing the sweet mouth
+back to his own.
+
+"I'll need a heap of loving, Judith," he whispered,--"a heap. I've been
+such a lone fellow all my days. You'll have to be everything and
+everybody to me."
+
+[Illustration: "They had forgotten all the world save themselves
+and their love."]
+
+Judith's lavish nature, so long choked back upon itself, trembled to its
+very core with rapture at the bidding. It seemed to her that all of
+Heaven she had ever craved was to do and be everything that Creed
+Bonbright needed. She answered with an inarticulate murmur of tenderness,
+a sound inexpressibly wooing and moving. All that she had felt, all that
+she meant for the future, surged strong within her--was fain for
+utterance. But Judith was not fluent; she must content herself with doing
+and being--Creed could speak for her now. She cherished the fair hair
+with loving touch, nestling the thin cheek against her soft, warm one.
+
+The beautiful storm-rocked craft of Judith's passion was safe at last in
+Love's own harbour; the skies were fair above it, and only Love's tender
+airs breathed about its weary sails.
+
+"We'll be wedded in the spring," Creed's lips murmured against her own.
+"I'll carry home a bride to the old place. Oh, we'll be happy, Judith."
+
+All through the latter part of the night, while the two lovers were
+drawing out of the ways of doubt and pain and misunderstanding, into so
+full and sweet a communion, the November breeze had been rising; toward
+dawn it moved quite steadily. And with its impulse moved the cedar tree,
+a long, smooth swaying, that set free that tender, baritone legato to
+which Judith's ears had harkened away last March, when she came home from
+Hepzibah after first seeing Creed Bonbright. It was the voice which had
+talked to her throughout the spring, the early summer, through autumn's
+desolate days, when the waiting in ignorance of his whereabouts and of
+his welfare seemed almost more than she could bear; it was the voice
+which had called upon her so tragically, so insistently, the night of the
+raid on Nancy Card's cabin. But Creed himself was here now; Creed's own
+lips spoke close to her ear. The cedar tree had its song to itself once
+more; she no longer needed its music. Its sound was unheard by her, as
+the flame of a candle is unseen in the strong light of the sun.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII
+
+A Prophecy
+
+
+Over the shoulder of Yellow Old Bald up came the sun, bannered and
+glorious; the distant ranges glowed in his splendours; the sere fields
+about the place were all gilded. The small-paned eastern window of the
+sick-room let in a flood of morning light. Gone was the bird choir that
+used to welcome his earliest rays, swept south by the great tide of
+migration. Those that remained, snowbird, cardinal, and downy
+woodpecker--the "checkerbacker" of the mountaineer,--harboured all night
+and much of the day in the barn loft and in Judith's cedar tree. Their
+twittering sounded cheerily about the eaves.
+
+Back and forth in the puncheon-floored kitchen trudged old Dilsey Rust's
+heavy-shod foot, carrying her upon the appointed tasks of the day.
+
+In the quiet sick-room, where the low, alternating voices had subsided
+into an exchange of murmured words, suddenly Creed dropped his head back
+to stare at his companion with startled eyes.
+
+"Judith!" he exclaimed. "Where are the boys?"
+
+He glanced at the window, then about the room.
+
+"It's broad day. That word Blatch sent was a decoy; Huldah Spiller isn't
+on the mountain. Somebody must go over there."
+
+Judith rose swiftly to her feet.
+
+"My Lord, Creed! I forgot all about 'em," she said contritely. "Ye don't
+reckon Blatch would harm the boys? And yet yo' right--it does look bad. I
+don't know what to do, honey. They ain't a man on the place till Uncle
+Jep comes. But maybe he'll be along in about an hour."
+
+She hurried to the window and stared over toward the Gulch; and at the
+moment a group of people topped the steep, rising into view one after the
+other out of the ravine, and coming on toward the house.
+
+"Here they are now," she said with relief in her tones. "Thar's
+Andy--Jeff, Pendrilly--why, whatever--The Lusk girls is with 'em! They's
+another--Creed, they _have_ got Huldy! And that last feller--no, 'tain't
+Blatch--of all things--it's Wade! They're comin' straight to this door.
+Shall I let them in?"
+
+"Yes," said Creed's steady voice. "Let them right in."
+
+She ran swiftly to slip an extra pillow under her patient's shoulders,
+straighten the covers of the bed, and put all in company trim. Her eye
+brightened when she saw him sitting so erect and alert almost like his
+old self. Somebody rattled the latch.
+
+"Come in, folks," Creed called, speaking out with a roundness and
+decision that it did her heart good to hear.
+
+They all pushed into the room, the men shouldering back a little,
+glancing anxiously at the sick man, the Lusk girls timid, but Huldah
+leading the van.
+
+"How's Creed?" cried the irrepressible one, bounding into the room and
+looking about her. "Wade got yo' letter, Cousin Judy, an' I says to him
+that right now was the time for us to make a visit home. Wade's got him a
+good place on the railroad, and I like livin' in the settlement; but
+bridal towers is all the go down thar, and we 'lowed we'd take one."
+
+Every inch of her raiment bespoke the bride, and it did not take Creed
+many moments to understand the situation, put out a thin white hand and,
+smiling, offer his congratulations. Wade received them with some
+low-toned, hesitating words of apology.
+
+"Law, Cousin Creed's ready to let bygones be bygones, Wade, honey!" his
+wife admonished him.
+
+"_Cousin_ Creed?" echoed the obtuse Jeff.
+
+Wade's wife whirled to put a ready arm around Judith's waist. "Why, you
+an' him is a-goin' to be wedded, ain't you Judy? I always knowed, and I
+always said to everybody that I named it to, that you was cut out and
+made for each other. We heared tell from everybody in the Turkey Tracks
+that you an' Creed was goin' to be wedded as soon as he got well--then I
+reckon he'll be my cousin, won't he?"
+
+Creed looked past the whispering girls to where Andy and Jeff stood. As
+the boys moved toward the bed.
+
+"Did you find Blatch?" he asked, with a man's directness. "How did
+you-all make out?"
+
+Andy opened his lips to answer, when there was a clatter of hoofs
+outside. As they all turned to the window, Jephthah Turrentine's big
+voice, with a new tone in it, called out to somebody.
+
+"Hold on thar, honey--lemme lift ye down."
+
+"Ain't Uncle Jep goin' to be proud when he sees how well you air?"
+Judith, stooping, whispered to Creed. "He went off to get somebody to
+he'p nurse you, because he said I done you more harm than good."
+
+"Your Uncle Jep don't know everything," returned Creed softly.
+
+No mountaineer ever knocks on a door, but Jephthah Turrentine made
+considerable racket with the latch before he entered the room.
+
+"Oh--you air awake," he said cautiously, then, looking about at the
+others, "an' got company so airly in the mornin'." He glanced from the
+newcomers to his patient. "You look fine--fine!" he asserted with high
+satisfaction; then turning over his shoulder, "Come right along in,
+honey--Creed'll be proud to see ye."
+
+He paused on the threshold, reaching back a hand and entered, pulling
+after him Nancy Card--who was Nancy Card no longer. A wild-rose pink was
+in her withered cheeks under the frank grey eyes. She smiled as Judith
+had never imagined she could smile. But even then the young people
+scarcely fathomed the situation.
+
+"Creed," cried the old man, "I've brung ye the best doctor and nurse
+there is on the mountings. Nancy she run off and left us, and I had to go
+after her, and I 'lowed I'd make sartain that she'd never run away from
+me again, so I've jest--we jest----"
+
+"Ye ain't married!" cried Judith, sudden light coming in on her.
+
+"We air that," announced old Jephthah radiantly.
+
+"Well, Jude, I jest had to take him," apologised Nancy. "Here was him
+with the rheumatics every spring, an' bound and determined that he'd lay
+out in the bushes deer-huntin' like he done when he was twenty, and me
+knowin' in reason that a good course of dandelion and boneset, with my
+liniment well rubbed in, would fix him up--why, I jest _had_ to take
+him."
+
+She looked about her for support, and she got it from an unexpected
+quarter.
+
+"Well, I think you done jest right," piped up Huldah, who had been a
+silent spectator as long as she could endure it, "I'm mighty glad I've
+got a new mother-in-law, 'caze I know Pap Turrentine's apt to be well
+taken keer of in his old days."
+
+His old days! Nancy looked indignantly from the red-haired girl to her
+bridegroom who, in her eyes, was evidently still a sprightly youth.
+
+"Huh!" she remarked enigmatically. Then with a sudden change; "Yit whilst
+we are a-namin' sech, honey, won't you jest run out to my saddle and
+bring me the spotted caliker poke off'n hit--hit's got my bundle of yarbs
+in it. I'll put on a drawin' of boneset for you befo' I set down."
+
+"All right, Nancy--but I reckon I'll have to clear these folks out of
+this sick-room fust," responded old Jephthah genially. "We're apt to have
+too much goin' on for Creed."
+
+But as they were marshalled to leave, the noise of a new arrival in the
+kitchen brought the curious Huldah to the door and she threw it wide to
+admit Iley, into whose arms she promptly precipitated herself with
+voluble explanations, which covered her career from the time she left Jim
+Cal's cabin till that moment.
+
+"You an' Wade are wedded? Why couldn't you let a body know?" inquired
+Iley wrathfully, grasping her by the shoulder, holding her off for
+somewhat hostile inspection.
+
+"That's what I say," echoed Jim Cal's voice from the doorway where he
+harboured, a trifle out of sight. "Ef you-all gals would be a little mo'
+open an' above-bo'd about yo' courtin' business hit would save lots of
+folks plenty of trouble. Here's Iley got some sort o' notion that Huldy
+was over at Blatch's, an' she put out an' run me home so fast that I
+ain't ketched my breath till yit."
+
+"Over at Blatch's?" old Jephthah looked angrily about him, and Judith
+made haste to explain the whole matter, detailing everything that had led
+up to the trouble.
+
+"We-all talked it over, Uncle Jep, and as you wasn't here we made out to
+do the best we could, and the boys went."
+
+"After me!" crowed Huldah. "An' thar I was on the train 'long o' Wade
+comin' to Garyville that blessed minute."
+
+"Well, Blatch had us hog-tied an' waitin' for the marshal to come an'
+cyart us down and send us to the penitentiary," Jeff set forth the case.
+"But you know how Blatch is, always devilin' folks; he made old Gid Rust
+mad, an' when Clianthy an' Pendrilly met the old man out on the road soon
+this mornin', he told 'em to take a knife and come up to the cave an'
+they could keep what they found."
+
+"I never was so scairt in my life," Cliantha asseverated. Her china-blue
+eyes had not yet resumed their normal size or contour, and the assertion
+was easily believed.
+
+"Nor me neither," agreed Pendrilla. "I says to him, says I, 'Now you, Gid
+Rust, do you 'low we're crazy? We're a-lookin' for old Boss and Spot, an'
+we ain't a-goin' up yon nary step.' An' he says to us, says he, 'Gals,
+you never mind about no cows,' he says. 'Hit'll shore be the worse for
+Andy and Jeff Turrentine ef you don't git yo'selves up thar an' git up
+thar quick.' An' with that he gives us his knife out of his pocket, 'caze
+we didn't have none, and we run the whole blessed way, and cut the boys
+a-loose."
+
+"I was that mad when I seen 'em tied up thataway," chimed in Cliantha,
+"that I wouldn't a 'cared the rappin' o' my finger ef old Blatch
+Turrentine hisself had been thar. I'd 'a' stood right up to him an' told
+him what I thort o' him an' his works." There are conditions, it is said,
+in which even the timid hare becomes militant, and doves will peck at the
+intruder.
+
+"Well, I reckon I got to get you folks out of here now for sartain," said
+Jephthah as she made an end. "Nancy, honey, is the yarbs you wanted for
+Creed in with them you're a-goin' to use on me?"
+
+The little old woman felt of Creed's fingers, she laid a capable hand
+upon his brow. Then she flashed one of her quick, youthful smiles at her
+husband.
+
+"You named it to me about Jude and Creed being at the outs," she said
+frankly; "but I see they've made up their troubles. The boy don't need no
+medicine."
+
+Jephthah stared at his transformed patient, and admitted that it was so.
+
+"Well he does need some peace and quiet," the head of the house
+maintained as he ushered his clan into the adjoining room.
+
+"Uncle Jephthah," called Creed's quiet voice, with the ring of the old
+enthusiasm in it, as his host was leaving the room. "Do you remember
+telling me that the trouble with my work on the mountain was, I was one
+man alone? Do you remember saying that if I was a member of a big
+family--a great big tribe--that I'd get along all right and accomplish
+what I set out for?"
+
+"I say sech a lot of foolishness, son, I cain't ricollect it all. Likely
+I did say that. Hit mought have some truth in it."
+
+"Well," said Creed, carrying the hand he held to his lips, "I reckon I'll
+be a member of a big tribe now; maybe I can take up the work yet, and do
+some good."
+
+The old man looked at him. Here was the son of his heart--of his mind and
+nature--the congenial spirit; the welcome companion, interested like
+himself in abstractions, willing to stake all on an idea. Days of good
+comradeship stretched before these two. He reached down a brown right
+hand, and Creed's thin white one went out to meet it in a quick, nervous
+clasp.
+
+"Son," spoke out Jephthah in that deep, sonorous voice of his, "Creed,
+boy, what you set out to do was a work for a man's lifetime; but God made
+you for jest what you aimed then to do and be. Yo' mighty young yet, but
+you air formed for a leader of men. To the last day of its life an oak
+will be an oak and a willer a willer; and yo' head won't be grey when you
+find yo' work and find yo'self a-doin' it right."
+
+"Pap Turrentine!" called Huldah from the kitchen, "Maw wants ye out
+here."
+
+The door swung wide; it showed a vision of Nancy Turrentine, flushed,
+bustling, capable, the crinkled grey hair pushed back above those bright
+eyes of hers with a prideful hand, entering upon the administration of
+her new realm. Oh, it had not been easy for one of her spirit to be a
+poor little widow, living out on the Edge, with nobody but slack Doss
+Provine to do for her, hardly dishes enough to set the table, often not
+much to put in them, eking out a scanty living by weaving baskets of
+white-oak splits. When Judith rode up to the cabin on the Edge that
+evening of late March, it was the hardest time of the year; now was the
+mountaineer's season of cheer and abundance--his richest month. Outside,
+nuts were gathering, hunting was good, and she had for her provider of
+wild meat the mightiest hunter in the Turkey Tracks. Jephthah
+Turrentine's home was ample and well plenished. There was good store of
+root crops laid up for winter. Judith had neglected such matters to tend
+on Creed, but Nancy was already putting in hand the cutting and drying of
+pumpkins, the threshing out of beans. Here were milk vessels a-plenty to
+scald and sun--and filling for them afterward. Oh, enough to do
+with!--the will to do had always been Nancy's--and for yokefellow in the
+home, one who would carry his share and pull true--a real man--the only
+one there had ever been for Nancy.
+
+"Pap," called Huldah's insistent voice again.
+
+"All right--I'm a-comin'," declared Jephthah, then, with the door in his
+hand, turned back, meaning to finish what had been in his mind to say to
+Creed.
+
+Jephthah Turrentine was himself that day a bridegroom, wedded to the one
+love of his life; he appreciated to the full that which had come to
+Creed. He had thought to say to the boy that now was the opening of great
+things, to remind him that one must first live man's natural life, must
+prove himself as son, brother, husband, father, and neighbour, before he
+will be accepted or efficient in the larger calling. He would have said
+that life must teach the man before the man could teach his fellows.
+
+But the words of homely wisdom in which he would have clothed this truth
+remained unspoken. He glanced back and saw the dark head bent close above
+the yellow one, as Judith performed some little service for Creed. The
+girl's rich brown beauty glowed and bloomed before the steady, blue fire
+of her lover's eyes. She set down her tumbler and knelt beside him. Their
+lips were murmuring, they had forgotten all the world save themselves and
+their love. Jephthah looked at the rapt young faces; these two were on
+the mount of transfiguration; the light ineffable was all about them.
+
+"Lord, what's the use of a old fool like me sayin' I, ay, yes or no to
+sech a pair as that?" he whispered as he went out softly and closed the
+door.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS***
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Judith of the Cumberlands, by Alice MacGowan</title>
+<style type="text/css">
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+<body>
+<h1 class="figcenter">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Judith of the Cumberlands, by Alice MacGowan,
+Illustrated by George Wright</h1>
+<pre>
+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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Judith of the Cumberlands</p>
+<p>Author: Alice MacGowan</p>
+<p>Release Date: September 4, 2008  [eBook #26527]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 333px; height: 512px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 333px;'>
+&#8220;The moonlight flickered on the blade in his hand as he reeled backward over the bluff&#8221; (page 145).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' font-size:1.6em;'>JUDITH OF</p>
+<p style=' font-size:1.6em; margin-bottom:2em;'>THE CUMBERLANDS</p>
+<div style='margin-top:1em'></div>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BY</p>
+<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-bottom:2em;'>ALICE MACGOWAN</p>
+<div style='margin-top:1em'></div>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>AUTHOR OF</p>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>&#8220;THE WIVING OF LANCE CLEAVERAGE,&#8221;</p>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:2em;'>&#8220;THE LAST WORD,&#8221; &#8220;HULDAH,&#8221; &#8220;RETURN,&#8221; ETC.</p>
+<div style='margin-top:1em'></div>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR</p>
+<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BY</p>
+<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-bottom:5em;'>GEORGE WRIGHT</p>
+<div style='margin-top:1em'></div>
+<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP</p>
+<p style=' font-size:1em; margin-bottom:2em;'>PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div class='ce' style=' font-size:0.8em;'>
+<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Copyright</span>, 1908</p>
+<p>BY</p>
+<p>ALICE MACGOWAN</p>
+<div style='margin-top:1em'></div>
+<p>This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers,</p>
+<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>G. P. Putnam&#8217;s Sons, New York and London</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>DEDICATION</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>To my mountain friends, dwellers in lonely cabins, on
+winding horseback trails and steep, precarious roads; or in the
+tiny settlements that nestle in the high-hung inner valleys;
+lean brown hunters on remote paths in the green shadowed
+depths of the free forest, light-stepping, keen-eyed, humorous-lipped,
+hitting the point as aptly with an instance as with the
+old squirrel gun they carry; wielders of the axe by many a
+chip pile, where the swinging blade rests readily to answer
+query or offer advice; tanned, lithely moving lads following
+the plough, turning over the shoulder a countenance of dark
+beauty; grave, shy girls, pail in hand, at the milking-bars
+in dawn or dusk; young mothers in the doorway, looking
+out, babe on hip; big-eyed, bare-footed mountain children
+clinging hand in hand by the roadside, or clustered like
+startled little partridges in the shelter of the dooryard;
+knitters in the sun and grandams by the hearth; tellers and
+treasurers all of tales and legends couched in racy old Elizabethan
+English; I dedicate this&mdash;their book and mine.</p>
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>FOREWORD</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>I have been so frequently asked how I, a
+woman, came by my intimate acquaintance
+with life in the more remote districts of the southern
+Appalachians, particularly in the matter of
+illicit distilling, that I think it not amiss to
+here set down a few words as to my sources of
+knowledge.</p>
+<p>I have always lived in a small city in the heart
+of the Cumberlands, and a portion of each year
+was spent in the mountains themselves. The
+speech of Judith and her friends and kin has been
+familiar to me from childhood; their point of
+view, their customs and possessions as well known
+to me as my own. Then when I began to write,
+I was one summer at Roan Mountain, on the
+North Carolina-Tennessee line, probably less than
+two hundred miles from Chattanooga by the
+railway, and Gen. John T. Wilder, who had
+campaigned all through the fastnesses of that
+inaccessible region, suggested to me that I buy
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_407' name='page_407'></a>407</span>
+a mountain-bred saddle horse, and ride such a
+route as he would give me, bringing up, after
+about a thousand miles of it, at my home. To
+follow the itinerary that the old soldier marked
+out on the map for me was to leave railroads
+and modern civilisation as we know it, penetrate
+the wild heart of the region, and, depending on
+the wayside dwellers for hospitality and lodging
+from night to night, be forcibly thrust into an
+intimate comprehension of a phase of American
+life which is perhaps the most primitive our
+country affords.</p>
+<p>I was more than eight weeks making this trip,
+carrying with me all necessary baggage on my
+capacious, cowgirl saddle with its long and numerous
+buckskin tie-strings. At first I shrank
+very much from riding up to a cabin&mdash;a young
+woman, alone, with garments and outfit that
+must challenge the attention and curiosity of
+these people&mdash;in the dusk of evening or in a
+heavy rain-storm, and asking in set terms for
+lodging. But it took only a few days for me to
+find that here I was never to be stared at, wondered
+at, nor questioned; and that, proffering my
+request under such conditions, I was met by
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_408' name='page_408'></a>408</span>
+instant hospitality, and a grave, uninquiring
+courtesy unsurpassed and not always equalled
+in the best society, and I seemed to evoke a swift
+tenderness that was almost compassion.</p>
+<p>During this journey I became acquainted with
+some features of mountain life which I might
+never have known otherwise. My best friends
+in the mountains in the neighbourhood of my
+own home had always been a little shy of discussing
+moonshine whiskey and moonshiners; but
+here I earned a dividend upon my misfortunes,
+being more than once taken for a revenue spy;
+and in the apologetic amenities of those who
+had misjudged me, which followed my explanations
+and proofs of innocence, I have been shown
+in a spirit of atonement, illicit still and &#8220;hideout.&#8221;
+I have heard old Jephthah Turrentine make his
+protest against the government&#8217;s attitude toward
+the mountain man and his &#8220;blockaded still.&#8221;
+I have foregathered with the revenuers in the
+settlements at the foot of the circling purple
+ranges, and been shown the specially made axes
+and hooks they carry with them for breaking
+up and destroying the simple appurtenances of
+the illicit manufacture. Knowing that Blatch
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_409' name='page_409'></a>409</span>
+Turrentine&#8217;s still must have cost him three
+hundred dollars, I cannot wonder that a mountain
+man, a thrifty fellow like Blatch, should
+have lingered, even in great danger, over the
+project of carrying it with him.</p>
+<p>These dwellers in the southern mountain
+region, the purest American strain left to us,
+hold the interest and appeal of a changing,
+vanishing type. The tide of enlightenment and
+commercial prosperity must presently sweep in
+and absorb them. And so I might hope that a
+faithful picture of the life and manners I have
+sought to represent in <i>Judith of the Cumberlands</i>
+would be the better worth while.</p>
+<div class='ra'>
+<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A. Mac G.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:1em;'>Contents</p>
+</div>
+
+<table border='0' width='500' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'><span style='font-size:small;'>CHAPTER</span></td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align='right'><span style='font-size:small;'>PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>I.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Spring</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#I_SPRING'>1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>II.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>At &#8220;The Edge&#8221;</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#II_AT__THE_EDGE'>20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>III.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Suitors</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#III_SUITORS'>47</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IV.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Building</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IV_BUILDING'>64</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>V.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Red Rose and the Briar</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#V_THE_RED_ROSE_AND_THE_BRIAR'>83</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VI.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Play-Party</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VI_THE_PLAYPARTY'>99</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Kisses</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VII_KISSES'>112</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VIII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>On the Doorstone</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VIII_ON_THE_DOORSTONE'>124</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IX.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Foeman&#8217;s Bluff</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IX_FOEMAN_S_BLUFF'>135</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>X.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A Spy</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#X_A_SPY'>152</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XI.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Warning</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XI_THE_WARNING'>161</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>In the Lion&#8217;s Den</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XII_IN_THE_LION_S_DEN'>181</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>In the Night</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIII_IN_THE_NIGHT'>199</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIV.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Raid</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIV_THE_RAID'>207</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XV.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Council of War</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XV_COUNCIL_OF_WAR'>221</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVI.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A Message</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVI_A_MESSAGE'>235</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Old Cherokee Trail</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVII_THE_OLD_CHEROKEE_TRAIL'>244</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVIII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Bitter Parting</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVIII_BITTER_PARTING'>261</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIX.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Cast Out</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIX_CAST_OUT'>273</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XX.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A Conversion</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XX_A_CONVERSION'>282</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXI.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Baptising</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXI_THE_BAPTISING'>302</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Ebb-Tide</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXII_EBBTIDE'>315</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXIII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Dumb Supper</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXIII_THE_DUMB_SUPPER'>326</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXIV.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A Case of Walking Typhoid</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXIV_A_CASE_OF_WALKING_TYPHOID'>340</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXV.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A Perilous Passage</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXV_A_PERILOUS_PASSAGE'>360</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXVI.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>His Own Trap</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXVI_HIS_OWN_TRAP'>371</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXVII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Love&#8217;s Guerdon</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXVII_LOVE_S_GUERDON'>382</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXVIII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A Prophecy</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXVIII_A_PROPHECY'>393</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<hr class='silver' />
+
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1' name='page_1'></a>1</span></div>
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style=' font-size:1.3em; margin-top:2em;'>Judith of the Cumberlands</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 0em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='I_SPRING' id='I_SPRING'></a>
+<h2>Chapter I</h2>
+<h3>Spring</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t you be jest dressed to kill an&#8217; cripple
+when you get that on! Don&#8217;t it set her
+off, Jeffy Ann?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The village milliner fell back, hands on hips,
+thin lips screwed up, and regarded the possible
+purchaser through narrowed eyes of simulated
+ecstasy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; debated the brown beauty,
+surveying herself in a looking-glass by means
+of an awkwardly held hand-mirror. &#8220;&#8217;Pears
+to me this one&#8217;s too little. Hit makes me
+look like I was sent for and couldn&#8217;t come.
+But I do love red. I think the red on here is
+mightly sightly.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Instantly the woman of the shop had the hat
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2' name='page_2'></a>2</span>
+off the dark young head and in her own hands.</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is a powerful pretty red bow,&#8221; she
+assented promptly. &#8220;I can take it out just as
+easy as not, and tack it onto that big hat you
+like. I believe you&#8217;re right; and red certainly
+does go with yo&#8217; hair and eyes.&#8221; Again she
+gazed with languishing admiration at her customer.</p>
+<p>And Judith Barrier was well worth it, tall,
+justly proportioned, deep-bosomed, long-limbed,
+with the fine hands and feet of the true mountaineer.
+The thick dusk hair rose up around
+her brow in a massive, sculptural line; her dark
+eyes&mdash;the large, heavily fringed eyes of a dryad&mdash;glowed
+with the fires of youth, and with a
+certain lambent shining which was all their own;
+the stain on her cheeks was deep, answering to
+the ripe red of the full lips.</p>
+<p>In point of fact Mrs. Rhody Staggart the
+milliner considered her a big, coarse country
+girl, and thought that a pair of stout corsets
+well pulled in would improve her crude figure;
+but she dealt out compliments without ceasing
+as she exchanged the red bow for the blue,
+and laboriously pinned the headgear upon the
+bronze-brown coils, admonishing gravely, &#8220;Far
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3' name='page_3'></a>3</span>
+over to one side, honey&mdash;jest the way they&#8217;re
+a-wearin&#8217; them in New York this minute.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The buyer once more studied her mirror, and
+its dumb honesty told her that she was beautiful.
+Then she looked about for some human eyes to
+make the same communication.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s a-goin&#8217; on over yon at the Co&#8217;t
+House?&#8221; she inquired with languid interest,
+looking across the open square.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;s a political speakin&#8217;,&#8221; explained the
+other. &#8220;Creed Bonbright he wants to be elected
+jestice of the peace and go back to the Turkey
+Tracks and set up a office. Fool boy! You
+know mighty well an&#8217; good they&#8217;ll run him out
+o&#8217; thar&mdash;or kill him, one.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Although the girl had herself ridden down from
+Turkey Track Mountain that morning, and the
+old Bonbright farm adjoined her own, the news
+held no interest for her. She wished the gathering
+might have been something more to her purpose;
+but she solemnly paid for the hat, and with the
+cheap finery on her stately young head, which
+had been more appropriately crowned with a
+chaplet of vine leaves, moved to the door. She
+hoped that standing there, waiting for the boys
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4' name='page_4'></a>4</span>
+to bring her horse, she might attract some attention
+by her recently acquired splendour.</p>
+<p>She looked up at the Court House steps. The
+building was humbly in the Greek manner, as
+are so many of the public structures in the South.
+Between its great white pillars, flaking paint
+and half-heartedly confessing their woodland
+genesis, stood a tall young man, bareheaded.
+The doubtful sunlight of a March day glinted
+on his uncovered yellow hair. He was speaking
+rapidly in a fervid fashion that seemed beyond
+the occasion; in his blue eyes shone something
+of the fanatic&#8217;s passion; his bearing was that of
+a man who conceives himself to have a mission
+and a message.</p>
+<p>Judith looked at him. She heard no word of
+what he was saying&mdash;but him she heard. She
+heard the high, vibrant voice, saw the fair hair
+on the upflung head, the rapt look in the blue
+eyes with their quick-expanding pupils. Suddenly
+her world turned over. In a smother of
+strange, uncomprehended emotions, she was
+gropingly glad she had the new hat&mdash;glad she
+had it on now, and that Mrs. Staggart herself
+had adjusted it. On blind impulse she edged
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5' name='page_5'></a>5</span>
+around into plainer view, pushing freely in
+amongst the fringe of men and boys, an unheard-of
+thing for a well taught mountain girl to do,
+but Judith was for the moment absolutely unconscious
+of their humanity.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You never go a-nigh my people,&#8221; cried
+Bonbright in that clear thrilling tenor that is like
+a trumpet call, &#8220;you never go a-nigh them with
+the statute&mdash;with government&mdash;except when the
+United States marshal takes a posse up and
+raids the stills and brings down his prisoners.
+That&#8217;s all the valley knows of the mountain
+folks. The law&#8217;s never carried to anybody up
+there except the offenders and criminals. The
+Turkey Track neighbourhoods, Big and Little,
+have got a mighty bad name with you-all. But
+you ought to understand that violence must
+come when every man is obliged to take the law
+into his own hands. I admit that it&#8217;s an eye
+for an eye and a tooth for a tooth with us now&mdash;what
+else could it be? And yet we are as faithful
+to each other, as virtuous, and as God-fearing
+a race as those in the valley. I am a mountain
+man, born and bred in the Turkey Tracks; and
+I ask you to send me back to my neighbours with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6' name='page_6'></a>6</span>
+the law, that they may learn to be good citizens,
+as they are already good men and women.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Upon the word, there broke out at the farthest
+corner of the square an abrupt splatter of sound,
+oaths, cries, punctuated by the swift staccato of
+running feet. The ringing voice came to a sudden
+halt. Out of a little side street which descended
+from the mountain, a young fellow burst into
+view, running in long leaping bounds, his hands
+up. Behind him lumbered Dan Haley the United
+States marshal, a somewhat heavy-set man,
+puffing and panting, yelling, &#8220;Halt! halt! halt!&#8221;
+and finally turning loose a fusillade of shots aimed
+high over the fleeing lad&#8217;s head. There was a
+drawing back and a scattering in every direction.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hey, Bonbright!&#8221; vociferated a man leaping
+up from the last step where he had been sitting,
+pointing to where the marshal&#8217;s deputy followed
+behind herding five or six prisoners from the
+mountains, &#8220;Hey, Bonbright! There&#8217;s some of
+your constituency&mdash;some God-fearing Turkey-Trackers&mdash;now,
+but I reckon you won&#8217;t own
+&#8217;em.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I will!&#8221; shouted Bonbright, whirling upon
+him, and one got suddenly the blue fire of his
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7' name='page_7'></a>7</span>
+hawk-like eye with the slant brow above. &#8220;They
+<i>are</i> my people, and the way they&#8217;re treated is
+what I&#8217;ve been trying to talk to you-all
+about.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, you better go and take them fellers
+some law right now,&#8221; jeered his interlocutor.
+&#8220;Looks like to me they need it mighty bad.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just what I&#8217;m about,&#8221; answered
+Bonbright. &#8220;God knows they&#8217;ll get no justice
+unless I do. That&#8217;s my job,&#8221; and without another
+word or a look behind him he made his way
+bareheaded through the group on the steps and
+down the street.</p>
+<p>Meantime the pursued had turned desperately
+and dodged into the millinery store whence Judith
+Barrier had emerged a little earlier. Instantly
+there came out to the listeners the noise of falling
+articles and breaking glass, and the squeals and
+scufflings of the women. The red-faced marshal
+dived in after his quarry, and emerged a moment
+later holding him by one elbow, swearing angrily.
+Creed Bonbright came up at the instant, and
+Haley, needing some one to whom he could
+express himself, explained in voluble anger:</p>
+<p>&#8220;The damned little shoat! Said if I&#8217;d let him
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8' name='page_8'></a>8</span>
+walk a-loose he&#8217;d give me information. You
+can&#8217;t trust none of them.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Bonbright laid a reassuring touch on the
+fugitive&#8217;s shoulder as Haley fumbled after the
+handcuffs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t been into no stillin&#8217;, Creed!&#8221; panted
+the squirming boy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, don&#8217;t run then,&#8221; admonished Bonbright.
+&#8220;You&#8217;ve got no call to. I&#8217;ll see that
+you get justice.&#8221;</p>
+<p>While he spoke there wheeled into the square,
+from a nearby waggon-yard, two young mountaineers
+on mules, one leading by the bridle-rein
+a sorrel horse with a side-saddle on it. At sight
+of the marshal and those with him, an almost
+imperceptible tremor went through the pair.
+There was a flicker of nostril, a rounding of eye,
+as their glance ran swiftly from one to another
+of Haley&#8217;s prisoners. They were like wild game
+that winds the hunter.</p>
+<p>&#8220;St! You Pony Card, is that them?&#8221; whispered
+Haley, sharply nudging the prisoner he
+held. &#8220;Turn him a-loose, Bonbright; I&#8217;ve got
+him handcuffed now.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The boy&mdash;he was not more than sixteen&mdash;choked,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9' name='page_9'></a>9</span>
+reddened, held down his head, studying
+the marshal&#8217;s face anxiously from beneath
+lowered flax-coloured brows.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, them&#8217;s Andy and Jeff Turrentine,&#8221;
+Bonbright heard the husky, reluctant whisper.
+&#8220;Now cain&#8217;t I go?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The newcomers were beyond earshot, but the
+by-play was ominous to them. The lean young
+bodies stiffened in their saddles, the reins came
+up in their hands. For a moment it seemed as
+if they would turn and run for it. But it was
+too late. Without making any reply Haley
+shoved his prisoner into the hands of the deputy
+and with prompt action intercepted the two and
+placed them under arrest. Bonbright observed
+one of the boys beckon across the heads of
+the gathering crowd before he dismounted, and
+noted that some one approached from the
+direction of the Court House steps and received
+the three riding animals. In the confusion he
+did not see who this was. Haley spoke to his
+deputy, and then drew their party sharply off
+toward the jail, which could be used temporarily
+for the detention of United States prisoners.
+To the last the young Turrentines muttered
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10' name='page_10'></a>10</span>
+together and sent baleful glances toward Bonbright,
+whom they plainly conceived to be the author
+of their troubles. Poor Pony Card plodded
+with bent head mutely behind them, a furtive
+hand travelling now and again to his eyes.</p>
+<p>Such crowd as the little village had collected
+was following, Bonbright with the rest, when he
+encountered the girl who had come from the milliner&#8217;s
+shop. She stood now alone by the sorrel
+horse with the side-saddle on it, holding the
+bridle-reins of the two mules, and there was a
+bewildered look in her dark eyes as the noisy
+throng swept past her which brought him&mdash;led
+in the hand of destiny&mdash;instantly to her side.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the matter?&#8221; he asked her. &#8220;Can I
+help you?&#8221; And Judith who, in her perturbation,
+had not seen him before, started violently at the
+words and tone.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve tuck the boys,&#8221; she hesitated, in a
+rich, broken contralto, that voice which beyond
+all others moves the hearts of hearers, &#8220;I&mdash;I
+don&#8217;t know how I&#8217;m a-goin&#8217; to get these here
+mules home. Pete he won&#8217;t lead so very well.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, were you with the men Haley arrested?&#8221;
+ejaculated Bonbright.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11' name='page_11'></a>11</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, they&#8217;re my cousins. I don&#8217;t know
+what he tuck &#8217;em for,&#8221; the young, high-couraged
+head turned jailward; the dark eyes flashed a
+resentful look after the retiring posse.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It looks like to me, from what Haley said,
+that there&#8217;s nothing against them,&#8221; Bonbright
+reassured her. &#8220;But they&#8217;re likely to be held
+as witnesses&mdash;that&#8217;s the worst about this business.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was going over there right now to see
+what can be done about it&mdash;being a sort of
+lawyer. But let me help you first. I&#8217;m Creed
+Bonbright&mdash;reckon you know the name&mdash;born
+and raised on Big Turkey Track.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith&#8217;s heart beat to suffocation, the while
+she answered in commonplace phrase, &#8220;I
+shorely do. My name is Judith Barrier; I
+live with Uncle Jephthah Turrentine, on my
+farm. Hit&#8217;s right next to the old Bonbright
+place. We&#8217;ve been livin&#8217; thar more&#8217;n four
+years. I hate to go back and tell Uncle Jep of
+the boys bein&#8217; tuck; and that big mule, Pete, I
+don&#8217;t know how I&#8217;m a-goin&#8217; to git him out o&#8217;
+the settlement, he&#8217;s that mean and feisty about
+town streets.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon I can manage him,&#8221; Bonbright
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12' name='page_12'></a>12</span>
+suggested, looking about. &#8220;Oh, Givens!&#8221; he
+called to a man hurrying past. &#8220;When you get
+over there ask Haley not to take any definite
+action&mdash;I reckon he wouldn&#8217;t anyhow. I&#8217;m
+going to represent the prisoners, and I&#8217;ll be there
+inside of half an hour. Now let me put you on
+your horse, Miss Judith, and I&#8217;ll lead the mules
+up the road a piece for you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>And so it came about that Judith sprang to the
+back of the sorrel nag from Creed Bonbright&#8217;s
+hand. Creed, still bareheaded, and wholly unconscious
+of the fact, walked beside her leading
+the mules. They passed slowly up the street
+towards the mountainward edge of Hepzibah,
+talking as they went in the soft, low, desultory
+fashion of their people.</p>
+<p>The noises of the village, aroused from its
+usual dozing calm, died away behind them. Beyond
+the last cabin they entered a sylvan world
+all their own. While he talked, questioning
+and replying gravely and at leisure, the man was
+revolving in his mind just what action would be
+best for the prisoners whose cause he had espoused.
+As for Judith, she had forgotten that such persons
+existed, that such trivial mischance as their
+arrest had just been; she was concerned wholly
+with the immediate necessity to charm, to subjugate
+the man.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13' name='page_13'></a>13</span>
+<img src='images/illus-012.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 365px; height: 502px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 365px;'>
+&#8220;Creed walked beside her leading the mules.&#8221;<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A rustic belle and beauty, used to success in
+such enterprises, in the limited time at her command
+she brought out for Creed&#8217;s subduing her
+little store of primitive arts. She would know,
+Pete suggesting the topic, if he didn&#8217;t despise
+a mule, adding encouragingly that she did. The
+ash, it seemed, was the tree of her preference;
+didn&#8217;t he think it mighty sightly now when it
+was just coming into bloom? His favourite
+season of the year, his favoured colour, of such
+points she made inquiry, giving him, in an elusive
+feminine fashion, ample opportunity to relate
+himself to her. And always he answered.
+When all was spoken, and at the first sharp rise
+she drew rein for the inevitable separation, she
+could not have said that she had failed; but she
+knew that she had not succeeded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye can jest turn Pete a-loose now,&#8221; she told
+him gently. &#8220;He&#8217;ll foller from here on.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Bonbright, on his part, was not quite aware
+why he paused here, yet it seemed cold and unfriendly
+to say good-bye at once, Again he
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14' name='page_14'></a>14</span>
+assured her that he would go immediately to the
+jail and find what could be done for her cousins.
+There was no more to be said now&mdash;yet they
+lingered.</p>
+<p>It was a blowy, showery March day, its lips
+puckered for weeping or laughter at any moment,
+the air full of the dainty pungencies of new life.
+Winged ants, enjoying their little hour of glory,
+swarmed from their holes and turned stone or
+stump to a flickering, moving grey. About them
+where they stood was the awakening world of
+nature. Great, pale blue bird-foot violets were
+blooming on favoured slopes, and in protected
+hollows patches of eyebright made fairy forests
+on the moss, while under tatters of dead leaves
+by the brookside arbutus blushed. Above their
+heads the tracery of branches was a lace-work
+overlaid with fanlike budding green leaves, except
+where the maples showed scarlet tassels, or the
+Judas tree flaunted its bold, lying, purple-pink
+promise of fruitage never to be fulfilled.</p>
+<p>Could two young creatures be wiser than
+nature&#8217;s self? It was the new time; all the
+gauzy-winged ephemeræ in the moist March
+woods were throbbing with it, buzzing or flashing
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' name='page_15'></a>15</span>
+about seeking mates and nectar. The earth had
+wakened from her winter sleep and set her face
+toward her ancient, ardent lover, the sun. In
+the soul of Judith Barrier&mdash;Judith the nature
+woman&mdash;all this surged strongly. As for the man,
+he had sent forth his spirit in so general a fashion,
+he conceived himself to have a mission so impersonal,
+that he scarce remembered what should
+or should not please or attract Creed Bonbright.</p>
+<p>Judith dreaded lest he make his farewells before
+she had from him some earnest of a future meeting.
+He could not say good-bye and let her leave
+him so! It seemed to her that if he did she
+should die before she reached the mountain-top.
+Dark, rich, earth-born, earth-fast, material, she
+looked down at Creed where he stood beside her,
+his hand on the sorrel&#8217;s neck, his calm blue eyes
+raised to hers. Her gaze lingered on the fair
+hair flying in the March breeze, above a face
+selfless as that of some young prophet. Her
+eager, undisciplined nature found here what it
+craved. Coquetry had not availed her; it had
+fallen off him unrecognised&mdash;this man who
+answered it absently, and thought his own
+thoughts. And with the divine pertinacity of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' name='page_16'></a>16</span>
+life itself she delved in the ancient wisdom of
+her sex for a lure to make him rise and follow
+her. It was not bright eyes nor red lips that
+could move or please him? But she had seen
+him moved, aroused. The hint was plain. Instantly
+abandoning her personal siege, she espoused
+the cause of her bodiless rival.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I heard you a-speakin&#8217; back there,&#8221; she
+said with a little catch in her breath.</p>
+<p>Bonbright&#8217;s eyes returned from the far distances
+to which they had travelled after giving her&mdash;Judith
+Barrier, so worthy of a blue-eyed youth&#8217;s
+respectful attention&mdash;a passing glance. She replied
+to his gaze with one full of a meaning to
+him at that time indecipherable; nevertheless it
+was an ardent, compelling look which he must
+needs answer with some confession of himself.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You wouldn&#8217;t understand what I was trying
+to tell about,&#8221; he began gently. &#8220;Since I&#8217;ve
+been living in the valley, where folks get rich and
+see a heap of what they call pleasure, I&#8217;ve had
+many a hard thought about the lives of our
+people up yonder in the mountains. I want to
+go back to my people with&mdash;I want to tell
+them&mdash;&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' name='page_17'></a>17</span></p>
+<p>The girl leaned forward in her saddle, burning
+eyes fixed on his intent face, red lips apart.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes&mdash;what?&#8221; she breathed. &#8220;What is it you
+want to say to the folks back home? You ort
+to come and say it. We need it bad.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you think so?&#8221; asked Bonbright doubtfully.
+&#8220;Do you reckon they would listen to me?
+I don&#8217;t know. Sometimes I allow maybe I&#8217;d
+better stay here where the Judge wants me to
+till I&#8217;m an older man and more experienced.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He studied the beautiful, down-bent face
+greedily now, but it was not the eye of a man
+looking at a maid. His thoughts were with the
+work he hoped to do. Judith&#8217;s heart contracted
+with fear, and then set off beating heavily. Wait
+till he was an old man? Would love wait?
+Somebody else would claim him&mdash;some town girl
+would find the way to charm him. In sheer terror
+she put down her hand and laid it upon his.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you never think it,&#8221; she protested.
+&#8220;You&#8217;re needed right now. After a while will
+be too late. Why, I come a-past your old home
+in the rain last Wednesday, and I could &#8217;a&#8217; cried
+to see the winders dark, and the grass all grown
+up to the front door. You come back whar
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18' name='page_18'></a>18</span>
+you belong&mdash;&#8221; she had almost said &#8220;honey&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;and
+you&#8217;ll find there is need a-plenty for folks
+like you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, they all allow that I&#8217;ll be elected next
+Thursday,&#8221; Creed assented, busying himself over
+the lengthening of Beck&#8217;s bridle, that she might
+lead the mule the more handily. &#8220;And if I am
+I&#8217;ll be in the Turkey Tracks along in April and
+find me a place to set up an office. If I&#8217;m
+elected&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Elected! An&#8217; ef yo&#8217;r not?&#8221; she cried, filled
+with scorn of such a paltry condition. What
+difference could it make whether or not he were
+elected? Wouldn&#8217;t his hair be just as yellow,
+his eyes as blue? Would his voice be any less
+the call to love?</p>
+<p>He smiled at her tolerantly, handing up the
+lengthened strap.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t just rightly know what I will
+do, then,&#8221; he debated.</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you&#8217;re a-comin&#8217; up to the Turkey Tracks
+anyhow, to&mdash;to see yo&#8217; folks,&#8221; persisted Judith
+with a rising triumph in her tone.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; acquiesced Bonbright, &#8220;I&#8217;ll come up
+in April anyhow.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' name='page_19'></a>19</span></p>
+<p>And with this assurance the girl rode slowly
+away, leading Beck, the now resigned Pete following
+behind. All the sounds from the valley
+were gathered as in a vast bowl and flung upward,
+refined by distance. A moment she halted listening,
+then breasted the first rise and entered that
+deep silence which waits the mountain dweller.
+The great forest closed about her.</p>
+<p>Creed Bonbright stood for a moment in the
+open road looking after her. Something she
+had conveyed to him, some call sent forth, which
+had not quite reached the ear of his spirit, and
+yet which troubled his calm. He lifted his gaze
+toward the bulk of the big mountain looming
+above him. He passed his hand absently
+through his fair hair, then tossed his head back
+with a characteristic motion. It was good to know
+he was needed up there. It was good to know
+he would be welcomed. So far the girl had made
+her point. After this the mountains and Judith
+Barrier would mean one thing in the young man&#8217;s
+mind. As the shortest way to them both, he
+turned and walked swiftly down toward the
+settlement and to the undertaking which there
+awaited him.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='II_AT__THE_EDGE' id='II_AT__THE_EDGE'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' name='page_20'></a>20</span>
+<h2>Chapter II</h2>
+<h3>At &#8220;The Edge&#8221;</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The girl on the sorrel nag and the two riderless
+animals toiled patiently up the broad,
+timbered flank of Big Turkey Track, following the
+raw red gash in the greenery that was the road.</p>
+<p>She gazed with wondering eyes at the familiar
+landmarks of the trail. All was just as it
+had been when she rode down it at dawn that
+morning, Andy and Jeff ahead on their mules
+whistling, singing, skylarking like two playful
+bear cubs. It was herself that was changed.
+She pushed the cheap hat off her hot forehead
+and tried to win to some coherence of thought
+and&mdash;so far had she already come on a new,
+strange path&mdash;looked back with wondering uncomprehension,
+as upon the beliefs and preferences
+of a crude primitive ancestress, to the girl who
+had cared that this hat cost a dollar and a half
+instead of a dollar and a quarter&mdash;only a few
+hours since when she bought it at the store.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' name='page_21'></a>21</span>
+She went over the bits of talk that had been
+between her and Creed Bonbright. What had he
+said his favourite colour was? Memory brought
+back his rapt young face when she put the question
+to him. She trembled with delight at the
+recollection. His eyes were fixed upon the sky,
+and he had answered her absently, &#8220;blue.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Blue! What a fool&mdash;what a common thickheaded
+fool she had been all her days! She
+let the sorrel take his own gait, hooked his bridle-rein
+and Beck&#8217;s upon the saddle-horn, and lifting
+her arms withdrew the hatpins and took off the
+unworthy headgear. For a moment she regarded
+savagely the cheap red ribbon which had appeared
+so beautiful to her; then with strong
+brown fingers tore it loose and flung it in the dust
+of the road, where Pete shied at it, and the stolid
+Beck coming on with flapping ears set hoof upon it.</p>
+<p>What vast world forces move with our movements,
+pluck us uncomprehending from the
+station we had struggled for, and make our
+sorrowful meat of our attained desires! The stars
+in their courses pivot and swing on these subtle
+attractions, ancient as themselves. Judith Barrier,
+tearing the gaudy ribbon from her hat and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22' name='page_22'></a>22</span>
+casting it upon the road under her horse&#8217;s feet,
+stood to learn what the priests of Isis knew thousands
+of years ago, that red is the symbol of
+pleasure and of mere animal comfort, while blue
+is the colour of pure reason.</p>
+<p>Halfway up the trail they rode into a cloud
+that rested trembling on the mountain-side,
+passed through it and emerged upon fitful sunlight.
+Near the top there came a sudden shower
+which descended with the souse of an overturned
+bucket. It won small attention from Judith,
+but Pete and Beck resented it in mule fashion,
+with a laying back of ears and lashing out of
+heels. These amenities were exchanged for the
+most part across the intervening sorrel nag and
+his rider, and Selim replied promptly and in
+kind, almost unseating Judith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You Selim!&#8221; she cried jerking the rein. &#8220;You
+feisty Pete! You no-account Beck! What ails
+you-all? Cain&#8217;t you behave?&#8221; and once more
+she lapsed into dreaming. It was Selim who,
+wise and old, stopped at Aunt Nancy Card&#8217;s
+gate and gave Judith an opportunity to descend
+if such were her preference.</p>
+<p>On the porch of the cabin sat a tall, lean,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' name='page_23'></a>23</span>
+black-eyed old man smoking his pipe, Jephthah
+Turrentine himself. Nancy Card, a dry, brown
+little sparrow of a woman, occupied a chair
+opposite him, and negotiated a pipe quite as
+elderly and evil-smelling as his own.</p>
+<p>The kerchief folded about her neck was notably
+white; her clean check-apron rustled with starch;
+but the half-grey hair crinkling rebelliously from
+its loose coil was never confined by anything
+more rigorous than a tucking comb. In moments
+of stress this always slipped down, and
+had to be vigorously replaced, so that stray
+strands were apt to be tossing about her eyes&mdash;fearless,
+direct blue eyes, that looked out of her
+square, wrinkled, weather-beaten little face with
+the sincere gaze of an urchin. Back of her chair
+lay a bundle of white-oak splits for use in her
+by-trade of basket-weaver; above them hung
+bundles of drying herbs, for Nancy was a sick-nurse
+and a bit of an herb-doctor. She had made
+a hard and a more or less losing fight against
+poverty&mdash;the men folk of these hardy, valiant
+little women seem predestined to be shiftless.</p>
+<p>It came back to Judith dimly as she looked
+at them&mdash;she was in a mood to remember such
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' name='page_24'></a>24</span>
+things&mdash;that her uncle had courted Nancy Card
+when these two were young people, that they
+had quarrelled, both had married, reared families,
+and been widowed; and they were quarrelling still!
+Acrimonious debate with Nancy was evidently
+such sweet pain that old Jephthah sought every
+opportunity for it, and the sudden shower in the
+vicinity of her cabin had offered him an excuse
+to-day.</p>
+<p>Nancy did not confine her practice to what she
+would have called humans, but doctored a horse
+or a cow with equal success. One cold spring
+a little chicken had its feet frozen in the wet
+barnyard so badly that it lost one of them, and
+Nancy, who had taken the poor mite into the
+house and nursed it till she loved it, constructed
+for it a wooden leg consisting of a small, light
+peg strapped to the stump. And thereafter
+Nicodemus, a rooster who must now belie the
+name since he could not cling to a perch with his
+single foot, became an institution in the Card
+household.</p>
+<p>Jephthah Turrentine was a natural bone-setter,
+and was sent for far and near to reduce
+a dislocation or bandage a broken limb. In the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' name='page_25'></a>25</span>
+pursuit of this which came to be almost a profession,
+he acquired a good knowledge of tending
+upon the sick, and the bitterness of rival practitioners
+was added to the score between him and
+Nancy. The case of Nicodemus furnished the
+man with a chance to call the woman a chicken
+doctor, and the name appealing to the humorous
+side of mountain character stuck to her, greatly
+to her disgust.</p>
+<p>Aunt Nancy&#8217;s dooryard was famous for its
+flowers, being a riot of pied bloom from March
+till December. Even now fire-in-the-bush and
+bridal wreath made gay the borders.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good land, Jude Barrier!&#8221; called Nancy herself.
+&#8220;You&#8217;re as wet as a drownded rat. &#8217;Light
+and come in.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Old Turrentine permitted his niece to clamber
+from Selim, and secure him and both mules.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whar&#8217;s the boys?&#8221; he inquired in a great,
+sonorous bass, the deep, true-pitched voice promised
+by the contours of strong bony arches under
+heavy brows and the strong nose-bridge.</p>
+<p>&#8220;In jail,&#8221; responded Judith laconically, turning
+to enter the gate. Then, as she walked up
+the hard-trodden clay path between the tossing,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' name='page_26'></a>26</span>
+dripping heads of daffodils, &#8220;Uncle Jep, did you
+know Creed Bonbright&#8217;s daddy?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;In jail!&#8221; echoed Nancy Card, making a pretence
+of trying to suppress a titter, and thereby
+rendering it more offensive. &#8220;Ain&#8217;t they beginnin&#8217;
+ruther young?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tall old Jephthah got to his feet, knocked the
+ashes from his pipe and put it in his pocket.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who tuck &#8217;em?&#8221; he inquired briefly, but with
+a fierce undernote in his tones. &#8220;What was they
+tuck fer?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never noticed,&#8221; said Judith, standing on the
+step before them, wringing the wet from her black
+calico riding skirt. &#8220;Nobody named it to me
+what they was tuck fer. I was talkin&#8217; to Creed
+Bonbright, and he &#8217;lowed to find out. He said
+that was his business.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed Bonbright,&#8221; echoed her uncle; &#8220;what&#8217;s
+he got to do with it? He&#8217;s been livin&#8217; down in
+Hepzibah studyin&#8217; to be a lawyer&mdash;did he have
+Jeff and Andy jailed?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith shook her head. &#8220;He didn&#8217;t have
+nothing to do with it,&#8221; she answered. &#8220;He
+&#8217;lowed they would be held for witnesses against
+some men Haley had arrested. But he&#8217;s goin&#8217;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' name='page_27'></a>27</span>
+to come back and live on Turkey Track,&#8221; she
+added, as though that were the only thing of
+importance in the world. &#8220;He says we-all need
+law in the mountings, and he&#8217;s a-goin&#8217; to bring
+it to us.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, he&#8217;d better let my boys alone if he
+don&#8217;t want trouble,&#8221; growled old Jephthah but
+half appeased.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon a little touch of law now an&#8217; agin
+won&#8217;t hurt yo&#8217; boys,&#8221; put in Nancy Card smoothly.
+&#8220;My chaps always tuck to law like a duck to
+water. I reckon I ain&#8217;t got the right sympathy
+fer them that has lawless young &#8217;uns.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yo&#8217; Pony was arrested afore Andy and Jeff,&#8221;
+Judith remarked suddenly, without any apparent
+malice. &#8220;He was the first one I seen comin&#8217;
+down the road, and Dan Haley behind him a-shootin&#8217;
+at him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Jephthah Turrentine forebore to laugh. But
+he deliberately drew out his old pipe again,
+filled it and stepped inside for a coal with which
+to light it.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mebbe yo&#8217; sympathies will be more tenderer
+for me in my afflictions of lawless sons after
+this, Nancy,&#8221; he called derisively over his shoulder.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28' name='page_28'></a>28</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s bound to be a mistake &#8217;bout Pony,&#8221;
+declared the little old woman in a bewildered
+tone. &#8220;Pone ain&#8217;t but risin&#8217; sixteen, and he&#8217;s
+the peacefullest child&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jest what I would have said about my twin
+lambs,&#8221; interrupted old Jephthah with twinkling
+eye, as he appeared in the doorway drawing
+mightily upon the newly lighted pipe, tossing
+his great beard from side to side of his mighty
+chest. &#8220;My chaps is all as peaceful as kittens;
+but some old woman gits to talkin&#8217; and gives
+&#8217;em a bad name, and it goes from lip to lip that
+the Turrentine boys is lawless. Hit&#8217;s a sad
+thing when a woman&#8217;s tongue is too long and
+limber, and hung in the middle so it works at
+both ends; the reppytations hit can destroy is
+a sight.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But a body&#8217;s own child&mdash;they&#8217; son! They&#8217;
+bound to stan&#8217; up for him, whether he&#8217;s in the
+right or the wrong,&#8221; maintained Nancy stoutly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huh,&#8221; grunted Jephthah, &#8220;offspring is cur&#8217;ous.
+Sometimes hit &#8217;pears like you air kin to them,
+and they ain&#8217;t kin to you. That Pony boy of
+your&#8217;n is son to a full mealsack; he&#8217;s plumb
+filial and devoted thataway to a dollar, if so
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' name='page_29'></a>29</span>
+be he thinks you&#8217;ve got one in yo&#8217; pocket. The
+facts in the business air, Nancy, that you&#8217;ve
+done sp&#8217;iled him tell he&#8217;s plumb rotten, and a few
+of the jailings that you so kindly ricommend
+for my pair won&#8217;t do him no harm.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Nancy tossed up her head to reply; but at the
+moment a small boy, followed by a smaller girl,
+coming around the corner of the house, created
+a diversion. The girl, a little dancing imp with
+a frazzle of flying red hair and red-brown eyes,
+catching sight of Judith ran to her and flung
+herself head foremost in the visitor&#8217;s lap, where
+Judith cooed over her and cuddled her, rumpling
+the bright hair, rubbing her crimson cheek against
+the child&#8217;s peachy bloom.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Little Buck and Beezy,&#8221; said Nancy Card,
+addressing them both, &#8220;Yo&#8217; unc&#8217; Pony&#8217;s in jail.
+What you-all goin&#8217; to do about it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The small brown man of six stopped, his feet
+planted wide on the sward, his freckled face
+grave and stern as became his sex.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ef the boys goes down for to git him out, I&#8217;m
+goin&#8217; along,&#8221; Little Buck announced seriously.
+&#8220;Is they goin&#8217;, granny?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll set my old rooster on the jail man, an&#8217;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' name='page_30'></a>30</span>
+hit&#8217;ll claw &#8217;im,&#8221; announced Beezy, reckless of
+distance and likelihood. &#8220;My old rooster can
+claw dest awful, ef he ain&#8217;t got but one leg.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Nancy chuckled. These grandchildren were
+the delight of her heart.</p>
+<p>The rain had ceased for the moment; the old
+man moved to the porch edge, sighting at the
+sky.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know whar Blatch is a-keepin&#8217; hisself,&#8221;
+he observed. &#8220;Mebbe I better be a-steppin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>But even as he spoke a tall young mountaineer
+swung into view down the road, dripping from
+the recent rain, and with that resentful air the
+best of us get from aggressions of the weather.
+Blatchley Turrentine, old Jephthah&#8217;s nephew,
+was as brown as an Indian, and his narrow,
+glinting, steel-grey eyes looked out oddly cold
+and alien from under level black brows, and a fell
+of stiff black hair.</p>
+<p>When the orphaned Judith, living in her Uncle
+Jephthah&#8217;s family, was fourteen, the household
+had removed from the old Turrentine place&mdash;which
+was rented to Blatchley Turrentine&mdash;to her
+better farm, whose tenant had proved unsatisfactory.
+Well hidden in a gulch on the Turrentine
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' name='page_31'></a>31</span>
+acres there was an illicit still, what the
+mountain people call a blockade still; and it had
+been in pretty constant operation in earlier
+years. When Jephthah abandoned those stony
+fields for Judith&#8217;s more productive acres, he
+definitely turned his own back upon this feature,
+but Blatch Turrentine revived the illegal activities
+and enlisted the old man&#8217;s boys in them. Jeff
+and Andy had a tobacco patch in one corner
+where the ground suited, and in another field
+Jim Cal raised a little corn. Aside from these
+small ventures, the place was given over entirely
+to the secret still. The father held scornfully
+aloof; his attitude was characteristic.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ef I pay no tax I&#8217;ll make no whiskey,&#8221; he
+declared. &#8220;You-all boys will find yourselves behind
+bars many a time when you&#8217;d ruther be out
+squirrel-huntin&#8217;. Ef you make blockade whiskey
+every fool that gits mad at you has got a stick
+to hold over you. You are good-Lord-good-devil
+to everybody, for fear they&#8217;ll lead to yo&#8217;
+still; or else you mix up with folks about the
+business and kill somebody an&#8217; git a bad name.
+These here blockaded stills calls every worthless
+feller in the district; most o&#8217; the foolishness in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' name='page_32'></a>32</span>
+this country goes on around &#8217;em when the boys
+gits filled up. I let every man choose his callin&#8217;,
+but I don&#8217;t choose to be no moonshiner, and ef
+you boys is wise you&#8217;ll say the same.&#8221;</p>
+<p>As Blatchley came up now and caught sight
+of the animals tethered at the fence he began
+irritably:</p>
+<p>&#8220;What in the name of common sense did Andy
+and Jeff leave they&#8217; mules here for? I can&#8217;t haul
+any corn till I get the team and the waggon
+together.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Looks like you&#8217;ve hauled too many loads
+of corn that nobody knows the use of,&#8221; broke
+out the irrepressible Nancy. &#8220;Andy and Jeff&#8217;s
+in jail, and some fool has tuck my little Pone
+along with the others.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Blatch flung a swift look at his uncle; but
+whatever his private conviction, to dishonour a
+member of his tribe in the face of the enemy,
+on the heels of defeat, was not what Jephthah
+Turrentine would do.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The boys is likely held for witnesses, Jude
+allows,&#8221; the elder explained briefly. &#8220;You take
+one mule and I&#8217;ll ride &#8217;tother,&#8221; he added. &#8220;I&#8217;ll
+he&#8217;p ye with the corn.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' name='page_33'></a>33</span></p>
+<p>This was a great concession, and as such
+Blatchley accepted it.</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; he returned. &#8220;Much obliged.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Then he glanced unconcernedly at Judith,
+and, instead of making that haste toward the
+corn-hauling activities which his manner had
+suggested, moved loungingly up the steps. Beezy,
+from her sanctuary in Judith&#8217;s lap, viewed him
+with contemptuous disfavour. Her brother, not
+so safely situated, made to pass the intruder,
+going wide like a shying colt.</p>
+<p>With a sudden movement Blatchley caught
+the child by the shoulders. There was a pantherlike
+quickness in the pounce that was somehow
+daunting from an individual of this man&#8217;s
+size and impassivity.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hold on thar, young feller,&#8221; the newcomer
+remarked. &#8220;Whar you a-goin&#8217; to, all in sech
+haste?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You turn me a-loose,&#8221; panted the child.
+&#8220;I&#8217;m a-goin&#8217; over to my Jude.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, she&#8217;s yo&#8217; Jude, is she? Well they&#8217;s
+some other folks around here thinks she&#8217;s their
+Jude&mdash;what you goin&#8217; to do about it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>All this time he held the small, dignified atom
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' name='page_34'></a>34</span>
+of humanity in a merciless grip that made Little
+Buck ridiculous before his beloved, and fired his
+childish soul to a very ecstasy of helpless rage.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll&mdash;kill&mdash;you when I git to be a man!&#8221;
+the child gasped, between tears and terror. &#8220;I&#8217;ll
+thest kill you&mdash;and I&#8217;ll wed Jude. You turn
+me a-loose&mdash;that&#8217;s what you do.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Blatch laughed tauntingly and raised the little
+fellow high in air.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ef I was to turn you a-loose now hit&#8217;d bust
+ye,&#8221; he drawled.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t keer. I&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Around the corner of the cabin drifted Nicodemus,
+the wooden-legged rooster, stumping
+gravely with his dot-and-carry-one gait.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lord, Nancy, thar comes the one patient
+ye ever cured!&#8221; chuckled old Jephthah. &#8220;I
+don&#8217;t wonder yo&#8217;re proud enough of him to roof
+him and affectionate him for the balance of his
+life.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon you&#8217;d do the same, ef so be ye should
+ever cure one,&#8221; snapped Nancy, rising instantly
+to the bait, and turning her back on the others.
+&#8220;As &#8217;t is, ef they hilt the buryin&#8217; from the house
+of the feller that killed the patient I reckon Jude
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' name='page_35'></a>35</span>
+wouldn&#8217;t have nothin&#8217; to do but git up funeral
+dinners.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Little Buck, despairing of granny&#8217;s interference,
+began to cry. At the sound Judith
+came suddenly out of a revery to spring up
+and catch him away from the hateful restraining
+hands.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know what the Lord&#8217;s a-thinkin&#8217; about
+to let sech men as you live, Blatch Turrentine!&#8221;
+she said almost mechanically. &#8220;Ef I was a-tendin&#8217;
+to matters I&#8217;d &#8217;a&#8217; had you dead long ago. Ef
+you&#8217;re good for anything on this earth I don&#8217;t
+know what it is.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes you do,&#8221; Blatchley returned as the
+old man started down the steps. &#8220;I&#8217;d make the
+best husband for you of any feller in the two
+Turkey Tracks&mdash;and you&#8217;ll find it out one of
+these days.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The girl answered only with a contemptuous
+glance.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come again&mdash;when you ain&#8217;t got so long to
+stay,&#8221; Nancy sped them sourly. &#8220;Jude, you&#8217;d
+better set awhile and get your skirts dry.&#8221; She
+looked after Blatch as he moved up the road,
+then at little Buck, so ashamed of his trembling
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' name='page_36'></a>36</span>
+lip. Her face darkened angrily. She turned
+slowly to Judith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What you gwine to do with that feller, Jude?&#8221;
+she queried significantly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do? Why, nothin&#8217;. He ain&#8217;t nothin&#8217; to
+me,&#8221; responded the girl indifferently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He ain&#8217;t, hey? Well, he&#8217;s bound to marry
+ye, honey,&#8221; said the older woman.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huh, he ain&#8217;t the first&mdash;and won&#8217;t be the last,
+I reckon,&#8221; assented Judith easily.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye&#8217;d better watch out fer that man, Jude,&#8221;
+persisted Nancy, after a moment&#8217;s silence.
+&#8220;He&#8217;ll git ye, yet. I know his kind. He ain&#8217;t
+a-keerin&#8217; fer yo&#8217; ruthers&mdash;whether you want him
+or no. He jest aims to have <i>you</i>.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I reckon he&#8217;ll about have to aim over
+agin,&#8221; observed the unmoved Judith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;An&#8217; Elder Drane? Air ye gwine to take
+him?&mdash;I know he&#8217;s done axed ye,&#8221; pursued
+Nancy hesitantly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Bout &#8217;leven times,&#8221; agreed Judith with perfect
+seriousness. &#8220;No&mdash;I wouldn&#8217;t have the man,
+not ef he&#8217;s made of pure gold.&#8221; She added
+with a sudden little smile and a catch of the
+breath: &#8220;Them&#8217;s awful nice chaps o&#8217; his; I&#8217;d
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' name='page_37'></a>37</span>
+most take him to git them. The baby now&mdash;hit&#8217;s
+the sweetest thing!&#8221; And she tumbled
+Beezy tumultuously in her lap, then suddenly
+inquired, apparently without any volition of
+her own, &#8220;Aunt Nancy, did you know Creed
+Bonbright&#8217;s folks?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good Lord, yes!&#8221; returned old Nancy. &#8220;But
+come on inside and set, Jude. This sun ain&#8217;t
+a-goin&#8217; to dry yo&#8217; skirt. Come in to the fire.
+Don&#8217;t take that thar cheer, the behime legs is
+broke, an&#8217; it&#8217;s apt to lay you sprawling. I&#8217;ve
+knowed Creed Bonbright sence he wasn&#8217;t knee-high
+to a turkey, and I knowed his daddy afore
+him, and his grand-daddy, for the matter of
+that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Avoiding the treacherous piece of furniture
+against which she had been warned, Judith
+slipped out of her wet riding-skirt and arranged
+it in front of the fire to dry, turning then and
+seating herself on the broad hearth at Nancy&#8217;s
+knee, where she prompted feverishly,</p>
+<p>&#8220;And is all the Bonbrights moved out of the
+neighbourhood?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The old woman drew a few meditative whiffs
+on her pipe.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' name='page_38'></a>38</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;All gone,&#8221; she nodded; &#8220;some of &#8217;em killed
+up in the big feud, and some moved away&mdash;mostly
+to Texas.&#8221; Presently she added:</p>
+<p>&#8220;That there Bonbright tribe is a curious nation
+of folks. They&#8217;re always after great things, and
+barkin&#8217; their shins against rocks in the way.
+Creed&#8217;s mammy&mdash;she was Judge Gillenwaters&#8217;s
+sister, down in Hepzibah&mdash;died when he was no
+bigger&#8217;n Little Buck, and his pappy never wedded
+again. We used to name him and Creed Big
+&#8217;Fraid and Little &#8217;Fraid; they was always round
+together, like a man and his shadder. Then
+the feuds broke out mighty bad, and the Blackshearses
+got Esher Bonbright one night in a mistake
+for some of my kin&mdash;or so it was thort.
+Anyhow, the man was dead, and Creed lived
+with me fer a spell till his uncle down in Hepzibah
+wanted him to come and learn to be a lawyer.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lived right here&mdash;in this house?&#8221; inquired
+Judith, looking around her, as she rose and turned
+the riding-skirt.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lord, yes&mdash;why not? You would a-knowed
+all about it, only your folks never moved in from
+the Fur Cove neighbourhood till the year Creed
+went down to the settlement.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' name='page_39'></a>39</span></p>
+<p>The girl sank back on the hearth, but continued
+to gaze about her, and the tell-tale expression
+in her eyes seemed to afford Nancy Card
+much quiet amusement.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you reckon he&#8217;ll live with you again
+when he comes back into the mountains?&#8221; she
+inquired finally.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon he&#8217;ll be weddin&#8217; one of them thar
+town gals and fetchin&#8217; a wife home to his own
+farm over by yo&#8217; house,&#8221; suggested the inveterate
+tease.</p>
+<p>Judith went suddenly white, and then red.
+&#8220;You don&#8217;t know of anybody&mdash;you hain&#8217;t
+heard he was promised, have you?&#8221; she hesitated.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t hearn that he was, and I ain&#8217;t hearn
+that he wasn&#8217;t,&#8221; returned Nancy serenely.
+&#8220;The gal that gits Creed Bonbright&#8217;ll be doin&#8217;
+mighty well; but also she may not find hit right
+easy for to trap him. I&#8217;ll promise ef he does
+come up hyer again I&#8217;ll speak a good word for
+you, Jude. The Lord knows I don&#8217;t see how
+you make out to live with that thar old man.
+You&#8217;ll deserve a crown and a harp o&#8217; gold sot
+with diamonds ef you stan&#8217; it much longer.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith put on the now thoroughly dried
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' name='page_40'></a>40</span>
+riding-skirt, and the two women went outside
+together.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, good-bye, Aunt Nancy,&#8221; she said, as
+she led the sorrel nag to the edge of the porch
+and made ready to mount. &#8220;I&#8217;ll be over and
+bring the pieces for you to start me out on that
+Risin&#8217; Sun quilt a-Wednesday.&#8221;</p>
+<p>It was late afternoon as she took her homeward
+way across the level of the broad mountain-top
+to the Turrentine place. She left the main-travelled
+road and struck directly into a forest
+short-cut. After the rain earth and sky were
+newly washed; the clear, sweetened air was full of
+the scent of damp loam and new-ploughed fields;
+the colours about her were freshened and glad,
+and each distant bird-note rang clear and vivid.
+To Mrs. Rhody Staggart and her likes at Hepzibah
+she might be a crude, awkward country
+girl; here she was a princess in her own domain;
+and it was a noble realm through which she
+moved as she went forward under the great trees
+that rose straight and tall from a black soil, making
+pillared aisles away from her on every side.
+The fern was thick under foot&mdash;it would brush
+her saddle-girth, come midsummer. Down the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' name='page_41'></a>41</span>
+long vistas under the greening trees, where the
+moist air hung thick, her bemused eyes caught the
+occasional roseflash of azalea through the pearly
+mist, her nostril was greeted by their wandering,
+intensely sweet perfume, with its curious undernote
+of earth smell.</p>
+<p>She smiled vaguely at the first butterfly she
+had seen, and again as she noted the earliest
+lizard basking in the sun-warmed hollow of a
+big rock. Absently her gaze sought for cinnamon
+fern in low woods, sweet fern in the thickets,
+and exquisite maidenhair just beginning to uncurl
+from the black leaf mould of dripping brakes.</p>
+<p>Like a woman in a dream she made her progress,
+riding through the wonderful stillness of the vast
+wild land, an ocean on which each littlest sound
+was afloat, so that each was given its true value
+almost like a musical tone. An awful, beautiful
+silence this, brooding back of every sound; nothing
+in such a place gives forth mere senseless noise;
+the ripple of frogs in marsh and spring branch
+fall upon the sense as sweet as bird-songs. The
+clamour of little falls, the solemn suggestion of
+wind in the pines, the sweet broken jangle of
+cow-bells, a catbird in a tree&mdash;a continuous yet
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' name='page_42'></a>42</span>
+zigzag sort of warble, silver and sibilant notes
+alternating,&mdash;the rare wild turkey&#8217;s call along
+a deeply embowered creek&mdash;one by one all these
+came to Judith&#8217;s dreaming ears, clear, perfect,
+individual, on the majestic sea of silence about
+her.</p>
+<p>She turned Selim&#8217;s head at a little intersecting
+trail, and rode considerably out of her way to
+pass the old Bonbright place and brood upon its
+darkened windows and grass-besieged doorstone.
+Some day all that would be changed. Still in
+her waking dream she unsaddled Selim at the log
+barn, and turned him loose in his open pasture.
+She laid off her town attire, put on her cotton
+working-dress, kindled afresh the fire on the broad
+hearthstone and got supper. Her Uncle Jephthah
+and Blatch Turrentine came in late, weary from
+their work of hauling corn to that destination
+which old Nancy had announced as disreputably
+indefinite. The second son of the family, Wade,
+a man of perhaps twenty-four, was with them,
+and had already been told of the mishap to Andy
+and Jeff.</p>
+<p>Old Jephthah sat at the head of the board, his
+black beard falling to his lap, his finely domed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' name='page_43'></a>43</span>
+brow relieved against a background of shadows.
+Judith needed the small brass lamp at the hearthstone,
+and a tallow candle rather inadequately
+lit the supper-table. The corners of the room
+were in darkness; only the cloth and dishes, the
+faces and hands of those about the table showed
+forth in sudden light or motion.</p>
+<p>Hung on the rough walls, and glimpsed in
+occasional flickers only, were Judith&#8217;s big maple
+bread-bowl, the churn-dash, spurtle, sedge-broom,
+and a round glass bottle for rolling piecrust; cheek
+by jowl with old Jephthah&#8217;s bullet moulds and
+the pot-hooks he had forged for Judith. There
+were strings of dried pumpkin, too, and of shining
+red peppers. On a low shelf, scarce visible at
+all in the dense shadow, stood a keg of sorghum,
+and one beside it of vinegar, flanked by the
+butter-keeler and the salt piggin with its cedar
+staves and hickory hoops. And there, too, was
+the broken coffee-pot in which garden seeds were
+hoarded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s all this I hear about Andy and Jeff
+bein&#8217; took?&#8221; inquired a plaintive voice from the
+darkened doorway whose door, with its heavy,
+home-made latch, swung back against the wall
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' name='page_44'></a>44</span>
+on its great, rude, wooden hinges, as abruptly
+out of the shadow appeared a man who set a plump
+hand on either jamb and stared into the room
+with a round, white, anxiously inquiring face.
+It was Jim Cal, eldest of the sons of Jephthah
+Turrentine, married, and living in a cabin a short
+distance up the slope. &#8220;Who give the information?&#8221;
+he asked as soon as he had peered all about
+the room and found no outsider present.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, we hearn that <i>you</i> did, podner,&#8221; jeered
+Blatch.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come in and set,&#8221; invited the head of the
+household, with the mountaineer&#8217;s unforgetting
+hospitality. &#8220;Draw up&mdash;draw up. Reach and
+take off.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well&mdash;I&mdash;I might,&#8221; faltered the fleshy one,
+sidling toward the table and getting himself into
+a seat. Without further word his father passed
+the great dish of fried potatoes, then the platter of
+bacon. Judith brought hot coffee and corn pone
+for him. She did not sit down with the men,
+having quite enough to do to get the meal served.</p>
+<p>Unheedingly she heard the matter discussed
+at the table; only when Creed Bonbright&#8217;s name
+came up was she moved to listen and put in her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' name='page_45'></a>45</span>
+word. Something in her manner of describing
+the assistance Bonbright offered seemed to go
+against Blatch&#8217;s grain.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Got to look out for these here folks that&#8217;s
+so free with their offers o&#8217; he&#8217;p,&#8221; he grunted.
+&#8220;Man&#8217;ll slap ye on the back and tell ye what
+a fine feller ye air whilst he&#8217;s feelin&#8217; for your
+pocket-book&mdash;that&#8217;s town ways.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The girl was like one hearkening for a finer
+voice amid all this distracting noise; she could
+hear neither. She made feverish haste to clear
+away and wash her dishes, that she might creep
+to her own room under the eaves. Through her
+open casement came up to her the sounds of the
+April night: a heightened chorus of little frogs in
+a rain-fed branch; nearer in the dooryard a half-dozen
+tree-toads trilling plaintively as many
+different minors; with these, scents of growing,
+sharpened and sweetened by the dark. And all
+night the cedar tree which stood close to the
+porch edge below moved in the wind of spring, and,
+chafing against the shingles, spoke through the
+miniature music in its deep, muffled legato, a soft
+baritone note like a man&#8217;s voice&mdash;a lover&#8217;s voice&mdash;calling
+to her beneath her window.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' name='page_46'></a>46</span></p>
+<p>It roused her from fitful slumbers to happy
+waking, when she lay and stared into the dark,
+and painted for herself on its sombre background
+Creed Bonbright&#8217;s figure, the yellow uncovered
+head close to her knee as he stood and talked at
+the foot of the mountain trail. And the voice
+of the tree in the eager spring airs said to her
+waiting heart&mdash;whispered it softly, shouted and
+tossed it abroad so that all might have heard it
+had they been awake and known the shibboleth,
+murmured it in tones of tenderness that penetrated
+her with bliss&mdash;that Creed was coming&mdash;coming&mdash;coming
+to her, through the April woods.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='III_SUITORS' id='III_SUITORS'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' name='page_47'></a>47</span>
+<h2>Chapter III</h2>
+<h3>Suitors</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>April was in the mountains. All the vast timbered
+slopes and tablelands of the Cumberlands
+were one golden dapple, as yet differentiated
+by darker greens and heavier shadows only where
+some group of pine or cedar stood. April in the
+Cumberlands is the May or early June of New
+England. Here March has the days of shine and
+shower; while to February belongs the gusty
+turbulence usually attributed to March. Now
+sounded the calls of the first whippoorwills in
+the dusk of evening; now the first mocking-bird
+sang long before day, very sweetly and softly,
+and again before moonrise; hours of sun he filled
+with bolder rejoicings, condescending in his more
+antic humour to mimic the hens that began to
+cackle around the barn. Every thicket by the
+water-courses blushed with azaleas; all the banks
+were gay with wild violets.</p>
+<p>Throughout March&#8217;s changeful emotional season,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' name='page_48'></a>48</span>
+night after night in those restless vehement
+impassioned airs, the cedar tree talked ardently to
+Judith. Through April&#8217;s softer nights she wakened
+often to listen to it. It went fondly over its first
+assurances. And the time of Creed Bonbright&#8217;s
+advent was near at hand now. Thought of it
+made light her step as she went about her work.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you never marry a lazy man, Jude.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The wife of Jim Cal Turrentine halted on the
+doorstep, a coarse white cup containing the
+coffee she had come to borrow poised in her
+hand as she turned to harangue the girl in the
+kitchen.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t aimin&#8217; to wed no man. Huh, I say
+marry! I&#8217;m not studyin&#8217; about marryin&#8217;,&#8221;
+promptly responded Judith in the mountain girl&#8217;s
+unfailing formula; but she coloured high, and bent,
+pot-hooks in hand, to the great hearth to shift
+the clumsy Dutch oven that contained her bread.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what gals allers says,&#8221; commented
+Iley Turrentine discontentedly. &#8220;Huldy&#8217;s forever
+singin&#8217; that tune. But let a good-lookin&#8217;
+feller come in reach and I &#8217;low any of you will
+change the note. Huldy&#8217;s took her foot in her
+hand and put out&mdash;left me with the whole wash
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' name='page_49'></a>49</span>
+to do, and Jim Cal in the bed declarin&#8217; he&#8217;s got
+a misery in his back. Don&#8217;t you never wed a
+lazy man.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whar&#8217;s Huldy gone?&#8221; inquired Judith, sauntering
+to the door and looking out on the glad
+beauty of the April morning with fond brooding
+eyes. The grotesque bow-legged pot-hooks dangled
+idly in her fingers.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Over to Nancy Cyard&#8217;s to git her littlest
+spinnin&#8217; wheel&mdash;so she <i>said</i>. I took notice that
+she had a need for that wheel as soon as ever
+she hearn tell that Creed Bonbright was up from
+Hepzibah stayin&#8217; at the Cyards&#8217;s.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Had not Iley been so engrossed with her own
+grievances, the sudden heat of the look Judith
+turned upon her must have enlightened her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huldy knowed him right well when she was
+waitin&#8217; on table at Miz. Huffaker&#8217;s boarding-house
+down at Hepzibah,&#8221; the woman went on.
+&#8220;I ain&#8217;t got no use for these here fellers that&#8217;s
+around tendin&#8217; to the whole world&#8217;s business&mdash;they&#8217;
+own chil&#8217;en is mighty apt to go hongry.
+But thar, what does a gal think of that by the
+side o&#8217; curly hair and soft-spoken ways?&#8221;</p>
+<p>For Judith Barrier at once all the light was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' name='page_50'></a>50</span>
+gone out of the spring morning. The bird in the
+Rose of Sharon bush that she had taken for a
+thrush&mdash;why, the thing cawed like a crow. She
+could have struck her visitor. And then, with
+an uncertain impulse of gratitude, she was glad
+to be told anything about Creed, to be informed
+that others knew his hair was yellow and curly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Gone?&#8221; sounded old Jephthah&#8217;s deep tones
+from within, as Mrs. Jim Cal made her reluctant
+way back to a sick husband and a house full of
+work and babies. &#8220;Lord, to think of a woman
+havin&#8217; the keen tongue that Iley&#8217;s got, and her
+husband keepin&#8217; fat on it!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle Jep,&#8221; inquired Judith abruptly, &#8220;did
+you know Creed Bonbright was at Nancy Card&#8217;s&mdash;stayin&#8217;
+there, I mean?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; returned the old man, seeing in this
+a chance to call at the cabin, where, beneath the
+reception that might have been offered an interloper,
+even a duller wit than his might have
+divined a secret cordial welcome. &#8220;I reckon I
+better find time to step over that way an&#8217; ax
+is there anything I can do to he&#8217;p &#8217;em out.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish &#8217;t you would,&#8221; assented Judith so
+heartily that he turned and regarded her with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' name='page_51'></a>51</span>
+surprise. &#8220;An&#8217; ef you see Huldy over yon tell
+her she&#8217;s needed at home. Jim Cal&#8217;s sick, and
+Iley can&#8217;t no-way git along without her.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon James Calhoun Turrentine ain&#8217;t
+got nothin&#8217; worse &#8217;n the old complaint that sends
+a feller fishin&#8217; when the days gits warm,&#8221; opined
+Jim Cal&#8217;s father. &#8220;I named that boy after the
+finest man that ever walked God&#8217;s green earth&mdash;an&#8217;
+then the fool had to go and git fat on me!
+To think of me with a <i>fat</i> son! I allers did hold
+that a fat woman was bad enough, but a fat
+man ort p&#8217;intedly to be led out an&#8217; killed.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jude, whar&#8217;s my knife,&#8221; came the call from
+the window in a masculine voice. &#8220;Pitch it out
+here, can&#8217;t you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith took the pocket-knife from the mantel,
+and going to the window tossed it to her cousin
+Wade Turrentine, who was shaping an axe helve
+at the chip pile.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know whar Huldy&#8217;s gone?&#8221; she
+inquired, setting her elbows on the sill and staring
+down at the young fellow accusingly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nope&mdash;an&#8217; don&#8217;t care neither,&#8221; said Wade,
+contentedly returning to his whittling. He was
+expecting to marry Huldah Spiller, Iley&#8217;s younger
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' name='page_52'></a>52</span>
+sister, within a few months, and the reply was
+thus conventional.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, you&#8217;d better care,&#8221; urged Judith.
+&#8220;You better make her stay home and behave
+herself. She&#8217;s gone over to Nancy Card&#8217;s taggin&#8217;
+after Creed Bonbright. I wouldn&#8217;t stand it ef
+I was you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t standin&#8217;&mdash;I&#8217;m settin&#8217;,&#8221; retorted Wade
+with rather feeble wit; but the girl noted with
+satisfaction the quick, fierce spark of anger that
+leaped to life in his clear hazel eyes, the instant
+stiffening of his relaxed figure. Like a child
+playing with fire, she was ready to set alight
+any materials that came within reach of her
+reckless fingers, so only that she fancied her own
+ends might be served. Now she went uneasily
+back to the hearthstone. Her uncle, noting
+that she appeared engrossed in her baking, gave
+a surreptitious glance into the small ancient
+mirror standing on the high mantel, made a half-furtive
+exchange of coats, and prepared to depart.</p>
+<p>Up at the crib Blatch Turrentine was loading
+corn, and Jim Cal came creeping across from his
+own cabin whence Iley had ejected him. He
+stood for a while, humped, hands in pockets,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' name='page_53'></a>53</span>
+watching the other&#8217;s strong body spring lithely
+to its task. Finally he began in his plaintive,
+ineffectual voice.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Blatch, I take notice that you seem to be
+settin&#8217; up to Jude. Do ye think hit&#8217;s wise?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The other grunted over a particularly heavy
+sack, swung it to the waggon bed, straightened
+himself suddenly, and faced his questioner with a
+look of dark anger.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see the feller that can git her away
+from me!&#8221; he growled.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t a-meanin&#8217; that,&#8221; said Jim Cal,
+patiently but uneasily shifting from the right
+foot to the left. &#8220;I&#8217;ll admit&mdash;an&#8217; I reckon
+everybody on the place will say the same&mdash;that
+she&#8217;s always give you mo&#8217; reason than another
+to believe she&#8217;d have ye. Not but what that&#8217;s
+Jude&#8217;s way, an&#8217; she&#8217;s hilt out sech hopes to
+a-many. What pesters me is how you two would
+make out, once you was wed. Jude&#8217;s mighty
+pretty, but then again she&#8217;s got a tongue.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Her farm hain&#8217;t,&#8221; chuckled Blatch, pulling
+a sack into place; &#8220;and I &#8217;low Jude wouldn&#8217;t
+have after her and me had been wed a short
+while.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' name='page_54'></a>54</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know, Blatch,&#8221; maintained the fleshy
+one, timid yet persisting. &#8220;You&#8217;re a great
+somebody for havin&#8217; yo&#8217; own way, an&#8217; Jude&#8217;s
+mighty high sperrity&mdash;why, you two would
+shorely fuss.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not more than once, we wouldn&#8217;t,&#8221; returned
+Blatch with a meaning laugh. &#8220;The way to
+do with a woman like Jude is to give her a civil
+beatin&#8217; to start out with and show her who&#8217;s
+boss&mdash;wouldn&#8217;t be no trouble after that. Jude
+Barrier has got a good farm. She&#8217;s the best
+worker of any gal that I know, and I aim for to
+have her&mdash;an&#8217; this farm.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Within the house now Judith, her cheeks
+glowing crimson as she bent above the heaped
+coals, was going with waxing resentment over
+the catalogue of Huldah Spiller&#8217;s personal characteristics.
+Her hair, huh! she was mighty
+particular to call it &#8220;aurbu&#8217;n,&#8221; but a body might
+as well say red when they were namin&#8217; it, because
+red was what it was. If a man admired a turkey
+egg he would be likely to see beauty in Huldah&#8217;s
+complexion&mdash;some folks might wear a sunbonnet
+to bed, and freckle they would! A vision of the
+laughing black eyes and white flashing teeth that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' name='page_55'></a>55</span>
+went with Huldah Spiller&#8217;s red ringlets and
+freckles, and made her little hatchet face brilliant
+when she smiled or laughed, suddenly put Judith
+on foot and running to the door.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle Jep,&#8221; she called after the tall receding
+form, &#8220;<i>Oh</i>, Uncle Jep!&#8221;</p>
+<p>He turned muttering, &#8220;I hope to goodness
+Jude ain&#8217;t goin&#8217; to git the hollerin&#8217; habit. There&#8217;s
+Iley never lets Jim Cal git away from the house
+without hollerin&#8217; after him as much as three times,
+and the thing he&#8217;d like least to have knowed
+abroad is the thing she takes up with for the
+last holler.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle Jep,&#8221; came the clear hail from the
+doorway, &#8220;don&#8217;t you fail to find Huldy and send
+her straight home. Tell her Iley&#8217;s nigh about
+give out, and Jim Cal&#8217;s down sick in the bed&mdash;hear
+me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He nodded and turned disgustedly. What
+earthly difference did it make about Jim Cal and
+Huldah and Iley? Why should Judith suddenly
+care? And then, being a philosopher and in his
+own manner an amateur of life, he set to work
+to analyze her motives, and guessed obliquely
+at them.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' name='page_56'></a>56</span></p>
+<p>The sight of his broad, retreating back evidently
+spurred Judith to fresh effort. &#8220;Uncle
+Jep!&#8221; she screamed, cupping her hands about
+her red lips to make the sound carry. &#8220;Ef
+you see Creed Bonbright tell him&mdash;howdy&mdash;for
+me!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The sound may not have carried to the old
+man&#8217;s ears, but it reached a younger pair. Blatch
+Turrentine was just crossing through the grassy
+yard toward the &#8220;big road,&#8221; and Broyles&#8217;s mill
+over on Clear Fork, where his load of corn would
+be ground to meal with which to feed that blockaded
+still on the old Turrentine place which
+sometimes flung a delicate trail of smoke out
+over the flank of the slope across the gulch. As
+he heard Judith&#8217;s bantering cry, Blatch pulled
+up his team with a muttered curse. He looked
+down at her through narrowed eyes, jerking his
+mules savagely and swearing at them in an
+undertone. He was a well-made fellow with a
+certain slouching grace about him as he sat on his
+load of corn; but there were evil promising bumps
+on either side of his jaws that spoke of obstinacy,
+even of ferocity; and there was something menacing
+in his surly passivity of attitude. He looked
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' name='page_57'></a>57</span>
+at the girl and his lip lifted with a peculiar
+sidelong sneer.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Holler a little louder an&#8217; Bonbright hisself&#8217;ll
+hear ye,&#8221; he commented as he started up his
+team and rattled away down the steep, stony
+road.</p>
+<p>Sunday brought its usual train of visitors. The
+Turrentine place was within long walking distance
+of Brush Arbor church, and whenever there was
+preaching they could count on a considerable
+overflow from that direction. The Sunday after
+Creed Bonbright put in an appearance at Nancy
+Card&#8217;s, there was preaching at Brush Arbor, but
+Judith, nourishing what secret hopes may be conjectured,
+refused to make any preparation for
+attending service.</p>
+<p>&#8220;An&#8217; ye think ye won&#8217;t go to meeting this fine
+sunshiny Sabbath mornin&#8217;, Sister Barrier?&#8221; Elder
+Drane put the query, standing anxious and
+carefully attired in his best before Judith on the
+doorstep of her home.</p>
+<p>She shook her dark head, and looked past the
+Elder toward the distant ranges.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I jest p&#8217;intedly cain&#8217;t git away this morning,&#8221;
+she said carelessly.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58' name='page_58'></a>58</span></p>
+<p>The Elder combed his sandy whiskers with
+a thoughtful forefinger. Not thus had Judith
+been wont to reply to him. Always before, if
+there had been denial, there were too, reasons
+adduced, shy looks from the corners of those
+dark eyes and tender inquiries as to the health
+of his children.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is they&mdash;is they some particular reason that
+you cain&#8217;t go this morning?&#8221; the widower inquired
+cautiously.</p>
+<p>There was, and that particular reason lay as
+far afield as the Edge and Nancy Card&#8217;s place,
+but Judith Barrier did not see fit to name it to
+this one of her suitors, who had brought her
+perhaps more glory than any other. She was
+impatient to be rid of him. Like her mother
+Earth, having occupied her time for lo! these
+several years in the building of an ideal from
+such unpromising materials as were then at hand,
+she was ready to sweep those tentative makings&mdash;confessed
+failures now that she found the type
+she really wanted&mdash;swiftly, ruthlessly to the
+limbo of oblivion.</p>
+<p>Elihu Drane stood high among his neighbours;
+he was a man of some education as well as comfortable
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' name='page_59'></a>59</span>
+means. His attention had been worth
+retaining once; now she smiled at him with a
+vague, impersonal sweetness, and repeated her
+statement that she couldn&#8217;t go to church.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got too much to do,&#8221; she qualified
+finally. &#8220;Looks like the work in this house
+never is finished. And there&#8217;s chicken and dumplin&#8217;s
+to cook for dinner.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Elder&#8217;s pale blue eyes brightened. &#8220;Walk
+down to the gate with me, won&#8217;t you?&#8221; he said
+hopefully, &#8220;I&#8217;ve got somethin&#8217; to talk to you
+about.&#8221;</p>
+<p>When they were out of earshot of the house,
+he began eagerly, &#8220;Sister Barrier you&#8217;re workin&#8217;
+yourse&#8217;f to death here, in the sweet days of your
+youth. I did promise the last time that I never
+would beg you again to wed me, but looks like
+I can&#8217;t stand by and hold my peace. If you
+was to trust yourse&#8217;f to me things would be
+different. I never did hold with a woman killin&#8217;
+herse&#8217;f with hard work. My first and second
+had everything that they could wish for, and I
+was good and ready to do more any time they
+named what it was. I&#8217;ve got a crank churn.
+None of these old back-breaking, up-and-down
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' name='page_60'></a>60</span>
+dashers for me. I hired a woman whenever my
+wife said the word. I don&#8217;t think either of mine
+ever killed a chicken or cut a stick of firewood
+from the time they walked in the front door as
+a bride till they was carried out of it in their
+coffins.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He stared eagerly into the downcast face beside
+him, but somewhere Judith found strength to
+resist even these dazzling propositions.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t studyin&#8217; about gittin&#8217; wedded,&#8221; she
+told him most untruthfully. &#8220;Looks like I&#8217;m
+a mighty cold-hearted somebody, Elder Drane.
+I jest can&#8217;t fix it no way but to live here with my
+Uncle Jep and take care of him in his old days.
+Oh, would you wait a minute?&#8221; as they reached
+the horse-block and the Elder began to untie his
+mount with a discouraged countenance. &#8220;Jest
+let me run back to the house&mdash;I won&#8217;t keep you
+a second. I got some little sugar cookies for
+Mart and Lucy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Mart and Lucy were the Elder&#8217;s children. He
+stood looking after her as she ran lithely up the
+path, and wondered why she could love them
+so much and him so little. She came back
+laughing and a bit out of breath.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' name='page_61'></a>61</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I expect we&#8217;ll have company to-day,&#8221; she
+told him comfortably. &#8220;We always do when
+there&#8217;s preaching at the church, and I &#8217;low I&#8217;d
+better stay home and see to the dinner.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Elder had scarcely made his chastened
+adieux when the Lusk girls came through the
+grove walking on either side of a young man.</p>
+<p>The Lusk girls were Judith&#8217;s nearest neighbours&mdash;if
+you excepted Huldah Spiller at Jim Cal&#8217;s
+cabin, and at the present Judith certainly was
+in the mind to make an exception of her. The
+sisters were seldom seen apart; narrow shouldered,
+short waisted, thin limbed young creatures, they
+were even at seventeen bowing to a deprecating
+stoop. Their little faces were alike, short-chinned
+with pink mouths inclined to be tremulous, the
+eyes big, blue, and half-frightened in expression,
+and the drab hair drawn away from the small
+foreheads so tightly that it looked almost grey.
+They inevitably reminded one of a pair of blue
+and white night-moths, scarcely fitted for a daylight
+world, and continually afraid of it.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Cousin Lacey&#8217;s over from the Far Cove,&#8221;
+called Pendrilla before they reached Judith.
+&#8220;Ain&#8217;t it fine? Ef we-all can git up a play-party
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' name='page_62'></a>62</span>
+he says he&#8217;ll shore come ef we let him know in
+time.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The young fellow with them, their cousin
+Lacey Rountree, showed sufficient resemblance
+to mark the family type, but his light eyes were
+lit with reckless fires, and his short chin was carried
+with a defiant tilt.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What you foolin&#8217; along o&#8217; that old feller for,
+Judith?&#8221; he asked jerking an irreverent thumb
+after the departing Elder.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t fooling with him,&#8221; returned Judith,
+her red lips demure, her brown eyes laughing
+above them through their thick fringe of lashes.
+&#8220;Elder Drane was consulting me about church
+matters&mdash;sech as children like you have no call
+to meddle with.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Young Rountree smiled, &#8220;I&#8217;ll bet he was!&#8221;
+picking up a stone and firing it far into the blue
+in sheer exuberance of youthful joy. &#8220;Did he
+name anything about a weddin&#8217; in church?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Elder Drane is a mighty fine man,&#8221; asserted
+Judith, suddenly sober. &#8220;Any gal might be
+glad to git him. But its my belief and opinion
+that his heart is buried with his first&mdash;or his
+second,&#8221; and she laughed out suddenly at the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' name='page_63'></a>63</span>
+unintentional humorous conclusion she had made.</p>
+<p>&#8220;See here, Jude,&#8221; the boy put it boldly as the
+four young people strolled toward the house,
+&#8220;you&#8217;re too pretty and sweet to be anybody&#8217;s
+thirdly. Next time old man Drane comes pesterin&#8217;
+round you, you tell him that you&#8217;re promised
+to me&mdash;hear?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Again Judith laughed. It is impossible to
+talk seriously to a boy with whom one has played
+hat-ball and prisoner&#8217;s base, whose hair one has
+pulled, and who has, in retort courteous, rolled
+one in the dust.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m in earnest if I ever was in my life,&#8221;
+asserted Lacey, taking it quite as a matter of
+course that Cliantha and Pendrilla should be
+made party to his courting.</p>
+<p>And the two little old maids of seventeen looked
+with wondering admiration at Judith&#8217;s management
+of all this masculine attention&mdash;her careless,
+discounting smile for their swaggering young
+cousin, her calm acceptance of imposing Elder
+Drane&#8217;s humble and persistent wooing.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='IV_BUILDING' id='IV_BUILDING'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' name='page_64'></a>64</span>
+<h2>Chapter IV</h2>
+<h3>Building</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Judith awakened that morning with the song
+of the first thrush sounding in her ears. Day
+was not yet come, but she knew instantly it was
+near dawn, so soon as she heard the keen, cool,
+unmatched thrush voice. Not elaborate the song
+like the bobolink, nor passionate like the nightingale,
+nor with the bravura of the oriole; but
+low or loud, its pure tones are always penetrating,
+piercing the heart of their hearer with exquisite
+sweetness.</p>
+<p>The girl lay long in the dark listening, and it
+seemed to her half awakened consciousness that
+this voice in the April dawn was like Creed Bonbright.
+These notes, lucid, passionless, that yet
+always stirred her heart strangely, and the selfless
+personality, the high-purposed soul that
+spoke in him, they were akin. The crystal tones
+flowed on; Judith harkened, the ear of her spirit
+alert for a message. Yes, Creed was like that.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' name='page_65'></a>65</span>
+And her feeling for him too, it partook of the
+same quality, a thing to climb toward rather than
+concede.</p>
+<p>And then after all her tremulous hopes, her
+plannings, the dozen times she had taken a certain
+frock from its peg minutely inspecting and repairing
+it, that it might be ready for wear on the
+great occasion, the first meeting with Creed
+found Judith unprepared, happening in no wise
+as she would have chosen. She was at the milking
+lot, clad in the usual dull blue cotton gown in
+which the mountain woman works. She had
+filled her two pails and set them on the high bench
+by the fence while she turned the calves into the
+small pasture reserved for them and let old Red
+and Piedy out.</p>
+<p>He approached across the fields from the direction
+of his own house, and naturally saw her before
+she observed him. It was early morning. The
+sky was blue and wide and high, with great
+shining piles of white cloud swimming lazily at the
+horizon, cutting sharply against its colour. Around
+the edges of the cow-lot peach trees were all in
+blossom and humming with bees, their rich,
+amethystine rose flung up against the gay April
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' name='page_66'></a>66</span>
+sky in a challenge of beauty and joy. The air
+was full of the promises of spring, keen, bracing,
+yet with an undercurrent of languorous warmth.
+There was a ragged fleece of bloom, sweet and
+alive with droning insects, over a plum thicket
+near the woods,&mdash;half-wild, brambly things, cousin
+on the one hand to the cultivated farm, and on the
+other to the free forest,&mdash;while beyond, through
+the openings of the timber, dogwood flamed white
+in the sun.</p>
+<p>Judith came forward and greeted the newcomer,
+all unaware of the picture she made, tall
+and straight and pliant in her simple blue cotton,
+under the wonderful blue-and-white sky and the
+passionate purple pink of the blossoms, with the
+scant folds of her frock outlining the rounded
+young body, its sleeves rolled up on her fine arms,
+its neck folded away from the firm column of her
+throat, the frolic wind ruffling the dark locks
+above her shadowy eyes. There were strange
+gleams in those dark eyes; her red lips were
+tremulous whether she spoke or not. It was
+as though she had some urgent message for him
+which waited always behind her silence or her
+speech.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' name='page_67'></a>67</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought I&#8217;d come over and get acquainted
+with my neighbours,&#8221; Bonbright began in his impersonal
+fashion.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle Jep and the boys has gone across to
+the far place ploughing to-day,&#8221; said Judith.
+&#8220;They&#8217;s nobody at home but Jim Cal and his
+wife&mdash;and me.&#8221; She forebore to add the name of
+Huldah Spiller, though her angry eye descried
+that young woman ostentatiously hanging wash
+on a line back of the Jim Cal cabin.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t stop then this morning,&#8221; said Bonbright.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ll get along over to the far place. I
+wanted to have speech with your uncle. He was
+at Aunt Nancy&#8217;s the other day and we had some
+talk; he knows more about what I&#8217;m aiming at up
+here then I do. A man of his age and good sense
+can be a sight of help to me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle Jep will be proud to do anything he
+can,&#8221; said Judith softly. &#8220;Won&#8217;t you come in
+and set awhile?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She dreaded that the invitation might hurry
+him away, and now made hasty use of the first
+diversion that offered. He had broken a blooming
+switch from the peach-tree beneath which he
+stood, and she reproached him fondly.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' name='page_68'></a>68</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Look at you. Now there won&#8217;t never be no
+peaches where them blossoms was.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He twisted the twig in his fingers and smiled
+down at her, conscious of a singular and personal
+kindness between them, aware too, for the first
+time, that she was young, beautiful, and a woman;
+before, she had been merely an individual to him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My mother used to say that to me when I
+would break fruit blows,&#8221; he said meditatively.
+&#8220;But father always pruned his trees when they
+were in blossom&mdash;they can&#8217;t any of them bear
+a peach for every bloom.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She shook her head as though giving up the
+argument, since it was after all a matter of sentiment.
+Her dark, rich-coloured beauty glowed
+its contrast to his cool, northern type.</p>
+<p>At present neither spoke more than a few
+syllables of the spiritual language of the other,
+yet so powerful was the attraction between them
+that even Creed began to feel it, while Judith,
+the primitive woman, all given over to instinct,
+promptly laid about her for something to hold
+and interest him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The young folks is a-goin&#8217; to get up a play-party
+at our house sometime soon,&#8221; she hazarded.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' name='page_69'></a>69</span>
+&#8220;I reckon you wouldn&#8217;t come to any such as
+that, would you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d be proud to come,&#8221; returned Creed at
+once. But he spoiled it by adding, &#8220;I&#8217;ve got
+to get acquainted with people all over again, it&#8217;s
+so long since I lived here; and looks like I&#8217;m not
+a very good mixer.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will you sure come?&#8221; inquired Judith insistently,
+as she saw him preparing to depart.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I sure will.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You could stay over night in your own house
+then&mdash;ain&#8217;t you comin&#8217; back, ever, to live there?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, yes, I reckon I might stay there over
+night, but it&#8217;s too far from the main road for a
+justice&#8217;s office.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, if you&#8217;re going to try to sleep in the
+house, it ort to be opened up and sunned a little;
+you better let me have the key now,&#8221; observed
+Judith, assuming airs of proprietorship over his
+inept masculinity.</p>
+<p>Smiling, he got the key from his pocket and
+handed it to her. &#8220;Help yourself to anything
+you want for the party, or any other time,&#8221; he
+said in mountain fashion.</p>
+<p>She looked down at that key with the pride of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' name='page_70'></a>70</span>
+one to whom had been given the freedom of a
+city. Its possession enabled her to bear it with
+a fair degree of equanimity when Huldah Spiller,
+having &#8220;jest slung her clothes anyway onto that
+line,&#8221; as Judith phrased it to herself, came panting
+and laughing across the slope between the two
+houses and called a gay &#8220;Howdy!&#8221; to the visitor.
+The lively little red haired flirt professed greatly
+to desire news of certain persons in Hepzibah,
+and as Creed was departing sauntered unconcernedly
+beside him as far as the draw-bars,
+detaining him in conversation there as long as
+possible. She had an instinctive knowledge that
+Judith, looking on, was deeply disturbed.</p>
+<p>Creed set his justice&#8217;s office about a hundred
+yards from Nancy Card&#8217;s cabin, on the main
+road that led through the two Turkey Track
+neighbourhoods out to Rainy Gap and the Far
+Cove settlement. The little shack was built of
+the raw yellow boards which the new saw-mill
+was ripping out of pine trees over on the shoulder
+of Big Turkey Track above Garyville. Most
+of the mountain dwellers still preferred log houses,
+and the lumber was sent down the mountain by
+means of a little gravity railway, whose car was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' name='page_71'></a>71</span>
+warped up after each trip by a patient old mule
+working in a circular treadmill.</p>
+<p>God knows with what high hopes the planks of
+that humble shanty were put in place, with what
+visions sill and window-frame were shaped and
+joined, Aunt Nancy going out and in at her household
+tasks calling good counsel over to him;
+Beezy, the irrepressible, adding shaving curls to
+her red frazzle; Little Buck, furnished with
+hammer and tacks, gravely assisting, pounding
+his fingers only part of the time. Hens were
+coming off. Old Nancy had a great time with
+notionate mothers hatching out broods under
+the floor or in the stable loft, and the plaintive
+cheep-cheep! of the &#8220;weedies&#8221; added its note to
+the chorus of sounds as the children followed
+them about, now and then catching up a ball of
+fluff to pet it, undeterred by indignant clucks
+from the parent.</p>
+<p>As Creed whistled over his work, he saw a
+shadowy train coming down the road, the people
+whom he should help, his people, to whose darkness
+he should bring light and counsel. They knew
+so little, and needed so much. True, his own
+knowledge was not great; but it was all freely at
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' name='page_72'></a>72</span>
+their service. His heart swelled with good-will
+as he prepared to open his modest campaign of
+usefulness.</p>
+<p>To come into leadership naturally a man should
+be the logical outgrowth of his class and time,
+and this Creed knew he was not. Yet he had
+pondered the matter deeply, and put it thus to
+himself: The peasant of Europe can only rise
+through stages of material prosperity to a point
+of development at which he craves intellectual
+attainment, or spiritual growth. But the mountaineer
+is always a thinker; he has even in his
+poverty a hearty contempt for luxury, for material
+gain at the expense of personality. With his
+disposition to philosophy, fostered by solitude
+and isolation, he readily overleaps those gradations,
+and would step at once from obscurity
+to the position of a man of culture were the
+means at hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bonbright,&#8221; remonstrated Jephthah Turrentine,
+in the first conversation the two held upon
+the subject, &#8220;Ye cain&#8217;t give people what they
+ain&#8217;t ready to take. Ef our folks wanted law
+and order, don&#8217;t you reckon they&#8217;d make the
+move to get it?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' name='page_73'></a>73</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it exactly, Mr. Turrentine,&#8221; responded
+Creed quickly. &#8220;They need to be
+taught what to want.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, they do, do they?&#8221; inquired Jephthah with
+a humorous twitch of the lips. &#8220;Well, ef you&#8217;re
+a-goin&#8217; to set up to teach, hadn&#8217;t you better
+have a school-house, place of a jestice&#8217;s office?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe you&#8217;re right. I reckon you are&mdash;exactly
+right,&#8221; Creed assented thoughtfully.
+&#8220;I&#8217;d studied about that considerable. I reckon
+I&#8217;m a more suitable age for a schoolmaster than
+for a justice; and the children&mdash;but that would
+take a long time; and I wanted to give the help
+where it was worst needed.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, well, &#8217;tain&#8217;t a hangin&#8217; matter,&#8221; old
+Jephthah smiled at the younger man&#8217;s solemn
+earnestness. &#8220;Ef this new fangled buildin&#8217; o&#8217;
+yours don&#8217;t get used for a jestice&#8217;s office we can
+turn it into a school-house; we need one powerful
+bad.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The desultory, sardonic, deep-voiced, soft-footed,
+mountain carpenters who worked leisurely
+and fitfully with Creed were always mightily
+amused by the exactness of the &#8220;town feller&#8217;s&#8221;
+ideas.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' name='page_74'></a>74</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Why lordy! Lookee hyer Creed,&#8221; remonstrated
+Doss Provine, over a question of matching
+boards and battening joints, &#8220;ef you git yo&#8217; pen
+so almighty tight as that you won&#8217;t git no fresh
+air. Man&#8217;s bound to have ventilation. Course
+you can leave the do&#8217; open all the time like we-all
+do; but when yo&#8217;re a-holdin&#8217; co&#8217;t and sech-like
+maybe you&#8217;ll want to shet the do&#8217; sometimes&mdash;and
+then whar&#8217;ll ye git breath to breathe?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon Creed knows his business,&#8221; put in
+the old man who was helping Doss, &#8220;but all these
+here glass winders is blame foolishness to <i>me</i>.
+Ef ye need light, open the do&#8217;. Ef somebody
+comes that you don&#8217;t want in, you can shet
+it and put up a bar. But saw the walls full
+o&#8217; holes an&#8217; set in glass winders, an&#8217; any feller
+that&#8217;s got a mind to can pick ye off with a rifle
+ball as easy as not whilst ye set by the fire of a
+evenin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He shook a reprehending head, hoary with the
+snows of years, and containing therefore, presumably,
+wisdom. He had learned the necessary
+points of life in his environment, and as always
+occurs, the younger generation seemed to him
+lavishly reckless.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' name='page_75'></a>75</span></p>
+<p>It was only old Jephthah&#8217;s criticisms that
+Creed really minded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uh-huh,&#8221; allowed Jephthah, settling his
+hands on his hips and surveying the yellow pine
+structure tolerantly; &#8220;mighty sightly for them
+that likes that kind o&#8217; thing. But I hold with
+a good log house, becaze it&#8217;s apt to be square.
+These here town doin&#8217;s that looks like a man
+with a bile on his ear never did ketch me. Ef ye
+hew out good oak or pine timber ye won&#8217;t be
+willin&#8217; to cut short lengths for to make such
+foolishness.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed would often have explained to his critics
+that he did not expect to get into feuds and have
+neighbours pot-hunting him through his glass
+windows, that he needed the light from them to
+study or read, and that his little house was as
+square as any log hut ever constructed; but they
+lumped it all together and made an outsider of
+him&mdash;which hurt.</p>
+<p>Word went abroad to the farthest confines of
+the Turkey Track neighbourhoods, carried by
+herders who took sheep, hogs, or cows up into
+the high-hung inner valleys of Yellow Old Bald,
+or the natural meadows of Big Turkey Track to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' name='page_76'></a>76</span>
+turn them loose for the season, recited where one
+or two met out salting cattle, discussed by many
+a chip pile, where the willing axe rested on the
+unsplit block while the wielder heard how Creed
+Bonbright had done sot up a jestice&#8217;s office and
+made peace between the Shallidays and the
+Bushareses.</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you know in reason hit ain&#8217;t a-goin&#8217; to
+hold,&#8221; the old women at the hearthside would
+say, withdrawing their cob pipes to shake deprecating
+heads. &#8220;The Bushareses and Shallidays
+has been killin&#8217; each other up sence my
+gran&#8217;pap was a little boy. They tell me the Injuns
+mixed into that there feud. I say Creed
+Bonbright! Nothin&#8217; but a fool boy. He better
+l&#8217;arn something before he sets up to teach. He
+don&#8217;t know what he&#8217;s meddlin&#8217; with.&#8221; All this
+with a pride in the vendetta as an ancient neighbourhood
+institution and monument.</p>
+<p>The office of the new justice never became, as
+he had hoped it would, a lounging place for his
+passing neighbours. He had expected them to
+drop in to visit with him, when he might sow
+the good seed in season without appearing to seek
+an occasion for so doing. But they were shy
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' name='page_77'></a>77</span>
+of him&mdash;he saw that. They went on past the
+little yellow pine office, on their mules, or their
+sorry nags, or in shackling waggons behind oxen,
+to lounge at Nancy Card&#8217;s gate as of old, or sit
+upon her porch to swap news and listen to her
+caustic comments on neighbourhood happenings.
+And only an occasional glance over the shoulder,
+a backward nod of the head, or jerk of the thumb,
+told the young justice that he was present in
+their recollection.</p>
+<p>But there was one element of the community
+which showed no disposition to hold aloof from
+the newcomer. About this time, by twos and
+threes&mdash;never one alone&mdash;the virgins of the
+mountain-top sought Nancy Card for flower seed,
+soft soap recipes, a charm to take off warts, or
+to learn exactly from her at what season a body
+had better divide the roots of day lilies.</p>
+<p>Old-fashioned roses begin blooming in the
+Cumberlands about the first of May, and when
+this time came round Nancy&#8217;s garden was a
+thing to marvel at. The spring flowers were past
+or nearly so, and the advent of the roses marked
+the floral beginning of summer. In the forest
+the dogwood petals now let go and fell silently
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' name='page_78'></a>78</span>
+one by one through the shadowed green. But
+over Nancy&#8217;s fence of weather-beaten, hand-rived
+palings tossed a snow of bloom so like that here
+they were not missed at all; and the mock orange
+adds to the dogwood&#8217;s simple beauty the soul of
+an exquisite odour. Small, heavily thorned roses,
+yellow as the daffodils they had succeeded, blushing
+Baltimore Belles, Seven Sisters all over the
+ricketty porch&mdash;one who loved such things might
+well have taken a day&#8217;s journey for sight of that
+dooryard in May.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I vow!&#8221; said the old woman one day
+peering through her window that gave on the
+road, &#8220;ef here don&#8217;t come Huldy Spiller and the
+two Lusks. Look like to me I have a heap of
+gal company of late. Creed, you&#8217;re a mighty
+learned somebody, cain&#8217;t you tell me the whys
+of it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed, sitting at a little table deep in some
+books and papers before him, heard no word of
+his friend&#8217;s teasing speech. It was Doss Provine,
+at the big fireplace heating a poker to burn a hole
+through his pulley-wheel, who turned toward his
+mother-in-law and grinned foolishly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon I know the answer to that,&#8221; he
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' name='page_79'></a>79</span>
+observed. &#8220;The boys is all a warnin&#8217; me that a
+widower is mo&#8217; run after than a young feller.
+They tell me I&#8217;ll have to watch out.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say watch out&mdash;<i>you</i>!&#8221; cried Nancy, wheeling
+upon him with a comically disproportionate fury.
+&#8220;Jest you let me ketch you settin&#8217; up to any of the
+gals&mdash;you, a father with two he&#8217;pless chaps to
+look after, and nobody but an old woman like
+me, with one foot in the grave, to depend on!&#8221;</p>
+<p>There was one girl however who, instead of
+multiplying her visits to the Card cabin with
+Creed&#8217;s advent, abruptly ceased them. Judith
+Barrier was an uncertain quantity to her masculine
+household; unreasonably elated or depressed,
+she led them the round of her moods, and they
+paid for the fact that Creed Bonbright did not
+come across the mountain top visiting, without
+being at all aware of where their guilt lay. After
+that interview at the milking lot one thought, one
+emotion was with her always. Always she was
+waiting for the next meeting with Creed. Through
+the day she heard his voice or his footstep in all
+the little sounds of the woods, the humble noises
+of the farm life; and at night there was the cedar
+tree.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80' name='page_80'></a>80</span></p>
+<p>Now the cedar tree had affairs of its own.
+When, with the egotism of her keen, passionate,
+desirous youth, the girl in the little chamber under
+the eves listened to its voice in April, it was
+talking in the soft air of the vernal night about
+the sap which rose in its veins, spicy, resinous,
+odoured with spring, carrying its wine of life into
+the farthest green tips, till all the little twigs were
+intoxicated with it, and beat and flung themselves
+in joy. And the tree&#8217;s deep note was a song of
+abiding trust. There was a nest building within
+its heart&mdash;so well hidden in that dense thicket
+that it was safe from the eye of any prowler.
+Hope and faith and a great devotion went to the
+building. And the tree, rich and happy in its
+own life, cherished generously that other life
+within its protecting arms. Its song was of the
+mating birds, the building birds, the mother joy
+and father joy that made the nest ready for the
+speckled eggs and the birdlings that should follow.</p>
+<p>But to the listening girl the cedar tree was a
+harp that the winds struck&mdash;a voice that spoke
+in the night of love and Creed.</p>
+<p>Finally one morning she saddled Selim and, with
+something in her pocket for Little Buck and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' name='page_81'></a>81</span>
+Beezy, set out for Hepzibah&mdash;reckon they&#8217;s
+nothin&#8217; so turrible strange in a body goin&#8217; to the
+settlement when they&#8217; out o&#8217; both needles <i>an</i>&#8217;
+bakin&#8217; soda!</p>
+<p>As she rode up Nancy herself called to her to
+&#8217;light and come in, and finally went out to stand
+a moment and chat; but the girl smilingly shook
+her head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I got to be getting along, thank ye,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;I can&#8217;t stop this mornin&#8217;. You-all must come
+and see us, Aunt Nancy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, what&#8217;s Little Buck a-goin&#8217; to do, with
+his own true love a-tearin&#8217; past the house like
+this and refusin&#8217; to stop and visit?&#8221; complained
+Nancy, secretly applauding the girl&#8217;s good sense
+and dignity.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where <i>is</i> my beau?&#8221; asked Judith. &#8220;I
+fetched him the first June apples off the tree.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Judy&#8217;s brought apples to her beau, and now
+he&#8217;s went off fishin&#8217; with Doss and she&#8217;s got
+nobody to give &#8217;em to,&#8221; old Nancy called as
+Creed stepped from the door of his office and
+started across to the cabin. &#8220;Don&#8217;t you want
+&#8217;em, Creed?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The tall, fair young fellow came up laughing.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' name='page_82'></a>82</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Nancy knows I love apples,&#8221; he said.
+&#8220;If you give me Little Buck&#8217;s share I&#8217;m afraid
+he&#8217;ll never see &#8217;em.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith reached in her pocket and brought out
+the shiny, small red globes and put them in his
+outstretched hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll bring Little Buck a play-pretty from the
+settlement,&#8221; she said softly. &#8220;He&#8217;ll keer a
+sight more for hit than for the apples. I wish
+I&#8217;d knowed you liked &#8217;em&mdash;I&#8217;d brought you
+more. Why don&#8217;t you come over and see us
+and git all you want? We&#8217;ve got two trees of
+&#8217;em.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='V_THE_RED_ROSE_AND_THE_BRIAR' id='V_THE_RED_ROSE_AND_THE_BRIAR'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' name='page_83'></a>83</span>
+<h2>Chapter V</h2>
+<h3>The Red Rose and the Briar</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>ALL through April Judith&#8217;s project of a play-party
+languished. She had to pull steadily
+against the elders, for not only were the men hard
+at it making ready for the putting in of the year&#8217;s
+crops, but it was gardening time as well, when
+even the women and children are pressed in to
+help at the raking up and brush piling. Wood
+smoke from the clearing fires haunted all the
+hollows. Everybody was preparing for the making
+of the truck patch. Down on the little
+groups would drop a cloud and blot out the
+bonfire till it became the mere glowing point at
+the heart of a shaken opal&mdash;for if you are wise
+you burn brush on a rainy day.</p>
+<p>Old Jephthah opposed the plan for the girl&#8217;s
+festivity on another ground. &#8220;I&#8217;ve got no
+objection to a frolic, Jude,&#8221; he observed quietly,
+on hearing the first mention of the matter, &#8220;but
+I wouldn&#8217;t have no play-party at this house.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' name='page_84'></a>84</span>
+Hit&#8217;s too handy to that cussed still of Blatch&#8217;s.
+A passel of fool boys is mighty apt to go over
+thar an&#8217; fill theirselves up with corn whiskey, an&#8217;
+the party will just about end up in a interruption.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He said no more, and Judith made no reply.
+Though ordinarily she would have hesitated to go
+against her uncle&#8217;s expressed wishes, her heart
+was too much set on this enterprise to allow of
+easy checking. She made no reply, but her
+campaign on behalf of the merrymaking went
+steadily on.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder you can have the heart to git up
+play-parties and the like when Andy and Jeff&#8217;s
+a-sufferin&#8217; in the jail,&#8221; Pendrilla Lusk plucked
+up spirit to say when the plan was first mooted
+to her.</p>
+<p>Andy and Jeff, the wild young hawks, with
+the glamour upon them of lawless, adventurous
+spirits, and bold, proper lovers, equally fascinated
+and terrified the Lusk girls&mdash;timid, fluttering
+pair&mdash;and were in their turn attracted to them
+by an inevitable law of nature.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see how it hurts the boys for us to
+have a dance,&#8221; rejoined Judith with asperity.
+&#8220;If we was all to set and cry our eyes out, it
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' name='page_85'></a>85</span>
+wouldn&#8217;t fetch &#8217;em back on the mountain any
+quicker.&#8221; Then with a teasing flash, &#8220;I&#8217;ll
+tell &#8217;em when they git home what you said,
+though.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, Jude, you&#8217;re real mean,&#8221; pleaded
+Cliantha Lusk sinking to her knees beside Judith
+and raising thin little arms to clasp that young
+woman around the waist. &#8220;You ain&#8217;t a-goin&#8217; to
+tell them fool boys any sech truck as that, air
+ye? Pendrilly jest said it for a sayin&#8217;. We&#8217;d
+love to come to yo&#8217; play-party, whenever it is.
+I <i>say</i> Andy and Jeff! Let &#8217;em git out of the jail
+the way they got in.&#8221;</p>
+<p>This is the approved attitude of the mountain
+virgin; yet Cliantha&#8217;s voice shook sadly as she
+uttered the independent sentiments, and Pendrilla
+furtively wiped her eyes in promising to
+attend the play-party.</p>
+<p>All this was in April. By the time May came
+in, that dread of a belated frost which amounts
+almost to terror in the farmer of the Cumberlands
+was ended; the Easter cold and blackberry
+winter were over, and all the garden truck was
+planted. Everybody began whole-heartedly to
+enjoy the time of year. The leaves were full
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' name='page_86'></a>86</span>
+size, but still soft; the wind made hardly any
+noise among them. In the pasture lot and fence
+corners near the house, meadow flowers began to
+star the green. The frog chorus, so loud and
+jubilant in early spring, had subsided now except
+at night, when their treble was accompanied by
+the bass &#8220;chug-chug&#8221; of the bull-frogs. The mornings
+were vocal with the notes of yellow hammer,
+cuckoos; the cooing of doves, the squawk of the
+jay, and the drum of the big red-headed woodpecker
+sounded through the summer woods; while
+always in the cool of the day came the thrush&#8217;s
+song. The early corn was in by mid April.
+About the first full moon of May the main
+crop was planted.</p>
+<p>Early in June Judith, walking in the wood,
+brought home the splendid red wood lily, and a
+cluster too of &#8220;ratsbane,&#8221; with its flowers like a
+little crown of white wax.</p>
+<p>The spring restlessness was over throughout
+all the wild country; life no longer stirred and
+rustled; the leaves hung still in the long sunny
+noons. The air was clear, rinsed with frequent
+showers; the woods were silent except for birds
+and cow bells. The crops were laid by. The
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' name='page_87'></a>87</span>
+huckleberries ripened; the &#8220;sarvices&#8221; hung thick
+in the forest. Even the blackberries were beginning
+to turn and Andy and Jeff had been
+back at home more than a week, when Judith
+finally succeeded in getting her forces together and
+her guests promised. Many of them would have
+to walk four or five miles to sing and play for a few
+hours, tramping back at midnight to lie down and
+catch what sleep they could before dawn waked
+them to another day of toil. Thursday evening
+was set for the event. On Wednesday the Lusk
+girls coming in to discuss, found Judith with
+shining eyes and crimson cheeks, attacking the
+simple housework of the cabin.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish&#8217;t you&#8217;d sing while I finish my churnin&#8217;,&#8221;
+the girl said, &#8220;I&#8217;m so flustered looks like I can&#8217;t
+sca&#8217;cely do anything right.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The sisters clasped hands and raised their
+childish faces. Cliantha had a thin, high piping
+soprano like a small flute, and Pendrilla sang
+&#8220;counter&#8221; to it. They were repositories of all
+the old ballads of the mountains&mdash;ballads from
+Scotland, from Ireland, from England, and from
+Wales, that set the ferocities and the love-making
+of Elizabeth&#8217;s time or earlier most quaintly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' name='page_88'></a>88</span>
+amidst the localities and nomenclature of the
+Cumberlands.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sing &#8216;Barb&#8217;ry Allen,&#8217;&#8221; commanded Judith as
+she swung the dasher with nervous energy.</p>
+<p>The July sunshine filtered through the leaves
+of the big muscadine vine that covered and sheltered
+the tiny side porch. Bees boomed about
+the ragged tufts of clover and Bouncing Bet
+that fringed the side yard. The old hound at
+the chip pile blinked lazily and raised his head,
+then dropped it and slumbered again. Within,
+the big room was dim and cool. The high, thin,
+quavering voices celebrated the love and woe of
+cruel Barbara Allen. Judith&#8217;s dark eyes grew
+soft and brooding; the nervous strokes of her
+dasher measured themselves more and more to
+the swing of the old tune.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see how anybody can be hardhearted
+thataway with a person they love,&#8221; she
+said softly as the song descended to its doleful end.</p>
+<p>The next morning Judith hurried her work
+that she might get through and go over to the
+Bonbright house, there to put in execution her
+long-cherished plan of cleaning it and making
+it fit for Creed&#8217;s occupancy that night. Old
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' name='page_89'></a>89</span>
+Dilsey Rust, their tenant, came in to help at the
+Turrentine cabin always on occasions like this,
+or with the churning or washing; and penetrated
+with impatience the girl finally left her assistant
+in charge of matters and set forth through the
+woods and across the fields, the little key which
+she had carried ever since that morning in early
+April in her pocket like a talisman. At last it
+was to open her kingdom to her. Behind the bolt
+that it controlled lay not only the home of Creed&#8217;s
+childhood, but supposably the home of his
+children. Judith&#8217;s heart beat suffocatingly at
+the thought.</p>
+<p>Halfway across she met Huldah Spiller coming
+up from the Far spring with a bucket of sulphur
+water which was held to be good for Jim Cal&#8217;s
+rheumatism.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whar ye goin&#8217;?&#8221; asked Huldah, looking
+curiously at the broom over Judith&#8217;s shoulder, the
+roll of cloths and the small gourd of soft soap she
+carried.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a-goin&#8217; whar I&#8217;m a-goin&#8217;,&#8221; returned
+Judith aggressively. But the other only smiled.
+It did not suit her to be offended at that moment.
+Instead, &#8220;What are you goin&#8217; to wear to-night,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' name='page_90'></a>90</span>
+Judy?&#8221; she inquired vivaciously. It was one
+of the advantages of waiting on table at a boarding
+house in the settlement&mdash;pieced out perhaps
+by the possession of red hair&mdash;that Huldah
+had the courage to address Judith Barrier as
+&#8220;Judy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The hostess of the evening&#8217;s festivities was half
+in the mind to pass on without reply; then her
+curiosity as to Huldah&#8217;s costume got the better
+of her, and she compromised, with a laconic,</p>
+<p>&#8220;My white frock&mdash;what are you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you know I went down to Hepzibah
+after you said you was goin&#8217; to have a play-party?&#8221;
+asked Huldah, tossing her head to get
+the red curls out of her eyes. &#8220;Well, Iley had
+give me fifty cents on my wages&mdash;&#8221; Huldah
+worked as a servant in her sister&#8217;s family, which
+is not uncommon in the mountains&mdash;&#8220;an&#8217; I tuck
+it and bought me ten yard of five-cent lawn, the
+prettiest blue you ever put yo&#8217; eyes on.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Blue!&#8221; A sudden shock went over Judith.
+She had forgotten; and here Huldah Spiller would
+wear a blue dress, and she&mdash;oh, the stupidity,
+the bat-like, doltish, blindness of it!&mdash;would be in
+white, because it was now too late to make a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' name='page_91'></a>91</span>
+change. Out of the very tragedy of the situation
+she managed to pluck forth a smile.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was aimin&#8217; to wear blue ribbons,&#8221; she said
+finally. It had just come into her head that she
+could pull the blue bow from her hat&mdash;that blue
+bow with which she had zealously replaced the
+despised and outcast red&mdash;and so make shift.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Blue&#8217;s my best feller&#8217;s favourite colour,&#8221; contributed
+Huldah, picking up the bucket which
+she had set down, and starting on. &#8220;He &#8217;lows
+it goes fine with aurbu&#8217;n hair.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wade never said that,&#8221; muttered Judith to
+herself as she took her way to the Bonbright place.</p>
+<p>But after all one could not be long out of tune
+with such a summer day. The spicy odour of
+pennyroyal bruised underfoot, came to her
+nostrils like incense. Even the sickly sweet of
+jimson blossoms by the draw-bars of the milking
+lot was dear and familiar, while their white
+trumpets whispered of childish play-days and
+flower-ladies she had set walking in procession
+under the shadow of some big green leaf. Blue&mdash;the
+soft stars of spider-wort opening among the
+rocks reminded her of the hue; blue curls and
+dittany tangled at the path edge; but the very
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' name='page_92'></a>92</span>
+air itself was beginning to wear Creed&#8217;s colour
+and put on that wonderful, luminous blue in which
+the Cumberlands of midsummer melt cerulean into
+a sky of lapis lazuli. Creed&#8217;s colour&mdash;Creed&#8217;s
+colour&mdash;her dark eyes misted as they searched
+the far reaches of the hills and found it everywhere.</p>
+<p>Jephthah Turrentine used to say that if a man
+owned enough mountain land to set his foot on,
+he owned the whole of the sky above him; it was
+a truer word than this old mountain dweller could
+have known, since the mere possessor of a city
+lot, where other tall roofs cut the horizon high,
+must content himself with less of the welkin.</p>
+<p>Judith opened the door, went in, closed it
+behind her, and gazed about. There lay over
+everything a fine dust; there was the look of
+decay which comes with disuse; and the air bore
+the musty odour of a shut and long uninhabited
+house. The Bonbright home had been a good
+one for the mountains, of hewn logs, and with
+four rooms, and two great stone chimneys. Inside
+was the furniture which Mary Gillenwaters
+brought to it as a bride when her mountain lover
+came down to Hepzibah and with the swift ardour
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' name='page_93'></a>93</span>
+of his tribe&mdash;this Bonbright&#8217;s fires of eloquence
+were all kindled upon the altar of his mating
+romance&mdash;charmed the daughter of its one merchant.
+These added to the already fairly complete
+plenishings, many of which had come over
+the mountains from Virginia when Sevier opened
+up the new State, gave an air of abundance, even
+of sober elegance to the room.</p>
+<p>Reverently Judith moved among the dumb
+witnesses and servitors of Bonbright generations.
+Here was the spinning-wheel, here the cards, and
+out in the little room off the porch stood the loom.
+She had dreams of replacing these with a sewing
+machine. Nobody wove jeans any more&mdash;but a
+good carpet-loom now, <i>that</i> might be made useful.
+Unwilling to hang the bedding on bushes for fear
+of a chance tear from twig or thorn, she rigged
+a line in the back yard, and spread quilt and
+homespun blanket, coarse white sheets and pillowcases
+that were yellowing with age, out for the glad
+gay wind to play with, for the sunshine to sweeten.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a lot of feather beds!&#8221; she murmured as
+she tallied them over. &#8220;That there ticking is
+better than you can buy in the stores. My, ain&#8217;t
+these light and nice!&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' name='page_94'></a>94</span></p>
+<p>All the warm, sunny afternoon she toiled at
+her self-appointed labour of love. She swept
+and dusted, she scrubbed and cleaned, with
+capable fingers, proud of the strength and skill
+that made her a good housewife; then bringing in
+the fragrant, homely fabrics, made up the
+beds and placed all back in due order.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s boun&#8217; to notice somebody&#8217;s been here
+and put things to rights,&#8221; she said over and over
+to herself. &#8220;If it looks sightly, and seems like
+home, mebbe he&#8217;ll give out the notion of stayin&#8217;
+at Nancy Card&#8217;s, and come and live here.&#8221; She
+brooded on the bliss of the idea as she worked.</p>
+<p>Under the great mahogany four-poster in the
+front room was slipped a trundle-bed that she
+drew out and looked at with fond eyes. No doubt
+Creed&#8217;s boyish head had lain there once. She
+wished passionately that she had known him
+then, all unaware that we never do know our
+lovers when they and we are children. Even
+those playfellows who are destined to be mates
+find, all on a day, that the familiar companion
+who has grown up beside each has changed into
+quite a different person.</p>
+<p>She rolled the trundle-bed back into place and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' name='page_95'></a>95</span>
+turned to lift a pile of bedding that lay apparently
+on a chest. When it was raised it revealed the
+clumsy old cradle that had rocked three generations
+of Bonbrights. She stood looking down at
+it with quickening pulse, then reached a fluttering
+hand and touched its small pillow tenderly.
+Here had rested that golden head, so many years
+ago; beside it his mother had sat and rocked.
+At the thought Judith was on her knees, her
+hands falling naturally upon the side and rocking
+the small bed. In a strange conflict of dreamy
+emotion, she swayed it back and forth a moment,
+and then&mdash;what woman could resist it?&mdash;began to
+croon an old mountain cradle song. Suddenly
+the westering sun got to the level of a half shrouded
+window and sent a beam in across Judith&#8217;s bent
+head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My land!&#8221; she whispered, getting to her feet.
+&#8220;I ain&#8217;t got no call to stay foolin&#8217; here all day.
+Dilsey&#8217;ll jest about burn them cakes I told her
+to bake, and I ain&#8217;t fixed my blue bow for my
+hair yet.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She swept a glance around the speckless room,
+gathered up her paraphernalia of cleaning, passed
+out, locked the door, and set her face toward home.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' name='page_96'></a>96</span></p>
+<p>In Mary Bonbright&#8217;s garden, now given over to
+weeds as the gardens of dead women are so apt
+to be, there had grown a singular, half wild rose.
+This flower was of a clear blood red, with a yellow
+heart which its five broad petals, flinging wide
+open, disclosed to view, unlike the crimped and
+guarded loveliness of the more evolved sisters
+of the green-house. Mowed down spring after
+spring by the scythe of Strubley, the renter, the
+vigorous thing had spread abroad, and as Judith
+stepped from the door its exultant beauty caught
+her eye. Flaming shields of crimson, bearing
+each its boss of filagree gold, the hosts of the red
+rose stood up bravely in the choking grass to
+which the insensate scythe blade had so often
+levelled them, and shouted to the girl of love and
+joy, and of youth which was the time for both.
+Wide petalled, burning red, their golden hearts
+open to sun and bee, they were the blossoms for
+the earth-woman. She ran and knelt down
+beside them.</p>
+<p>He had said that his favourite colour was blue&mdash;but
+there are no blue roses. She did not follow
+it far enough to guess that the man who was
+content with the colour of the sky might not get
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' name='page_97'></a>97</span>
+his gaze down close enough to earth to care for
+roses. She bent above them gloating on their
+fierce, triumphant splendour. Was there ever
+such a colour? But the stems were dreadfully
+short. A sudden purpose grew in her mind.
+With hasty, tremulous fingers she gathered an
+apronful of the blossoms. Once more she unlocked
+the front door, hurried back to that bed
+which she had so lovingly spread, and on its white
+coverlet began arranging a great, glowing wreath,
+fashioned by setting a circle of red roses petal
+to petal.</p>
+<p>As she worked Cliantha Lusk&#8217;s ballad came
+into her head, and she sang it under her breath.</p>
+<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:4em;'><tr><td>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>&#8220;&#8216;And they grew and they grew to the old church top</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Till they couldn&#8217;t grow any higher,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And there they twined in a true lover&#8217;s knot,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>The red rose and the briar.&#8217;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>&#8220;No&mdash;that ain&#8217;t it&mdash;</p>
+<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:4em;'><tr><td>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>&#8220;&#8216;And there they twined in a true lover&#8217;s knot,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>For all true lovers to admire.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>True lovers&mdash;she crooned the word over and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' name='page_98'></a>98</span>
+over. It was sweet to say it. She thrilled through
+all her strong young body with the delight of
+what she was doing.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;ll wonder who put &#8217;em there,&#8221; she
+whispered to herself. &#8220;Ef nothin&#8217; else don&#8217;t
+take his eye, these here is shore to.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='VI_THE_PLAYPARTY' id='VI_THE_PLAYPARTY'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' name='page_99'></a>99</span>
+<h2>Chapter VI</h2>
+<h3>The Play-Party</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Long lanes of light crossed the grass from window
+and door of the Turrentine house; Judith&#8217;s
+play-party was in full swing. They were
+dancing or playing in the big front room which was
+lit only by the rich broken shimmer and shine
+from a fire of pine sticks in the cavernous black
+chimney. Though it was early July the evening,
+in those altitudes, had its own chill, and the heat
+from this was not unpleasant, while its illumination
+became necessary, for all the lamps and
+candles available were in use out where the tables
+were spread.</p>
+<p>Old Jephthah held state in his own quarters,
+a detached log cabin standing about thirty feet
+from the main structure, and once used probably
+to house the loom or for some such extra domestic
+purpose. Here too a fire smoldered on the hearthstone,
+for the head of the Turrentine clan was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' name='page_100'></a>100</span>
+tormented by rheumatism, that plague of otherwise
+healthy primitive man. He lounged now on
+the doorstep, smoking, ready to intercept and
+entertain any of the older men who might come
+with their women folk. Occasionally somebody
+rode up, or came tramping down the trail or
+through the woods&mdash;a belated merrymaker hurrying
+in to ask who had arrived and who was
+expected.</p>
+<p>To the father&#8217;s intense disgust Jim Cal had
+elected to sit with the elders that night, and
+obstinately held his place before the hearthstone
+in the cabin room. Jephthah Turrentine&#8217;s sons
+were none of them particularly satisfactory to
+their progenitor. A man of brains, a creature
+to whom an argument was ever more than the
+mere material thing argued about, these male
+offspring, who took their traits naturally after
+the spindle side, vexed him with resemblance
+to their handsome, high-tempered, brainless
+mother. But Jim Cal was worse than a bore to
+his father; the old fellow regarded a son who
+weighed above two hundred pounds as a disgrace.
+And to-night the fact that the door of his room
+commanded a sidelong view of the tables which
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' name='page_101'></a>101</span>
+were being spread, and about which Iley circled
+and scolded, furnished so fair a reason for James
+Calhoun&#8217;s selection of it as an anchorage that his
+father was the more offended.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You thar, Unc&#8217; Jep?&#8221; sounded Blatchley
+Turrentine&#8217;s careless voice from the dark.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I make out to be,&#8221; returned his uncle lazily.</p>
+<p>Blatchley came into the circle of dim light
+about the door, Andy and Jeff at his shoulder.
+Wade followed a moment later.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why ain&#8217;t you-all boys down thar whar the
+gals is at, playin&#8217;?&#8221; inquired Jim Cal fretfully.
+&#8220;Looks like to me ef I was a young feller an&#8217; not
+wedded I wouldn&#8217;t hang around whar the old
+men was.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is Creed Bonbright comin&#8217; over here to-night?&#8221;
+inquired Andy abruptly, in obedience apparently
+to a nudge from Blatch.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon he is,&#8221; observed the old man dispassionately.
+&#8220;Jude has purty well bidden the
+whole top of the mountain.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is Pone Cyard comin&#8217;?&#8221; put in Jeff. The
+twins usually spoke alternately, the sum of their
+conversation counting thus for one.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That I can&#8217;t say,&#8221; returned the old man with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' name='page_102'></a>102</span>
+mildly ironic emphasis. &#8220;Mebbe him and the
+chaps and the lame rooster&mdash;<i>and</i> Nancy&mdash;will
+come along at the tail of the procession.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; persisted Andy, breaking a somewhat
+lengthened silence in which all the newcomers
+stood, and through which their breathing could
+be distinctly heard, &#8220;well I think Creed Bonbright
+has got the impudence! He come to the
+jail, whar me and Jeff was at, an&#8217; he had some
+talk with us, an&#8217; I let him know my mind. He
+stood in with that marshal&mdash;I know it&mdash;and so
+does Jeff. Pone Cyard got out quicker becaze
+Bonbright tipped the marshal the wink; but
+I don&#8217;t hold with him nor his doin&#8217;s.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The parent of the twins regarded them both
+with sardonic black eyes half shut. &#8220;<i>You</i>
+don&#8217;t? And who-all might you be, young fellers?&#8221;
+he asked. &#8220;This here Bonbright man has
+come up on Turkey Track to give us a show
+at law. If they&#8217;s persons engaged in unlawful
+practices on this here mountain top, mebbe he&#8217;ll
+knock up against &#8217;em. Them that keeps the
+law and lives decent has no reason to fear the
+law. Ain&#8217;t that what you say, Blatch?&#8221; turning
+suddenly to his nephew.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' name='page_103'></a>103</span></p>
+<p>The big swart mountaineer drew up his shoulders
+with a sort of shrug.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ef you stand in with Bonbright, Unc&#8217; Jep,&#8221;
+he said, bluntly, &#8220;we might as well all go down
+to Hepzibah and give ourselves up. You&#8217;ve done
+rented me the land, and yo&#8217; boys is in the still
+with me&mdash;air ye a-goin&#8217; to stand from under, and
+have the marshal forever keepin&#8217; us on the jump?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Old Jephthah looked wordless contempt at the
+nephew who knew little enough to impute such
+a course to him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what I say,&#8221; put in Jim Cal&#8217;s thin,
+querulous tones from the back of the room&mdash;the
+voice of a fat man in trouble; can anyone say
+why the sorrows of the obese are always comic
+to the rest of the world? &#8220;A body cain&#8217;t sleep
+nights for thinkin&#8217; what may chance.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&mdash;air you thar, podner?&#8221; inquired Blatch,
+with a sort of ferocious banter in his tone which
+he frequently used toward his fleshy associate.
+&#8220;I thort ye was down in the bed sick.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was,&#8221; said Jim Cal sulkily; &#8220;but Iley she
+said&mdash;Iley &#8217;lowed&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Blatch burst into a great horse laugh, which
+the others joined.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104' name='page_104'></a>104</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I know&#8217;d in reason ye&#8217;d be down when they
+came any trouble at the still,&#8221; he commented.
+&#8220;Hit always affects yo&#8217; health thataway; but
+I didn&#8217;t know Iley had seed reason to dig ye out.
+What you goin&#8217; to do about Bonbright, Unc&#8217;
+Jep&mdash;stand in with him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well&mdash;you <i>air</i> a fool,&#8221; observed the old man
+meditatively. &#8220;Who named standin&#8217; in with
+Bonbright, or standin&#8217; out agin&#8217; him? When I
+rented you my farm for five year I had no thought
+of yo&#8217; starting up that pesky ol&#8217; still on it. But I
+never was knowed to rue a trade. My daddy
+taught me when I made a bad bargain to freeze
+the tighter to it, and I&#8217;ve no mind to do other.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;d been a still thar,&#8221; said Blatch defensively.</p>
+<p>The old man nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes,&#8221; he agreed. &#8220;Hit had been,&mdash;I put
+it thar. I&#8217;ve made many a run of whiskey in
+my young days&mdash;and I&#8217;ve seed the folly of it.
+I reckon you fool boys&#8217;ll have to see the folly
+of it too befo&#8217; yo&#8217;ve got yo&#8217; satisfy. As for
+Creed Bonbright, he &#8217;pears to think that if we
+have plenty of law in the Turkey Tracks we&#8217;ll
+all go to heaven in a hand-basket. Mebbe he&#8217;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' name='page_105'></a>105</span>
+right, and then agin mebbe he&#8217;s wrong; but this
+I know, ain&#8217;t anybody goin&#8217; to jump on him in
+my house, and he gets a fair show when fightin&#8217;
+time comes.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, if he ain&#8217;t standin&#8217; in with the marshal,
+what does he&mdash;&#8221; began Andy&#8217;s high-pitched boyish
+voice, when somebody called, &#8220;Good evening,&#8221;
+in pleasant tones, and Bonbright himself got off
+a light-stepping mule, tethered him to the fence,
+and came toward the cabin.</p>
+<p>He had just returned from a meeting of the
+County Court at Hepzibah, where he did good
+service in representing the needs of his district,
+fighting hard for more money for schools&mdash;the
+plan heretofore had been to let them have only
+their own pro rata of the school tax.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;ll pay you a heap better to educate the
+mountain people than to hire their keep in jail,&#8221;
+he said to his fellow justices of the valley. &#8220;The
+blue-backed speller is the best cure for crime in
+the mountains that I know of.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He failed to get this; but he succeeded in
+another matter, one less near his heart, but
+calculated to appeal perhaps more strongly to his
+constituents; he secured the opening of a highway
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' name='page_106'></a>106</span>
+for which the people in the two Turkey
+Tracks had struggled and prayed more than
+twenty years. It was with the pride of this
+victory strong in him that he had set out for
+Judith&#8217;s play-party. The young fellow might
+have been pardoned a half wistful belief that
+this first success was the entering wedge and
+would lead swiftly to that standing with his
+neighbours lacking which he was helpless. Yet
+the sons of the house replied but gruffly to his
+greeting, and, as though his coming had been a
+signal, the younger group promptly disappeared
+in the direction of the main cabin.</p>
+<p>At the old man&#8217;s hearty invitation, Creed seated
+himself on the doorstep, while his host went in
+for a coal from the smouldering hearth to light
+his pipe, and joined the guest a moment later.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well sir, and how&#8217;s the law coming on
+these days?&#8221; inquired old Jephthah somewhat
+humorously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon it&#8217;s doing pretty well,&#8221; allowed
+Creed. &#8220;The law&#8217;s all right, Mr. Turrentine;
+it&#8217;s what our people need; and if there comes any
+failure it&#8217;s bound to be in me, not in the law.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s right,&#8221; old Jephthah commended him.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' name='page_107'></a>107</span>
+&#8220;Stand up for yo&#8217; principles. Ef you go into a
+thing, back it. I never could get on with these
+here good-Lord-good-devil folks. I like to know
+whar a man&#8217;s at&mdash;cain&#8217;t hit him unless &#8217;n you do.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what I say,&#8221; piped Jim Cal&#8217;s reedy
+voice from the interior. &#8220;Is it true that you&#8217;ve
+done made up the Shalliday fuss over that thar
+cow, Creed? I thort a jestice of the peace was
+to he&#8217;p folks have fusses, place o&#8217; settlin&#8217; &#8217;em up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what everybody seems to think,&#8221;
+replied Creed rather dolefully. &#8220;I can&#8217;t say I&#8217;m
+very proud of my part in the Shalliday matter.
+It seemed to be mighty hard on the widow; but
+the law was on her brother-in-law&#8217;s side; so I
+gave my decision in favour of Bill Shalliday, and
+paid the woman for the cow. And now they&#8217;re
+both mad at me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Old Jephthah narrowed his eyes and chuckled
+in luxurious enjoyment of the situation.</p>
+<p>&#8220;To be shore they air. To be shore they air,&#8221;
+he repeated with unction. &#8220;Ain&#8217;t you done a
+favour to the both of &#8217;em? Is they anything a
+man will hate you worse for than a favour? If
+they is I ain&#8217;t met up with it yet.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what I say,&#8221; iterated Jim Cal. &#8220;What&#8217;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' name='page_108'></a>108</span>
+the use o&#8217; tryin&#8217; to he&#8217;p folks to law and order
+when they don&#8217;t want it, and you&#8217;ve got to buy
+&#8217;em to behave? When you git to be a married
+man with chaps, like me, you&#8217;ll keep yo&#8217; money
+in yo&#8217; breeches pocket and let other folks fix it
+up amongst themselves about their cows an&#8217;
+sech.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I had hoped to get a chance to do something
+that amounted to more than settling small family
+fusses,&#8221; Creed said in a discouraged tone. &#8220;I
+hoped to have the opportunity to talk to many a
+gathering of our folks about the desirability of
+good citizenship in a general way. This thing
+of blockaded stills keeps us forever torn up with
+a bad name in the valley and the settlement.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Old Jephthah stirred not a hair; Jim Cal sat
+just as he had; yet the two were indefinably
+changed the moment the words &#8220;blockaded still&#8221;
+were uttered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know of any sech? Air ye aimin&#8217; to
+find out about em?&#8221; quavered the fat man finally,
+and his father looked scornfully at him, and the
+revelation of his terror.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No. I don&#8217;t mean it in that personal way,&#8221;
+Creed answered impatiently. &#8220;Mr. Turrentine,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' name='page_109'></a>109</span>
+I wish you&#8217;d tell me what you think about it.
+You&#8217;ve lived all your life in the mountains;
+you&#8217;re a man of judgment&mdash;is there any way
+to show our people the folly as well as the crime
+of illicit distilling?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Jephthah surveyed with amusement the youth
+who came to an old moonshiner for an opinion
+as to the advisability of the traffic. He liked the
+audacity of it. It tickled his fancy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well sir,&#8221; he said finally, &#8220;the guv&#8217;ment sets
+off thar in Washington and names a-many a
+thing that I shall do and that I shan&#8217;t do. Howsomever,
+they is but one thing hit will come here
+and watch out to see ef I keep rules on&mdash;and
+that&#8217;s the matter o&#8217; moonshine whiskey. Guv&#8217;ment,&#8221;
+he repeated meditatively but with rising
+rancour, &#8220;what has the guv&#8217;ment ever done
+fer me, that I should be asked to do so much
+for hit? I put the case thisaway. That
+man raises corn and grinds it to meal and
+makes it into bread. I raise corn and grind
+hit to meal and make clean, honest whiskey.
+The man that makes the bread pays no tax;
+guv&#8217;ment says I shall pay a tax&mdash;an&#8217; I say
+I will not, by God!&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' name='page_110'></a>110</span></p>
+<p>The big voice had risen to a good deal of feeling
+before old Jephthah made an end.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nor I wouldn&#8217;t neither,&#8221; bleated Jim Cal
+in comical antiphon.</p>
+<p>In the light from the open doorway Creed&#8217;s
+face looked uneasy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you don&#8217;t think&mdash;you wouldn&#8217;t&mdash;&#8221; he
+began and then broke off.</p>
+<p>Old Jephthah shook his head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t got no blockade still,&#8221; he asserted
+sweepingly. &#8220;I made my last run of moonshine
+whiskey many a year ago. I reckon two wrongs
+don&#8217;t make a right.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed&#8217;s dismay increased. Inexperienced boy,
+he had not expected to encounter such feeling
+in the discussion of this the one topic upon which
+your true mountaineer of the remote districts
+can never be anything but passionate, embittered,
+at bay.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You name the crime of makin&#8217; wildcat whiskey,&#8221;
+the old man&#8217;s deep, accusing voice went on,
+after a little silence. &#8220;It ain&#8217;t no crime&mdash;an&#8217;
+you know it&mdash;an&#8217; no guv&#8217;ment o&#8217; mortal men can
+make a crime out&#8217;n it. As for the foolishness of
+it,&#8221; he dropped his chin on his breast, his black
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' name='page_111'></a>111</span>
+eyes looked out broodingly, his great beard rose
+against his lips and muffled his tones, &#8220;I reckon
+the foolishness of a thing is what each feller has
+to find out for hisself,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Daddies has
+been tryin&#8217; since the time of Adam to let their
+knowin&#8217; it sarve for their sons; but ef one of &#8217;em
+has made the plan work yit, I ain&#8217;t heard on it.
+Nor the guv&#8217;ment can&#8217;t neither. A man&#8217;ll take
+his punishment for a meanness an&#8217; l&#8217;arn by it;
+but to be jailed for what&#8217;s his right makes an
+outlaw of him, an&#8217; always will. Good Lord,
+Creed! What set you an&#8217; me off on this tune?
+Young feller, you ort to be down yon dancin&#8217; with
+the gals, instead of here talking foolishness to a
+old man like me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed arose to his tall young height and glanced
+uncertainly from his host to the lighted room
+from which came the sounds of fiddle and stamping
+feet. It was a little hard for a prophet on his
+own mountain-top to be sent to play with the
+children; yet he went.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='VII_KISSES' id='VII_KISSES'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' name='page_112'></a>112</span>
+<h2>Chapter VII</h2>
+<h3>Kisses</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>With the advent of the four Turrentine boys
+festivities had taken on a brighter air, the
+game became better worth while.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wade, you&#8217;ve got to fiddle,&#8221; cried Judith
+peremptorily. A chair was set upon a table in
+the corner, the rather reluctant Wade hoisted
+to it, and soon &#8220;Weevily Wheat,&#8221; as the twitting
+tune comes from the country fiddler&#8217;s jigging
+bow, was filling the room.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon I ought to have asked your ruthers
+before I took Wade out of the game,&#8221; Judith said
+to Huldah Spiller as they joined hands to begin.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Like I cared!&#8221; retorted Huldah, tossing her
+red head till the curls bobbed. She was wearing
+the new blue lawn dress, made by a real store
+pattern cut out of tissue paper, and was supremely
+conscious of looking her best.</p>
+<p>The Lusk girls in spotted calico frocks, the
+dots whereof were pink on Cliantha&#8217;s dress, and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' name='page_113'></a>113</span>
+blue on Pendrilla&#8217;s, had bridled and glanced
+about shamefaced when Andy and Jeff came in;
+they now &#8220;balanced&#8221; demurely with down
+dropped eyes as the game moved to the music.</p>
+<p>Judith had left the supper preparations with
+the elder women, pieced out by the assistance of
+old Dilsey Rust, and was most active in the games.
+In the white muslin, washed and ironed by her
+own skilful, capable fingers, with the blue bow
+confining the heavy chestnut braids at the nape
+of her neck, her dark beauty glowed richly. Now
+the players shifted to &#8220;Drop the Handkerchief.&#8221;
+Judith delighted in this game because, fleeter
+of foot, quicker of hand and eye than the others,
+she continually disappointed any daring swain
+who thought to have a kiss from her. Her shining
+eyes were ever on the doorway, till Blatch Turrentine
+left his seat at the back of the room and
+elected to lounge there watching the play with
+the tolerant air of a man contemplating the sports
+of children. It apparently gave him satisfaction
+that Judith time after time eluded a pursuer,
+broke into the ring and left him to wander in
+search of a less alert and resolute fair.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Cain&#8217;t none of the boys kiss yo&#8217; gal,&#8221; panted
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' name='page_114'></a>114</span>
+Huldah Spiller, pausing beside him. &#8220;I doubt
+mightily ef ye could do it yo&#8217;self &#8217;less&#8217;n she
+had a mind to let ye&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith heard, and the carmine on her cheek
+deepened and spread, while the dark eyes above
+gleamed angrily.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come on and play, Blatch,&#8221; called Wade,
+jigging away valiantly at his fiddle. &#8220;We all
+know who it is you want to kiss&mdash;most of us is
+bettin&#8217; that you&#8217;re scared to try.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Play!&#8221; echoed Blatchley in a contemptuous
+tone. &#8220;I say play! When I want to buss a gal,
+I walk up and take my ruthers&mdash;like this.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Again that daunting panther quickness of
+movement from the big slouching figure; the
+powerful lines seemed to melt and flow as he
+flung himself in Judith&#8217;s direction, and cast one
+arm firmly about her in such a way that it pinioned
+both her elbows to her side.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You turn me a-loose!&#8221; she cried, even as
+Little Buck had cried. &#8220;That ain&#8217;t fair. I
+wasn&#8217;t ready for ye, &#8217;caze ye said ye wouldn&#8217;t
+play. You turn me a-loose or ye&#8217;ll wish ye
+had.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No fair&mdash;no fair!&#8221; came the cries from the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' name='page_115'></a>115</span>
+boys in the ring. &#8220;Either you stay out or come
+in. Jude&#8217;s right.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, some of ye put me out,&#8221; suggested
+Blatchley, significantly. He had brought a jug
+of moonshine whiskey over from the still and
+it was flowing freely, though unknown to Old
+Jephthah, in the loft where most of his possessions
+were kept.</p>
+<p>No man moved to lay finger on him. He held
+Judith&mdash;scarlet of face and almost in tears&mdash;by her
+elbows, and lowered his mocking countenance to
+within a few inches of her angry eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now kiss me pretty, and kiss me all yo&#8217;self.
+I ain&#8217;t got nothin&#8217; to do with this; hit&#8217;s yo&#8217; play.
+You been wantin&#8217; to git a chance to kiss me this
+long while,&#8221; he asserted with derisive humour.
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t you hold off becaze the others is here;
+that ain&#8217;t the way you do when we&#8217;re&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wade&mdash;Jim Cal! Won&#8217;t some o&#8217; you boys
+pull this fool man away,&#8221; appealed Judith. &#8220;I
+wish somebody&#8217;d call Uncle Jep. You can hold
+yo&#8217; ugly old face there till yo&#8217; hair turns grey,&#8221;
+she suddenly and furiously addressed her admirer.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ll never kiss ye.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes you will&mdash;you always do,&#8221; Blatchley
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' name='page_116'></a>116</span>
+maintained. &#8220;Ef I was to tell the folks how
+blame lovin&#8217; ye are when jest you and me is alone
+together&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>He looked over his shoulder to enjoy the
+triumph of the moment. Blatchley Turrentine&#8217;s
+delight was to traverse the will of every other
+human being with his own preference. Judith&#8217;s
+gaze, tormented, tear-blurred, followed his and
+saw across the shoulders of the others, the shine
+of Creed Bonbright&#8217;s fair hair, in the doorway.
+The sight brought from her an inarticulate cry.
+It fired Blatchley to take the kiss which he had
+vowed should be given him. As he bent to do so,
+Creed stepped forward and laid a hand upon his
+shoulder. The movement was absolutely pacific,
+but the fingers closed with a viselike grip, and
+there was so sharp a backward jerk that the
+proffered salute was not delivered.</p>
+<p>In the surprise of the moment Judith pulled
+herself free and stood at bay. For an instant
+the two men looked into each other&#8217;s
+eyes. Creed&#8217;s blue orbs were calm, impersonal,
+and without one hint of yielding or
+fear.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you don&#8217;t play fair,&#8221; he said in argumentative
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' name='page_117'></a>117</span>
+tone, &#8220;there&#8217;s no use playing at all.
+Let&#8217;s close up the ring and try it again.&#8221;</p>
+<p>All eyes in the room turned to Blatchley Turrentine,
+the women in a flutter of terrified apprehension,
+the men with a brightening of interest;
+surely he would resent this interference in some
+notable manner. But Blatch was in fact too
+deadly to be merely high-tempered, quick in
+anger. For a moment he stared at Bonbright,
+trying to look him down; then those odd, whitey-grey
+eyes narrowed to mere slits. He laid the
+matter up in his mind; this was not the time for
+settling it&mdash;here before Judith Barrier and the
+women. He did not mean to content himself
+with mere fisticuffs, or even a chance pocket-knife
+which might double in his grasp and cut
+his own hand. To the immense surprise of
+everybody he stretched out his long arms, caught
+carelessly at the fingers of a player on either
+side of him, and, mending the line, began to
+move in rhythmic time to the fiddle.</p>
+<p>It was soon observable that Creed Bonbright&#8217;s
+presence caused Huldah Spiller&#8217;s spirits to mount
+several notes in the octave. Whether it was that
+her own betrothed was looking on, and this an
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' name='page_118'></a>118</span>
+excellent chance to show him that even the town
+feller felt her charm, or merely Creed&#8217;s personal
+attractions could hardly be guessed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come on,&#8221; she cried recklessly, &#8220;let&#8217;s play
+&#8216;Over the River to Feed my Sheep.&#8217; Strike up
+the tune, Wade.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The game she mentioned was also a forfeit
+play, with the difference that the kiss was more
+certain, being taken of mere choice&mdash;though
+delivered, of course, with due maidenly reluctance
+and a show of resisting&mdash;whenever the girl facing
+one could be caught over the line. All the young
+people played it; all the elders deprecated it.
+At the bottom of Judith&#8217;s heart lay one reason
+for making a play-party and bidding Creed
+Bonbright to it; and now Huldah Spiller was
+blatantly calling out the unconfessed, the unconfessable;
+Wade was sullenly dropping into
+the old Scotch air; the long lines were forming,
+men opposite the girls&mdash;and the red-headed
+minx had placed herself directly across from
+Creed!</p>
+<p>The laughing chains swayed back and forth
+to the measure of the music&mdash;advancing, retreating,
+pursuing, evading, choosing, rejecting,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' name='page_119'></a>119</span>
+in a gay parody of courtship. Voices were added
+to that of the fiddle.</p>
+<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:4em;'><tr><td>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s over the river to feed my sheep,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 1.83958793230316em;'>Hit&#8217;s over the river to Charley;</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Hit&#8217;s over the river to feed my sheep</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 1.47167034584253em;'>An&#8217; to kiss my lonesome darling,&#8221;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>they sang.</p>
+<p>Shadows crouched in the corners, flickering,
+dancing, threatening to come out and play, then
+shrinking back as the blaze leaped and the room
+widened. The rough brown walls took the shine
+and broidered themselves with a thread of
+golden tracery. In such an illumination the
+eyes shone with added luster, flying locks were
+all hyacinthine, the frocks might have been silks
+and satins.</p>
+<p>In the movement of the game girls and boys
+divided. The girls tossed beribboned heads in
+unwonted coquetry, yet showed always, in downcast
+eyes and the modest management of light
+draperies, the mountain ideal of maidenhood.
+Across from them the line of youthful masculinity
+swayed; tall, lean, brown-faced, keen-eyed young
+hunters these, sinewy and light and quick of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' name='page_120'></a>120</span>
+movement, with fine hands and feet, and a lazy
+pride of bearing. A very different type from
+that found in the lowlands, or in ordinary rustic
+communities.</p>
+<p>Judith noted the other players not at all; her
+hot reprehending eyes were on the girl in the blue
+dress. She did not observe that she herself was
+dancing opposite Andy, while Pendrilla Lusk
+dragged with drooping head in the line across
+from the amiably grinning Doss Provine. Finding
+herself suddenly in the lead and successful, Huldah
+began to preen her feathers a bit. She withdrew
+a hand from the girl on her right to arrange the
+small string of blue glass beads around her neck.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jest ketch to my skirt for a minute,&#8221; she
+whispered loudly. &#8220;I reckon hit won&#8217;t rip,
+though most of &#8217;em is &#8216;stitches taken for a
+friend&#8217;&mdash;I was that anxious to get it done for
+the party. Oh, Law!&#8221;</p>
+<p>And then&mdash;nobody knew how it happened&mdash;she
+was over the line, her hold on the hands of her
+mates broken, she had tripped and fallen in a
+giggling blue lawn heap fairly at Bonbright&#8217;s feet.
+He was in a position where the least gallant must
+offer the salute the game demanded, but to make
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' name='page_121'></a>121</span>
+assurance doubly sure Huldah put out her hands
+like a three-year-old, crying,</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;p me up, Creed, I b&#8217;lieve I&#8217;ve sprained my
+ankle.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The young fellow from Hepzibah was in a
+mood for play. After all he was only a big boy,
+and he had been long barred out from young
+people&#8217;s frolics. Here was a gay, toward little
+soul, who seemed to like him. He stooped and
+caught her by the waist, picking her up as one
+might a small child, and holding her a moment
+with her feet off the floor. Something in the
+laughing challenge of her face as she protested
+and begged to be put down prompted him as to
+what was expected. He kissed her lightly upon
+the cheek before he released her.</p>
+<p>As he set her down he encountered Wade
+Turrentine&#8217;s eye. A spark of tawny fire had
+leaped to life in its hazel depth. The fiddler still
+clung faithfully to his office. If he missed a note
+now and again, or played off key, he might be
+forgiven. It is to be remembered that he sawed
+away without a moment&#8217;s pause throughout the
+entire episode.</p>
+<p>Creed reached out to join the broken line and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' name='page_122'></a>122</span>
+touched Jeff&#8217;s arm. The boy flung away from
+the contact with a muttered word. He looked
+helplessly at Judith, but she would not glance
+at him; head haughtily erect, long lashes on
+crimson cheeks, red lip curled to an expression
+of offence and disdain, the young hostess mended
+the line by joining the hands of the two girls on
+each side of her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You-all can go on playin&#8217; without me,&#8221; she
+said in a constrained tone. &#8220;I got to see to something
+in the other room.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;See here, Mister Man,&#8221; remarked Blatch,
+as Judith prepared to leave. &#8220;You&#8217;re mighty
+free and permisc&#8217;ous makin&#8217; rules for kissin&#8217;
+games, but I take notice you don&#8217;t follow none of
+&#8217;em yo&#8217;se&#8217;f.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith halted uncertainly. To stop and defend
+Creed was out of the question. She was about
+to interpose with the general accusation that
+Blatch was trying to pick a fuss and break
+up her play-party, when Iley&#8217;s voice, for once
+a welcome interruption, broke in from the
+doorway.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jude, we ain&#8217;t got plates enough for everybody
+an&#8217; to put the biscuit on,&#8221; called Jim Cal&#8217;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' name='page_123'></a>123</span>
+wife. &#8220;Ax Creed Bonbright could we borry a
+few from his house.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith closed instantly with the diversion.
+She moved quickly toward the door; Bonbright
+joined her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why yes,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You know I told you
+to help yourself. Let me go over now and get
+what you want. Is there anything else?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s mighty kind of you, Creed,&#8221; Judith
+thanked him. &#8220;I reckon I better go along with
+ye and see. I don&#8217;t think of anything else just
+now. Iley, we&#8217;ll be back quick as we can with
+all the plates ye need.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Together they stepped out into the soft dusk
+of the summer night, followed by the narrowed
+gaze of Blatch Turrentine&#8217;s grey eyes.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='VIII_ON_THE_DOORSTONE' id='VIII_ON_THE_DOORSTONE'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' name='page_124'></a>124</span>
+<h2>Chapter VIII</h2>
+<h3>On the Doorstone</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Behind them the play was resumed in the
+lighted room; the whining of the fiddle, the
+thud and stamp of many feet, came to them softened
+and refined by a little distance. They were
+suddenly drawn together in that intimacy of two
+who leave the company and the lights on a special
+expedition. Judith made an impatient mental
+effort to release the incident of Huldah and the
+kiss, which had so unreasonably irritated her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If we was to go acrosst fields hit would be a
+heap better,&#8221; she advised softly, and they moved
+through the odorous, myriad-voiced darkness
+of the midsummer night, side by side, without
+speech, for a time. Then as Creed halted at a dim,
+straggling barrier which crossed their course and
+laid down a rail fence partially that she might
+the more easily get over in her white frock, she
+returned to the tormenting subject once more,
+opening obliquely:
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' name='page_125'></a>125</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;You and Huldy Spiller is old friends I reckon.
+Don&#8217;t you think she&#8217;s a powerful pretty
+girl?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mighty pretty,&#8221; echoed Creed absently. All
+girls were of an even prettiness to him, and
+Huldah Spiller was a pleasant little thing. He
+was wondering what he had done back there in
+the play-room that had set them all against him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Her and Wade is goin&#8217; to be wedded come
+September,&#8221; put in Judith jealously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yo&#8217; cousin will be getting a mighty fine wife.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The mountain man is apt to make his comments
+on the marriages of his friends with dignified
+formality, and Creed uttered the accustomed
+phrase without heat or enthusiasm; but it seemed
+to Judith that he might have said less&mdash;or more.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I never did like red hair,&#8221; the girl
+managed to get out finally; &#8220;but I reckon hit&#8217;s
+better than old black stuff like mine.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;My mother&#8217;s hair was sorter sandy,&#8221; Creed
+answered in his gentle, tolerant fashion. &#8220;Mine
+favours it.&#8221; And he had not the wit to add
+that dark hair, however, pleased him best.</p>
+<p>Judith stepped beside him for some moments
+in mortified silence. Evidently he was green wood
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' name='page_126'></a>126</span>
+and could by none of her old methods be kindled.
+Then, their eyes becoming accustomed to the
+darkness, they came out into a modified twilight
+in the clearing about the Bonbright house. &#8220;You
+better unlock the door and go in first,&#8221; suggested
+Judith, in a depressed tone.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, I ain&#8217;t got the key,&#8221; Creed reminded
+her. &#8220;I left it with you&mdash;didn&#8217;t you bring it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>They drew unconsciously close together in the
+dark with something of the guilty consternation
+of childish culprits. A mishap of the sort ripens
+an acquaintance swiftly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a gump I was!&#8221; Judith breathed with
+sudden low laughter. He could see her eyes
+shining in the gloom, and the dim outline of her
+figure. &#8220;I knowed well an&#8217; good you didn&#8217;t
+have the key&mdash;hit&#8217;s in the blue bowl on the
+fire-board at home.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ought to have thought of it,&#8221; asserted Creed
+shouldering the blame. &#8220;And I&#8217;m sorry; I
+wanted to show you my mother&#8217;s picture.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;An&#8217; <i>I&#8217;m</i> sorry,&#8221; echoed Judith, remembering
+fleetingly the swept and garnished rooms, the
+wreath of red roses; &#8220;I had something to show
+you, too.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' name='page_127'></a>127</span></p>
+<p>Nothing was said of the dishes for the merrymakers
+at Judith&#8217;s house. Another interest was
+obtruding itself into the simple, practical expedition,
+crowding aside its original purpose.
+The girl looked around the dim, weed-grown
+garden, its bushes blots of deeper shadow upon
+the darkness, its blossoms vaguely conjectured
+by their odour.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There used to be a bubby bush&mdash;a sweet-scented
+shrub&mdash;over in that corner,&#8221; Creed
+hesitated. &#8220;I&#8217;d like to get you some of the
+bubbies. My mother used to pick &#8217;em and put
+&#8217;em in the bureau drawers I remember, and they
+made everything smell nice.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He had taken her hand and led her with him,
+advancing uncertainly toward the flowers. He
+felt her shiver, and halted instantly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yo&#8217; cold!&#8221; he said. &#8220;Let me take my coat
+off and put it around ye&mdash;I don&#8217;t need it. You
+got overheated playing back there, and now
+you&#8217;ll catch a cold.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no,&#8221; disclaimed Judith, whose little
+shudder had been as much from excitement
+as from the sharp chill of the night
+air after the heated play-room. &#8220;I reckon
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' name='page_128'></a>128</span>
+somebody jest walked over my grave&mdash;I
+ain&#8217;t cold.&#8221;</p>
+<p>But he had pulled off the coat while he spoke,
+and now he turned to put it about her, and drew
+her back to the doorstep. Judith was full of a
+strange ecstasy as she slipped her arms into the
+sleeves. The lover&#8217;s earliest and favourite artifice&mdash;the
+primitive kindness of wrapping her in
+his own garment! Even Creed, unready and
+unschooled as he was, felt stir within him its
+intimate appeal.</p>
+<p>A nebulous lightening which had been making
+itself felt behind the eastern line of mountains
+now came plainly in view, late moon, melancholy
+and significant, as the waning moon always
+is. By its dim illumination Creed saw Judith
+Barrier standing at the door of his own house,
+smiling at him tremulously, with the immemorial
+challenge in her dark eyes. To that challenge
+the native man in him&mdash;the lover&mdash;so long
+usurped by the zealot, the would-be philanthropist,
+rose thrilling, yet still bewildered and
+uncertain, to respond. Something heady and
+ancient and eternally young seemed to pass into
+his soul out of the night and the moonlight and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' name='page_129'></a>129</span>
+the shining of her eyes. He was all alive to her
+nearness, her loveliness, to the sweet sense that
+she was a young woman, he a young man, and the
+loveliness and the dearness of her were his for the
+trying&mdash;for the winning. His breath caught in
+his throat.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wait a minute,&#8221; he whispered hurriedly,
+though she had not moved. With eager hands
+he wrapped the coat close about her. &#8220;Let&#8217;s
+sit here on the doorstep and talk awhile. There
+are a heap of things I want to ask you about&mdash;that
+I want to tell you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Young beauty and belle that she was, Judith
+had been sought and courted, in that most primitive
+society, since she was fourteen. She was
+love&#8217;s votary by birthright, and her wit and her
+emotions were schooled in love&#8217;s game: to lure,
+to please, to exploit, to defend, evade, deny;
+in each postulant seeking, testing, trying for the
+right man to whom should be made love&#8217;s final
+surrender. But Creed, always absorbed in vague
+altruistic dreams, had no boyish sweethearting
+behind him to have taught him the ways of
+courtship.</p>
+<p>Fire-flies sparkled everywhere, thickest over the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' name='page_130'></a>130</span>
+marshy places. A mole cricket was chirring in
+the grass by the old doorstone. Sharp on the
+soft dark air came the call of that woodland night
+bird which the mountain people say cries &#8220;chip-out-o&#8217;-white-oak,&#8221;
+and which others translate
+&#8220;chuck-wills-widow.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;&#8221; he began, hesitated momentarily, then
+daunted, grasped at the familiar things of his
+life&mdash;&#8220;I don&#8217;t get on very well up here. I&#8217;m
+afraid I&#8217;ve made a failure of it; but&#8221;&mdash;he turned
+to her in a curious, groping entreaty, his hat in
+his hands, the dim moonlight full on his fair
+head and in his eager eyes&mdash;&#8220;but if you would
+help me&mdash;with you&mdash;I think I ought to&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say made a failure!&#8221; cooed Judith in her
+rich, low tones. &#8220;You ax me whatever you
+want to know. You tell me what it is that you&#8217;re
+aimin&#8217; to do&mdash;I say made a failure!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Her trust was so hearty, so wholesale, she
+filled so instantly the position not only of sweetheart
+but of mother to a small boy with an unsatisfactory
+toy&mdash;that would always be Judith
+Barrier&mdash;that Creed&#8217;s heart&mdash;the man&#8217;s heart&mdash;a
+lonely one, and beginning to feel itself misunderstood
+and barred out from its kind&mdash;melted
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' name='page_131'></a>131</span>
+in his bosom. There was silence between them,
+a silence vibrant with the coming utterance.
+But even as the dark, fond, inviting eyes and the
+troubled, kindling blue ones encountered, as
+Creed lifted the girl&#8217;s hand timidly, and essayed
+speech, the voice of that one who had stepped on
+her grave harshly aroused them both.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I vow&mdash;I thort it was thieves, an&#8217; I was
+a-goin&#8217; to see could I pick off you-all,&#8221; drawled
+Blatchley Turrentine&#8217;s level tones from the
+shadow of the garden. Mutely, with a sense of
+chill and disappointment that was like the shock
+of a physical blow to each, the two young creatures
+got to their feet and turned to leave the
+place, preparing to go by the high road, without
+consultation. As they passed him near the
+gate, Blatch Turrentine fell in on the other side
+of the girl and walked with them silently for
+a time.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Iley sont me over,&#8221; he said finally. &#8220;She
+was skeered you-all wouldn&#8217;t bring any plates.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Neither Judith nor Creed offered any explanation.
+Instead:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t see how you&#8217;re goin&#8217; to help
+anything,&#8221; said the girl bitterly&mdash;any presence
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' name='page_132'></a>132</span>
+must have been hateful to her which interrupted
+or forestalled what Creed would certainly have
+said, that for which her whole twenty years had
+waited.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I&#8217;ve got the plates,&#8221; chuckled Blatch,
+jingling a bulky package under his arm.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, how did you&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; began Judith in
+amazement.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uh-huh, I&#8217;ve got my own little trick of
+gittin&#8217; in whar I choose to go,&#8221; declared Turrentine.
+He leaned around and looked meaningly
+at the man on her other side, then questioned,
+&#8220;How long do you-all reckon I&#8217;d been thar?&#8221;
+and examined them keenly in the shadowy half
+light.</p>
+<p>But neither hastened to disclaim or explain,
+neither seemed in any degree embarrassed, though
+to both his bearing was plainly almost intolerable.
+Thereafter they walked in silence which was
+scarcely broken till they reached the gate and
+Iley came shrilling out to meet them demanding,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you get them thar plates from Miz.
+Lusk&#8217;s, you Blatch Turrentine?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith looked at him with angry scorn. It
+was the old tyrannical trick which she had known
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' name='page_133'></a>133</span>
+from her childhood up, the attempt to maintain
+an ascendency over her by appearing to know
+everything and be everywhere&mdash;&#8220;like he was the
+Lord-a&#8217;mighty Hisself,&#8221; she muttered indignantly,
+as Creed joined a group of young men, and she
+passed in to her necessary activities as hostess.</p>
+<p>Judith Barrier&#8217;s play-party won to its close with
+light hearts and light feet, with heavy hearts
+which the weary body would fain have denied,
+with love and laughter, with jealousy and chagrin,
+with the slanted look of envy, of furtive admiration,
+or of disparagement, from feminine eyes
+at the costumes of other women, just as any ball
+does.</p>
+<p>The two who had trembled upon the brink
+of some personal revelation, a closer communion,
+were not again alone together that evening.
+Amid the moving figures of the others, now to
+his eyes as painted automatons, Creed Bonbright
+watched with strong fascination in which there
+was a tincture that was almost terror, the beautiful
+girl who had suddenly emerged from her class
+and become for him the one woman.</p>
+<p>So adequate, so competent, Judith dominated
+the situation; passing among her guests, the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' name='page_134'></a>134</span>
+thick dark lashes continually lowered toward
+her crimson cheeks. Some subtle sense told her
+that the spell was working. Smiles from this
+sweet inner satisfaction curved her red lips. No
+need to look&mdash;she knew how his eyes were following
+her. The exultant knowledge of it sang all
+through her being. Gone were her perturbations,
+her chilling uncertainties. She was at once
+stimulated and quieted.</p>
+<p>Their good-byes were said in the most public
+manner, yet one glance flashed between them
+which asked and promised an early meeting.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='IX_FOEMAN_S_BLUFF' id='IX_FOEMAN_S_BLUFF'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' name='page_135'></a>135</span>
+<h2>Chapter IX</h2>
+<h3>Foeman&#8217;s Bluff</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was near midnight when Creed sought his
+patient mule at the rack, to find that Doss
+Provine had ridden the animal away.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He said you was a-goin&#8217; to stay at yo&#8217; own
+house to-night, an&#8217; he &#8217;lowed ye wouldn&#8217;t need
+the mule, an&#8217; he was mighty tired. He &#8217;lowed hit
+was a mighty long ja&#8217;nt out to the Edge whar
+he was a-goin&#8217;,&#8221; contributed Blev Straley, who
+seemed to have been admitted to Provine&#8217;s
+confidence.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mighty long ja&#8217;nt&mdash;I say long ja&#8217;nt!&#8221; ejaculated
+old man Broyles, who was engaged in
+saddling his ancient one-eyed mare. &#8220;Ef I
+couldn&#8217;t spit as fur as from here to the Edge I&#8217;d
+never chaw tobacker agin! Plain old fashioned
+laziness is what ails Doss Provine. I&#8217;d nacher&#8217;ly
+w&#8217;ar him out for this trick, Bonbright, ef I was
+you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I did aim to stay over at my house
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136' name='page_136'></a>136</span>
+to-night,&#8221; said Creed, &#8220;But I can&#8217;t. I&#8217;ve got a
+case to try in the morning, soon, that I&#8217;ve got
+to look up some points on yet to-night. I reckon
+I&#8217;ll have to foot it out to Aunt Nancy&#8217;s.&#8221;</p>
+<p>As Creed spoke a fellow by the name of Taylor
+Stribling, a sort of satellite of Blatchley Turrentine&#8217;s
+came slouching from the shadows of the
+nearby smoke-house. He watched old man Broyles
+ride away, and Blev Straley take a leisurely
+departure.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mighty bad ye got to hoof it, Creed,&#8221; he
+observed. &#8220;Ef you&#8217;ve a mind to come with me
+I can show you a short cut through the woods by
+Foeman&#8217;s Bluff. Hit&#8217;s right on the first part
+of my way.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed had been long out of the mountains or
+he would have known that a short cut which led
+by Foeman&#8217;s Bluff would certainly be a strange
+route toward Nancy Card&#8217;s cabin; but it was
+characteristic of the man that without question
+or demur he accepted the proffered friendly turn
+at its face value, and he and Stribling at once
+took the way which led across the gulch to the
+still. They walked for some time, Stribling
+leading, Creed following, deep in his own thoughts.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' name='page_137'></a>137</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Looks like this is a queer direction to be
+going,&#8221; he roused himself to comment wonderingly
+as they dipped into the sudden hollow.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The trail turns a piece up yon,&#8221; explained
+the guide briefly.</p>
+<p>Again they toiled on in silence, crossing the dry
+boulder-strewn bed of a stream, travelling always
+in the dense darkness of the tall timber, finally
+striking the rise, which was so abrupt and steep
+that they had to catch by the path-side bushes
+to pull themselves up. It was lighter here, as
+the trail mounted toward a region of rocky
+bluffs where there was no big timber, running
+obliquely across the great promontory that had got
+the name of Foeman&#8217;s Bluff, from old Ab Foeman
+whose hideout, still unknown, was said to be
+somewhere in its front.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ain&#8217;t it mighty curious to be goin&#8217; up so?&#8221;
+Creed panted. &#8220;Aunt Nancy&#8217;s place lies lower
+than the Turrentines&#8217;. By the road it&#8217;s down
+hill mighty near all the way.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thishyer&#8217;s a short cut,&#8221; growled the other
+evasively. &#8220;Mind how you step. Hit&#8217;s a fur
+ways down thar ef a body was to fall.&#8221;</p>
+<p>With the words they came out suddenly on the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' name='page_138'></a>138</span>
+Bluff itself where the trail widened into a natural
+terrace, and the great rock, solemn with majestic
+peace, faced an infinity of sky with bared brow.
+As they emerged into the light Creed took off
+his hat and lifted his countenance, inhaling the
+beauty of the summer night. The late moon had
+climbed a third of the way up the heavens; now
+she looked down with a chastened, tarnished
+light, yet with a dusky, diminished beauty that
+held a sort of mild pathos. Great timbered
+slopes, inky black in this illumination, fell away
+on every hand down to where the mists lay
+death-white in the valley; behind them was a
+low, irregular bulk of brush-grown rock; and all
+about the whirr of katydids, a million voices
+blended into one. From a nearby thicket
+came to them the click and liquid gurgle,
+&#8220;Chip-out-o&#8217;-white-oak!&#8221; It sent Creed&#8217;s
+heart and fancy questing back to the past
+hour with the girl on the doorstone. What
+would he have asked, she answered, if Blatch
+had not interrupted them? He scarcely heard
+the wavering cry of a screech-owl that followed
+hard upon the remembered notes.
+Stribling, however, noted the latter promptly,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' name='page_139'></a>139</span>
+and began edging toward the shadow as his
+companion spoke.</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is mighty sightly,&#8221; said Creed, looking
+about him musingly; &#8220;I do love a moonshiny
+night.&#8221;</p>
+<p>For a moment there was only the noise of the
+katydids, backgrounded and enfolded by the
+deep silence of the great mountains. Then
+someone broke out into what was evidently
+a forced laugh, a long-drawn, girding, mirthless
+haw-haw, the laboured insult of which stung
+Creed into a certain resentment of demeanour.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the joke?&#8221; he inquired dryly, turning
+toward Taylor Stribling. But Stribling had
+silently melted away among the shadows of
+distant trees along the trail. It was Blatchley
+Turrentine who stood before him thrusting forward
+a jeering face in the uncertain half light,
+while three vaguely defined forms moved and
+shouldered behind him. The apparition was
+sinister, but if Blatch looked for demonstrations
+of fear he was disappointed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the joke?&#8221; Creed repeated.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t hold in when I heared your pretty
+talk,&#8221; drawled Blatch, setting his hands on his
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' name='page_140'></a>140</span>
+hips and barring the way. &#8220;Whar might you
+be a-goin&#8217;, Mr. Creed Bonbright?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Home,&#8221; returned Creed briefly. &#8220;Get out of
+my road, and I&#8217;ll be obliged to you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yo&#8217; road&mdash;<i>yo&#8217;</i> road!&#8221; echoed Blatch. &#8220;Well,
+young feller, besides this here road runnin&#8217; acrosst
+the south eend o&#8217; the property that I&#8217;ve rented
+on a five-year lease, ef so be that yo&#8217;re a-goin&#8217; to
+Nancy Cyard&#8217;s house this is a mighty curious
+direction for you to be travellin&#8217; in.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was told it was a short cut,&#8221; said Bonbright
+controlling his temper. A man who was
+justice of the peace, going home to get ready
+to try a case on the morrow, must not embroil
+himself.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good Lord!&#8221; scoffed Blatch. &#8220;You claim
+to be mountain raised, and tell me you think this
+is a short cut from whar you was at to Nancy
+Cyard&#8217;s? I reckon you&#8217;ll have to make up
+another tale.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Bonbright became suddenly aware that he was
+surrounded, two of the men who were with Turrentine
+having slipped past him and appearing
+now as blots of blacker shadow against the trees
+on either side of the path by which he had come.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' name='page_141'></a>141</span>
+Turrentine and the remaining man barred the
+way ahead; on the one side was the sheer descent
+of the bluff; on the other the rough, broken
+rise.</p>
+<p>It was like a bad dream. With his usual
+forthright directness he spoke out.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it you want of me&mdash;all of you? This
+meeting never came about by chance.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Blatch shook his head. &#8220;Yo&#8217; mighty right
+it didn&#8217;t,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Me an&#8217; the boys has a word
+to speak with you, and when we ketch you walkin&#8217;
+on our land in the middle o&#8217; the night&mdash;with
+whatever intentions&mdash;we think the time has come
+for talkin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Andy! Jeff! Is that you?&#8221; Creed, the rash,
+called over his shoulder to the two behind him.</p>
+<p>An inarticulate growl answered, and then a
+boyish voice began,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yo&#8217; mighty free with folks&#8217; names, you Creed
+Bonbright. Me and my brother both told you
+what we thought o&#8217; you when you come to the
+jail. I told you then you&#8217;d be run out of the
+Turkey Tracks ef you tried to come up here. We
+don&#8217;t want no spies.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Spies!&#8221; echoed Creed with a rising note of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' name='page_142'></a>142</span>
+anger in his voice. &#8220;Who said I was a spy?
+What should I be spying on?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yo&#8217; friend Mr. Dan Haley might &#8217;a&#8217; said you
+was a spy,&#8221; suggested Andy&#8217;s higher pitched tones.
+&#8220;As for what you&#8217;d be a-spyin&#8217; on you know best.
+We&#8217;re all mighty peaceable, law-abidin&#8217; folks in
+the Turkey Tracks. I don&#8217;t know of nothin&#8217; that
+we&#8217;re apt to break the law about &#8217;less&#8217;n it would
+be beatin&#8217; up and runnin&#8217; out a spy that&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>The childish bravado of this speech evidently
+displeased Blatch, who wanted the thing done
+and over with. His heavier, grating tones broke
+in,</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;s jest one thing to be said to you, Creed
+Bonbright. You&#8217;ve got to get out of the Turkey
+Tracks&mdash;and get quick. Air ye goin&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No!&#8221; Creed flung back at him. &#8220;When I take
+my orders from you it will be a mighty cold day.
+I came up here in the Turkey Tracks to do a good
+work among my own people. I&#8217;m going to stay
+here and do it in my own way. Is that you,
+Wade Turrentine? What have you got to say
+to me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The second of the men who faced him stirred
+uneasily at the mention of his name. It rankled
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' name='page_143'></a>143</span>
+in the expectant bridegroom&#8217;s heart that all he
+could complain of concerning Creed Bonbright
+was that Huldah had thrown herself in his way
+and forced a kiss upon him&mdash;not that Bonbright
+had been the amatory aggressor!</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say what Blatch says,&#8221; growled Wade as
+though the words stuck in his throat.</p>
+<p>More and more the whole thing was like a
+nightmare to Creed; he felt as though with
+sufficient effort he might throw it off and wake.
+The four men hung at the path-side eyeing him,
+motionless if he were still, moving only if he
+stirred. Even this scarcely gave him a complete
+understanding of the gravity of his situation.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; he said finally, &#8220;I&#8217;m going on home.
+If any of you boys has anything to say to me,
+to-morrow or any day after&mdash;you know where to
+find me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He made as though to pass; but Blatch Turrentine
+stepped swiftly to the middle of the pathway
+and stood breathing a little short.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, by God, we don&#8217;t!&#8221; he panted. &#8220;Ef
+we let you to go this night&mdash;we don&#8217;t know whar
+we&#8217;ll ever find you again. Mebbe you&#8217;ve got
+yo&#8217; budget made up&mdash;on yo&#8217; way to yo&#8217; friend
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' name='page_144'></a>144</span>
+Mr. Dan Haley right now. <i>Ye don&#8217;t go from
+here</i>!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Instinctively Creed fell back a step. It was
+out at last&mdash;this was neither more nor less than a
+waylaying. Did they mean to kill him? Blatch
+Turrentine had crouched where he stood, and
+even as the question went through the victim&#8217;s
+mind, he launched himself with that sudden
+frightful quickness bodily upon Creed.</p>
+<p>It would seem that the slighter man must be
+borne down by the onset. But Bonbright gathered
+himself, his arms shot out and gripped his
+assailant midway. Struggling, panting, gasping,
+stamping, they wrenched and swayed, the three
+who watched them holding aloof. Then with a
+sheer effort of strength Creed tore the heavier
+man from his footing and lifted him clear of the
+ground.</p>
+<p>With a little sobbing oath Andy ran in. Bonbright
+could have heaved the man he held over his
+shoulder in that terrific fall well known to deadly
+wrestling. Wade&#8217;s stern, &#8220;Sst! Git back there!&#8221;
+stopped the boy. Even as Creed&#8217;s muscles
+knotted themselves to the supreme effort came
+sudden memory of what he must stand for to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' name='page_145'></a>145</span>
+these people. It was his right to defend his own
+life; he must not, in any extremity, take that of
+another. His grip relaxed. Turrentine partially
+got his feet again; his arms were free; the right
+made a swift movement, and Creed caught the
+gleam of a knife-blade. Without volition of his
+own he flung all his weight and strength into one
+mighty movement that hurled man and weapon
+from him.</p>
+<p>Plunging, staggering, clutching at the air,
+Turrentine gave ground. The moonlight flickered
+on the blade in his upflung hand as, with a
+strangled hoarse cry he reeled backward over
+the bluff.</p>
+<p>There was a rending sound of breaking branches,
+a noise of rolling rocks; then deadly silence. For
+a long moment the men left standing on the cliff
+strained eyes and ears to where Blatch had gone
+down, then,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Keep off!&#8221; shouted Creed as the three
+others began silently to close in on him.
+&#8220;Stand back, boys. We&#8217;ve had enough of
+this. Draw off and let me get down and see
+what&#8217;s happened to him.&#8221; He kept slowly
+backing away, striving not to be hemmed in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' name='page_146'></a>146</span>
+against the rock behind him. The others warily
+followed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let you down and finish him, ye mean&mdash;don&#8217;t
+ye?&#8221; screamed Andy with all a boy&#8217;s senseless
+rage.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re a fine one to bring law and order into
+the Turkey Tracks,&#8221; Wade taunted savagely.
+&#8220;You&#8217;ve brought murder&mdash;that&#8217;s what you&#8217;ve
+done.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He drew a knife on me,&#8221; cried Bonbright.
+&#8220;You all saw that. I only shoved him away.
+I never meant to throw him over the bluff.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nobody seen no knife but you, Creed Bonbright,&#8221;
+Jeff doggedly asseverated. &#8220;All three
+of us seen you fling Blatch over the bluff. You
+ain&#8217;t in no court of law now. Yo&#8217; lies won&#8217;t do
+you no good. Yo&#8217; where we kill the feller that
+done the killin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;How?&#8221; said Creed, still backing, feeling his
+way slowly, seeking for some break in the rise
+behind, the others coming a little closer. &#8220;By
+jumpin&#8217; on to him somewhere out at night, four
+to one&mdash;or even three to one?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, by God! thataway, ef we cain&#8217;t do it no
+better way,&#8221; panted Wade.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' name='page_147'></a>147</span></p>
+<p>Years before&mdash;heaven knows how many&mdash;a
+little seep of water began to gather between two
+huge stones in the small broken bluff behind
+Creed. Winter after winter the crevice through
+which the trickle came enlarged, the water caught
+in a natural basin and froze with all its puny
+might to heave the stones apart. The winter
+before this slow process had closed leaving a
+wedge of rock trembling upon its base, ready to
+fall into a crevice. Yet the opening was masked
+with vine leaves, and when the spring rains
+finally washed away the mould and the crude
+doorway tottered and sank, the gap thus left was
+unnoted, invisible to the sharpest eye.</p>
+<p>Bonbright pressing close against the rock to
+pass, stepping warily when it was forward, but
+hugging his barrier as a safety, missed his footing,
+and slipped almost without a sound into this
+opening. For a moment he sustained himself
+holding to tree roots, hearkening to the voices
+of those above him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wade&mdash;you fool! What did you let him get
+a-past you for?&#8221;</p>
+<p>And then Wade&#8217;s heavier tones, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t. He
+run back yo&#8217; way.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' name='page_148'></a>148</span></p>
+<p>He could hear their footsteps pounding to and
+fro, their hoarse cries which finally settled down
+into a demand for a lantern.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We can&#8217;t find Blatch nor do nothing for
+him, nor git on the track of Bonbright nor nothin&#8217;
+else, without a lantern. You Jeff, run round
+to the still; me and Andy&#8217;ll go back and fetch
+pap.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed sought cautiously for footing, lost all
+hold, and began a headlong descent.</p>
+<p>Low limbs thrashed his face and body; again
+and again his head was dashed against rocks or
+tree stems; his forehead was gashed; the blood
+poured into his eyes; he rolled and bounded and
+slid down and down and down the crevice, and
+into the ravine, bruised, bleeding, breathless,
+blinded and choked by blood and earth and
+gravel. He was more than half unconscious
+when he brought up at last with a rib-smashing
+thump upon a sapling, and there he clung like a
+dazed animal, gasping.</p>
+<p>Slowly, as his breath came back to him, and he
+cleared the blood and dust from his eyes, Creed
+became aware of a dim glow coming through the
+bushes in one direction. For some time he
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' name='page_149'></a>149</span>
+watched it, making ready to get away as quickly
+as possible, since this must be on Blatch Turrentine&#8217;s
+land, and the light came probably from
+some of Blatch&#8217;s party searching for Turrentine
+himself, or for Creed.</p>
+<p>But when he noted that the illumination was
+steady and stationary, he began to move hesitatingly
+in its direction. He had gone probably two
+or three hundred feet when he came to a place
+whence he had an unobstructed view. The light
+shone out from the cramped opening of a cave.
+He went nearer in a sort of daze. There was
+nobody to intercept him, Blatch and the boys,
+whom he had left on the bluff above, when he so
+unexpectedly descended from it, being the only
+sentinels out. No approach was looked for from
+the quarter where he now was, and he found himself,
+gazing directly into Blatch Turrentine&#8217;s blockaded
+still. He could distinctly see Jim Cal and the
+fellow Taylor Stribling moving about within the
+cave. They were attending to a run of whiskey.
+While Bonbright stood motionless, not yet fully
+comprehending the sinister colour his presence
+might wear, there was the thud of running footsteps,
+Jeff Turrentine rounded the boulder on the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' name='page_150'></a>150</span>
+other side of the cave and called aloud to those
+within,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jim Cal! Taylor! Buck! Creed Bonbright&#8217;s
+killed Blatch&mdash;flung him clean over the bluff&mdash;and
+got plumb away from us! Bring a lantern
+you-all. We&#8217;ve got to hunt for Blatch in under
+Foeman&#8217;s Bluff&mdash;I&#8217;ll show you whar.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Silently Creed drew back into the dense undergrowth.
+He knew where he was, now. As he
+retreated swiftly in the opposite direction from
+that in which Jeff had approached, he could
+vaguely hear the excited voices at the still,
+questioning, replying, denouncing, exclaiming.
+Presently he came out upon the main trail,
+rounded the Gulch, heading for the big road and
+Nancy Card&#8217;s cabin, his soul sick within him at
+the events of the evening, bitterly regretting the
+explicit and unwelcome knowledge of the secret
+still which had been forced upon him, feeling
+himself now a spy indeed&mdash;a spy and a murderer.</p>
+<p>He walked with long nervous strides; beaten
+and bruised though he was, he was unconscious
+of fatigue; the grief and regret that surged within
+him were as an anodyne to physical pain, and it
+was less than half an hour later that he opened
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' name='page_151'></a>151</span>
+the door of Nancy Card&#8217;s cabin, his white face
+scratched and bleeding, his torn hands, too, covered
+with blood, his clothing rent and earth-stained,
+his eyes wild and pain-bright.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good Lord, boy! What&#8217;s the matter with
+ye?&#8221; cried the old woman, coming toward him in
+terror, both hands out. &#8220;I sot up for ye, &#8217;caze
+Pony he jest come from Hepzibah an&#8217; said that
+spiled-rotten Andy an&#8217; that feisty Jeff &#8217;lowed ye
+was a spy an&#8217; they was a-goin&#8217; to run ye out of
+the Turkey Tracks.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She laid hold of him and examined him with
+anxious eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was plumb werried about ye. I knowed in
+reason they was a-goin&#8217; to be trouble at that fool
+play-party.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I ain&#8217;t hurt, Aunt Nancy,&#8221; said Creed
+desolately, and he stared past her at the wall.
+&#8220;But looks to me like I&#8217;m cursed. I meant so
+well&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; He choked on the word. &#8220;I&#8217;d just had
+a talk with&mdash;She said&mdash;we&mdash;I thought that everything
+was about to come right. And now&mdash;I&#8217;ve
+killed Blatch Turrentine, and I&#8217;ve just got away
+from the others. They was all after me.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='X_A_SPY' id='X_A_SPY'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' name='page_152'></a>152</span>
+<h2>Chapter X</h2>
+<h3>A Spy</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Old Jephthah was winding the clock when the
+door&mdash;which he had closed some time ago
+after the last retiring guests&mdash;flung violently open,
+Andy paused, flying foot on the threshold, and
+gasped out hoarsely,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pap&mdash;Creed Bonbright&#8217;s killed Blatch and
+got away from us!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Lusk girls had staid to help Judith clear up,
+intending to remain over night unless Andy and
+Jeff returned in time to take them home. The
+three young women working at the table lifted
+pale faces; Pendrilla let fall the plate in her
+hand and broke it. Unconscious of the fact, she
+stood staring with open mouth at the fragments by
+her feet. Jephthah took one more turn mechanically,
+then withdrew the key and laid it down.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whar at?&#8221; he inquired briefly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Up on our place,&#8221; said Wade who now
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' name='page_153'></a>153</span>
+appeared at the boy&#8217;s side. &#8220;Bonbright throwed
+him over Foeman&#8217;s Bluff.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;How come it?&#8221; queried the head of the tribe.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They was a fussin&#8217;,&#8221; began Andy, but his
+father interrupted him in a curious tone.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Foeman&#8217;s Bluff,&#8221; he repeated. &#8220;What tuck
+Bonbright thar at this time o&#8217; night?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what I say,&#8221; panted Jim Cal&#8217;s voice
+in the darkness outside. He had come straight
+from the still instead of going with Jeff and the
+others to search; and for all his flesh he had overtaken
+his brothers. But there was none now to
+demand sardonically why he fled the seat of war
+and ran to the paternal shelter for re-enforcements.
+&#8220;Ef folks go nosin&#8217; around whar they ain&#8217;t wanted,
+sometimes they git what they don&#8217;t like,&#8221; he
+concluded.</p>
+<p>Judith, very pale, had parted her lips to utter
+words of indignant defence, and denial of this
+broad imputation, but before she could speak
+Huldah Spiller irrupted into the room, her red
+curls flying, her bodice clutched about her in such
+a fashion as to suggest she had been undressing
+when the news reached her.</p>
+<p>The mountain woman with temperament is
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' name='page_154'></a>154</span>
+reduced to the outlets of such occasions as these,
+or revival seasons and funerals; and Huldah
+Spiller, having abandoned the protesting Iley
+with her babies, whom the mother could not
+leave alone, meant to make the most of the
+occasion.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You-all ain&#8217;t got no right to talk the way
+you do about Creed,&#8221; the red-haired girl burst out.
+&#8220;Him and me&#8217;s been friends ever sence I went to
+Hepzibah, and there ain&#8217;t a better man walks
+the earth. Ef he done anything to Blatch hit
+was becaze Blatch laywayed him an&#8217; jumped on
+him, an&#8217; he had to. Oh, Lord!&#8221; and she began
+to weep, &#8220;I wish&#8217;t my daddy was here&mdash;I jest
+wish Pap Spiller was here. Pore Creed! Ef you-all
+git yo&#8217; hands on him, mad thisaway, the
+Lord knows what will be did!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Jephthah regarded his postulant daughter-in-law
+from under lowered, bushy brows.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Kin you make her hush?&#8221; he inquired of
+Wade.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t got no interest in makin&#8217; her hush nor
+makin&#8217; her holler,&#8221; returned Wade contemptuously.
+Dishonoured before his clan, his male
+dignity sadly shorn, his woman shrieking out the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' name='page_155'></a>155</span>
+wrongs and excellences of another man&mdash;and
+that man a young and well-favoured enemy&mdash;his
+bitterness may be forgiven.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fetch the lantern,&#8221; ordered Jephthah briefly.
+&#8220;We-all have got to git over thar and see to this
+business.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;ll hush&mdash;but I&#8217;m goin&#8217; along,&#8221;
+volleyed Huldah.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Le&#8217;s us go too, Jude,&#8221; pleaded Cliantha Lusk
+in a trembling whisper. &#8220;I&#8217;m scared to be left
+here in the house with the men all gone. He
+might take a notion to come and raid the place
+and kill us. They do thataway in feud times.
+My gran&#8217; mammy&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do hush!&#8221; choked Judith. But she hurried
+out in the wake of the departing men, Cliantha
+clinging to one arm, Pendrilla to the other.</p>
+<p>They left the doors open, the candles flaring,
+and nobody to guard but the toothless old hound
+who slept and snored on the chip pile.</p>
+<p>The journey to Foeman&#8217;s Bluff, following the
+flicker of the lantern in Wade&#8217;s hand, with the
+voices of the men coming back to her, hoarse,
+fragmentary, ejaculatory, reciting Creed&#8217;s offences
+asseverating that they had expected nothing else,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' name='page_156'></a>156</span>
+was like a nightmare to Judith. When Cliantha
+screamed and clung to her and said she thought
+she saw Creed Bonbright in the bushes by the
+path-side, Judith shook her off angrily, but let
+the clamouring little thing creep back and make
+her peace.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I forgot about you and Blatch&mdash;Oh, po&#8217;
+Judy!&#8221; moaned Cliantha. &#8220;Ef hit was me goin&#8217;
+to s&#8217;arch for the murdered body of my true
+love I don&#8217;t know as I could put foot befo&#8217;
+foot!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;The trail&#8217;s mighty narrow here&mdash;I&#8217;ll go in
+front,&#8221; said Judith. She freed herself, and thereafter
+walked alone with bent head.</p>
+<p>As they descended into the hollow Andy began
+to hoo-ee; and finally he was answered from the
+neighbourhood of the bluff. Up this they climbed,
+since on this side they were cut off from the region
+below it by an impassable gulley. Halting on
+the top and looking down, they could see a lantern
+moving about and catch faint sound of the men&#8217;s
+voices.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who&#8217;s down thar?&#8221; Jephthah&#8217;s big rolling
+bass sent out the call. There was an ominous
+hesitation before Jeff&#8217;s perturbed tones replied,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' name='page_157'></a>157</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s me, pap, me an&#8217; Buck Shalliday an&#8217;
+Taylor Stribling.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Andy found a tall tree at the bluffs edge, and
+began to descend through its branches with the
+swiftness and agility of a monkey.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How is he&mdash;is he alive?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The old man put the query at the edge of the
+gulf, stooping, peering over. Jim Cal sat down
+suddenly and began wiping his forehead. The
+moonlight showed his round face very pale under
+its beaded sweat.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Andy&#8217;ll git hisself killed!&#8221; whimpered Pendrilla.</p>
+<p>And Huldah broke into loud hysteric weeping,
+on the tide of which &#8220;Creed&mdash;Pap Spiller&mdash;Blatch
+Turrentine&#8221; were cast up now and again.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hush, cain&#8217;t ye?&#8221; demanded Jephthah, angrily;
+&#8220;I cain&#8217;t hear one word they answer me down
+thar. Hello, boys. Is he livin&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Andy had evidently reached the searchers at
+the foot of the cliff. Loud, confused voices came
+up to those above. Finally,</p>
+<p>&#8220;W&#8217;y, Pap, we ain&#8217;t never found him,&#8221; Jeff
+called.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye <i>what</i>?&#8221; demanded the father incredulously.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' name='page_158'></a>158</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;We ain&#8217;t&mdash;never&mdash;found him,&#8221; reiterated Jeff
+doggedly.</p>
+<p>The old man drew back sharply with a look of
+swift anger in his face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, ef ye hain&#8217;t found him by now ye better
+quit lookin&#8217;, hadn&#8217;t ye?&#8221; he suggested as he
+straightened to his full height and turned his back.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed Bonbright&#8217;s jest about been here an&#8217;
+hid the body, that&#8217;s what he&#8217;s done,&#8221; Taylor
+Stribling clamoured after him in futile explanation.
+But the old man gave no heed. Lantern
+in hand, he was already addressing himself to
+a careful examination of the scene of the struggle.
+The torn vines where Creed had fallen through
+the fissure instantly caught his eye.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come up here, you-all!&#8221; he turned and
+shouted toward the gulf. He swung his lantern far
+out over the crevice. &#8220;Look at that,&#8221; he said
+quietly. &#8220;Thar&#8217;s whar yo&#8217; man got away from
+ye.&#8221; He handed the lantern to Wade, and swung
+himself lightly down where Creed had fallen.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Better let me go, Pap,&#8221; said Wade, and Judith
+mutely stared after the old man as he disappeared
+into the dark.</p>
+<p>For fifteen minutes or more the watchers on
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' name='page_159'></a>159</span>
+the cliff waited and trembled, straining ears and
+eyes. In that time they were joined by those from
+the foot of the bluff, all but Stribling, who, the boys
+said, had &#8220;gone on home.&#8221; Then they heard
+sounds of clambering in the cleft, and the old
+man&#8217;s face appeared in the well of inky shadow,
+pale, the black eyes burning, the great black
+beard flowing backward to join the darkness
+behind him. Wade held his lantern high. It
+lit a circle of faces on which terror, anger, and
+distress wrought. Judith could scarcely look at
+her uncle, and a great trembling shook her limbs,
+so that she laid hold of a little sapling by which
+she stood, and closed her eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said the old man on a falling note, and
+his voice sounded hollowly from the cleft, &#8220;well,
+I reckon this does settle it&mdash;whether Blatch is
+hurt or no. How many of ye was a-workin&#8217; in
+the still to-night?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was,&#8221; quavered Jim Cal; &#8220;me and Taylor
+Stribling and Buck Shalliday. Blatch had left a
+run o&#8217; whiskey that had to be worked off, and
+when he didn&#8217;t come I turned in to &#8217;tend to it&mdash;why,
+Pap?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ef Bonbright wanted to find out about the still
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' name='page_160'></a>160</span>
+he shore made it, that&#8217;s all,&#8221; answered Jephthah.
+&#8220;Ye can see right into it from whar he went. Ef
+you-all boys wants to stay out o&#8217; the penitentiary
+I reckon Creed Bonbright&#8217;s got to leave the Turkey
+Tracks mighty sudden,&#8221; and he swung himself
+heavily to the level of the cliff.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what I say,&#8221; whispered Jim Cal, pasty
+pale and quivering. &#8220;We&#8217;ve got it to do.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Old Jephthah looked darkly upon his sons.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, settle it amongst ye, how an&#8217; when. I&#8217;ll
+neither meddle nor make in this business. I don&#8217;t
+know how all o&#8217; this come about, nor what you-all
+an&#8217; Blatch Turrentine air up to. You&#8217;ve made
+an outsider o&#8217; me, an&#8217; an outsider I&#8217;ll stay. Ef
+ye won&#8217;t tell me the truth, don&#8217;t tell me no lies.
+Come on, gals.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He strode into the homeward trail, the four
+girls falling in behind his tall figure. Judith
+was sick with misery and uncertainty; the Lusk
+girls looked back timidly at Andy and Jeff; even
+Huldah was mute.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XI_THE_WARNING' id='XI_THE_WARNING'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' name='page_161'></a>161</span>
+<h2>Chapter XI</h2>
+<h3>The Warning</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Five o&#8217;clock Friday morning found Creed, pale,
+hollow-eyed, a strip of Nancy&#8217;s home-made
+sticking plaster over the cut on brow and cheek,
+but otherwise composed and as usual, at the pine
+table in his little shack, working over the references
+which applied to the case he was to try that
+morning. But an hour later brought old Keziah
+Provine to the door to borrow the threading of a
+needle with white thread.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hearn they had an interruption,&#8221; she began,
+pushing in past Nancy and the two children,
+&#8220;but thar&mdash;you kin hear anything these days
+and times. They most gen&#8217;ally does find trouble
+at these here play-parties, that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m sot
+agin &#8217;em.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Poor old soul, it was not on account of her
+rheumatic legs, her toothless jaws, nor her half-blind
+eyes that she objected to play-parties, of
+course.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' name='page_162'></a>162</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I got no use for &#8217;em,&#8221; she pursued truthfully,
+&#8220;specially when they&#8217;re started up too
+close to a blockade still. They named it to me
+that Creed had done killed one of the Turrentine
+boys&mdash;is that so?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; returned Nancy stoutly. &#8220;By the best
+of what I kin git out o&#8217; Creed, him and Blatch
+was walkin&#8217; along, an&#8217; Blatch missed his footin&#8217;
+and fell off o&#8217; Foeman&#8217;s Bluff. Creed tried to
+he&#8217;p him, an&#8217; fell an&#8217; got scratched some. I
+reckon the Turrentines&#8217;ll tell it different, but
+that&#8217;s what I make out from what Creed says.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lord, how folks will lie!&#8221; admired Keziah,
+piously. &#8220;Now they tell that Blatch was not
+only killed up, but that some one&mdash;Creed, or
+some o&#8217; them that follers him&mdash;tuck the body
+away befo&#8217; they could git to it. They say they
+was blood all over the bushes, an&#8217; a great drug
+place whar Blatch had been toted off. One feller
+named a half-dug hole sorter like a grave; but
+thar! I never went over to see for myse&#8217;f, an&#8217; ye
+cain&#8217;t believe the half o&#8217; what ye hear.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;d say not,&#8221; snapped Nancy. &#8220;Not
+ef hit was sech a pack o&#8217; lies as that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Thread in hand old Keziah lingered till Arley
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' name='page_163'></a>163</span>
+Kittridge came with his mother&#8217;s baking-pan
+and request for a little risin&#8217;. Arley it seemed had
+been commissioned to find out what he could on
+behalf of the Kittridge family. And so it went
+till breakfast-time.</p>
+<p>How these things travel in a neighbourhood
+where there is no telephone, postman, milkman,
+nor morning paper, and where the distances are
+considerable, is one of the mysteries of the mountains&mdash;yet
+travel they do, and when time came
+for court to open Creed found that he had a crowd
+which would at any other juncture have been
+highly gratifying.</p>
+<p>Every man that came in glanced first at the cut
+on his cheek, swiftly noted the pale face, sunken,
+purple-rimmed eyes, the scratched hands, then
+looked hastily away. Several made proffers of
+an alliance with him, being at outs with the
+Turrentines. All reiterated the story of the
+missing body.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You done exactly right,&#8221; old Tubal Kittridge
+told him. &#8220;With a man like Blatchley Turrentine,
+hit&#8217;s hit first or git hit. I wonder he ever
+let ye git as far as Foeman&#8217;s Bluff; but if you
+made good use o&#8217; yo&#8217; time, I reckon you found
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164' name='page_164'></a>164</span>
+out what you aimed to,&#8221; and he winked laboriously
+at poor Creed&#8217;s crimsoning countenance.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t trying to find out anything, Mr.
+Kittridge. Blatch forced the quarrel upon me.
+I was on my way home at the time.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, a lee-tle out of yo&#8217; way, wasn&#8217;t ye?&#8221;
+objected Kittridge, slightly offended at not being
+offered Bonbright&#8217;s confidence.</p>
+<p>The case on the docket, one that had interested
+Creed deeply, being the curious matter of a
+mountain creek which in the spring storms had
+changed its direction, scoured off a good field
+and flung it to the opposite side of the road, thus
+giving it to a new owner, dragged wearily. Who
+cared about the question of a few rods of mountain
+land, even if it had raised good tobacco, when the
+slayer of one of the bullies of the neighbourhood
+sat before them&mdash;a man who had not only killed
+his victim but had, within fifteen minutes, hidden
+all traces of the body&mdash;and the opening of a new
+feud was taking place before their eyes?</p>
+<p>At noon Creed, in despair, adjourned his court,
+setting a new date for trial, explaining that this
+Turrentine matter ought to be looked into, and he
+believed it was not a proper day for him to be
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' name='page_165'></a>165</span>
+otherwise engaged. Then he sought old Tubal
+Kittridge.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s something I want you to do for me,&#8221;
+he said.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shore&mdash;shore; anything in the world,&#8221; Kittridge
+agreed eagerly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Nancy won&#8217;t hear of my going over to
+the Turrentines&#8217;,&#8221; hesitated Creed. &#8220;I looked
+for them to be here&mdash;some of them&mdash;long before
+this.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huh-uh; ah, Law, no&mdash;they won&#8217;t come in the
+daytime,&#8221; smiled Kittridge.</p>
+<p>Creed looked annoyed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They will be welcome, whenever they come,&#8221;
+he asserted. &#8220;What I want you to do is to go to
+Jephthah Turrentine and say to him that I thought
+I ought to go over, and that I&#8217;ll do so now if he
+wants me to&mdash;or I&#8217;ll meet him here at the office,
+or anywhere he says.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huh-uh&mdash;uh!&#8221; Old Tubal shook his head,
+his eyes closed in quite an ecstasy of negation.
+&#8220;You cain&#8217;t git Jep Turrentine in the trap as
+easy as all that,&#8221; he said half contemptuously.
+&#8220;Why, he&#8217;d know what you was at a leetle too
+quick.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166' name='page_166'></a>166</span></p>
+<p>Bonbright looked helpless indignation for a
+moment, then thought better of it and
+repeated:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I want you to go and tell him that I&#8217;m right
+here, ready to answer for anything I&#8217;ve done, and
+that I would like to talk to him about it. Will
+you do it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&mdash;all right,&#8221; agreed Kittridge in an
+offended tone. &#8220;There&#8217;s plenty would stand
+by ye; there&#8217;s plenty that would like to see the
+Turrentines run out of the country; but if ye
+want to fix it some new-fangled way I reckon
+you&#8217;ll have to.&#8221; And to himself he muttered as
+he took the road homeward, &#8220;I say go to the
+Turrentines with sech word at that! That boy
+must think I&#8217;m as big a fool as he is.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+
+<p>At the Turrentine home life dragged on strangely.
+Jephthah in his own cabin, busied himself overhauling
+some harness. The boys had been across
+at the old place, presumably making a thorough
+inspection of the scene of the trouble. Judith
+went mechanically about her tasks, cooking and
+serving the meals, setting the house in order.
+Only once did she rouse somewhat, and that was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' name='page_167'></a>167</span>
+when Huldah Spiller flounced in and flung herself
+tempestuously down in a chair.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How you come on, Judy?&#8221; inquired the red-haired
+damsel.</p>
+<p>&#8220;About as usual,&#8221; returned Judith coldly,
+and would fain have added, &#8220;none the better
+for seeing you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I jest had to run over and see how you was
+standin&#8217; it,&#8221; Huldah pursued vivaciously. &#8220;I
+cried all night&mdash;didn&#8217;t you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What for?&#8221; inquired Judith angrily.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh&mdash;I don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;m jest thataway.
+Git me started an&#8217; thar&#8217;s no stoppin&#8217; me. But
+then I&#8217;ve knowed Creed so mighty long&mdash;him an&#8217;
+me was powerful good friends, and my feelin&#8217;s
+is more tenderer than some folks&#8217;s anyhow.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huldy,&#8221; said Judith in a tone so rigidly
+controlled that it made the other jump, &#8220;ef
+you&#8217;ll jest walk yo&#8217;self out of here I&#8217;ll be obliged
+to you. I&#8217;ve stood all I can. I don&#8217;t want to
+say anything plumb bad to you, but ef you set
+thar an&#8217; talk to me like that for another minute
+I will.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you po&#8217; thing!&#8221; cried Huldah, jumping to
+her feet. &#8220;I declare to goodness I forgot all
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168' name='page_168'></a>168</span>
+about you an&#8217; Blatch. Here I&#8217;ve been carryin&#8217;
+on over Creed Bonbright&mdash;and you mighty near a
+widder. You po&#8217; thing!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith faced around with such blazing eyes
+from the biscuits she was moulding that Huldah
+beat a hasty retreat, dodged out of the door, and
+ran up the slope. At Jim Cal&#8217;s cabin she paused
+and looked about her uncertainly. Iley had the
+toothache, and for various reasons was proving
+a poor audience for her younger sister&#8217;s conversation.
+The day had been a trying one to Huldah&#8217;s
+excited nerves, a sad anti-climax after the explosions
+of the night before. It was five o&#8217;clock.
+The men were all over at the old place. If she
+but had an excuse to follow them, now. Why,
+the whole top of the Bald above Foeman&#8217;s Bluff,
+and the broad shelf below it, were covered with
+huckleberry bushes! She put her head in at the
+door. Iley looked up from the hot brick which
+she was wrapping in a wet cloth with ten drops
+of turpentine on it preparatory to applying the
+same to her cheek above the swollen tooth.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ef you say &#8216;Creed Bonbright&#8217;&mdash;or &#8216;kill&#8217;&mdash;or
+&#8216;Blatch Turrentine,&#8217;&mdash;to me, I vow I&#8217;ll hit ye,&#8221;
+she warned shrilly. &#8220;I ain&#8217;t never raised hand
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' name='page_169'></a>169</span>
+on ye yet sence ye was a woman grown, but do it
+I will!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t goin&#8217; to say nothin&#8217; about nothin&#8217;,&#8221;
+asserted Huldah sweepingly. &#8220;I was jest goin&#8217;
+to ax did ye want any huckleberries, and git a
+pail to pick some.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She sought out a small tin lard bucket as she
+spoke, and Iley&#8217;s silence presumably assenting,
+within twenty minutes was picking away eagerly
+on the Bald above the bluff.</p>
+<p>Below her stretched meadows drunk with
+sun&mdash;breathless. A rain crow called from time to
+time &#8220;C-c-c-cow! cow! cow!&#8221; The air was still
+heavy with faint noon-day smells, the sky tarnished
+with heat.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder where in all creation them boys
+has got theirselves to,&#8221; she ruminated as she
+peered about, dragging green berries and leaves
+into her bucket, for which Mrs. Jim Cal would
+afterward no doubt scold her soundly. &#8220;&#8217;Pears
+to me like I hearn somebody talkin&#8217; somewhars.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She pushed cautiously down to the edge of the
+rocks where the bushes grew scatteringly, pretending
+to herself that she wanted a bit of wild
+geranium that flourished in a crevice far below
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' name='page_170'></a>170</span>
+the top. Setting down her pail she threw herself
+on her face, her arms over the edge, and reached.
+But the fingers hung suspended, opened in air,
+her mouth open too, and she listened greedily
+to faint sounds of men&#8217;s voices.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll bet it&#8217;s old Ab Foeman&#8217;s hideout that
+nobody but him and the Cherokees knowed of,&#8221;
+she muttered to herself. &#8220;Some one&#8217;s found it
+and&mdash;Lord, look at that!&#8221;</p>
+<p>From the bushes below her, coming apparently
+out of the living rock itself, crept Andy, and then
+Jeff Turrentine. Now she could see the narrow,
+door-like opening of the cave which had given
+them up, and realised how, from below, it passed
+for a mere depression in the rock.</p>
+<p>Huldah drew back silently, inch by inch, and
+instinctively pulled her black calico sunbonnet
+over her red curls as she crouched down among
+the huckleberry bushes. When she looked again
+Andy and Jeff had disappeared, but she could see
+the head and shoulders of a man who still lay
+at the cave&#8217;s mouth&mdash;and that man was Blatch
+Turrentine!</p>
+<p>At first she shuddered, thinking that she had
+come upon the dead body; then she noted a tiny
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' name='page_171'></a>171</span>
+trail of smoke, and, by craning a little farther
+around, saw that Blatchley lay at ease with a
+pipe in his mouth, smoking.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The triflin&#8217;, low-down, lyin&#8217; hound!&#8221; she
+muttered to herself. &#8220;I&#8217;m a-goin&#8217; this very
+minute and tell Creed Bonbright.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She hesitated, glanced over her shoulder in the
+direction of the Turrentine cabin, then bent
+dubiously and set up her overturned bucket.
+Not a berry had spilled from it, yet the sight of
+its mishap gave her an idea. Quietly slipping
+through the bushes till she was far enough away
+to dare run, she hurried home to the cabin.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Iley,&#8221; she gasped, as soon as she put her head
+in at the door, &#8220;I upsot my berry pail and lost
+most of the fruit. Can you make out with that?&#8221;
+and she set the little bucket on the table.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon I&#8217;ll have to, ef you&#8217;ve got so work-brickle
+ye won&#8217;t pick any more,&#8221; returned Iley.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I would&mdash;I&#8217;d git ye all ye need,&#8221; protested
+Huldah with unexpected meekness, &#8220;but I&#8217;m
+jest obliged to go over to&mdash;&#8221; she had all but said
+Creed Bonbright&#8217;s, but she caught herself in
+time and concluded lamely. &#8220;I jest have obliged
+to run down to Clianthy Lusk&#8217;s and see can she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' name='page_172'></a>172</span>
+let me have her crochet needle for to finish up
+my shawl.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She delayed for no criticism or demur on Iley&#8217;s
+part, but was off with the last word, and once out
+of sight of Jim Cal&#8217;s cabin she took a short cut
+through the woods and ran; but in spite of her
+best efforts darkness began to gather before she
+won to the high road, for the evening had closed
+in early, thick and threatening; a mountain
+thunder-storm was brewing. Opposite a tempestuous,
+magnificent sunset, there had reared
+in the eastern sky a tremendous thunder-head,
+a palace of a thousand snowy domes, turning to
+gold, and then flushing from base to crown like
+a gigantic many-petalled rose. It swept steadily
+up and over, hiding the sky, and leaving the
+earth in almost complete darkness. There were
+low rolls of thunder, at first mellow and almost
+musical, crashing always louder and stronger as
+they came nearer. The wind thrashed and
+yelled through the tossing forest; and as she
+approached the Card cabin she heard the banging
+of barn shutters, the whipping of tree boughs
+against the windows. There were the first
+spears of rain flung at roof and door; and it was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' name='page_173'></a>173</span>
+in the torrent itself which followed fast that
+Huldah beat upon that closed door, giving her
+name and demanding entrance. Within, Creed
+Bonbright sprang up from where he sat with a
+book in his hand, his eyes fixed on vacancy, and
+would have answered her, but Old Nancy put
+a hasty palm over his lips.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hush&mdash;for God&#8217;s sake,&#8221; she whispered.</p>
+<p>They stood in the lighted cabin, all on foot by
+this time, and listened intently, tall Creed, the
+little grey-haired woman clinging to him and
+restraining him, Doss with his light eyes goggling,
+and Little Buck and Beezy hand in hand, studying
+their grandmother&#8217;s face, not their father&#8217;s.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who is it?&#8221; quavered Nancy. &#8220;I&#8217;m all alone
+in here, and I&#8217;m scared to let wayfarers in.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s me&mdash;Huldy Spiller&mdash;Aunt Nancy,&#8221; called
+back the voice in the rain.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I vow! You know how things air, Huldy&mdash;what
+do ye want, chile?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I want Creed Bonbright. I&#8217;ve got something
+to tell him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thar&mdash;ye see now,&#8221; breathed the old woman,
+turning toward Creed. Then she raised her
+voice.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' name='page_174'></a>174</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;He ain&#8217;t here, honey,&#8221; she lied unhesitatingly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t ye go to his office&mdash;that&#8217;s whar
+he stays at.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, for the Lord&#8217;s sake&mdash;Aunt Nancy!&#8221; came
+back the girl&#8217;s shrill, terrified tones. &#8220;I&#8217;ve
+done been to the office; I know in reason Creed
+ain&#8217;t there, or he&#8217;d a-answered me. Please let me
+in; I&#8217;m scared some of the Turrentines&#8217;ll come
+an&#8217; ketch me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>At this Creed strode to the door, Nancy dragging
+back on his arm and Buck and Beezy seconding
+her with all their small might, while Provine
+spluttered ineffectually in the background.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s a lie,&#8221; hissed Nancy. &#8220;She&#8217;s a decoy.
+Ef you open that thar do&#8217; with the light on ye,
+they&#8217;ll shoot ye over her shoulders. Hit was
+did to my man thataway in feud times. Don&#8217;t
+you open the do&#8217; Creed.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, Aunt Nancy,&#8221; remonstrated Creed,
+almost smiling, &#8220;this isn&#8217;t like you. There&#8217;s
+nothing but a girl there in the rain. Keep out
+of range if you&#8217;re scared. I&#8217;m sure going to
+open that door.&#8221;</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' name='page_175'></a>175</span>
+<img src='images/illus-174.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 341px; height: 504px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 341px;'>
+&#8220;They stood in the lighted cabin and listened intently.&#8221;<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>As he made ready to do so Nancy flew back
+to the table and blew out the light, and the next
+minute Huldah Spiller, dripping like a mermaid,
+was standing in the middle of the darkened room,
+and Doss Provine, breathing short, was barring
+the door behind her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who&#8217;s here?&#8221; gasped the girl peering about
+the gloom. &#8220;What air you-all a-goin&#8217; to do to
+me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Nancy relighted the lamp and set it on the
+table, and Huldah discovered with a long-drawn
+sobbing sigh of relief that there was no one save
+the immediate family present.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I came quick as I could,&#8221; she began in the
+middle of her story, grasping Creed by the arm
+and shaking him in the violence of her emotion
+and insistence. &#8220;Blatch Turrentine&#8217;s alive. Andy
+and Jeff have got him hid out. I seed him myse&#8217;f
+with my own eyes, in a hideout thar below Foeman&#8217;s
+Bluff, not more&#8217;n a hour ago. I&#8217;ll bet he
+aims to layway you, ef he cain&#8217;t git ye hung for
+murderin&#8217; of him. You got to git out o&#8217; here.
+It was as much as my life was worth to come over
+and tell ye. I&#8217;m afraid to go back. I&#8217;m goin&#8217;
+right on down to Hepzibah and stay thar.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come up closeter to the fire,&#8221; commanded
+Nancy, who had watched the girl keenly throughout
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' name='page_176'></a>176</span>
+her recital. &#8220;Doss, put some sticks on and
+git a little blaze so she can dry herself. Huldy,
+you&#8217;re a good girl to come over and warn Creed&mdash;when
+was you aimin&#8217; to go to Hepzibah?&#8221; She
+looked up from the hearth where she knelt with
+the frankest inquiring gaze.</p>
+<p>&#8220;To-night&mdash;right now,&#8221; half whimpered Huldah.
+&#8220;I&#8217;m scared to go back. I&#8217;m scared to
+be here on the mountain at all.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And did ye aim to have Creed go along of
+ye?&#8221; old Nancy questioned mildly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;he&#8217;d better,&#8221; agreed Huldah hysterically.
+&#8220;Hit&#8217;s the onliest way for him now.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Nancy caught Creed&#8217;s eye above the girl&#8217;s
+drenched head, and shook her own warningly.
+Leaving Doss to look after the newcomer, she
+drew the young justice into the kitchen.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whatever ye do,&#8221; she warned him hastily,
+&#8220;don&#8217;t you put out with that red-headed gal
+in the dark. Things may be adzackly as she says&mdash;looks
+to me like she thinks she&#8217;s a-speakin&#8217; the
+truth; but then agin the Turrentines might a&#8217;
+sent her for to draw you out. They wouldn&#8217;t
+like to shoot ye in my cabin, &#8217;caze they know me
+and my kinfolks would be apt to raise a fuss; but
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' name='page_177'></a>177</span>
+halfway down the mountain with this sweetheart
+of Wade&#8217;s&mdash;huh-uh, boy; I reckon they could
+tell their own tale then, of how you come by yo&#8217;
+death. Don&#8217;t you go with her.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t aiming to, Aunt Nancy,&#8221; said Creed
+quietly. &#8220;As soon as I heard that Blatch Turrentine
+was alive, I intended to go right over and
+have a talk with old Jephthah. He&#8217;s a fair-minded
+man, and if he is informed that his nephew
+is living I think he and I can come to terms.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fa&#8217;r-minded man!&#8221; echoed Nancy contemptuously.
+&#8220;Jephthah Turrentine a fa&#8217;r-minded
+man! Well, Creed, ef I hadn&#8217;t no better eye
+for a fat chicken than you have for a fa&#8217;r-minded
+man, you wouldn&#8217;t enjoy yo&#8217; dinner at my table
+as well as you do. I say fa&#8217;r-minded! This
+thing has got into a feud, boy, and in a feud you
+cain&#8217;t trust nobody&mdash;<i>nobody</i>!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed went back into the room, and Nancy
+reluctantly followed him. Huldah was getting
+dry and warm, and that fluent tongue of hers
+was impatiently silent. As soon as she saw the
+returning pair she began to repeat again the
+details of her information&mdash;how she had glimpsed
+the hidden man through the bushes, how she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' name='page_178'></a>178</span>
+knew in reason he could be none other than
+Blatch. Nancy exchanged a glance of intelligence
+with Creed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye see!&#8221; she murmured, aside. &#8220;Ef she
+<i>ain&#8217;t</i> a decoy they&#8217;ve sont, she don&#8217;t know nothin&#8217;
+for sartin.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m scared of all the Turrentines,&#8221; Huldah
+declared. &#8220;They&#8217;re awful folks. From the old
+man down to Jude, they scare me. I reckon
+Jude&#8217;s had a big hand in this,&#8221; she went on
+excitedly. &#8220;Her and Blatch is goin&#8217; to wed
+shortly, and she&#8217;d be shore to know any meanness
+he was into. I&#8217;ll be glad to git shet of sech.
+When you&#8217;re ready to be a-steppin&#8217; Creed, I am.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She looked up at the young fellow with a sort
+of unwilling worship.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t aim to go with you, Huldah,&#8221; he said
+gently. &#8220;You love Wade Turrentine, and Wade
+loves you; you was to be wedded this fall. I don&#8217;t
+aim for any affairs of mine to part you two.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The girl hung her head, painfully flushed, her
+eyes full of tears.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care nothin&#8217; about Wade,&#8221; she choked.
+&#8220;Him and me has&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon you&#8217;ve quarrelled&#8221; said Creed,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' name='page_179'></a>179</span>
+sympathetically. &#8220;That needn&#8217;t come to anything.
+I&#8217;m going over and talk to Jephthah
+Turrentine to-morrow morning, and I want you
+to come with me!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Huldah getting to her feet and
+looking strangely at him. &#8220;The rain&#8217;s about
+done now; the moon&#8217;ll be comin&#8217; up in half a hour&mdash;I&#8217;m
+a-goin&#8217; on down to Hepzibah, like I said I
+was. Ef Wade Turrentine wants me, he knows
+whar to come for me. Ef he thinks of me as he said
+he did the last time we had speech together&mdash;w&#8217;y,
+I never want to put eyes on his face again. Oh&mdash;Creed,
+I wish&#8217;t you&#8217;d come with me!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But it was me you quarrelled about,&#8221; remonstrated
+Bonbright with that sudden clear
+vision which ultra-spiritual natures often show,
+and that startling forthrightness of speech which
+amazes and daunts the mountaineer. &#8220;I&#8217;m the
+last man you ought to leave the mountain with,
+Huldah, if you want to make up with Wade.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;How&mdash;how did you know?&#8221; whispered the
+girl, staring at him. &#8220;Well, anyhow, I ain&#8217;t
+never a-goin&#8217; back thar.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She could not be prevailed on to go to bed with
+Aunt Nancy, when Doss Provine and the children
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' name='page_180'></a>180</span>
+were asleep, and Creed had gone to his quarters
+in the little office building, but sat by the fire
+all night staring into the embers, occasionally
+stirring them or putting on a stick of wood. At
+the earliest grey of dawn she waked Nancy, bidding
+the elder woman fasten the door after her.
+Declining in strangely subdued fashion her hostess&#8217;s
+offer of hot coffee, she stepped noiselessly out and,
+with a swift look about, dived into the steep short-cut
+trail which led almost straight down the face
+of Big Turkey Track, from turn to turn of the
+main road.</p>
+<p>A cloud clung to the Side; the foliage of only
+the foremost trees emerged from its blur, and
+these were dimmed and flatted as though a soft
+white veil were tangled among their leaves. Into
+this white mystery of dawn the girl had vanished.</p>
+<p>Nancy looked curiously after her a moment,
+then glanced swiftly about as Huldah had done,
+her eyes dwelling long on Creed&#8217;s little shack,
+standing peaceful in the morning mists. Softly
+she turned back, and closed and barred the door.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XII_IN_THE_LION_S_DEN' id='XII_IN_THE_LION_S_DEN'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' name='page_181'></a>181</span>
+<h2>Chapter XII</h2>
+<h3>In the Lion&#8217;s Den</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>At seven o&#8217;clock, despite entreaties and warnings,
+Creed mounted his mule and set out
+for the Turrentine place.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you trust nothin&#8217; nor nobody over thar,&#8221;
+Nancy followed him out to the gate to reiterate.
+&#8220;Old Jephthah Turrentine&#8217;s as big a rascal as
+they&#8217; is unhung. No&mdash;I wouldn&#8217;t trust Judith
+neither (hush now, Little Buck; you don&#8217;t know
+what granny&#8217;s a-talkin&#8217; about); she&#8217;s apt to git
+some fool gal&#8217;s notion o&#8217; being jealous o&#8217; Huldy,
+or something like that, and see you killed as cheerful
+as I&#8217;d wring a chicken&#8217;s neck. (For the Lord&#8217;s
+sake, Doss, take these chil&#8217;en down to the spring
+branch; they mighty nigh run me crazy with they&#8217;
+fussin&#8217; an&#8217; cryin&#8217;!) Don&#8217;t you trust none on &#8217;em,
+boy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, Aunt Nancy, I trust everybody on that
+whole place, excepting Blatchley Turrentine,&#8221;
+said Creed sturdily. &#8220;Even Andy and Jeff, if I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' name='page_182'></a>182</span>
+had a chance to talk to them, could be got to see
+reason. They&#8217;re not the bloodthirsty crew you
+make them out. They&#8217;re good folks.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She looked at him in exasperation, yet with a
+sort of reluctant approval and admiration.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; she sighed, as she saw him mount and
+start, &#8220;mebbe yo&#8217; safer goin&#8217; right smack into
+the lion&#8217;s den, like Dan&#8217;el, than you would be to
+sneak up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Summer was at full tide, and the world had
+been new washed last night. Scents of mint and
+pennyroyal rose up under his mule&#8217;s slow pacing
+feet. The meadow that stretched beyond Nancy&#8217;s
+cabin was a green sea, with flower foam of white
+weed and dog-fennel; and the fence row was a
+long breaker with surf of elder blossom, the garden
+a tangle of bean-vine arbours. The corn patch
+rustled valiantly; the pastures were streaked with
+pale yellow primroses; and Bob Whites ran through
+the young crops, calling.</p>
+<p>Creed rode forward. A gay wind was abroad
+under the blue sky. Every tiniest leaf that
+danced and flirted on its slender stem sent back
+gleams of the morning sunlight from its wet,
+glistening surface. The woods were full of bird
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' name='page_183'></a>183</span>
+songs, and the myriad other lesser voices of a
+midsummer morning sounded clear and distinct
+upon the vast, enfolding silence of the mountains.</p>
+<p>It seemed beyond reason out in that gay July
+sunshine that anything dark or tragic could
+happen to one. But after all man cannot be so
+different from Nature which produces him, and
+the night before had given them a passionate,
+brief, destructive thunder-storm. Creed noted
+the ravages of it here and there; the broken
+boughs, the levelled or uprooted herbage, the
+washed and riven soil, as his mule moved soberly
+along.</p>
+<p>At the Turrentine cabin all was quiet. The
+young men of the house had been out the entire
+night before guarding the trails that Creed Bonbright
+should not leave the mountains secretly.
+A good deal of moonshine whiskey went to this
+night guarding, particularly when there was the
+excuse of a shower to call for it, and the watchers
+of the trails now lay in their beds making up
+arrears of sleep. Jephthah stood looking out
+of his own cabin door when, about fifteen minutes
+ahead of Creed, Taylor Stribling tethered his
+half-broken little filly in the bushes at the edge
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' name='page_184'></a>184</span>
+of the clearing, and ran across the grassy side
+yard.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bonbright&#8217;s out an&#8217; a-headin&#8217; this way!&#8221; he
+volleyed in a hoarse whisper as he approached
+the head of the clan.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who&#8217;s with him?&#8221; asked Jephthah, turning
+methodically back into the room for the squirrel
+gun over the door.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nobody. He ain&#8217;t got no rifle. I reckon he&#8217;s
+packin&#8217; a pistol, though, of course. Nancy Cyard
+bawled an&#8217; took on considerable when he started.
+Shall I call the boys?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; returned Jephthah briefly, replacing the
+clean brown rifle on its fir pegs. &#8220;No, I don&#8217;t
+need nobody, and I don&#8217;t need Old Sister. I
+reckon I can deal with one young feller alone.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He walked unhurriedly toward the main house.
+Stribling stood looking after him a moment, uncertainly.
+The spy&#8217;s errand was performed. He
+had now his dismissal; it would not do to be seen
+about the place at this time. He went reluctantly
+back to the waiting filly, mounted and turned
+her head toward a high point that commanded
+the big road for some distance. A little later
+Jephthah Turrentine sat in the open threshing-floor
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' name='page_185'></a>185</span>
+porch of the main house smoking, Judith
+within was busy looking over and washing a mess
+of Indian lettuce and sissles in a piggin, when Creed
+rode into the yard.</p>
+<p>The ancient hound thumped twice with a
+languid tail on the floor; Judith, back in her
+kitchen, stayed her hand, and stared out at
+the newcomer with parted lips which the blood
+forsook; Jephthah&#8217;s inscrutable black eyes rose
+to Creed&#8217;s face and rested there; nothing but that
+aspect, pale, desolate, ravaged, the strip of
+plaster running from brow to cheek, marked
+the difference between this visit and any
+other.</p>
+<p>Yet the old house seemed to crouch close, to
+regard him askance from under lowering eyes,
+as though through all its timbers ran the message
+that the enemy was here.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good morning,&#8221; he hailed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Howdy. &#8217;Light&mdash;&#8217;light and come in,&#8221; Jephthah
+adjured him, without rising, &#8220;I&#8217;m proud to
+see ye.&#8221;</p>
+<p>His own countenance was worn and haggard
+with sleeplessness and anxiety, but with the
+mountaineer&#8217;s dignified reticence he passively
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' name='page_186'></a>186</span>
+ignored the fact, assuming a detached manner
+of mild jocularity.</p>
+<p>Creed, under inspection from six pairs of eyes,
+though there was only one individual visible to
+him, got from his mule, tethered the animal, and
+came and seated himself on the porch edge.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Nancy didn&#8217;t want me to come over
+this morning,&#8221; he began with that directness
+which always amazed his Turkey Track neighbours
+and put them all astray as to the man, his real
+meaning and intentions.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, now&mdash;didn&#8217;t she?&#8221; inquired the other
+innocently. &#8220;Hit was a fine mornin&#8217; for a ride,
+too, and I &#8217;low ye&#8217; had yo&#8217; reasons for comin&#8217;
+in this direction&mdash;not but what we&#8217;re proud to
+see ye on business or on pleasure.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are any of the boys about?&#8221; asked Creed,
+suddenly looking up.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know adzackly whar the boys is at,&#8221;
+compromised Jephthah, soothing his conscience
+with the fiction that one might be lying in one
+bed and another in some place to him unknown.
+&#8220;Was there any particular one you wanted to
+see?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was looking for Wade,&#8221; said Creed briefly,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' name='page_187'></a>187</span>
+and a silent shock went through one of the men
+kneeling on the bed inside the log wall, peering
+through a chink at the visitor.</p>
+<p>Judith could bear the strain no longer. Torn
+by diverse emotions, she snatched up a bucket,
+ran out of the back door and down to the
+spring. Returning with it, and her composure
+somewhat repaired, she dipped a cool and
+dripping gourdful, walked swiftly through the
+front room and stood abruptly before Creed,
+presenting it with almost no word of greeting,
+only the customary, &#8220;Would ye have a fresh
+drink?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thank you,&#8221; said Creed taking the gourd
+from her hand and lifting his eyes to her face. He
+needed no prompting now; his own heart spoke
+very clearly; he knew as he looked at her that
+she was all the world to him&mdash;and that he was
+utterly lost and cut off from her.</p>
+<p>Jephthah, on the porch, and those unseen eyes
+within, watched the two curiously, while Creed
+drank from the gourd, emptied out what water
+remained, and returned it to Judith, and she all
+the while regarded him with a burning gaze,
+finally bursting out:
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' name='page_188'></a>188</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you want to see Wade about? Is it&mdash;is
+it Huldy?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Miss Judith, it&#8217;s Huldah,&#8221; Creed assented
+quietly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know as its worth while talkin&#8217; to
+Wade about that thar gal,&#8221; put in Jephthah
+meditatively. &#8220;She sorter sidled off last night
+and left the place, and I think he feels kinder
+pestered and mad like. My boys is all mighty
+peaceful in their dispositions, but it ain&#8217;t the best
+to talk to any man when he&#8217;s had that which
+riles him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whar is Huldy Spiller?&#8221; demanded Judith
+standing straight and tall before the visitor,
+disdaining the indirection of her uncle&#8217;s methods.
+&#8220;Is she over at you-all&#8217;s?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what I wanted to talk to Wade about,&#8221;
+returned Creed evasively. &#8220;Huldah&#8217;s a good
+girl, and I&#8217;m sorry if he thinks&mdash;I&#8217;d hate to be
+the one that&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>For a moment Judith stared at him with
+incredulous anger, then she wheeled sharply,
+went into the house and shut the door. Creed
+turned appealingly to the older man. He had
+great faith in Jephthah Turrentine&#8217;s good sense
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' name='page_189'></a>189</span>
+and cool judgment. But the young justice
+showed in many ways less comprehension of these,
+his own people, than an outsider born and bred.
+Jephthah Turrentine was no longer to be reckoned
+with as a man&mdash;he was the head of a tribe, and
+that tribe was at war.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know as that thar gal is worth namin&#8217;
+at this time,&#8221; he vouchsafed, almost plaintively.
+&#8220;Ef she had taken Jim Cal&#8217;s Iley &#8217;long with her, I
+could fergive the both of &#8217;em and wish ye joy.
+As it is, she&#8217;s neither here nor thar. Ef you
+had nothin&#8217; better to name to my son Wade,
+mebbe we&#8217;d as well talk of the craps, and about
+Steve Massengale settin&#8217; out to run for the
+Legislature.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed stood up, and in so doing let the little
+packet of papers he held in his hand drop unnoted
+to the grass. He scorned to make an appeal for
+himself, yet it seemed worth while to let his
+adversaries know that he was aware what they
+would be at.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who found Blatch Turrentine&#8217;s body and
+removed it?&#8221; he asked abruptly.</p>
+<p>Blatch&#8217;s body,&mdash;unknown to his uncle and
+Judith&mdash;at that moment reposing comfortably
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' name='page_190'></a>190</span>
+upon a bed in the loft room adjoining the porch,
+heaved with noiseless chuckles.</p>
+<p>Old Jephthah&#8217;s eyes narrowed. &#8220;We &#8217;low
+that ye might answer that question for yo&#8217;self,&#8221;
+he said coolly. &#8220;Word goes that you&#8217;ve done
+hid the body, so murder couldn&#8217;t be proved.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The visitor sighed. He was disappointed. He
+had hoped the old man might have admitted&mdash;to
+him&mdash;that Blatch had not been killed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Turrentine,&#8221; he began desperately, &#8220;I
+know what you people believe about me&mdash;but
+it isn&#8217;t true; I&#8217;m not a spy. When I came upon
+that still, I was running for my life. I never
+wanted to know anything about blockaded
+stills.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye talked sort o&#8217; like ye did, here earlier
+in the evenin&#8217;,&#8221; said the old man, rearing himself
+erect in his chair, and glaring upon the fool who
+spoke out in broad daylight concerning such
+matters.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t mean that personally,&#8221; protested
+Creed. &#8220;I wish to the Lord I didn&#8217;t know
+anything about it. I&#8217;m sorry it chanced that
+I looked in the cave there and saw your son&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You needn&#8217;t go into no particulars about whar
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' name='page_191'></a>191</span>
+you looked in, nor what you seed, nor call out no
+names of them you seed,&#8221; cut in the old man&#8217;s
+voice, low and menacing; and around the corner
+of the house Jim Cal, where he had stolen up to
+listen, trembled through all the soft bulk of his
+body like a jelly; and into his white face the
+angry blood rushed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wish ye didn&#8217;t know nothin? Yes, and
+you&#8217;ll wish&#8217;t it wuss&#8217;n that befo&#8217; yo&#8217;re done with
+it,&#8221; he muttered under his breath.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t intend to use that or any other information
+against a neighbour and a friend,&#8221;
+Creed went on doggedly. &#8220;But they can&#8217;t make
+me leave the Turkey Tracks. I&#8217;m here to stay.
+I came with a work to do, and I mean to do it or
+die trying.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The old man&#8217;s head was sunk a bit on his
+breast, so that the great black beard rose up of
+itself and shadowed his lower face. &#8220;Mighty
+fine&mdash;mighty fine,&#8221; he murmured in its voluminous
+folds. &#8220;Ef they is one thing finer
+than doin&#8217; what you set out to do, hit&#8217;s
+to die a-tryin&#8217;. The sort of sentiments you
+have on hand now is the kind I l&#8217;arned myself
+out of the blue-backed speller when I was a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' name='page_192'></a>192</span>
+boy. I mind writin&#8217; em out big an&#8217; plain after
+the teacher&#8217;s copy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed looked about him for Judith. He had
+failed with the old man, but she would understand&mdash;she
+would know. His hungry heart counselled
+him that she was his best friend, and he glanced
+wistfully at the door through which she had
+vanished; but it remained obstinately closed as
+he made his farewells, got dispiritedly to his mule
+and away.</p>
+<p>Judith watched his departure from an upper
+window, smitten to the heart by the drooping
+lines of the figure, the bend of the yellow head.
+Inexorably drawn she came down the steep stairs,
+checking, halting at every step, her breast heaving
+with the swift alternations of her mood. The
+door of the boys&#8217; room swung wide; her swift
+glance descried Wade&#8217;s figure just vanishing into
+the grove at the edge of the clearing.</p>
+<p>The tall, gaunt old man brooded in his chair,
+his black eyes fixed on vacancy, the pipe in his
+relaxed fingers dropped to his knee. Up toward
+the Jim Cal cabin Iley, one baby on her hip and two
+others clinging to her skirts, dodged behind a convenient
+smoke-house, and peered out anxiously.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' name='page_193'></a>193</span></p>
+<p>Judith stepped noiselessly into the porch; the
+old man did not turn his head. Her quick eye
+noted the paper Creed had dropped. She stooped
+and picked it up unobserved, slipped into the
+kitchen, studying its lines of figures which meant
+nothing to her, caught up her sunbonnet and,
+glancing warily about, made an exit through the
+back door. She ran through a long grape-arbour
+where great wreathing arms of Virgin&#8217;s Bower
+aided to shut the green tunnel in from sight, then
+took a path where tall bushes screened her,
+making for the short cut which she guessed Creed
+would take.</p>
+<p>Down the little dell through which she herself
+had ridden that first day with what wonderful
+thoughts of him in her heart, she got sight of him,
+going slowly, the lagging gait of the old mule
+seeming to speak his own depression. The trees
+were all vigorous young second growth here, and
+curtained the slopes with billows of green. The
+drying ground sent up a spicy mingling of odours&mdash;decaying
+pine needles, heart leaf, wintergreen
+berries, and the very soil itself.</p>
+<p>Bumblebees shouldered each other clumsily
+about the heads of milk-weed blossoms. Cicada
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' name='page_194'></a>194</span>
+droned in long, loud crescendo and diminuendo
+under the hot sun of mid forenoon. A sensitive
+plant, or as Judith herself would have said, a
+&#8220;shame briar,&#8221; caught at her skirts as she hastened.
+Dipping deeper into the hollow, the man
+ahead, riding with his gaze upon the ground,
+became aware of the sound of running feet behind
+him, and then a voice which made his pulses leap
+called his name in suppressed, cautious tones.
+He looked back to see Judith hurrying after him,
+her cheeks aflame from running, the sunbonnet
+carried in her hand, and her dark locks freeing
+themselves in little moist tendrils about her brow
+where the tiny beads of perspiration gathered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You dropped this,&#8221; she panted, offering the
+paper when she came abreast of him.</p>
+<p>For a moment she stood by the old mule&#8217;s
+shoulder looking up into the eyes of his rider.
+It was the reversal of that first day when Creed
+had stood so looking up at her. Some memory
+of it struggled in her, and appealed for his life,
+anyhow, from that fierce primitive jealousy which
+would have sacrificed the lover of the other woman.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I knowed the paper wasn&#8217;t likely anything
+you needed,&#8221; she told him. &#8220;I jest had to have
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' name='page_195'></a>195</span>
+speech with you alone. I want to warn you.
+The boys is out after you. They ain&#8217;t no hope,
+ef the Turrentines gits after you. Likely we&#8217;re
+both watched right now. You&#8217;ll have to leave
+the mountains.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed got quickly from the mule and stood
+facing her, a little pale and very stern.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you hold with them?&#8221; he asked. &#8220;I had
+no intention of killing Blatch. The quarrel was
+forced on me, as they would say if they told the
+truth.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, they won&#8217;t tell the truth,&#8221; said Judith
+impatiently. &#8220;What differ does it make how
+come it? They&#8217;re bound to run ye out. Hit&#8217;s
+a question of yo&#8217; life ef ye don&#8217;t go. I&mdash;I don&#8217;t
+know what makes me come an&#8217; warn ye&mdash;but
+you and Huldy had better git to the settlement
+as soon as ye can.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed saw absolutely nothing in her coupling
+of his name with Huldah Spiller&#8217;s, but the fact
+that both were under the displeasure of the Turrentines.
+She searched his face with hungry
+gaze for some sign of denial of that which she
+imputed. Instead, she met a look of swift
+distress.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' name='page_196'></a>196</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got to see Wade about Huldah,&#8221; Creed
+asserted doggedly. &#8220;I promised her&mdash;I told
+her&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith drew back.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, see Wade then!&#8221; she choked. &#8220;There
+he is,&#8221; and she pointed to the wall of greenery
+behind which her quicker eyes had detected a
+man who stole, rifle on shoulder, through the
+bushes toward a point by the path-side.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do I care?&#8221; she flung at him. &#8220;What
+is it to me?&mdash;you and your Huldy, and your
+grand plans, and your killin&#8217; up folks and a-gittin&#8217;
+run out o&#8217; the Turkey Tracks! Settle it as best
+ye may&mdash;I&#8217;ve said my last word!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Her breast heaved convulsively. Bitter, corroding
+tears burned in her flashing eyes; rage,
+jealousy, thwarted passion, tenderness denied,
+and utter terror of the outcome&mdash;the time after&mdash;all
+these tore her like wild wolves, as she turned
+and fled swiftly up the path she had come.</p>
+<p>The pale young fellow with the marred, stricken
+face, standing by the mule, looked after her
+heavily. Those flying feet were carrying away
+from him, out of his life, all that made that life
+beautiful and blest. Yet Creed set his jaw
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' name='page_197'></a>197</span>
+resolutely, and facing about once more, addressed
+himself to the situation as it was.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wade&mdash;Wade Turrentine!&#8221; he called. &#8220;Come
+out of there. I see you. Come out and talk
+to me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>With all the composure in life Wade slouched
+into the opening of the path.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve got good eyes,&#8221; was his sole comment.
+Then, as the other seemed slow to begin, &#8220;What
+might you want speech with me about?&#8221; he
+inquired.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s about Huldah,&#8221; Creed opened the question
+volubly now. &#8220;You love her, and she loves
+you. She came over to warn me because we are
+old acquaintances and friends, and I guess she
+don&#8217;t want you to get into trouble. Is it true
+that her life is not safe if she stays here on the
+mountain?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Wade&#8217;s pleasant hazel eyes narrowed and
+hardened.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re a mighty busy somebody about things
+that don&#8217;t consarn ye,&#8221; he remarked finally.</p>
+<p>&#8220;But this does concern me,&#8221; Creed insisted.
+&#8220;I can&#8217;t be the cause of breaking up a match
+between you and Huldah&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' name='page_198'></a>198</span></p>
+<p>He would have gone further, but Wade interrupted
+shaking his head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No&mdash;I reckon you cain&#8217;t. Hit&#8217;d take more
+than you to break up any match I was suited
+with. Mebbe I don&#8217;t want no woman that&#8217;s
+liable to hike out and give me away whenever
+she takes the notion.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, come now, Wade,&#8221; said Bonbright, with
+good-natured entreaty in his voice. &#8220;You know
+she wouldn&#8217;t give you away. She didn&#8217;t mean
+any harm to you. I&#8217;ll bet you&#8217;ve done plenty
+of things twice as bad, if Huldah had the knowing
+of them.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mebbe I have,&#8221; agreed Wade, temperately,
+and suddenly one saw the resemblance to his
+father. &#8220;Mebbe I have&mdash;but ye see I ain&#8217;t the
+one that&#8217;s bein&#8217; met up with right now. I ain&#8217;t
+carin&#8217; which nor whether about Huldy Spiller;
+but <i>you&#8217;ve</i> got to walk yo&#8217;self from the Turkey
+Tracks&mdash;and walk sudden and walk straight, Mr.
+Creed Bonbright&mdash;or you&#8217;ll come to more trouble
+with the Turrentines. I tell ye this in pure good
+will.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XIII_IN_THE_NIGHT' id='XIII_IN_THE_NIGHT'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' name='page_199'></a>199</span>
+<h2>Chapter XIII</h2>
+<h3>In the Night</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>In dark silence Judith made ready a late
+breakfast for the boys, leaving her coffee-pot
+as of custom on its bed of coals in the ashes, hot
+bread in the Dutch oven, and a platter of meat on
+the table. Jeff and Andy straggled in and ate,
+helping themselves mutely, with sidelong glances
+at her stormy face.</p>
+<p>During the entire forenoon Wade was off the
+place, but the twins put in their time at the pasture
+over the breaking of a colt to harness. Old
+Jephthah was in his room with the door shut.
+Jim Cal, almost immediately on Creed&#8217;s departure,
+had retired to the shelter of his own four walls,
+and, sick and trembling, taken to his bed, after
+his usual custom when the skies of life darkened.</p>
+<p>Dinner was got ready with the same fury of
+mechanical energy. During its preparation Iley
+stole to the door and looked in. The only women
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' name='page_200'></a>200</span>
+on the place, held outside the councils of the men,
+she longed to make some unformulated appeal to
+Judith, to have at least such help and comfort
+as might come from talking over the situation
+with her. But when the desolate dark eyes looked
+full into hers, and uttered as plainly as words
+the question that the sister dreaded, Jim Cal&#8217;s
+wife turned and fled.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She might as well &#8217;a&#8217; said &#8216;Huldy,&#8217;&#8221; whimpered
+the vixen, plucking at her lip and hurrying back,
+head down, to her own cabin.</p>
+<p>The day dragged its slow length. The sun
+in the doorway had crept to the noon-mark, and
+away again. Flies buzzed. A cicada droned
+without. The old hound padded in to lie down
+under the bed.</p>
+<p>After dinner Jephthah went away somewhere,
+and the boys gathered in their room, whence
+Judith could hear the clink and snap which
+advised her that the guns were having a thorough
+overhauling, cleaning, and oiling. She looked
+helplessly at the door. What could she do?
+Follow Creed as Huldah had done? At the
+thought, all her bitterness surged back upon her.
+What had she been able to accomplish when she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' name='page_201'></a>201</span>
+stood face to face alone with him on the woods-path?
+Nothing. She turned and addressed herself
+once more savagely to her tasks. That
+was what women were for&mdash;women and mules.
+Men had the say-so in this world. She&mdash;she the
+owner of this house, its real mistress&mdash;was to
+cook three meals a day for the men folks, and see
+nothing and say nothing.</p>
+<p>Supper was the only meal at which the entire
+family gathered that day. It was eaten in an
+almost unbroken silence, the younger boys plainly
+hesitating to speak to either Judith or their
+father. Save for elliptical requests for food, the
+only conversation was when Wade offered the
+opinion that it looked like it might rain before
+morning, and his father replied that he did not
+think it would. Leaving the table without further
+word, Jephthah returned to his own quarters;
+the boys drifted away one by one giving no
+destination.</p>
+<p>The light that used to wink out in friendly
+fashion from the smaller cabin across the slope
+was darkened. Jim Cal had crawled out of bed
+after a somewhat prolonged conversation with
+Wade. A little later he had sullenly harnessed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' name='page_202'></a>202</span>
+up a mule of Blatch&#8217;s and, with Iley and the
+children, started for old Jesse Spiller&#8217;s, out at
+Big Buck Gap, the sister maintaining to the last
+that Huldah must certainly have gone out to
+pap&#8217;s, and would be found waiting for them at the
+old home.</p>
+<p>There was nobody left on the place but Judith
+and her uncle. The girl went automatically
+about her Saturday evening duties, working
+doggedly, trying to tire herself out so that she
+might sleep when the time came that there was
+nothing to do but go to bed. As she passed from
+her storeroom, which she had got Wade to build
+in the back end of the threshing-floor porch, to
+the great open fireplace where a kettle hung with
+white beans boiling that would be served with
+dumplings for the Sunday dinner, as she took
+down and sorted over towels and cloths that were
+not needed, but which made a pretext for activity,
+her mind ground steadily upon the happenings of
+the past days. She could see Creed&#8217;s face before
+her as he had looked the night of the play-party.
+What coarse, crude animals the other
+men were beside him! She could hear his
+voice as it spoke to her in the dark yard at
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' name='page_203'></a>203</span>
+the Bonbright place, and her breath caught in
+her throat.</p>
+<p>She must be up and away; she must go to him
+and warn him, protect him against these her
+fierce kindred.</p>
+<p>Then suddenly came the vision of Creed&#8217;s
+laughing mouth as he bent to claim the forfeited
+kiss when Huldah Spiller had openly pushed
+herself across the line &#8220;and mighty nigh into his
+arms.&#8221; Huldah had run hot-foot to warn him.
+Arley Kittridge brought word of having seen her
+dodge into the Card orchard on her way to the
+house on the evening before, and nobody had
+had sight of her since.</p>
+<p>Judith&#8217;s was a nature swayed by impulse, more
+capable than she herself was aware of noble
+action, but capable also of sudden, irrational
+cruelty. Just now her soul was at war with itself,
+embittered by rage, by what she had done, by
+what she had left undone, by her helplessness, by
+what she desired to do. Finally, despairing of
+any weariness bringing sleep&mdash;she had tried that
+the night before and failed&mdash;she put by her work
+and went up to her room, undressed and lay down
+in the dark.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' name='page_204'></a>204</span></p>
+<p>For a long time she interrogated the blackness
+about her with wide open eyes. The house was
+strangely still. She could hear the movement
+and squawk of a chicken in one of the trees in
+the side yard when some fellow lodger disturbed
+it, or a sudden breeze shook the limb upon which
+it roosted. She wondered if the boys had come
+back yet and slipped in quietly. Had she slept
+at all? About eleven o&#8217;clock there arose an
+unquiet, gusty, yet persistent wind, that moved
+the cedar tree against the edge of the porch roof
+and set it complaining. For a time it moaned
+and protested like a man under the knife. Then
+its deep baritone voice began to cry out as though
+it were calling upon her. The tree had long
+ceased to mean anything other than Creed to
+Judith, and now its outcry aroused her to an
+absolute terror. Again and again as the wind
+the tree, so those tones shook her heart with their
+pain and love and anguish of entreaty.</p>
+<p>Finally she arose in a kind of torture, slipped
+on her clothes and went through all the rooms.
+They were silent and empty. Not a bed had been
+disturbed. She breathed loud and short in irrepressible
+excitement.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' name='page_205'></a>205</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re all over at the still,&#8221; she whispered,
+clutching at the breast of her dress, and
+shivering. But the old man never went near the
+still, she knew that. For a while she struggled
+with herself, and then she said, &#8220;I&#8217;ll just go and
+listen outside of Uncle Jep&#8217;s door. That won&#8217;t
+do any harm. Ef so be he&#8217;s thar, then the boys
+is shore at the still. Ef he ain&#8217;t&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>She left her mentally formed sentence unfinished
+and, on feet that fear winged, stole through
+the side yard, across the long, lush, uncut grass to
+her uncle&#8217;s door.</p>
+<p>The old man must have been a light sleeper, or
+perhaps he was awake before she approached, for
+he called out while she yet stood irresolute, her
+hand stretched toward the big wooden latch.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who&#8217;s thar?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Startled, abashed, she replied in a choked,
+hesitating tone.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s only me&mdash;Jude. I reckon I&#8217;m a fool,
+Uncle Jep. I know in reason there ain&#8217;t nothin&#8217;
+the matter. But I jest couldn&#8217;t sleep, and I got
+up and looked through the house, and the boys
+is all gone, and I got sorter scared.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He was with her almost instantly.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' name='page_206'></a>206</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon they&#8217;re all over &#8217;crost the gulch,&#8221; he
+said in his usual unexcited fashion, though she
+noted that he did not go back into his room, but
+joined her where she lingered in the dark outside.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course they air,&#8221; she reassured herself
+and him. &#8220;Whar else could they be?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now I&#8217;m up, I reckon I mought go over yon
+myself,&#8221; the old man said finally. &#8220;My foot
+hurts me this evening; I believe I&#8217;ll ride Pete.
+I took notice the boys had all the critters up for
+an early start in the mornin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Both knew that this was a device for investigating
+the stables, and together they hurried to the
+huddle of low log buildings which served to house
+forage and animals on the Turrentine place. Not
+a hoof of anything to ride had been left. The boys
+would not have taken mules or horse to go to the
+still&mdash;so much was certain. In the light of the
+lantern which Jephthah lit the two stood and
+looked at each other with a sort of consternation.
+Then the old man fetched a long breath.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go back to the house, Jude,&#8221; he said not
+unkindly, putting the lantern into her hand; and
+without another word he set off down the road
+running hard.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XIV_THE_RAID' id='XIV_THE_RAID'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' name='page_207'></a>207</span>
+<h2>Chapter XIV</h2>
+<h3>The Raid</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Earlier that same Saturday evening, while
+Judith Barrier was fighting out her battle,
+and trying to tire down the restless spirit that
+wrung and punished her, Nancy Card, mindful of
+earlier experiences in feud times, was getting her
+cabin in a state of defence.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know in reason them thar Turrentines
+ain&#8217;t a-goin&#8217; to hold off long,&#8221; she told Creed.
+&#8220;They&#8217;re pizen fighters, and they allus aim to
+hit fust. No, you don&#8217;t stay out in that thar
+office,&#8221; as Creed made this proffer, stating that it
+would leave her and her family safer. &#8220;I say
+stay in the office! Why, them Turrentines would
+ask no better than one feller for the lot of &#8217;em
+to jump on&mdash;they could make their brags about
+it the longest day they live of how they done him
+up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>So it came to pass that Creed was sitting in the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' name='page_208'></a>208</span>
+big kitchen of the Nancy Card cabin while Judith
+wrought at her fruitless labours in her own home.
+Despite the time of year, Nancy insisted on
+shutting the doors and closing the battened shutters
+at the windows.</p>
+<p>&#8220;A body gets a lot of good air by the chimney
+drawin&#8217; up when ye have a bit of fire smokin&#8217;,&#8221;
+she said. &#8220;I&#8217;d ruther be smothered as to be
+shot, anyhow.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Little Buck and Beezy, infected by the excitement
+of their elders, refused peremptorily to go to
+bed. &#8220;Let me take the baby,&#8221; said Creed holding
+out his arms. &#8220;She&#8217;s always good with me. She
+can go to sleep in my lap.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Beezy won&#8217;t go to sleep in <i>nobody&#8217;s</i> lap,&#8221; that
+young lady announced with great finality. &#8220;Beezy
+never go to sleep <i>no</i> time&mdash;<i>nowhere</i>.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; agreed the young fellow easily,
+cutting short a futile argument upon the
+grandmother&#8217;s part. &#8220;You needn&#8217;t go to sleep
+if you can stay awake, honey. You sit right here
+in Creed&#8217;s lap and stay awake till morning and
+keep him good company, won&#8217;t you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The red head nodded till its flying frazzles
+quivered like tongues of flame. Then it snuggled
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' name='page_209'></a>209</span>
+down on the broad breast, that moved rhythmically
+under it, and very soon the long lashes
+drooped to the flushed cheeks and Beezy was
+asleep.</p>
+<p>Aunt Nancy had picked up Little Buck, but
+that young man had the limitations of his virtues.
+Being silent by nature he had not so much to keep
+him awake as the loquacious Beezy, and by the
+time his father on the other side of the hearth had
+dropped asleep and nearly fallen into the fire a
+couple of times, been sternly admonished by the
+grandmother, and gone to fling himself face down
+upon a bed in the corner, Little Buck was sounder
+asleep than his sister.</p>
+<p>The old woman got up and carried her grandson
+to the bed, laid him down upon it and, taking
+basin and towel, proceeded to wipe the dusty
+small feet before she took off his minimum of
+clothing and pushed him in between the sheets.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Minds me of a foot-washin&#8217; at Little Shiloh,&#8221;
+she ruminated. &#8220;Here&#8217;s me jest like the preacher
+and here&#8217;s Little Buck gettin&#8217; all the sins of the
+day washed off at once.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She completed her task, and was taking Beezy
+from Creed&#8217;s arms to lay her beside her brother
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' name='page_210'></a>210</span>
+on the bed, when a tap&mdash;tap&mdash;tapping, apparently
+upon the window shutter, brought them both to
+their feet, staring at each other with pale faces.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that?&#8221; breathed Nancy. &#8220;Hush&mdash;hit&#8217;ll
+come again. Don&#8217;t you answer for your
+life, Creed. Ef anybody speaks, let it be me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Again the measured rap&mdash;rap&mdash;rap!</p>
+<p>&#8220;You let my Nick in,&#8221; murmured Beezy
+sleepily, and Creed laughed out in sudden relief.
+It was the wooden-legged rooster, coming across
+the little side porch and making his plea for
+admission as he stepped.</p>
+<p>Something in the incident brought the situation
+of affairs home to Creed Bonbright as it had not
+been before.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Nancy,&#8221; he said resolutely, &#8220;I&#8217;m going
+to leave right now and walk down to the settlement.
+I&#8217;ve got no business to be here putting
+you and the children in danger. It&#8217;s a case of
+fool pride. They told me down at Hepzibah
+that I&#8217;d be run out of the Turkey Tracks inside of
+three months if I tried to set up a justice&#8217;s office
+here. I felt sort of ashamed to go back and face
+them and own up that they were right&mdash;that
+I had been run out. I ought to have been too
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' name='page_211'></a>211</span>
+much of a man to feel that way. It makes no
+difference what they say&mdash;the only thing that
+counts is that I have failed.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You let me catch you openin&#8217; that do&#8217; or
+steppin&#8217; yo&#8217; foot on the road to-night!&#8221; snorted
+Nancy belligerently. &#8220;Why, you fool boy, don&#8217;t
+you know all the roads has been guarded by the
+Turrentines ever since they fell out with ye?
+They &#8217;lowed ye would run of course, and they
+aimed to layway ye as ye went. I could have
+told &#8217;em ye wasn&#8217;t the runnin&#8217; kind; but thar,
+what do they know about&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>She broke off suddenly, her mouth open,
+and stood staring with fear-dilated eyes at
+Creed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hello!&#8221; came the hail from outside.</p>
+<p>Nancy let the baby slip from her arms to the
+floor, and the little thing stood whimpering and
+rubbing her eyes, clinging to her grandmother&#8217;s
+skirts.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hush&mdash;hush!&#8221; cautioned the old woman,
+barely above her breath.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hello! Hello in thar! You better answer&mdash;we
+see yo&#8217; light. Hello in thar!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whose&mdash;voice&mdash;is that?&#8221; breathed old Nancy.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' name='page_212'></a>212</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;It sounded like Blatch Turrentine&#8217;s,&#8221; Creed
+whispered back as softly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit do,&#8221; she agreed with conviction.</p>
+<p>Suddenly a shot rang out, and Doss Provine
+sat up on the edge of the bed with a gurgle of
+terror. Little Buck wakened at the same instant,
+and ran to his grandmother.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t scared, Granny,&#8221; he asseverated, &#8220;I
+kin fight fer ye.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hush&mdash;hush!&#8221; cautioned Nancy, bending to
+gather in the sun-burned tow head at her knee.</p>
+<p>Another shot followed, and after it a voice
+crying,</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve got Creed Bonbright in thar. You
+let him come out and talk to us, or we&#8217;ll batter
+yo&#8217; do&#8217; in.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You Andy&mdash;you Jeff!&#8221; shouted the old woman
+in sudden rage. &#8220;Ef you want Creed Bonbright
+you know whar to find him. You go away and
+let my do&#8217; alone.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You quit callin&#8217; out names, Nancy Cyard,&#8221;
+responded the first, menacing voice out of the
+darkness. &#8220;We know Bonbright&#8217;s in thar, and
+we aim to have him out&mdash;or burn yo&#8217; house&mdash;accordin&#8217;
+to yo&#8217; ruthers.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' name='page_213'></a>213</span></p>
+<p>Creed had parted his lips to answer them, when
+old Nancy sprang at him and set her hand over
+his open mouth.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You hush&mdash;and keep hushed!&#8221; she whispered
+urgently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I just wanted to call to the boys and tell them
+I&#8217;m here,&#8221; Creed whispered to her. &#8220;Aunt
+Nancy, I&#8217;m bound to go out there and talk to
+them fellows. I cain&#8217;t stay in here and let you and
+the children suffer for it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aw, big-mouthed, big-talkin&#8217; brood&mdash;what
+do I keer for them?&#8221; demanded Nancy, tossing her
+head with a characteristic motion to get the grey
+curls away from her fearless blue eyes; whereupon
+the tucking comb slipped down and had to
+be replaced, &#8220;You ain&#8217;t a-goin&#8217; out thar,&#8221; she
+whispered vehemently from under her raised arm,
+as she redded back the straying locks with it.
+Nancy had the reckless, dare-devil courage those
+blue eyes bespoke. Presuming a bit, perhaps, on
+her age and sex, she yet ran risks that many men
+would have shunned without deeming themselves
+cowards. &#8220;You ain&#8217;t a-goin&#8217; out thar, I
+tell ye,&#8221; she reiterated. &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t let ye ef
+they burnt the house down over our heads.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' name='page_214'></a>214</span>
+Pony&#8217;ll be along pretty shortly from Hepzibah,
+and when he sees &#8217;em I reckon he&#8217;s got sense
+enough to git behind a bush and fire at &#8217;em&mdash;that&#8217;ll
+scatter &#8217;em.&#8221;</p>
+<p>As if inspired to destroy this one slender hope,
+the voice outside spoke again, tauntingly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nancy Cyard, we&#8217;ve got yo&#8217; son Pony here&mdash;picked
+him up on the road&mdash;an&#8217; ef yo&#8217;r a mind to
+trade Creed Bonbright for him, we&#8217;ll trade even.
+Better dicker with us. Somepin&#8217; bad might
+happen this young &#8217;un.&#8221;</p>
+<p>At the words, Creed wheeled and made for the
+door, Nancy gripping him frantically but mutely.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed&mdash;boy&mdash;honey!&#8221;&mdash;she breathed at last,
+&#8220;they&#8217;s mo&#8217; than one kind o&#8217; courage. This is jest
+fool courage&mdash;to go an&#8217; git yo&#8217;se&#8217;f killed up. Them
+Turrentines won&#8217;t hurt Pone. But you&mdash;oh, my
+Lord!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon ye better let him go, maw,&#8221; Doss
+Provine chattered from the bed&#8217;s edge where he
+still crouched. &#8220;Hit&#8217;s best that it should be one,
+ruther than all of us.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Old Nancy flung him a glance of wordless contempt.
+Beezy ran and tangled herself in the
+tall young fellow&#8217;s legs, halting him.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' name='page_215'></a>215</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed,&#8221; the old woman urged, still below her
+breath, holding to his arm. &#8220;Creed, honey, as
+soon as you open that do&#8217; and stand in the light,
+yo&#8217;r no better than a dead man. Listen!&#8221;</p>
+<p>All caution had been thrown aside by the
+besiegers. Hoarse voices questioned and answered
+outside, sounds of stumbling footsteps
+surrounded the house.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Boys,&#8221; called Creed in that clear, ringing voice
+of his that held neither fear nor great excitement,
+&#8220;I&#8217;m coming out to talk to you. Aunt Nancy,
+take the children away. You&#8217;ve got it to do.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, come on,&#8221; replied the voice without.
+&#8220;Talk&mdash;that&#8217;s all we want. You&#8217;ll be as safe
+outside as in&mdash;and a damn&#8217; sight safer.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Nancy gathered up her youngsters, flung them
+in a heap into their father&#8217;s lap, and, overturning
+and putting out the candle as she went, sprang to
+the hearth to quench a small flame which had
+risen among the embers there.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye might have some sense!&#8221; she panted
+angrily. &#8220;The idea of walkin&#8217; yo&#8217;se&#8217;f into a
+lighted doorway for them fellers to shoot at! For
+God&#8217;s sake don&#8217;t open that do&#8217; till I get the lights
+out!&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' name='page_216'></a>216</span></p>
+<p>But Creed was not listening. He had pulled the
+big pine bar that held the battened door in place,
+and now flung it wide, stepping to the threshold
+and beginning again,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Boys&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>He uttered no further word. A rifle spoke, a
+bullet sang, passed through the cabin and buried
+itself in the old-fashioned chimneypiece. Creed
+fell where he stood. As he went down across the
+threshold, Nancy whirling around to the door, bent
+over his prostrate form.</p>
+<p>Outside, the ruddy, shaken shine from a couple
+of lightwood torches which stood alone, where
+they had been thrust deep into the garden mould
+made strange gouts and blotches of colour on
+Nancy&#8217;s flower beds. A group of men halted,
+drawn together, muttering, just beyond the
+palings. Each had a handkerchief tied across the
+lower part of his face, a simple but effectual
+disguise.</p>
+<p>Her groping hand came away from the prostrate
+man, red with blood; she dashed it across her brow
+to clear her eyes of blowing hair. At the moment
+a figure burst through the grove of saplings by the
+roadside, a tall old man whose long black beard
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' name='page_217'></a>217</span>
+blew across his mighty chest that laboured as he
+ran. His hat was off in his hand, his face raised;
+he had no weapon. With a gasp of relief Nancy
+recognised him, yet rage mounted in her, too.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes&mdash;come a-runnin&#8217;,&#8221; she muttered fiercely.
+&#8220;Come look at what you and yo&#8217;rn have done!&#8221;</p>
+<p>As he leaped into the clearing the old man&#8217;s
+great black eyes, full of sombre fire, swept the
+scene. They took in the prone figure across the
+threshold, the blood upon the doorstone, and
+on Nancy&#8217;s brow and hair.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Air ye hurt? Nancy, air ye hurt?&#8221; he cried,
+in such a tone as none there had ever heard from
+him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Am I hurt?&mdash;No!&#8221; choked the old woman,
+trying to get a hold on Creed&#8217;s broad shoulders
+and drag him back into the room. &#8220;I ain&#8217;t hurt,
+but it&#8217;s no credit to them wolves that you call
+sons of yo&#8217;rn. They&#8217;ve got Pone out thar, ef
+they hain&#8217;t shot him yit. And they&#8217;ve killed the
+best man that ever come on this here mountain.
+Oh, Creed&mdash;my pore boy! You Doss Provine!
+Come here an&#8217; he&#8217;p me lift him.&#8221; She reared herself
+on her knees and glared at the group by the
+gate. &#8220;He had no better sense than to take ye for
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' name='page_218'></a>218</span>
+men&mdash;to trust the word ye give, that he was safe
+when he opened the do&#8217;. Don&#8217;t you come a step
+nearer, Jep Turrentine,&#8221; she railed out at him
+suddenly, as the old man drew toward the gate.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve had a plenty o&#8217; you an&#8217; yo&#8217; sons this night.
+They&#8217;re jest about good enough to shoot me
+while I&#8217;m a-tryin&#8217; to git this po&#8217; dead boy drug
+in the house, an&#8217; then burn the roof down over me
+an&#8217; my baby chil&#8217;en. You Doss Provine, walk
+yo&#8217;se&#8217;f here an&#8217; he&#8217;p me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Doss, who found the presence of Jephthah Turrentine
+reassuring, whatever his mother-in-law
+might say, slouched forward, and between them
+they lifted the limp figure.</p>
+<p>&#8220;God knows I don&#8217;t blame ye, Nancy,&#8221; muttered
+the old man in his beard, as the heavy
+door was dragged shut, and the bar dropped into
+place. Then he advanced upon the men at the
+palings.</p>
+<p>At Jephthah&#8217;s first appearance the tallest of
+these had dropped swiftly back into the shadows
+on the other side of the road and was gone. Unsupported,
+the four or five who were left shuffled
+uneasily, beneath the old man&#8217;s fierce eye.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s Pone Cyard?&#8221; he demanded.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' name='page_219'></a>219</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;We hain&#8217;t tetched him, pap. We never seed
+him. We said that to draw &#8217;em.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huh!&#8221; ejaculated Jephthah, as though further
+comment were beyond him. &#8220;Git yo&#8217; ridin&#8217; critters,&#8221;
+he gave the short, sharp order. &#8220;Fetch
+Pete to me.&#8221; And he whirled his back, and
+stalked out into the main road.</p>
+<p>A hundred yards or so up, there was a sound of
+hoofs and tearing bushes, as the boys came through
+the greenery with their mules. Pete was led up
+and the bridle-rein presented in meek silence.
+By the dim, presaging light of the little waning
+moon, delaying somewhere down below the
+shoulder of Big Turkey Track, old Jephthah took
+it, set foot in stirrup, and made ready to swing
+to saddle. Then he slowly withdrew the foot and
+turned back.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take them cussed rags off o&#8217; yo&#8217; faces!&#8221; he
+burst out in a fury of contempt. &#8220;Now. Who
+laid out this night&#8217;s work? Well, speak up&mdash;how
+come it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dead silence answered. Of the three who
+faced him not one&mdash;lacking the leader who had
+skulked away at Jephthah&#8217;s approach&mdash;could
+have explained just why he was there. And none
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' name='page_220'></a>220</span>
+of them would betray the man who had led them
+there and left them to answer as best they might
+for their actions to the head of the tribe.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uh-huh, I thort so,&#8221; nodded the old man
+bitterly, as they yet stood mute. &#8220;Ain&#8217;t got a
+word to say for yo&#8217;selves. No, and they ain&#8217;t a
+word to be said. Yo&#8217; sons in my house. I was
+thar&mdash;I was standin&#8217; with ye about this business.
+Why couldn&#8217;t this be named to me? What call
+had ye to sneak around me&mdash;to make a fool o&#8217; me,
+an&#8217; shame me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He waited. Receiving no response, he concluded
+as he got to the mule&#8217;s back,</p>
+<p>&#8220;You do me thisaway once mo&#8217;&mdash;jest once mo&#8217;&mdash;and
+hit will be a plenty.&#8221;</p>
+<p>With that he gave Pete the rein, and the mule&#8217;s
+receding heels flung dust in the dismayed countenances
+he left behind him.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XV_COUNCIL_OF_WAR' id='XV_COUNCIL_OF_WAR'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' name='page_221'></a>221</span>
+<h2>Chapter XV</h2>
+<h3>Council of War</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Turrentine clan was gathering for consultation,
+Judith knew that. It was Sunday, and
+much of this unwonted activity passed as the
+ordinary Sabbath day coming and going. But
+there was a steady tendency of tall, soft-stepping,
+slow-spoken, keen-eyed males toward old Jephthah&#8217;s
+quarters, and Judith had got dinner for
+the two long-limbed, black-avised Turrentine
+brothers, Hawk and Chantry, from over in Rainy
+Gap; and old Turrentine Broyles, a man of
+Jephthah&#8217;s age, had ridden in from Broyles&#8217;s Mill
+that morning.</p>
+<p>With the natural freedom of movement that
+Sunday offers, information from the Card neighbourhood
+came in easily. Inevitably Judith
+learned all the details of last night&#8217;s raid; and
+everybody on the place knew that Creed Bonbright
+was alive, and that he was not even
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' name='page_222'></a>222</span>
+seriously wounded. He had been observed through
+the open door of Nancy&#8217;s cabin moving about the
+rooms inside. Arley Kittridge declared that he
+had seen Bonbright, in the grey of early morning,
+his head bound up and his left arm in a sling,
+cross from Nancy&#8217;s house to his office and back
+again, alone.</p>
+<p>Sunday brought the Jim Cals home, too. Iley,
+humiliated and savage, bearing in her breast
+galling secret recollections of Pap Spiller&#8217;s animadversions
+on her management of Huldah, raged
+all day with the toothache, and a pariah dog
+might have pitied the lot of the fat man.</p>
+<p>All day, as Judith cooked, and washed her
+dishes, and entertained her visitors, the events
+of last night&#8217;s raid were present with her. When
+at the table one of the boys stretched a hand to
+receive the food she had prepared, she looked at
+it with an inward shuddering, wondering, was this
+the hand that fired the shot?</p>
+<p>All day as she talked to her women visitors of
+patchwork patterns, or the making of lye soap, as
+she admired their babies and sympathised with
+their ailments, her mind was busy with the
+inquiry what part she should take in the final
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' name='page_223'></a>223</span>
+inevitable crisis. She remembered with a remorse
+that was almost shame how, at their last
+interview, she had plucked back from Creed her
+rescuing hand in jealous anger. That big mother
+kindness that there was in her spoke for him,
+pleaded loud for his life, when her hot passionate
+heart would have had revenge for his
+slight.</p>
+<p>Yes, she had to save Creed Bonbright if she
+could, and to be of any use to him she must
+know what was planned against him. It was
+dark by the time the women-folk had gone their
+ways and the men remaining had assembled
+definitely in old Jephthah&#8217;s separate cabin.
+No gleam of light shone from its one window.
+Judith watched for some time, then taking a bucket
+as a pretext walked down the path to the cow-lot,
+which led her close in to the cabin. She could
+hear as she approached the murmur of masculine
+voices. Secure from observation in the darkness,
+she crept to the window and listened, her head
+leaned against the wooden shutter. Old Jephthah
+was speaking, and she realised from his
+words that she had chanced upon the close of
+their council.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' name='page_224'></a>224</span></p>
+<p>The big voice came out to her in carefully lowered
+tones.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Broyles, yo&#8217; the oldest, an that&#8217;s yo&#8217;
+opinion. Hawk an&#8217; Chantry says the same. Now
+as far as I&#8217;m concerned&mdash;&#8221; the commanding
+accents faltered a little&mdash;&#8220;I&#8217;m obliged to agree
+with you. The matter has got where we cain&#8217;t
+do no other than run him out. I admit it. I&#8217;ll
+say yes to that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith trembled, for she knew they spoke of
+Creed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Jep, you better not put too many things
+in the way,&#8221; came accents she recognised as
+Turrentine Broyles&#8217;s, &#8220;or looks like these-here
+boys is liable to find theirselves behind bars
+befo&#8217; snow flies.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huh-uh,&#8221; agreed the old man&#8217;s voice. &#8220;I
+know whar I&#8217;m at. I ain&#8217;t lived this long and got
+through without disgrace or jailin&#8217; to take up with
+it at my age; but they don&#8217;t raid no more cabins.
+I freed my mind on that last night; I made myself
+cl&#8217;ar; an&#8217; that&#8217;s the one pledge I ax for. Toll
+him away from the place and layway him, if
+you must, to run him out. But they&#8217;s to be
+no killin&#8217;, an&#8217; no mo&#8217; shootin&#8217; up houses whar
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' name='page_225'></a>225</span>
+they is women and chil&#8217;en. This ain&#8217;t no
+feud.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right&mdash;we&#8217;ve got yo&#8217; word for it, have
+we?&#8221; inquired Buck Shalliday eagerly. &#8220;You&#8217;ll
+stand by us?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Suddenly a brand on the hearth flamed up,
+and Judith peering through a crack of the board
+shutter had sight of her uncle standing, his
+height exaggerated by the flickering illumination,
+tall and black on the hearthstone. About him
+the faint light fell on a circle of eager, drawn faces,
+all set toward him. As she looked he raised his
+hand above his head and shook the clenched fist.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got obliged to,&#8221; he groaned. &#8220;God
+knows I had nothing against Creed Bonbright.
+And I can&#8217;t say as I&#8217;ve got anything against
+him yit. But I&#8217;ve got a-plenty against rottin&#8217; in
+jail. I&#8217;d ruther die.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will ye come with us, pap?&#8221; Jim Cal instantly
+put the question, and as he spoke the light went
+suddenly out.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; returned old Jephthah doggedly. &#8220;I
+won&#8217;t make nor meddle. I&#8217;ve give you my best
+advice; I sont for Hawk an&#8217; Chantry, here, an&#8217;
+for Turn Broyles, to do the same. We&#8217;ve talked
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226' name='page_226'></a>226</span>
+it over fa&#8217;r an&#8217; squar&#8217;, aimin&#8217; to have ye do this
+thing right&mdash;&#8221; He broke off, and then amended
+sombrely, &#8220;&mdash;As near right as sech a thing can
+be did. But you-all boys run into this here
+agin&#8217; my ruthers, an&#8217; you&#8217;ll jest have to git out
+yo&#8217;selves. All I say is, no killin&#8217;, and no raidin&#8217;
+of folks&#8217; homes.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No <i>mo&#8217;</i> killin&#8217;, ye mean,&mdash;don&#8217;t ye?&#8221; asked
+Jim Cal. The fat man, goaded beyond reason,
+was ready to turn and fight at last.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I don&#8217;t,&#8221; answered his father. &#8220;When I
+mean a thing I can find the words to say it
+without any advice. As for Blatch bein&#8217; killed&mdash;you
+boys think yo&#8217; mighty smart, but you&#8217;d
+show yo&#8217; sense to tote fair with me and tell
+me all that&#8217;s goin&#8217; on. I wasn&#8217;t born yesterday.
+I&#8217;ve seen interruptions and killin&#8217;s befo&#8217; I seen
+any of you. An&#8217; I&#8217;ll say right here in front o&#8217; yo&#8217;
+kinfolks that&#8217;s come to he&#8217;p you out with their
+counsels&mdash;an&#8217; could do a sight better ef you&#8217;d
+tell &#8217;em the truth&mdash;that I never did think it was
+likely that Creed Bonbright made away with a
+body inside of fifteen minutes. That tale&#8217;s
+too big for me&mdash;but I&#8217;m askin&#8217; no questions.
+Settle it your own way&mdash;but for God&#8217;s sake settle
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' name='page_227'></a>227</span>
+it. Him knowin&#8217; what he does an&#8217; havin&#8217; been
+did the way you boys have done him, he&#8217;s got
+to go. Run him out&mdash;an&#8217; run him out quick.
+Don&#8217;t you dare tell me how, nor when, nor what!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith started back as the sounds within told
+her that the men were groping their way to the
+door. As she stood concealed by darkness,
+they issued, made their quiet adieux, and went over
+to the fence where she could hear the stamping
+of the tethered animals. Cut off from the house,
+she retreated swiftly down the path toward the
+stable and would have entered, but some instinct
+warned her back. As she paused uncertain,
+hearing footsteps approaching from behind, indefinably
+sure that there was danger in front,
+there sounded a cautious low whistle. Those
+who came from the cabin answered it. She
+drew back beneath one of the peach-trees by the
+milking-pen&mdash;the very one from which Creed had
+broken the blossoming switch, with which she
+reproached him. Flat against its trunk she
+crouched, as six men went past her in the gloom.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who&#8217;s here?&#8221; demanded a voice like Blatch
+Turrentine&#8217;s, and at the sound she began suddenly
+to shudder from head to foot. Then she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_228' name='page_228'></a>228</span>
+pulled herself together. This was no ghost talking.
+It was the man himself.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Me,&#8221; answered Jim Cal&#8217;s unmistakable tones,
+&#8220;an&#8217; Wade, an&#8217; Jeff, an&#8217; Andy. Buck and Taylor&#8217;s
+both with us&mdash;and that&#8217;s all.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The man within opened the grain-room door,
+and the six newcomers entered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whar&#8217;s old man Broyles, an&#8217; Hawk an&#8217;
+Chantry?&#8221; questioned Blatch.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They rid off home,&#8221; said Shalliday.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, what does Unc&#8217; Jep say?&#8221; demanded
+Blatch, plainly not without some anxiety.</p>
+<p>Before anyone could answer,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hark ye!&#8221; came Jim Cal&#8217;s tones tremulously.
+&#8220;Didn&#8217;t I hear somebody outside? Thar&mdash;what
+was that?&#8221;</p>
+<p>In her excitement and interest Judith had
+moved nearer with some noise.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I vow, podner,&#8221; came Blatch&#8217;s rich, rasping
+tones. &#8220;Ef I didn&#8217;t know it was you I&#8217;d be
+liable to think they was a shiverin&#8217; squinch-owl
+in here with us. Buck, step out and scout, will
+ye? Git back as soon as ye can, &#8217;caze we&#8217;re goin&#8217;
+to have a drink.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She heard the rattle of a tin cup against the jug.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' name='page_229'></a>229</span>
+As she moved carefully down the way toward
+the spring, Blatch&#8217;s voice followed her, saying
+unctuously:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Had to go through hell to get this stuff&mdash;spies
+a-follerin&#8217; ye about, an&#8217; U.S. marshals
+a-threatenin&#8217; ye with jail&mdash;might as well
+enjoy it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She dipped her bucket in the spring branch,
+and bore it dripping up the path a short way. If
+Buck Shalliday met her, she had an errand and
+an excuse for her presence which might deceive
+him. When she came within sight of the stables
+once more she set down her bucket and stood
+listening long. Something moved outside the
+logs. They had posted their sentry then. She
+groaned as she realised that what she had heard
+was inadequate and insufficient. The knowledge
+was there to be had for a little daring, a little
+cunning.</p>
+<p>Just as she had become almost desperate enough
+to walk up to the place and make pretence of
+being one with them, a stamp from the figure
+outside the corner told her that it was a tethered
+mule instead of a man. Emboldened she stole
+nearer, and found a spot where she could crouch
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230' name='page_230'></a>230</span>
+by the wall so hidden among some disused implements
+that she might even have dared to let
+them emerge from their hiding-place and pass
+her. Again Blatch was speaking.</p>
+<p>Blatchley Turrentine had come to his uncle&#8217;s
+house, a youth of seventeen&mdash;a man, as mountain
+society reckons things. At that time Andy and
+Jeff were seven-year-olds, Wade a big boy of
+thirteen; and even Jim Cal, of the same years but
+less adventurous in nature, had been so thoroughly
+dominated by the newcomer that the leadership
+then established had never been relinquished.
+And now the artfully introduced whiskey had
+done its work; these boys were quite other than
+those who had gone in sober and grave less than
+half an hour before, their father&#8217;s admonitions and
+the counsels of old man Broyles and their Turrentine
+kindred lying strongly upon them.</p>
+<p>Judith heard no demur as Blatch detailed
+their plans.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;s no use to go to Unc&#8217; Jep with what
+I&#8217;ve been a-tellin&#8217; ye,&#8221; the voice of natural
+authority proclaimed. &#8220;I tell ye Polk Sayles
+says he&#8217;s seen Bonbright meet Dan Haley about
+half way down the Side&mdash;thar whar Big Rock
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' name='page_231'></a>231</span>
+Creek crosses the corner of the Sayles place&mdash;mo&#8217;
+than once sense he&#8217;s been on the mountain. Now
+with what that man knows, and with the grudges
+he&#8217;s got, you let him live to meet Dan Haley once
+mo&#8217; and even Unc&#8217; Jep is liable to the penitentiary&mdash;but
+tell it to Unc&#8217; Jep an&#8217; he won&#8217;t believe
+ye. He&#8217;s got a sort of likin&#8217; for the feller.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what I say,&#8221; Jim Cal seconded in a
+voice which had become pot-valiant. &#8220;Pap is a
+old man, and we-all that air younger have obliged
+to take care on him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>At any other time these pious sentiments would
+have brought a volley of laughter from Blatchley,
+but this evening Judith judged from the sounds
+that he clapped the fat man on the shoulder as
+he said heartily:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mighty right you air, James Calhoun. Unc&#8217;
+Jep is one of the finest men that ever ate bread,
+but his day is pretty well over. Ef we went by
+him and old man Broyles and Hawk and Chantry,
+we&#8217;d find ourselves in trouble mighty shortly.
+They&#8217;s but one way to toll Bonbright out to whar
+we want him. We&#8217;ve got to send word that
+Unc&#8217; Jep will meet him at moonrise and talk to
+him. The fool is plumb crazy about talkin&#8217; to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' name='page_232'></a>232</span>
+folks, and looks like he cain&#8217;t get it through his
+head that Unc&#8217; Jep ain&#8217;t his best friend. It&#8217;ll
+fetch him whar nothin&#8217; else will.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And we&#8217;ve got to hunt up something else
+for you to ride, Blatch, ef Jim Cal an&#8217; me takes the
+mules,&#8221; Jeff remarked. &#8220;Jude mighty nigh tore
+up the ground when she found we&#8217;d had Selim
+last night. She give it out to each and every
+that nobody is to lay a hand on him day or night
+from this on.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The girl outside heard Blatch&#8217;s hateful laugh,
+and knew with a great throb of rage who had
+ridden her horse the night before.</p>
+<p>There was a stir among the men seated, Judith
+conjectured, on the grain-room floor, and a little
+clinking, as the jug of corn whiskey was once more
+brought into play by Blatch. Presently,</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; said Buck Shalliday. &#8220;I&#8217;ll bring
+Lige&#8217;s mule. And I&#8217;ll have a message got to
+Bonbright that Jephthah Turrentine wants to
+see and talk with him out at Todd&#8217;s corner at
+moonrise a-Monday night. Will that suit ye?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;ll answer,&#8221; returned Blatch. &#8220;Let&#8217;s
+see,&#8221; he calculated; &#8220;that&#8217;ll be about two
+o&#8217;clock. Ef he comes up to the scratch we&#8217;ll
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' name='page_233'></a>233</span>
+git Mr. Man as he goes by the big rock in the
+holler acrosst from the spring. That rock and
+the bushes by it gives plenty of cover. They&#8217;s
+bound to be light enough to see him by, with the
+moon jest coming up, and I want to hear from
+every man present that he&#8217;ll shoot at the word.
+I don&#8217;t want any feller in the crowd that&#8217;ll
+say he didn&#8217;t pull trigger on Bonbright. Ef
+we all aim and shoot, nary a one of us can say
+who killed him&mdash;and killed he&#8217;s got to be.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The listening girl hoped for some demur, but
+Blatch Turrentine and his potent counsellor, the
+jug, dominated the assembly, and there came a
+striking of hands on this, a hoarse murmuring
+growl of agreement. She doubled low to avoid
+being seen against the sky and hurried back
+toward the cabin as she heard the men preparing
+to leave the grain-room.</p>
+<p>Brave as any one of them there, enterprising and
+full of the spirit of leadership, Judith addressed
+herself promptly to saving Creed Bonbright.
+She went straight to her uncle&#8217;s cabin. No
+mountaineer ever raps on a door. Judith shook
+the latch, at first gently, then, getting no response,
+more and more imperatively, at length opening
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' name='page_234'></a>234</span>
+and walking in, with a questioning, &#8220;Uncle
+Jep?&#8221;</p>
+<p>There was no answer, no sound or movement.
+With hasty fingers she raked together the brands
+of the fire; they flickered up and showed her an
+untenanted room. The bed was untouched, the
+old man&#8217;s hat and coat were gone. The pegs
+above the door where Old Sister always rested
+were empty.</p>
+<p>Instantly there flashed upon Judith the intuition
+that her uncle, heartsick and ill-affected
+toward the quarrel, had silently withdrawn until
+it should have been settled one way or another.
+Well, she must work alone.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XVI_A_MESSAGE' id='XVI_A_MESSAGE'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' name='page_235'></a>235</span>
+<h2>Chapter XVI</h2>
+<h3>A Message</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Judith stole noiselessly into the house
+and up to her room, she could hear the
+boys preparing for bed in their own quarters,
+with unwonted jesting and laughter, and even
+some occasional stamping about which suggested
+horse-play; and her lip curled angrily as she
+recalled Blatch&#8217;s jug of corn whiskey.</p>
+<p>She lay thinking, thinking; and at length there
+evolved itself in her mind a plan for getting Creed
+safely out of the mountains by way of an ancient
+Cherokee trail that ran down the gulch through a
+distant corner of the old Turrentine place. By
+this route they would reach the railroad town of
+Garyville, quite around the flank of Big Turkey
+Track from Hepzibah. She could do that. She
+knew every step of the way. The trail was a disused,
+forgotten route of travel, long fenced across
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' name='page_236'></a>236</span>
+in several places, and scoured out of existence at
+certain points by mountain streams; but she
+had known every foot of it in years past; she
+could travel it the darkest night; and Selim was
+her own horse; she need ask nobody.</p>
+<p>When she got so far, came the pressing question
+of how to send word to Creed. She must see and
+warn him before the men put their plan into
+practice. But she was well aware that she herself
+was under fairly close espionage, and that her
+first move in the direction of Nancy Card&#8217;s cabin
+would bring the vague suspicions of her household
+to a certainty. Where to find a messenger?
+How to so word a message that Creed would
+answer it? These were the questions that drove
+sleep from her pillow till almost morning.</p>
+<p>She rose and faced the dawn with haggard eyes.
+Unless she could do something this was the last
+day of Creed&#8217;s life. In a tremor of apprehension
+she got through her morning duties, cooking and
+serving a breakfast to the three boys, who made
+no comment on their father&#8217;s absence, and whose
+curious looks she was aware of upon her averted
+face, her down-dropped eyelids. She felt alone
+indeed, with her uncle gone, and the boys who
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' name='page_237'></a>237</span>
+had been as brothers to her almost since babyhood
+suddenly become strangers, their interests
+and hers hostile, destructive to each other.</p>
+<p>Woman will go to woman in a pinch like this,
+and in spite of her repugnance at the thought of
+Huldah, Judith late in the afternoon made her
+way over to the Jim Cal cabin and asked concerning
+its mistress&#8217; toothache.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s better,&#8221; said Iley briefly. Her head
+was tied up in a medley of cloths and smelled loud
+of turpentine, camphor, and a lingering bouquet
+of assaf&oelig;tida. She was not a hopeful individual
+to enlist in a chivalrous enterprise.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huldy git back yet?&#8221; Judith asked finally.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, an&#8217; she needn&#8217;t never git back,&#8221; snapped
+Iley. &#8220;Her and Creed Bonbright kin make out
+best they may. I don&#8217;t know as I mind her
+bein&#8217; broke off with Wade. One Turrentine in
+the fambly&#8217;s enough fer me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Air her and Creed Bonbright goin&#8217; to be
+wedded?&#8221; inquired Judith scarcely above her
+breath.</p>
+<p>&#8220;<i>Air</i> they?&#8221; echoed Xantippe, settling her
+hands on her hips and surveying Judith with an
+angry stare, the dignity of which was sadly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' name='page_238'></a>238</span>
+impaired by a yellow flannel cloth-end which
+persisted in dabbling in her eye. &#8220;Well, I should
+hope so! I don&#8217;t know what gals is comin&#8217; to in
+this day an&#8217; time&mdash;follerin&#8217; &#8217;round after the young
+men like you do. Ef I&#8217;d a&#8217; done so when I was
+a gal my mammy&#8217;d have took a hickory to me.
+That&#8217;s what she would. Here&#8217;s Jim Cal be&#8217;n
+rarin&#8217; around here like a chicken with its head
+off &#8217;caze Huldy run away with Creed Bonbright,
+and here <i>you</i> air askin&#8217; me do I think Creed and
+Huldy is apt to marry. What kind of women do
+ye &#8217;low the Spiller gals is, anyhow?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith turned away from so unpromising an
+ally. She was accused of running after Creed
+Bonbright. When he got her message it would
+be with Huldah Spiller beside him to help him
+read it. The thought was bitter. It gave that
+passionate heart of hers a deadly qualm; but
+she put it down and rose above it. Huldah or no
+Huldah, she could not let him die and make no
+effort.</p>
+<p>Leaving Jim Cal&#8217;s cabin she walked out into
+the woods, and only as she turned at the edge of
+the clearing and looked back to find Iley furtively
+peering after her from the corner of the house did
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' name='page_239'></a>239</span>
+she realise that the woman&#8217;s words had been
+dictated because she had been taken into the
+confidence of the men and set to keep an eye
+on Judith.</p>
+<p>At the conviction a feeling of terror began to
+gain ground. She was like a creature enmeshed
+in a net weak in its cordage, but many-stranded
+and hampering; turn whichever way she would
+some petty restriction met her. She moved aimlessly
+forward, reasonably sure that she was not
+followed or observed, since she was going away
+from rather than toward the Card place. About
+a mile from the cabin of old Hannah Updegrove,
+a weaver of rag carpet, she suddenly came upon
+two little creatures sitting at a tree-foot playing
+about one of those druidical-looking structures
+that the childhood of the man and the childhood
+of the race alike produce. It was Little Buck
+and Beezy come to spend the day with old Hannah
+who, on their father&#8217;s side, was kin of theirs, and
+making rock play-houses in the tree-roots to
+put over the time. Judith ran to the children,
+gathered them close, and hugged them to her
+with whispered endearments in which some tears
+mingled.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' name='page_240'></a>240</span></p>
+<p>Then for half an hour followed the schooling of
+Little Buck for the message which he was to carry,
+and which Beezy must be so diverted that she
+would not even hear.</p>
+<p>Judith plaited grass bracelets for the fat little
+wrists, fashioned bonnets of oak leaves, pinning
+them together with grass stems, and then sending
+Beezy far afield to gather flowers for their trimming.
+On long journeys the little feet trudged,
+to where the beautiful, frail, white meadow lilies
+rose in clumps from the lush grass of the lowlands.
+She fetched cardinal flowers from the mud and
+shallow water beyond them, or brought black-eyed
+Susans from the sun of open spaces. And
+during these expeditions Judith&#8217;s catechism of
+the boy went on.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How you goin&#8217; to git home, Little Buck?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pappy&#8217;s a-comin&#8217; by to fetch us.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;When?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;A little befo&#8217; sundown?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You goin&#8217; straight home?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Jude, we&#8217; goin&#8217; straight home to Granny,
+why?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Never mind, honey. Is Creed there at yo&#8217;
+house?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' name='page_241'></a>241</span></p>
+<p>A silent nod.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is&mdash;honey, tell Jude the truth&mdash;is it true that
+he ain&#8217;t bad hurt? Could he ride a nag?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Little Buck looked all around him, drew close
+to his big sweetheart, and pulled her down that
+he might whisper in her ear.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know somethin&#8217; that Granny and Creed
+don&#8217;t know I know, but I mus&#8217;n&#8217;t tell it to anybody&mdash;only
+thest you. Creed&mdash;no, he ain&#8217;t so
+awful bad hurt&mdash;he walks everywheres most&mdash;he&#8217;s
+a-goin&#8217; to take the old nag and go over to
+Todd&#8217;s corner to see yo&#8217; Unc&#8217; Jep, about moonrise
+to-night. They said that&mdash;Granny an&#8217; Creed.
+An&#8217; they fussed. Granny, she don&#8217;t want him to
+go; but Creed, he thest will&mdash;he&#8217;s bull-headed,
+Creed is.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith caught her breath. They had got the
+message to him then, and he was going. Well,
+her appointment with him must be first.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Little Buck, honey, ef you love me don&#8217;t
+you forget one word I say to you now,&#8221; she
+whispered chokingly, holding the child by both
+hands.</p>
+<p>He rounded eyes of solemn adoration and
+acquiescence upon her.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' name='page_242'></a>242</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;You say to Creed Bonbright that Judith
+Barrier says he must come to her at the foot
+of Foeman&#8217;s Bluff&mdash;on yon side&mdash;as soon after
+dark as he can git there. Tell him to come
+straight through by the short cut; hit&#8217;ll be safe;
+nobody&#8217;ll ever study about him comin&#8217; in
+this direction. As soon after hit&#8217;s plumb dark
+as he can git there&mdash;will ye say that? Will ye
+shore tell Creed an&#8217; never tell nobody but
+Creed?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But he won&#8217;t go,&#8221; said Little Buck wisely.
+&#8220;Granny&#8217;s scared to have him go to talk to yo&#8217;
+Unc&#8217; Jep, but she&#8217;d be a heap scareder to have
+him come to you, &#8217;caze you&#8217; one o&#8217; the Turrentines
+too&mdash;ain&#8217;t ye, Judith?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith&#8217;s face whitened at the weakness of her
+position.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I would come, Judith, becaze I love you an&#8217;
+you love me&mdash;but Creed, he won&#8217;t,&#8221; said the
+boy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You tell him Little Buck,&#8221; she whispered
+huskily, terror and shame warring in her face,
+&#8220;tell him that I do love him. Tell him I said for
+God&#8217;s sake to come&mdash;if he loves me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The child&#8217;s eyes slowly filled. He dropped them
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' name='page_243'></a>243</span>
+and stood staring at the ground, saying nothing
+because of the blur. Finally:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell him that&mdash;ef you say I must,&#8221; he
+whispered. And loving, tender Judith, in her
+desperate preoccupation, never noted what she
+had done to her little sweetheart.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XVII_THE_OLD_CHEROKEE_TRAIL' id='XVII_THE_OLD_CHEROKEE_TRAIL'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' name='page_244'></a>244</span>
+<h2>Chapter XVII</h2>
+<h3>The Old Cherokee Trail</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>&#8220;The supper&#8217;s all ready for you boys,&#8221; Judith
+called in to Wade whose whistle sounded
+from his own room. &#8220;Hit&#8217;s a settin&#8217;, kivered, on
+the hearth; the coffee-pot&#8217;s on the coals. Would
+you-all mind to wait on yo&#8217;selves, an&#8217; would you
+put the saddle on Selim for me? I&#8217;m goin&#8217; over
+to Lusks&#8217;. I&#8217;ll eat supper there; I may stay
+all night; but I&#8217;ll be home in the mornin&#8217; soon
+to git you-all&#8217;s breakfast.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why&mdash;why, pap &#8217;lowed&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Uncle Jep ain&#8217;t here. Ef you don&#8217;t
+want to&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, that&#8217;s all right Judith. Of course it&#8217;s all
+right. But you say you&#8217;re goin&#8217; to ride to Lusks&#8217;?&mdash;to
+ride?&#8221; hesitated Wade uneasily. Judith
+flung up her head and stared straight at him
+with angry eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; she said finally, &#8220;when I leave this
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245' name='page_245'></a>245</span>
+place for over night I&#8217;d ruther know whar my
+hoss is at. I&#8217;ll take him along.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&mdash;all right,&#8221; her cousin hastened to agree;
+&#8220;I never meant to make you mad, Jude. Of
+course I&#8217;d jest as soon saddle up for you. I
+don&#8217;t wonder you feel thataway. I never like
+to have anybody use my ridin&#8217; critter.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith had made her point. She let it pass,
+and went sombrely on with her preparation for
+departure. Wade still hesitated uneasily. Finally
+he said deprecatingly,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ef ye don&#8217;t mind waitin&#8217; a minute I&#8217;ll eat my
+supper, an&#8217; ride over with ye&mdash;I was a-goin&#8217; after
+supper anyhow; I want to see Lacey Rountree
+ef he&#8217;s not gone back home yit.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll be glad to have ye,&#8221; answered Judith
+quietly. &#8220;I don&#8217;t mind waitin&#8217;.&#8221; And Wade,
+plainly relieved, hurried out to the stables.</p>
+<p>They rode along quietly in the late summer afternoon;
+the taciturn habit of the mountain people
+made the silence between them seem nothing
+strange. Arrived at the Lusks&#8217;, both girls came
+running out to welcome their visitor. She saw
+Wade&#8217;s sidelong glance take note of the fact that
+Grandpap Lusk led away Selim to the log stable.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246' name='page_246'></a>246</span>
+Lacey Rountree was gone home to the Far Cove,
+and Wade lingered in talk with Grandpap Lusk
+a while at the horse-block, then got on his mule
+and, with florid good-byes, rode back home,
+evidently at rest as to Judith.</p>
+<p>The evening meal was over. Judith helped
+Cliantha and Pendrilla prepare a bit of supper for
+herself, aided in the clearing away and dish-washing,
+and after they had sat for a while with
+Granny Lusk and the old man in the porch,
+listening to the whippoorwills calling to each
+other, and all the iterant insect voices of a July
+night, went to their own room.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Girls,&#8221; said Judith softly, drawing the two
+colourless little creatures to the bed, and sitting
+down with one on each side of her, &#8220;girls,&#8221; and
+her voice deepened and shook with the strain
+under which she laboured, &#8220;I want you to let
+me slip out the back door here, put my saddle on
+Selim, and go home, quiet, without tellin&#8217; the old
+folks. I was goin&#8217; home by daylight in the mornin&#8217;
+anyhow, to get the boys&#8217; breakfast,&#8221; as the girls
+stared at her in wordless surprise. &#8220;I&#8217;ve got a
+reason why I&#8217;d ruther go now&mdash;and I&#8217;d ruther the
+old folks didn&#8217;t know. Will ye do this for me?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247' name='page_247'></a>247</span></p>
+<p>The sisters looked at each other across their
+guest&#8217;s dark eager face, and fluttered visibly.
+They would have been incapable of deceit to
+serve any purpose of their own; they were too
+timid to have initiated any actions not in strict
+accordance with household laws; but the same
+gentle timidity which made them subservient to
+the rules of their world, made them also abject
+worshippers at the shrine of Judith&#8217;s beauty and
+force and fire.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shore, shore,&#8221; they both whispered in a
+breath.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hate to have ye go Jude&mdash;&#8221; began Cliantha;
+but Pendrilla interrupted her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;An&#8217; yit ef Jude would ruther go&mdash;and wants
+to slip out unbeknownst, why we wouldn&#8217;t say
+nothin&#8217; about it, and jest tell granny and grandpap
+in the mornin&#8217; that she left soon to git the
+boys&#8217; breakfast.&#8221;</p>
+<p>They watched her pass quietly out the back
+door and toward the log stable, their big blue
+eyes wide with childish wonder and interest.
+Judith with her many suitors, moving in an
+atmosphere of romance, was to them a figure like
+none other, and she was now in the midst of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248' name='page_248'></a>248</span>
+tragic doings; the glamour that had always been
+upon her image was heightened by the last week&#8217;s
+occurrences. They turned back whispering and
+shut the door.</p>
+<p>Thus it was that Judith found herself on Selim,
+moving, free from suspicion or espionage, toward
+the point below Foeman&#8217;s Bluff where she had
+sent word to Creed to meet her.</p>
+<p>The big oaks shouldered themselves in black
+umbels against the horizon; pointed conifers shot
+up inky spires between them. The sky was only
+greyish black, lit by many stars, and Judith
+trembled to note that their dim illumination
+might almost permit one to recognise an individual
+at a few paces distance. Without
+misadventure she came to the spot designated,
+urged Selim in under the shadow of a tree, dismounted,
+and stood beside him waiting. Would
+Creed come? Would Huldah persuade him that
+the message was only a decoy? Would he come
+too late? Would some of the boys intercept him,
+so that he should never come at all?</p>
+<p>At the last thought she started and leaned
+out recklessly to search the dark path with
+desperate eyes. Perhaps she had better venture
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249' name='page_249'></a>249</span>
+forward and meet him. Perhaps after all it would
+be possible for her to get closer to Nancy Card&#8217;s.
+Then in the midst of her apprehensions came the
+sound of shod hoofs.</p>
+<p>She had chosen this point for two reasons: first
+the old trail she meant to follow down the mountain
+passed in close to the spot; and second it was
+the last place they would expect Bonbright to approach;
+his way to it would never be guarded.
+But of course she ran the risk of Blatch himself
+or some of his friends and followers appearing.
+And now she held her breath in intense anxiety
+as the trampling came nearer.</p>
+<p>There appeared out of the dense shadow of
+the bluff a man walking and leading a mule by
+its bridle. She knew the mule, because she got
+the silhouette of it against the sky, and directly
+after she saw that the man who led it was tall,
+with a bandaged head, which he carried in a
+manner unmistakable, and one shoulder gleaming
+white&mdash;she guessed that that was because his
+coat was off where the bandages lay under his
+white shirt and over the wound in his shoulder.
+It was Creed. With a throb of unspeakable
+thankfulness she realised that she had till now
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250' name='page_250'></a>250</span>
+dreaded that if he came at all Huldah would be
+with him. She moved out from the dense
+shadow.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whar&mdash;whar&#8217;s Huldy?&#8221; she questioned before
+she would trust herself to believe. But Creed,
+full of the wonder of her message, dropped the
+mule&#8217;s bridle and came toward her his uninjured
+arm outstretched. He put the inquiry by almost
+impatiently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huldah? She went on down to Hepzibah
+soon Saturday morning,&#8221; he said. &#8220;O Judith,
+did you mean it&mdash;that word you sent me by Little
+Buck?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He came swiftly up to her, snatching her hand
+eagerly, pressing it hard against his breast,
+leaning close in the twilight to study her face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You couldn&#8217;t mean it,&#8221; he hurried on passionately,
+tremulously, &#8220;not now; you just pity
+me. Little Buck cried when he told me what
+you said, honey. He was jealous. But he
+needn&#8217;t have been&mdash;need he Judith? You just
+pity me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed&#8217;s manner and his words were instant
+reassurance to Judith&#8217;s womanly pride. But
+immediately on the relaxation of that pain
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251' name='page_251'></a>251</span>
+rose clamouring her anxiety for his safety&mdash;his
+life.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, yes, Creed,&#8221; she murmured vehemently.
+&#8220;I did mean it&mdash;I sure meant every word of it.
+But we got to get right away from here. Do ye
+reckon ye can stand it to ride as far as the foot
+of the mountain? Ye got to go&mdash;and I&#8217;m here
+to take ye.&#8221;</p>
+<p>They drew out of the path and into the deep
+blackness beneath the trees. There was but a
+hundredth chance that anybody would be passing
+here, or watching this point, yet that hundredth
+chance must be guarded against.</p>
+<p>Poor Creed, he detained her, he clung to her
+hands hungrily, and invoked the sound of her
+voice. So much hate had daunted him, the
+strength and sweetness of her presence, the warm
+tenderness of her tones, were like balm to his
+lacerated spirit.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t go to-night&mdash;dear&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; he faltered,
+abashed that the first word he uttered to her
+must be a denial. &#8220;You&#8217;re mighty sweet and
+good to offer to take me&mdash;I don&#8217;t know what I
+have ever done that you should risk this for me&mdash;but
+I&#8217;m to have a chance to talk to your Uncle
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252' name='page_252'></a>252</span>
+Jephthah at moonrise to-night, and I can&#8217;t turn
+my back on that. He&#8217;s a fair-minded man and
+I&#8217;ll make this thing right yet.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith shuddered. &#8220;Don&#8217;t you never believe
+it,&#8221; she urged in a panting whisper. &#8220;Uncle
+Jep hadn&#8217;t a thing on earth to do with that word
+goin&#8217; to you. He&#8217;s left home. I can&#8217;t find him
+nowhars, or I&#8217;d have went straight to him and
+begged him to help me out when I found what
+the boys was aimin&#8217; to do. Hit was Blatch
+planned it all. I tell ye Creed, Blatch Turrentine
+is alive&mdash;you never killed him when you flung
+him over the bluff&mdash;and while he lives you can&#8217;t
+stay here. He&#8217;s bound to kill ye.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you seen Blatch, yourself, Judith?&#8221;
+Creed asked quickly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, laws, no. He&#8217;s a layin&#8217; out in the woods
+somewheres, aimin&#8217; to make Uncle Jep believe
+you killed him. But I heard him plain enough&mdash;I
+heard him and the boys fix it all up&mdash;hid out
+from Uncle Jep down in the grain-room. There&#8217;s
+to be seven of &#8217;em a-waitin&#8217; down by the
+big hollow, and when they git you betwixt
+them an&#8217; the sky at moonrise they&#8217;re all
+promised to shoot at once, so that nary man
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253' name='page_253'></a>253</span>
+dast to go back on the others when you&#8217;re
+killed.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Wounded, appalled, the young fellow drew
+back from her and clung to the saddle of the old
+mule, with a boyish desire to hide his face against
+the arm which he threw over it.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How they hate me!&#8221; he breathed at last.
+&#8220;Oh, I&#8217;ve failed&mdash;I&#8217;ve failed. I meant so well
+by them all&mdash;and I&#8217;ve got nothing but their hate.
+But I won&#8217;t run. I never ran from anything yet.
+I&#8217;ll stay here and take what comes.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Perhaps in his extremity the despair of this
+speech was but an unconscious reaching out for
+Judith&#8217;s expressed affection, the warmth and consolation
+of her love. If this were so, the movement
+brought him what he craved. In terror she laid
+hold upon him, holding to his unwounded arm,
+pressing her cheek upon his shoulder, making her
+protest in swift passionate sentences.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What good will it do for you to get yourself
+killed&mdash;tell me that? Every one of them men will
+be murderers, when you&#8217;ve stayed and seen it
+through. Lord, what differ is it whether sech
+critters as them love you or hate you? &#8217;Pears
+to me I would ruther have their ill-will as their
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254' name='page_254'></a>254</span>
+good-will. Don&#8217;t you have no regards for them
+that is good friends to you? <i>I</i> care. <i>I</i> understand
+what it was you was tryin&#8217; to do. I thort
+it was fine. Air you goin&#8217; to break my heart by
+stayin&#8217; here to git yourself killed? Oh, don&#8217;t do
+it, Creed. You let me take you out of the mountains,
+or I&#8217;ll never know what it is to sleep in
+peace.&#8221;</p>
+<p>His arm slipped softly round her waist and
+drew her close against his side, so close that the
+two young creatures, standing silent in the midst
+of the warm summer night, could almost hear the
+beating of each other&#8217;s heart. In spite of their
+desperate situation they were tremulously happy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thank my God for you, Judith,&#8221; murmured
+Creed, bending to lay his cheek timidly against
+hers. &#8220;Never was a man in trouble had such a
+sweet helper. It&#8217;s mighty near worth it all to
+have found you. Maybe you never would have
+cared for me at all if this hadn&#8217;t come about&mdash;if I
+hadn&#8217;t needed you so bad.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith&#8217;s lavish heart would have hastened to
+break its alabaster jar of ointment at love&#8217;s feet
+with the impetuous avowal that he had been
+dear to her since first she looked on him.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255' name='page_255'></a>255</span>
+But there was instant need of haste; the situation
+was full of danger; that confession, with all
+its sweetness, might well wait a more secure
+time and place. She got to her horse glowing
+with hope, feeling herself equal to the dubious
+enterprise before them.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whatever you say honey,&#8221; Creed assured her.
+&#8220;Do with me as you will. I&#8217;m your man now.&#8221;</p>
+<p>They had wheeled their mounts toward the open.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hark! What&#8217;s that?&#8221; whispered Judith.</p>
+<p>The quavering cry of a screech-owl came across
+the gulch to them. The girl crouched in her
+saddle, shivering slightly, and stroking Selim&#8217;s
+nose so that he might make no stir nor sound.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They use&mdash;that&mdash;for a signal,&#8221; she breathed
+at last. &#8220;The boys is out guardin&#8217; the trails.
+And &#8217;pears like they&#8217;re a-movin&#8217;. We got to go
+quick.&#8221;</p>
+<p>They set forth in silence; Judith riding ahead,
+skirted at a considerable distance the buildings
+on the old Turrentine place, then followed down
+a rocky stream-bed, dry now and leading abruptly
+into a ravine. Here the girl took her bearings
+by the summits she could see black against the
+star-lit sky, and, avoiding the open, made for the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256' name='page_256'></a>256</span>
+old Indian trail which would lead them directly
+down to Garyville. They could ride abreast sometimes,
+and they began to talk together in these
+broken intervals.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And Little Buck cried when he told you,&#8221;
+Judith said, in that tender, brooding voice of hers.
+&#8220;That was my fault. I&#8217;m mighty sorry. I
+wouldn&#8217;t &#8217;a&#8217; hurt the child&#8217;s feelings for anything;
+but I never thought.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I fixed it up with him some,&#8221; said her lover,
+quickly. &#8220;I told him you only said that because
+I was hurt and you was sorry for me. I thought
+I was telling the truth.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle Jep feels mighty bad about this business,&#8221;
+she began another time, hastening to offer
+what consolation she could. &#8220;Nothin&#8217; would
+have made him willin&#8217; to it, but the fear that when
+you brought the raiders up he&#8217;d get took hisself.
+He ain&#8217;t had nothin&#8217; to do with stillin&#8217; for more&#8217;n
+six year, but of course hit&#8217;s on his land, and the
+boys is his sons. He says he&#8217;s too old to go to
+the penitentiary.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed reached out in the gloom and got the
+girl&#8217;s hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Judith, darling!&#8221; he said eagerly. &#8220;Let
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257' name='page_257'></a>257</span>
+me tell you right now, and make you understand&mdash;I
+never had any more notion of bringing raiders
+into the mountains than you have yourself. I do
+know that blockaded stills and what they mean
+are the ruin of this country; but honey, you&#8217;ve
+got to believe me when I say I never wanted to
+get any information about them or break them
+up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The girl harkened, with close attention to the
+man&mdash;the lover&mdash;but with simple indifference
+to the gist of what he was saying. It was plain
+that she would have loved and followed him
+had he been a revenue officer himself.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell Uncle Jep,&#8221; she said presently.
+&#8220;He&#8217;ll be mighty proud. He does really set a
+heap of store by you, and they all know it. But
+I ain&#8217;t never goin&#8217; to let you talk like that to him,&#8221;
+she added, the note of proud possession sounding
+in her voice. &#8220;Ef you&#8217;re goin&#8217; to live in the
+mountains you&#8217;ll have to learn not to have much
+to say about moonshine whiskey and blockaded
+stills&mdash;you never do know who you might be
+hittin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll take good care of me, won&#8217;t you
+Judith?&#8221; he said fondly, pressing the hand he held.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258' name='page_258'></a>258</span>
+&#8220;And I reckon I need it&mdash;I surely do manage
+to get into misunderstandings with people. But
+that wasn&#8217;t the trouble with Blatch Turrentine&mdash;he
+never thought any such thing as that I was a
+spy. He was mad at me about something else&mdash;and
+I don&#8217;t know yet what it was.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith laughed softly, low in her throat, so
+far had they come from the uncertainty, strain,
+and distress of an hour before. When next the
+trail narrowed and widened again, she came up on
+his left, the side of the injured arm, but which
+brought her nearer to him, leaned close and laying
+her hand on his shoulder, whispered,</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon I know. I reckon you&#8217;ll have to
+blame me with Blatch&#8217;s meanness.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, of course that was it!&#8221; exclaimed Creed.
+He looped the bridle on his saddle horn, reached
+up and drew her hand across his shoulders and
+around his neck. &#8220;That&#8217;s what comes of getting
+the girl that everybody else wants,&#8221; he said with
+fond pride. &#8220;But nobody else can have her now,
+can they? Say it Judith&mdash;say it to me, dear.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith made sweet and satisfying response,
+and they rode in silence a moment. Then she
+halted Selim thoughtfully.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259' name='page_259'></a>259</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;This path takes off to Double Springs, Creed,&#8221;
+she said, mentioning the name of a little watering
+place built up about some wells of chalybeate
+and sulphur water. &#8220;We might&mdash;do ye think
+mebbe we&#8217;d better go there?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed, who felt his strength ebbing, calculated
+the distance. They had seen, as they made the
+last turn under the bluff, the lights flaring at the
+Garyville station. Double Springs was more than
+a mile farther. &#8220;I reckon Garyville will be the
+best, dear,&#8221; he returned gently. Then, &#8220;I wish I
+had cut a little better figure in this business&mdash;on
+account of you,&#8221; he added wistfully. &#8220;You&#8217;re
+everything that a man could ask. I don&#8217;t want
+you to be ashamed of me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ashamed of you!&#8221; Judith&#8217;s deep tones carried
+such love, such scorn of those who might not
+appreciate the man of her choice, that he was fain
+to be comforted.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If we had known each other better from the
+first I reckon you would have kept me out of these
+fool mistakes I&#8217;ve made,&#8221; the young fellow said
+humbly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You ain&#8217;t made no mistakes,&#8221; Judith declared
+with reckless loyalty, &#8220;Hit&#8217;s the other folks&mdash;Blatch
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260' name='page_260'></a>260</span>
+Turrentine and them that follers him&mdash;no
+good person could git along with them. Are
+you much tired Creed? Does yo&#8217; shoulder pain
+you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, dear,&#8221; he said softly, laying his cheek
+against the hand which he had drawn around his
+neck. &#8220;Nothing pains me any more. I&#8217;m
+mighty happy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>And together thus they rode forward in darkness,
+toward Garyville and safety.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XVIII_BITTER_PARTING' id='XVIII_BITTER_PARTING'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261' name='page_261'></a>261</span>
+<h2>Chapter XVIII</h2>
+<h3>Bitter Parting</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the sickly yellow flare of the kerosene lamps
+around the Garyville station Judith got her
+first sight of Creed&#8217;s face: sunken, the blood drained
+from it till it was colourless as paper, the eyes
+wild, purple rimmed, haggard&mdash;it frightened her.
+She was off of Selim in a moment, begging him
+to get down and sit on the edge of the platform
+with her, here on the dark side where nobody
+would notice them, and they could decide what
+was to be done next.</p>
+<p>He dismounted slowly, stumblingly, gained the
+edge of the platform, and there sat with drooping
+head. Judith tied the two animals and ran to sit
+beside him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye ain&#8217;t goin&#8217; to faint air ye?&#8221; she asked
+anxiously. &#8220;Lean on me, Creed. I wish&#8217;t I
+knew what to do for ye!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The young fellow, half unconscious indeed, put
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262' name='page_262'></a>262</span>
+his head down upon her shoulder with a great
+shuddering sigh.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll be better in a minute, dear,&#8221; he whispered.
+&#8220;I reckon I got a little tired&mdash;riding so far.&#8221;</p>
+<p>For some time Judith sat there, Creed&#8217;s head on
+her shoulder, the black night all about them, the
+little lighted station empty save for the clicking
+of the telegraph instrument, and the footsteps of
+the station master who had opened up for the
+midnight train. She was desperately anxious and
+at a loss which way to turn. And yet through all
+her being there rolled a mighty undernote of joy.
+As to the dweller on the coast the voice of the sea
+is the undertone to all the sounds of man&#8217;s activities,
+so beneath all her virginal hesitancies, her
+half terror of what she had done, surged and sang
+the knowledge that Creed was hers, her avowed
+lover. She, Judith, had him here safe; she had
+brought him away out of the mountains, from
+those who would have harmed him&mdash;and those
+who would have loved him too well. In all her
+plannings up to this time she had never quite
+been able to see clearly what should come after
+getting Creed down into the valley. Over her
+stormily beating heart now there rose and fell a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263' name='page_263'></a>263</span>
+little packet of bills, savings above necessary
+expenditures on the farm, and her own modest
+expenses, savings which had been accumulating
+since Uncle Jephthah rented the place, and now
+amounted to some hundreds of dollars. These
+she had put in the bosom of her frock when she
+set out on this enterprise, with, as she now
+realised, the vaguest expectation of ever returning
+to her uncle&#8217;s house.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed,&#8221; she whispered, &#8220;air ye better?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; responded her charge, &#8220;yes&mdash;I&#8217;m
+better.&#8221; But he made no movement to raise
+his head, and with eyes long accustomed to darkness
+she was able to see that his lids were still
+closed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed,&#8221; she began again, &#8220;what shall I do for
+you now? Must I go ask at the hotel will they
+give you a room? Have you&mdash;have you got money
+with you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Bonbright roused himself.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m all right now,&#8221; he said in a strained
+tone. &#8220;Yes, dear, I&#8217;ve got some money with me,
+and a little more in the bank at Hepzibah. I
+can get hold of that any time I want to. I don&#8217;t
+know just what I&#8217;ll do,&#8221; he looked around him
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264' name='page_264'></a>264</span>
+bewildered. This had not been his plan, and the
+long ride down the mountain, and above all the
+happiness of being with Judith, of her avowals
+had made him forgetful of its exigencies. &#8220;I
+reckon I&#8217;ll make out. You needn&#8217;t worry about
+me any more, Judith. I&#8217;m safe down here.&#8221;</p>
+<p>These words sounded dreadfully like a dismissal
+to the girl. She locked her hands hard together in
+her lap and fought for composure. An older
+or a more worldly woman would have said to him
+promptly that she could not leave him in this case,
+and that if they were ever to be married it must
+be now. But all the traditions of the mountain
+girl&#8217;s life and upbringing were against such a
+course. She gazed at him helplessly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t got but one friend on this earth, looks
+like,&#8221; began Creed wearily, as he got to his
+feet, &#8220;and now I&#8217;m obliged to send her away
+from me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>It was more than Judith could bear. She lifted
+her swimming eyes to him in the dusk; he was
+recovering self command and strength, but he
+was still white, shaken, the bandaged head and
+shoulder showing how close he had been to death.
+Her love overbore virgin timidity and tradition.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265' name='page_265'></a>265</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t send me away then,&#8221; she said in the
+deepest tones of that rich, passionate voice of
+hers. &#8220;Ef hit&#8217;s me you&#8217;re namin&#8217; when you
+speak of having but one friend&mdash;don&#8217;t send me
+away, Creed.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He came close and caught her hand, looking
+into her face with wondering half comprehension
+of her words. That face was dyed with sudden,
+burning red. She hoped and expected that he
+would make the proffer which must come from
+him. When he did not, she burst out in a
+vehement, tense whisper,</p>
+<p>&#8220;If&mdash;if you love me like you said you did&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed hesitated, bewildered. He was too ill to
+judge matters aright, but he knew one thing.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do love you,&#8221; he said with mounting firmness.
+&#8220;I may be a mighty poor sort of a fellow&mdash;I&#8217;ve
+begun to think so of late&mdash;but I love you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith put out both hands blindly toward him
+whispering,</p>
+<p>&#8220;And I love you. I don&#8217;t want nothin&#8217; but to
+be with you an&#8217; help you, an&#8217; take keer of you.
+I&#8217;ll never leave you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>For a moment the young fellow felt only the
+dizzy rapture of her frank confession. In that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266' name='page_266'></a>266</span>
+instant he saw himself accepting her sacrifice,
+taking her in his arms; in anticipation he tasted
+the sweetness of her lips. Then pure reason, that
+shrew who had always ruled his days, spoke loud,
+as the bitterness of his situation rolled back upon
+him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No&mdash;no!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;Judith&mdash;honey&mdash;I can&#8217;t
+do that. Why, I&#8217;d be robbing you of everything
+in the world. Your kin would turn against you.
+Your farm would be lost to you, I reckon&mdash;I
+don&#8217;t know when I&#8217;ll be able to go back and
+claim mine.&#8221;</p>
+<p>In the moment of strained silence that followed
+this speech, with a sense of violent painful revulsion
+the girl pushed him back when he would
+timidly have clung to her. What woman ever
+appreciated prudence in a lover? It is not a
+lover&#8217;s virtue. Her farm&mdash;her farm! He could
+listen to her confession of love for him, and speculate
+upon the chances of her losing her farm by
+it! She had one shamed, desperate instant when
+she would have been glad to deny the words she
+had spoken. Then Creed, reading her anger and
+despair by the light of his own sorrows, said
+brokenly:
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267' name='page_267'></a>267</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;You feel&mdash;you&#8217;re offended at me now&mdash;but
+Judith, you wouldn&#8217;t love me if I had taken you
+at your word, and ruined all your chances in life.
+I&mdash;Judith&mdash;dear&mdash;I&#8217;ll make this thing right yet.
+I&#8217;ll come back&mdash;and you&#8217;ll forgive me then.&#8221;</p>
+<p>With a sudden flaring up of strength he took
+quiet mastery of the situation. He kissed her
+tenderly, but sadly, not such a kiss as either could
+ever have imagined their first would be.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I love you too well to let you wed a man that&#8217;s
+fixed like I am&mdash;a man that&#8217;s made such a
+failure of life&mdash;a fugitive&mdash;a fellow that has nothing
+to offer you, and no more standing with your
+people than a hound dog. I love you better
+than I do myself or my comfort&mdash;or even my
+life.&#8221;</p>
+<p>In anguished silence Judith received the caress;
+dumb with misery she got to her horse. Creed
+stood looking up at her for their last words, when,
+with a rattle and clang, the train from the North
+swept in and halted. Selim jibed and fought the
+bit as any sensible mountain horse feels himself
+entitled to do under similar circumstances; but
+Judith heeded him almost not at all.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My Lord&mdash;who&#8217;s that?&#8221; she cried, staring
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268' name='page_268'></a>268</span>
+toward the lighted train where the figure of a man
+mounted the platform.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it?&#8221; queried Creed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit looked like Blatch,&#8221; whispered the girl;
+&#8220;but I reckon it couldn&#8217;t a-been.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Blatch!&#8221; echoed Creed, all on fire in an
+instant&mdash;where now was her poor invalid whose
+head she had pillowed, of whom she had thought
+to take care? &#8220;Blatch Turrentine!&mdash;Good-bye,
+honey&mdash;you mustn&#8217;t be seen with me. If Blatch
+is here I&#8217;ve got to find and face him. You see
+that, don&#8217;t you?&mdash;You understand.&#8221;</p>
+<p>And he turned and left her so. Oh, these men,
+with their quarrels and their nice points of honour&mdash;while
+a woman&#8217;s heart bleeds under the scuffling
+feet!</p>
+<p>She watched him hurry to the train, his staggering
+step advertising how unfit he was for any
+such attempt, watched him mount the platform
+where she had seen the man that looked like
+Blatch; and then the conductor swung his lantern,
+the wheels began to revolve, she half cried out,
+and Selim at the end of his patience, bolted with
+her and never stopped running till he had topped
+the rise above the village.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269' name='page_269'></a>269</span></p>
+<p>Here, with some ado, she got him quieted,
+brought to a standstill, got off and tightened the
+girth, for the saddle was slipping dangerously.
+She climbed on once more, mounting from a
+fallen tree, and was moving again up the trail
+when, down toward Garyville, someone called
+her name.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Judith!&#8221;</p>
+<p>She did not turn her head. She knew to whom
+the voice belonged. As he rode up to her:</p>
+<p>&#8220;What you doin&#8217; here, Blatch Turrentine?&#8221;
+she demanded fiercely, &#8220;an&#8217; what&#8217;ll the boys say
+to you for slippin&#8217; away from &#8217;em to-night?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He took her inferred knowledge of all his
+enterprises without a word of comment. Bringing
+his mule up closer to her where she sat on Selim he
+answered:</p>
+<p>&#8220;The boys know whar I&#8217;m at. We got word
+last evenin&#8217; that the man I sell to was waitin&#8217; for
+me in Garyville. He don&#8217;t know nobody but me
+in the business, and nobody but me could do the
+arrent. I hauled a load down, an&#8217; I would have
+been back in plenty time, ef I hadn&#8217;t met you and
+Bonbright right thar whar that old Cherokee trail
+comes into the Garyville road.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270' name='page_270'></a>270</span></p>
+<p>Judith started, her face burned in the darkness,
+but she said nothing. Blatch peered curiously at
+her as he went on:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon you never took notice of the waggon
+that was under the bluff thar by the turn, but
+that was my waggon, and I was a-settin&#8217; on it.
+I wheeled myse&#8217;f round, when I seed &#8217;twas Bonbright,
+and follered you two down to Garyville,
+and put up my mules.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Again he peered sharply at her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jude,&#8221; as she still sat silent, &#8220;I won&#8217;t tell the
+boys what kept me&mdash;I won&#8217;t tell them nary thing
+about you. I&#8217;ll just let on that I happened to see
+Bonbright at Garyville.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You tell what you&#8217;re a mind to,&#8221; said Judith
+bitterly. &#8220;I don&#8217;t keer what you say.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Blatchley took the retort coolly. But his
+light grey eyes narrowed under the black brows.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bonbright seemed mightily upsot,&#8221; he commented.
+&#8220;Went off on the train an&#8217; left his mule
+a-standin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p><i>Went off on the train!</i> Judith&#8217;s heart leaped,
+then stood still.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye needn&#8217;t werry about it&mdash;I had Scomp put
+it up, &#8217;long o&#8217; my other &#8217;n. He&#8217;ll send &#8217;em both
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271' name='page_271'></a>271</span>
+up a Wednesday. I reckon it ain&#8217;t to be wondered
+at Bonbright was flustered. Who do you &#8217;low
+he went with on the railroad train? Jude, air
+you so easy fooled as to think it was a new notion
+for him to go to Garyville? Didn&#8217;t he name it
+to you that it was a better place than Double
+Springs?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Leaning close and watching her face, he saw in
+it confirmation.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shore. They was a little somebody on the
+railroad train waitin&#8217; to go on with him&mdash;after
+he&#8217;d done kissed you good-bye&mdash;and <i>left</i> you!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith sat, head up, staring at him. Her
+less worthy nature was always instantly roused
+by this man&#8217;s approach. Savage resentment,
+jealousy, hate, stirred in her crushed spirit; they
+raised their heads; their movement crowded out
+grief and humiliation. It must be true&mdash;she had
+proposed Double Springs, and he had said Garyville
+would be better. He had refused in so many
+words her offer of herself. He had kissed her&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No!&mdash;no!&mdash;no!&#8221; she cried to the man before
+her, &#8220;don&#8217;t you look at me&mdash;don&#8217;t you speak
+to me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, Judith,&#8221; he protested, hanging on
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272' name='page_272'></a>272</span>
+Selim&#8217;s flank and talking to her as she whirled
+the sorrel into the road and put him at the slope
+at a pace which that petted animal very much
+resented, &#8220;why Judith, ef one feller goes back on
+you thataway you be mad at him&mdash;he&#8217;s the one
+to be mad at. Here&#8217;s me, I stand willin&#8217; to
+make it up. Creed Bonbright has shamed you&mdash;he&#8217;s
+left you; but you could make him look like
+a fool if you would only say the word&mdash;and you
+and me would&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now you go back!&#8221; Judith turned upon him
+as one speaks to a dog who is determined to
+follow. &#8220;I ain&#8217;t nary &#8217;nother word to say to you.
+Leave me alone!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But Judith, hit ain&#8217;t safe for you to be ridin&#8217;
+up here in the night time, thisaway,&#8221; Blatch
+insisted. &#8220;Lemme jest go along with you&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll be a mighty heap safer alone than I&#8217;d
+be with you,&#8221; Judith told him, urging Selim
+ahead, &#8220;and anybody that knows you well will
+say so. You&mdash;go&mdash;back.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XIX_CAST_OUT' id='XIX_CAST_OUT'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273' name='page_273'></a>273</span>
+<h2>Chapter XIX</h2>
+<h3>Cast Out</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Judith reached the Top in the grey, disillusioning
+light of early dawn. The moon, a ghastly
+wraith, was far down in the west, the east had
+not yet taken any hint of rose flush, but held that
+pallid line of greyish white that precedes sunrise.</p>
+<p>She clambered across the Gulch, her tired horse
+stumbling with drooping head over the familiar
+stones, and rode slowly up to the home place. The
+huddle of buildings looked gaunt, deserted, inhospitable.
+There was light here enough to see
+the life which in daytime made all homelike,
+but which now, quenched and hidden, left all
+desolate, forbidding. As sleep takes on the
+semblance of death, so the sleeping house took
+on the semblance of desertion. The chickens
+were still humped on their perches in the trees, the
+cows had not come up to the milking-pen, their
+calves lay in a little bunch by the fence fast asleep.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274' name='page_274'></a>274</span>
+To the girl&#8217;s heavy heart it seemed a spot utterly
+forlorn in the chill, sad, ironic half-light of the
+slow-coming morning.</p>
+<p>She rode directly to the barn, unsaddled, and
+put her horse out. As she was coming back past
+her uncle&#8217;s cabin, she saw the old man himself
+sitting in the door. He was fully dressed; his
+hat lay on the doorstone beside him, and against
+the jamb leaned Old Sister. He looked up
+at her with a sort of indifferent, troubled
+gaze.</p>
+<p>&#8220;So you got back, Jude,&#8221; he said quietly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Uncle Jep,&#8221; she returned as quietly.</p>
+<p>He made no comment on her riding skirt which
+she held up away from the drenching dew. He
+asked no questions as to where she had been, or
+what her errand. She noted that he looked old
+and worn.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m mighty sorry it happened,&#8221; he began
+abruptly, quite as though he was continuing a
+conversation which they had intermitted but a
+few moments, &#8220;mighty sorry; but I don&#8217;t see no
+other way. I&#8217;ve studied a heap on it. Folks
+that stirs up trouble, gits trouble. I&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>He broke off and sat brooding.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275' name='page_275'></a>275</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad you ain&#8217;t mad at me for the part
+I&#8217;ve tuck in it,&#8221; Judith began finally.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t tell me.&#8221; He raised a hasty, protesting
+hand. &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to know nothin&#8217; about it.
+All is, <i>I</i> couldn&#8217;t have things according to my
+ruthers, and they had to go as they must. Hit
+ain&#8217;t what a man means that makes the differ&mdash;hit&#8217;s
+what he does that we count. Them that
+stirs up trouble, finds trouble.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon so, Uncle Jep,&#8221; said the girl, drooping
+as she stood.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They ain&#8217;t been a roof between my head and
+the sky sence I left this house,&#8221; the old man&#8217;s big
+voice rumbled on monotonously, hollowly. &#8220;I
+tromped the ridges over to&#8217;ds Yeller Old Bald.
+I left mankind and their works behind me, and
+I have done a power of thinking; but I can&#8217;t make
+this thing come out no other way.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He ceased and sat looking down. The girl
+could fancy his solitary meals where he cooked
+what he had killed and ate it, to lie down under
+the sky and sleep. Women are denied this fleeing
+to the desert to be alone with God and their sorrow.
+She envied him the privilege. She had no heart
+to repeat to him Creed&#8217;s statements that he was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276' name='page_276'></a>276</span>
+not a spy. That was all past&mdash;wiped out by the
+parting between her and her lover.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Uncle Jep,&#8221; she uttered low, and with
+bent head she moved dejectedly on toward the
+house.</p>
+<p>Here all the boys were sleeping noisily after
+their vigils of the night before. About three
+o&#8217;clock, or a little after, they had come home to
+find their father turning in at the gate. With their
+disappointment fresh upon them they broke
+through his command of silence, and Wade told
+him how they and Blatch had planned the ambush,
+how Blatch had been called away, how they had
+waited in the hollow for Creed, who had promised
+to &#8220;come and talk to them,&#8221; how he had never
+come, but how Arley Kittridge a few minutes ago
+had ridden up to notify them that Bonbright
+was gone from Nancy Card&#8217;s, and that the mule
+was gone with him. None of the watchers could
+say what direction he took, except to give earnest
+assurances that he had not left by any trail leading
+down the mountain. &#8220;He&#8217;s bound to be over
+here somewhars,&#8221; Wade concluded, &#8220;and Blatch
+not havin&#8217; got back from Garyville, they two
+has met somewhars.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277' name='page_277'></a>277</span></p>
+<p>The old man listened in silence, and when his
+son had made an end offered neither comment
+nor reply. He passed over without a word the
+revelation of the deceit about Blatch&#8217;s supposed
+killing. It was as though, weary and foredone,
+he dismissed the young fellows to the logic of
+events&mdash;to life itself&mdash;for response, explanation,
+or punishment.</p>
+<p>Judith changed her dress, bathed her pale face,
+and set about preparing breakfast. And that
+was a strange meal when she had finally put it on
+the table and bidden them to it. The sons sat in
+their places like chidden schoolboys, furtively
+studying their father&#8217;s ravaged visage, looking
+at each other and muttering requests or replies.
+They were all aware of the ugliness of their
+several offences. Creed&#8217;s strange disappearance,
+Blatch&#8217;s failure to return, the utter collapse of
+their errand, these had shaken them terribly.</p>
+<p>About a third of the way through the meal Jim
+Cal shuffled in.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you mind givin&#8217; me some breakfast, Jude?&#8221;
+he asked humbly. &#8220;Iley an&#8217; the chaps is all sound
+asleep. I hate to wake &#8217;em, an&#8217; I never was no
+hand to do for myse&#8217;f.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278' name='page_278'></a>278</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Set and welcome,&#8221; said Judith, mechanically
+placing a chair for the one who had been most
+resolute of all that Creed must die. So it was that
+they were all seated about the board when Blatch
+Turrentine, without a word, made his appearance
+in the door. Without moving his head Jephthah
+turned those sombre eyes of his upon his
+nephew, and regarded him steadily. The younger
+man stopped where he was on the threshold.</p>
+<p>&#8220;So ye ain&#8217;t dead?&#8221; inquired his uncle finally.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon that ain&#8217;t news to you, is it?&#8221; asked
+Blatch, making as though to come in and take his
+place at the table.</p>
+<p>For a moment the loyalty of the tribal head, the
+hospitality of the mountaineer, warred in old
+Jephthah&#8217;s heart with deep, strong resentment
+against this man. Then he said without rising,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, hit&#8217;s news. But you may take it that
+hit&#8217;s news I ain&#8217;t heard. I reckon we&#8217;ll just
+leave it that you <i>air</i> dead. The lease on the
+ground over thar runs tell next spring. I&#8217;ll not
+rue my bargain, but no son of mine sets his foot
+on yo&#8217; land and stays my son, and you don&#8217;t
+put yo&#8217; foot in this house again. You give it out
+that you was dead&mdash;stay dead.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279' name='page_279'></a>279</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I see,&#8221; said Blatch. &#8220;Yo&#8217; a-blamin&#8217; the
+whole business on me, air ye? Well, that&#8217;s
+handy. What about them fine fellers that&#8217;s
+settin&#8217; at meat with ye now? I reckon the tale
+goes that I led &#8217;em into all their meanness.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Jim Cal dropped his head and stared at the bit
+of cornbread in his pudgy fingers; Wade glanced
+up angrily; the twins stirred like young hounds in
+leash; but Jephthah quieted them all with a look.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Blatch,&#8221; began the head of the house temperately,
+even sadly, &#8220;yo&#8217; my brother&#8217;s son.
+Sam and me was chaps together, and I set a heap
+of store by him. Sam&#8217;s been gone more than ten
+year, and in that time I&#8217;ve aimed to do by you
+as I would by a son of my own. I felt that hit
+was something I owed to Sam. But ef I owed hit
+hit&#8217;s been paid out. Yo&#8217; Sam&#8217;s son, but also yo&#8217;
+a Blatchley, and I reckon the Blatchley blood had
+to show up in ye. My boys is neither better nor
+worse than others, but when I say that I don&#8217;t aim
+to have you walk with &#8217;em, I say what is my right.
+What I owed yo&#8217; daddy, and my dead brother,
+has been paid out&mdash;hit&#8217;s been paid plumb out.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Now that it was made plain, Blatch took the
+dismissal hardily. Perhaps he had been more or
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280' name='page_280'></a>280</span>
+less prepared for it, knowing as he would have
+phrased it that his uncle wanted but half a chance
+to break with him. He was aware, too, that the
+secret of his illicit traffic was safe in the old man&#8217;s
+hands, and that indeed Jephthah would strain a
+point to defend him for the name&#8217;s sake if for
+nothing else.</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; he said, &#8220;ef them&#8217;s yo&#8217; ruthers,
+hit suits me. What do you-all boys say?&mdash;I
+reckon Unc&#8217; Jep&#8217;ll let ye speak for yo&#8217;selves&mdash;this
+one time.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say what pap says,&#8221; came promptly from
+Wade. And, &#8220;Jeff an&#8217; me thinks it&#8217;s about
+time pap&#8217;s word went with his boys,&#8221; put in the
+younger and more emotional Andy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right, all right,&#8221; agreed Blatch in some
+haste, finding the battle to go thus sweepingly
+against him. &#8220;I wont expect no opinions from
+you, podner, tell you&#8217;ve had time to run home
+an&#8217; ax Iley what air they. Ye ain&#8217;t named
+Judith, Unc&#8217; Jep,&#8221; he went on, glancing to where
+the girl knelt on the hearthstone dishing up corn
+pones from the Dutch oven. &#8220;Cain&#8217;t she come
+over and visit me when she has a mind?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Judith&#8217;s her own mistress. She can use her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281' name='page_281'></a>281</span>
+ruthers,&#8221; returned Jephthah briefly, &#8220;but I misdoubt
+that you&#8217;ll be greatly troubled with her
+company.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Help me git my things out of the cupboard
+thar, Jude, won&#8217;t ye?&#8221; asked Blatch civilly enough.</p>
+<p>Without reply, without glancing at him, Judith
+preceded him into the fore-room, opened the
+doors and sought out his clean clothing, making
+it into a neat pile on the table.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You come over and see me sometimes, won&#8217;t
+ye, Judy?&#8221; whispered the tall man as he bundled
+these up. &#8220;I won&#8217;t tell who I seen you with.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith looked at him with wordless contempt.
+Her own pain was so great that even anger was
+swallowed up in it.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell anybody you&#8217;re a mind to,&#8221; she said
+listlessly. &#8220;I ain&#8217;t a-carin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I may git word of him, Jude,&#8221; persisted
+Blatch as he was departing. &#8220;Ef I do would you
+wish to hear it? Ef you say yes, I&#8217;ll send ye
+notice.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Again she glanced at him with that negligent
+disdain. What could he do to her now who had
+lost all? She was beyond the reach of his love
+or his malice.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XX_A_CONVERSION' id='XX_A_CONVERSION'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282' name='page_282'></a>282</span>
+<h2>Chapter XX</h2>
+<h3>A Conversion</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>And now Judith&#8217;s days strung themselves on
+the glowing thread of midsummer weather
+like black beads on a golden cord, a rosary of pain.
+She told each bead with sighs, facing the morning
+with a heavy heart that longed for darkness, lying
+down when day was over in dread of the night
+and a weariness that brought no sleep. And the
+cedar tree, swayed in the raw autumn air, talking
+to itself sombrely of the empty nest in its heart,
+sounded upon her wakeful ears a note of desolation
+and despair. For all the Turkey Tracks soon
+knew that Blatch Turrentine was sound and whole;
+all Hepzibah knew it eventually&mdash;and Creed
+Bonbright neither returned nor made any sign.</p>
+<p>The embargo being removed, Judith went
+straight to Nancy Card.</p>
+<p>In the preoccupation of her sorrow, she might
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283' name='page_283'></a>283</span>
+have forgotten Little Buck&#8217;s wounded heart; but
+when as of custom Beezy came rioting out to
+meet her, the man child hung back with so strange
+a countenance that she needs must note it.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come here, honey,&#8221; she urged tenderly&mdash;her
+own suffering made her very pitiful to the childish
+grief.</p>
+<p>Little Buck came slowly up to his idol, lifting
+doubtful eyes to her face. The girl&#8217;s ready arm
+went swiftly round the small figure.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you pestered about that word I sent Creed
+Bonbright by you?&#8221; she whispered.</p>
+<p>The little boy nodded solemnly, and you could
+see the choke in his throat.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, you don&#8217;t need to be,&#8221; she reassured
+him. &#8220;I had to send jest that word, Little Buck&mdash;jest
+that very word; nothin&#8217; less would &#8217;a&#8217;
+brought him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Again the child nodded, twisting around to
+look in her face, his own countenance clearing a
+bit.</p>
+<p>&#8220;But it don&#8217;t make any differ between you an&#8217;
+me, does it, honey?&#8221; she pursued. &#8220;You&#8217;re Jude&#8217;s
+man, jest the same as you ever was, ain&#8217;t ye?
+You wouldn&#8217;t never need to be jealous of anybody;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284' name='page_284'></a>284</span>
+&#8217;cause you know all the time that Judy
+loves you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Silently the small man put his arms round her
+neck and hugged her hard&mdash;an unusual demonstration
+for Little Buck. And during her entire stay
+he hung close about, somewhat to Nancy&#8217;s annoyance,
+seeming to find plentiful joy in the contemplation
+of his recovered treasure.</p>
+<p>The loss of Creed had meant a good deal to
+Nancy. More like a son than a boarder in her
+house, he had brought with him a sense of support
+and competence such as the hard-worked little
+woman had never known. With his going, she
+was back again in the old helpless, moneyless
+situation, with Pony on her hands a growing
+problem and anxiety, and Doss Provine but a
+broken reed on which to lean. Such inquiries
+after Creed as they managed to set afoot fetched
+no return.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit ain&#8217;t like Creed to be scared and keep
+runnin&#8217;,&#8221; she would repeat pathetically. &#8220;I
+know in reason something awful has chanced to
+that boy. Either that, or it&#8217;s like they&#8217;re all
+beginning to say, he&#8217;s wedded and gone to Texas
+same as his cousin Cyarter done. Cyarter Bonbright
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285' name='page_285'></a>285</span>
+run away with a gal on the night she was
+to have wedded another feller&mdash;tuck her right out
+of the country and went to Texas. That&#8217;s
+Bonbright nature: they ain&#8217;t much on sweet-heartin&#8217;
+an&#8217; sech, but when they git it, they git
+it hard.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She laid a loving hand on the girl&#8217;s shoulder,
+and leaned around to look frankly into the
+beautiful, melancholy, dark face with the direct,
+honest grey eyes that would admit no concealments
+between herself and those whom she really
+cared for.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I speak right out to you, Jude,&#8221; she said
+kindly, &#8220;&#8217;caze I see how hit&#8217;s been between you
+an&#8217; Creed, an&#8217; hit&#8217;ll hurt you less if you get used
+to the idy of givin&#8217; him up. Him treated the
+way he was, I don&#8217;t know as I&#8217;d blame him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>But Judith could have blamed him. It was
+only when despair pressed too hard that she could
+say she would be glad to know he was alive even
+though he belonged to somebody else. Yet to
+credit Blatch&#8217;s story for a moment, to think he had
+gone that night with Huldah Spiller, was to open
+the heart&#8217;s door on such a black vista of treachery
+and double-dealing in Creed&#8217;s conduct, to so
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_286' name='page_286'></a>286</span>
+utterly discredit his caring for herself, that she
+had no defence but to disbelieve the whole tale,
+and this she was generally able to do.</p>
+<p>But as far away as Hepzibah a small event was
+preparing that should break the monotony of
+Judith&#8217;s grievous days. Venters Drane, the
+elder&#8217;s twelve-year-old boy, going to school in
+the village, fell ill of diphtheria. When word was
+brought to the father&mdash;a widower and wise&mdash;he
+loaded his three younger children and their small
+belongings into the waggon and drove over to the
+Turrentine place.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I jest p&#8217;intedly ain&#8217;t got nary another place
+to leave &#8217;em, Sister Barrier, nor nary another
+soul on earth that I could trust &#8217;em with like I
+could with you,&#8221; he said wistfully, after he had
+explained the necessities of the case. &#8220;I&#8217;m on
+my way down now to get Venters and bring him
+home&mdash;look at that, will ye!&#8221; as the baby made a
+dash for Judith who stood by the wheel looking up.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re mighty welcome, Elder Drane,&#8221;
+Judith declared warmly, receiving the little fellow
+in open arms. &#8220;I&#8217;ll be glad to do for &#8217;em.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Martin and Lucy were old-fashioned, repressed,
+timid children, with the pathetic outlook of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287' name='page_287'></a>287</span>
+young persons brought up by a melancholy,
+ancient hireling. But the baby, glowing-eyed,
+laughing-mouthed rogue, staggering valiantly on
+sturdy, emulous legs, taking tribute everywhere
+with all babyhood&#8217;s divine audacity, walked
+straight into her heart. He slept beside her at
+night, for him she darkened and quieted the
+house of afternoons, lying down with him to watch
+his slumbers, to brood with mother fondness upon
+the round, rosy, small face, and the even, placid
+breathing.</p>
+<p>Drane had brought such clothing as they had,
+but Judith found them ill-provided, and set to
+work for them at once. Being a capable needlewoman
+she soon had them apparelled more to
+her liking, and the labour physicked pain. Sitting
+in the porch sewing, with the baby tumbling about
+the floor at her feet and Mart and Lucy building
+play-houses in the yard under the trees, Judith
+began dimly to realise that life, somewhere and
+at some time, might lack all she had so passionately
+craved, all she so piercingly regretted, and yet
+hold some peace, some satisfaction. True she
+was still desolate, robbed, despairing, yet with the
+children to tend there were hours when she almost
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288' name='page_288'></a>288</span>
+lost sight of her own sorrow, in the sweet compulsion
+of doing for them.</p>
+<p>Jim Cal shook his head over these arrangements.
+&#8220;Looks like to me ef I was a widower with chaps,
+trying to wed a fine lookin&#8217;, upheaded gal like
+Jude, I&#8217;d a&#8217; kep&#8217; the little &#8217;uns out of her sight as
+much as I could, &#8217;stid of fetchin&#8217; &#8217;em right to her.
+Hit seems now as though she muched them greatly,
+but she&#8217;s sartin shore to find out what a sight o&#8217;
+trouble chaps makes, and ain&#8217;t any woman
+wantin&#8217; more work than she&#8217;s &#8217;bleeged to have.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Lacking active concerns of his own, James Calhoun
+was always greatly interested in those of the
+persons about him. Judith&#8217;s doings, on account
+of her reticence, beauty and high spirit, proved a
+theme of unending, mild interest.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jude,&#8221; he opened out one day as he sat on the
+edge of the porch while his cousin was busy with
+some sewing for her little visitors, &#8220;did ye hear
+&#8217;bout Lace Rountree?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith never moved her eyes from her work.
+&#8220;I know they&#8217;s sech a person,&#8221; she said evenly,
+&#8220;if that&#8217;s what you mean.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, but have ye heared of how he&#8217;s a-doin&#8217;
+here lately?&#8221; persisted the fat man.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_289' name='page_289'></a>289</span>
+&#8220;I don&#8217;t know as anybody has named anything
+special to me about Lacey Rountree or his doin&#8217;s,&#8221;
+Judith returned with a rising irritation. &#8220;Why
+should they?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Jim Cal heaved a wheezy sigh. &#8220;&#8217;Caze yo&#8217; said
+to be the cause of it,&#8221; he expounded with lugubrious
+enjoyment. &#8220;Lace Rountree is fillin&#8217; hisse&#8217;f
+up on corn whiskey and givin&#8217; it out to each and
+every that he&#8217;s goin&#8217; plumb straight <i>di</i>-rect to the
+dav-il, an&#8217; all on yo&#8217; accounts&mdash;&#8217;caze you wouldn&#8217;t
+have &#8217;im. Now what do you make out o&#8217; that?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I make out that some folks are mighty big
+fools,&#8221; retorted Judith with asperity. &#8220;Lace
+Rountree is no older than Jeff and Andy&mdash;he&#8217;s
+two years younger&#8217;n I am&mdash;why, he&#8217;s like a child
+to me. I never no more thought of Lace Rountree
+than I&#8217;d think of&mdash;well, not so much as I would
+of Little Buck Provine.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uh-huh,&#8221; agreed Jim Cal shaking his head
+dolefully, &#8220;that&#8217;s the way you talk; but you-all
+gals had ort to have a care how you toll fellers on.
+Here&#8217;s Huldy got Wade so up-tore about her
+that he&#8217;s a-goin&#8217; to dash out and git him a place
+on the railroad whar he&#8217;s mighty apt to be killed
+up; and you&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290' name='page_290'></a>290</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I what?&#8221; prompted Judith sharply, as he
+came to a wavering pause.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well&mdash;they was always one man that you
+give good reason to expect you&#8217;d wed him. I
+myse&#8217;f have heared you, more&#8217;n forty times I
+reckon, say to Blatch Turrentine&mdash;or if not say
+it in so many words, at least&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Cousin Jim,&#8221; broke in Judith, carefully
+ignoring this last charge, &#8220;so far as that Lace
+Rountree is concerned, did you ever know of a
+reckless feller that come to no good but what he
+had some gal at whose door he could lay it all? I
+vow I never did. They ain&#8217;t a drinkin&#8217; whiskey
+becaze they like it; they don&#8217;t git into no interruptions
+becaze they&#8217;re mad&mdash;it&#8217;s always
+&#8217;count o&#8217; some gal that has give &#8217;em the mitten.
+I&#8217;ll thank you not to name Lace Rountree to me
+again, nor&mdash;nor anybody else,&#8221; as she saw his
+eyes wander to the sewing in her lap.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Drane&#8217;s old enough to look out for
+hisse&#8217;f,&#8221; said Jim Cal, rising and trying his joints
+apparently for a movement toward home. &#8220;Ef
+you choose to toll him on by takin&#8217; care of his
+chaps, that&#8217;s yo&#8217; lookout, and his lookout&mdash;&#8217;taint
+mine; but &#8217;ef I was givin&#8217; the man advice,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291' name='page_291'></a>291</span>
+I&#8217;d say to him that he might about as well take
+&#8217;em home, or hunt up some other gal to leave &#8217;em
+with, &#8217;caze yo&#8217; apt to much the chil&#8217;en and then
+pop the do&#8217; in the daddy&#8217;s face.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The weeks brought piecemeal confirmation of
+Jim Cal&#8217;s dismal forebodings. Elihu Drane took
+advantage of every pretext to haunt about the
+roof that sheltered his children. Though he was
+not with the sick boy, he made the presence of a
+&#8220;ketchin&#8217; town disease&#8221; in his home, reason for
+not coming near the little ones, but called Judith
+down to the draw-bars to talk to him. When he
+had her there at such disadvantage, he so pertinaciously
+urged his unwelcome suit that he made
+her finally glad to be rid of the children, to see
+him, when Venters was once more well, take them
+away with him and give her respite from his
+importunities.</p>
+<p>In the case of Wade, too, the fat man&#8217;s pessimistic
+expectations were realised; the young man
+did, early in August, dash out and secure a place
+on the railroad. Mountain people write few letters.
+They heard nothing from him after the first
+message which told them where he was employed
+and what wages he was to have.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292' name='page_292'></a>292</span></p>
+<p>It was September when Iley announced to
+Judith that she had word from some of Pap
+Spiller&#8217;s kin who were living in Garyville, that
+acquaintances of theirs from Hepzibah, coming
+down to the circus at the larger town, had given
+them roundabout and vague news of Huldah.
+The girl had delayed in Hepzibah but a few days.
+The story as it came up on the mountain was that
+she had married &#8220;some feller from Big Turkey
+Track, and gone off on the railroad.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Them Tuels is mighty po&#8217; hands to remember
+names,&#8221; Iley said. &#8220;But all ye got to do is to look
+around and take notice of anybody that&#8217;s gone
+from Big Turkey Track here lately. Ye can fix
+it to suit yo&#8217;se&#8217;f. But I reckon Huldy has made a
+good match, and I&#8217;m satisfied.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith looked upon the floor in silence. In
+silence she left the cabin and took her way to
+her own home. And that night, while the cedar
+tree talked to her in the voice of love&mdash;Creed&#8217;s
+voice&mdash;she fought with dragons and slew them,
+and was slain by them.</p>
+<p>When Blatchley Turrentine had asserted this
+thing to her at Garyville, she found somewhere&mdash;after
+her first gust of unreasoning resentment
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_293' name='page_293'></a>293</span>
+was past&mdash;strength to disbelieve it utterly. But
+now it came again in more plausible guise.
+It gained likeliness from mere repetition. And
+hardest of all to bear, she was totally unsupported
+in her trust. She knew Creed, knew his love for
+her; yet to cling to it was to fly in the face of
+probabilities, and of everything and everybody
+about her. The lover who is silent, absent from
+her who loves him, at such a time, runs tremendous
+risks.</p>
+<p>It was the set or turn of the year&#8217;s tide; sunsets
+were full, rich, yellow, and a great round,
+golden moon swung in the evening sky above the
+purple hills. A soft, purring monotone of little
+tree crickets in the night forest replaced the shriller
+insect chorus of midsummer. Garden patches,
+about through their summer yield, were a tangle
+of bubble-tinted morning glories, the open woods
+misty with wild asters, bell flowers trembling
+from the crevices of rocks; and along fence-row
+and watercourse turkey-pea, brook sunflower,
+queen of the meadow, and joepye-weed made
+gay the land.</p>
+<p>Such farm work as remained was only garnering&mdash;fodder-pulling,
+pea-hay and millet hay to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294' name='page_294'></a>294</span>
+gather; with a little sowing of wheat, rye, or turf
+oats.</p>
+<p>In late midsummer and early fall revivalists,
+preachers, and exhorters go through the Cumberlands
+holding protracted meetings in the little
+isolated churches. At this time of year the men
+as well as the women are most at liberty. To a
+people who live scattered through a remote and
+inaccessible region, who have few and scanty
+public gatherings and diversions, this season of
+religious activity offers the one emotional outlet
+which their conception of dignity permits them,
+and it is proportionately precious in their eyes.
+In addition to the women and the girls and boys,
+who usually make up the rank and file of religious
+gatherings elsewhere, here at this favoured season
+old fellows, heads of families and life-long pillars
+of the Church, give up their entire time to the
+meetings. The family is put into the waggon with
+a basket of dinner, and they make a day of it.
+Services hold as late as twelve and one o&#8217;clock,
+and after them this contained, stoic folk will go
+home through the woods, carrying pine torches,
+singing, shouting, laughing, sobbing.</p>
+<p>Hiram Bohannon came into the two Turkey
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295' name='page_295'></a>295</span>
+Tracks this year and held services at Brush Arbour
+church. He was very much in earnest, Brother
+Bohannon, a practical man with a rough native
+eloquence that spoke loud to his hearers.</p>
+<p>Every afternoon the wild, sweet hymns rang
+out over the little cup-like valley in which Brush
+Arbour church stood. The month was extremely
+warm, and they used the outside brush arbour from
+which the schoolhouse-church received its name.</p>
+<p>Judith went day and night in a feverish attempt
+to get away from herself and her sorrows. Even
+the fact that Elihu Drane was very much to the
+fore in these gatherings could not deter her.
+Sitting in the open there, her hands clasped upon
+her knee, her sombre eyes on the ground, or
+interrogating the distance with an unseeing stare,
+she would let hymn and sermon, prayer and the
+weeping and shouting which always close night
+meeting, go past her ears well-nigh unheard.
+Before those darkened, bereaved eyes, turn where
+they would, Love&#8217;s ever-renewed idyl of rustic
+courtship was enacting, since Big Meetin&#8217; was the
+time and occasion of all the year for Corydon to
+encounter Phyllis, to stroll or sit beneath the
+trees with her, possibly to &#8220;carry her home.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296' name='page_296'></a>296</span></p>
+<p>Andy and Jeff began taking the Lusk girls to
+meeting, and within a week&#8217;s time two very pale
+young men&mdash;the twins always acted in concert&mdash;stumbled
+up the earthen aisle between the puncheon
+seats to join the group at the mourners&#8217;
+bench and ask for the prayers of the congregation.
+Brother Bohannon knew what quarry
+he had netted, and he hurried down at once,
+half in doubt that this was another scheme of
+these young daredevils to make game of his
+meeting. But both boys were on their knees,
+and the tears with which they began confessing
+to him past sins, the penitence of their shaking
+voices, proclaimed the genuineness of their
+conversion.</p>
+<p>Cliantha and Pendrilla left behind&mdash;they had
+been sober church members since they were
+twelve years old&mdash;fluttered to Judith and demanded
+her instant attention to the miracle.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Judith, ain&#8217;t it jest too good to be true?&#8221;
+panted little Cliantha. &#8220;Jeff never did lack anything
+of bein&#8217; the best man that ever walked this
+earth except to jine the church&mdash;an&#8217; now look at
+him!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And Andy, too,&#8221; put in Pendrilla jealously.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297' name='page_297'></a>297</span>
+&#8220;I do believe Andy is a prayin&#8217; the loudest&mdash;I&#8217;m
+shore he is.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith roused herself. &#8220;I&#8217;m mighty glad&mdash;for
+the both of ye,&#8221; she said kindly.</p>
+<p>And then she looked at their tremulous, happy
+faces, at the kneeling boys up among the press
+of figures about the pulpit, and burst into a
+storm of weeping. Where was her lover? Where
+was Creed? Dead&mdash;or he had forgotten her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you under conviction of sin, sister?&#8221;
+inquired one of the helpers.</p>
+<p>Judith let it pass at that, and flung herself
+on her knees beside the bench to wait until the
+last hymn and the dismissal.</p>
+<p>Brother Bohannon was an extremely practical
+Christian; his creed applied to every day in the
+year and to the most commonplace acts. He
+adjured his converts not only to quit their meanness,
+but to go and acknowledge past errors, to
+repair such evil as they could, and if possible to
+seek forgiveness from man, certain that God&#8217;s
+forgiveness would follow. Such counsel as this
+brought the twins to their father&#8217;s cabin early
+on the morning after their conversion at Brush
+Arbour church.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298' name='page_298'></a>298</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Pap,&#8221; began Andy standing before his parent
+with an odd suggestion of the small boy caught
+in mischief, &#8220;me and Jeff are aimin&#8217; to join the
+church.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s right, son,&#8221; said the old man rising
+and clapping a hearty hand on each young
+shoulder. &#8220;I&#8217;m mighty proud to hear it. Hit&#8217;s
+a good way for fellers like you to start out in this
+world.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, befo&#8217; we do so,&#8221; Jeff took up the burden,
+&#8220;the preacher says we ort to confess our sins
+and git forgiveness from them we have done
+wrong by. Creed Bonbright ain&#8217;t here. Mebbe
+he&#8217;s never goin&#8217; to be back any mo&#8217;. We talked
+it over and &#8217;lowed we&#8217;d better come tell you,
+pap.&#8221;</p>
+<p>At Creed Bonbright&#8217;s name a pathetic change
+went over old Jephthah&#8217;s pleased countenance.
+He had received the opening words with satisfaction,
+not untinctured by the mild, patronising
+indulgence we show to children. But when Bonbright
+was mentioned he sat back in his chair, nervously
+knocking the ash from his pipe, anxiously
+staring at the boys.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m mighty proud,&#8221; he repeated, &#8220;to hear
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299' name='page_299'></a>299</span>
+what you say.&#8221; He spoke gravely and with
+dignity; but a note of uncontrollable eagerness
+stole into his voice, as he added in a lower tone,
+&#8220;What mought you-all have to tell me about
+Creed Bonbright?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pap, we done you a meanness in that business,&#8221;
+hastened Jeff. &#8220;We had no call to lie
+to you like we done, and send the feller word in
+yo&#8217; name.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wade, he was mad about his gal,&#8221; agreed
+Andy thoughtfully, &#8220;but what possessed me and
+Jeff I&#8217;ll never tell ye. Spy or no spy, we done
+that man wrong.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Jephthah looked expectantly and in silence
+from one young face to the other.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Blatch let on to you hit was the still; but of
+course we knowed hit was Jude that ailed him.
+He got Taylor Stribling to toll Creed to Foeman&#8217;s
+Bluff that night,&#8221; Jeff supplied. &#8220;Blatch picked
+the quarrel, and drawed a knife when they was
+wrastlin&#8217;, and when Bonbright pushed Blatch
+away from him, he fell over the cliff. That&#8217;s
+God&#8217;s truth about the business, pappy, ef I ever
+spoke it. Me an&#8217; Andy an&#8217; Wade was all into it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The boyish countenance was pale, and Jeff
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300' name='page_300'></a>300</span>
+drew a nervous hand across his brow as he
+concluded. There followed a lengthened silence.
+Old Jephthah sat regarding his own brown right
+hand as it lay upon his knee.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye tolled him thar,&#8221; he said finally. &#8220;Ye
+tolled him thar. Then Creed Bonbright wasn&#8217;t
+no spy.&#8221; He lifted his head. &#8220;I never could
+make it figure up right for that feller to be a spy.
+Curious he was, and he had some idees that I
+couldn&#8217;t agree with; but a spy&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>He broke off suddenly, and one saw how strong
+had been the bond between him and the young
+justice, how greatly he cared that the memory of
+the man even should be cleared.</p>
+<p>The boys looked at each other, and with a gulp
+Jeff began again:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon you knowed well enough we stood
+in with Blatch when he hid out and let folks
+believe the killin&#8217; had been did. We knowed you
+seen through it all; but when ye git started in a
+business like that, one thing leads on to another,
+and befo&#8217; you&#8217;re done with it, ye do a plenty
+that you&#8217;d ruther not.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, hit&#8217;s over and cain&#8217;t be he&#8217;ped, but
+you&#8217;ve done what&#8217;s right at last,&#8221; Jephthah
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_301' name='page_301'></a>301</span>
+assured them. &#8220;The church is a mighty good
+thing for young fellers like you. A good wife&#8217;ll
+do a sight to he&#8217;p along.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He looked at them kindly. He had never liked
+his boys half so well.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m mighty proud of the both of ye,&#8221; he
+concluded heartily. &#8220;Ef Creed Bonbright ever
+does come back in the mountains, we&#8217;ll show him
+that the Turrentines can be better friends than
+foes to a man.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXI_THE_BAPTISING' id='XXI_THE_BAPTISING'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302' name='page_302'></a>302</span>
+<h2>Chapter XXI</h2>
+<h3>The Baptising</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>October had led forth her train across the
+Cumberlands. One night the forest was
+fairly green, but early risers next morning found
+that in the darkness while they slept the hickories
+had been touched to gold, the oaks smitten with
+a promise of the glowing mahogany-red which was
+to be theirs. Sourwood and sumach blazed;
+the woodbine flung its banner of blood, chestnuts
+were yellow where the nuts dropped through them
+from loosened burs. The varying dark greens
+of balsam and fir, pine and cedar, heightened by
+contrast the glow of colour, while the dim blue
+sky above set its note of tender distance and
+forgetfulness. On a thousand mountain peaks
+smoked and smouldered, flared and flamed the
+altar fires of autumn.</p>
+<p>After that each day saw a deepening of the
+glory in the hills. It was like a noble overture a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303' name='page_303'></a>303</span>
+multitudinous chorus made visible. The marvel
+of it was that one sense should be so clamorously
+challenged while the other was not addressed.
+The ear hearkened ever amid that grand symphony
+of colour for some mighty harmony of sound. But
+even the piping song-birds were gone, and the cry
+of a hawk wheeling high in the blue, the voice of
+a woman calling her cow, these sounded loud in
+the autumnal hush.</p>
+<p>The streams were shrunken to pools whose clear
+jade reaches reflected the blazing banners above
+them, and offered mimic seas for the sailing of
+painted argosies when the wind shook the leaves
+down. There was a fruity odour of persimmon
+and wild grape forever in the air. The salmon-pink
+globes stood defined against the blue on
+leafless twigs, while the frost sweetened them to
+sugary jelly, and the black wild grape by the water-courses
+yielded an odour that was only less material
+than the flavour of its juices. Every angle of
+the rail fences became a parterre with golden-rod,
+cat-brier, and the red-and-yellow pied leaves of
+blackberries, while a fringe of purple and white
+asters thrust fragile fingers through the rails below,
+or the stout iron-weed pushed its purple-red
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304' name='page_304'></a>304</span>
+blooms into view at the head of tall, lance-like
+stems.</p>
+<p>Judith walking in the woods one day found a
+great nest of Indian pipe. She bent listlessly to
+pick the waxen mystic blossoms, thinking to
+herself that they were like some beautiful dead
+thing; and then she came upon a delicate flush
+on the side of their clear, translucent pearl, and
+wondered if it were an omen.</p>
+<p>It was a gorgeous October Sabbath when the
+boys were baptised. Baptisms always took place
+from Brush Arbour in a sizable pool of Lost Creek
+which flows through one corner of the little valley
+that holds the church building. The sward which
+ran down to its clear mirror was yet green, but
+the maples and sourwoods above it were coloured
+splendidly. Among their clamant red and yellow
+laurel and rhododendron showed glossy green, and
+added to the gay tapestry. The painted leaves
+let go their hold on twig or bough and dropped
+whispering into the water, like garlands flung to
+dress the coming rite.</p>
+<p>Morning meeting was over. The women-folks
+who had come far spread dinner on the grass near
+the church, joining together occasionally, the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305' name='page_305'></a>305</span>
+children wandering about in solemn delight with
+a piece of corn pone in hand, whispering among
+the graves in the tiny God&#8217;s acre, spelling out
+the words upon some wooden head-board, or the
+rarer stone.</p>
+<p>The Big Spring was the customary gathering
+place of the young people before church, and
+during intermissions, about its clear basin, on
+the slopes above the great rock from under which
+it issued, might be seen a number of couples, the
+boys in Sunday best of jeans or store-bought
+clothing, the girls fluttering in cheap lawns or
+calicoes, and wearing generally hats instead of
+the more becoming sunbonnet. Judith had been
+used to lead her following here, and the number
+of her swains would have been a scandal in any
+one else: but there was a native dignity about
+Judith Barrier that kept even rural gossip at
+bay. This morning, however, when Elder Drane
+gave her the customary invitation to walk down
+there for a drink, she refused, and all during the
+first service the widower had sat tall and reproachful
+on the men&#8217;s side and reminded her
+of past follies. She was aware of his accusing
+eyes even when she did not look in his direction,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306' name='page_306'></a>306</span>
+and uncomfortably aware too that others saw
+what she saw.</p>
+<p>Throughout the pleasant picnic meal, shared
+with its group of neighbours, the sight of Andy
+and Jeff with Cliantha and Pendrilla aggravated a
+dull pain which dragged always in her heart, and
+when dinner was over and they had packed the
+basket once more, and set it in the back of the
+waggon, she left them, to wander by herself on
+the farther side of Lost Creek, sitting down finally
+in the shade of a great sourwood, and looking
+moodily at the water. All afternoon she sat
+there wrapt in her own emotions, forgetful of
+time and place. The congregation straggled
+back into the little log church, and the second
+service was begun. The preacher&#8217;s voice came
+floating out to her softened by distance, and with
+it the sound of singing; as the meeting drew to its
+close an occasional more vociferous &#8220;Amen!&#8221; or
+&#8220;Glory!&#8221; or &#8220;Praise God!&#8221; made itself heard.
+The sun was beginning to slant well from the
+west when she got suddenly to her feet with
+the startled realisation that afternoon preaching
+was over, the people were pouring from the church
+door, streaming across the green toward the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307' name='page_307'></a>307</span>
+baptising pool. They were in the middle of a
+hymn.</p>
+<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:4em;'><tr><td>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>&#8220;Oh, wanderer return&mdash;return,&#8221;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>came their musical tones across the water. The
+grey-haired old preacher was in the lead, his
+black coat blowing about him, the congregation
+spreading out fan-wise as they followed after,
+Andy and Jeff arm in arm, the half-dozen others
+who were to be baptised walking with them.</p>
+<p>Her fretted, pining spirit had no appreciation
+left for the appeal of the picture. She gazed, and
+looked away, and groaned. &#8220;Oh, wanderer
+return,&#8221; they sang&mdash;almost her heart could not
+bear the words.</p>
+<p>She sighed. Ought she to cross the foot-log
+and be with them when the boys were dipped?
+But while she hesitated the singers struck up
+a different hymn, a louder, more militant strain.
+Brother Bohannon was at the water; he was wading
+in; he was up to his knees now&mdash;up to his
+waist.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Send &#8217;em in, Brother Drane,&#8221; she heard him
+call. &#8220;This is about deep enough. That&#8217;s right&mdash;give
+me the young men first. When the others
+see them dipped they&#8217;ll have no fear.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308' name='page_308'></a>308</span></p>
+<p>Elihu Drane took Andy&#8217;s arm, and another
+helper laid hold of Jeff.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sing&mdash;sing brethren and sisters,&#8221; admonished
+the preacher. &#8220;Make a joyful noise unto the
+Lord. This is the time for Hallelujahs. Ef ye
+don&#8217;t sing now, when will ye ever?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Andy spoke low in the elder&#8217;s ear, whereupon
+he was released, and turned to his brother; hand-in-hand
+the two stepped into the water alone.
+Judith saw the pale, boyish faces, strangely refined
+by the exaltation of spirit which was upon them,
+as the twins waded out toward the preacher.
+Bohannon called to Jeff, shook hands with him,
+shouted, &#8220;Praise God, brother. Glory! Glory!
+Now&mdash;make yo&#8217;se&#8217;f right stiff. Let me have ye.
+Don&#8217;t be scared. I won&#8217;t drop ye. I&#8217;ve baptised
+a many before you was born, son.&#8221; His
+right hand was lifted dripping above the dark
+head. &#8220;I baptise ye, Thomas Jefferson Turrentine,
+in the name of the Father, and the Son, and
+the Holy Ghost, Amen.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Amen&mdash;Amen!&#8221; came the deep chorus from
+the bank, the high, plaintive women&#8217;s voices
+undertoned by the masculine bass.</p>
+<p>The black coat sleeve went around the white-clad
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_309' name='page_309'></a>309</span>
+shoulders, the preacher dropped his new
+convert gently backward into the shining water,
+dipped him, and Jeff who was not an excellent
+swimmer for nothing, came up quiet, smiling, and
+stood aside to wait for his brother.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sing&mdash;sing!&#8221; cried the preacher. &#8220;Here goes
+another soul on its way to glory,&#8221; and he reached
+forth to take Andy. A moment later he sent him,
+drenched, but washed clean of his sins, so far
+as mountain belief goes, after his twin. The
+hallelujahs burst forth to greet the boys: joyful
+shouts, amens, and some sobbing when, hand-in-hand&mdash;even
+as they had gone in&mdash;they came up
+out of the water.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mighty pretty to look at, ain&#8217;t it?&#8221; said a
+voice at Judith&#8217;s shoulder.</p>
+<p>She turned to find Blatch Turrentine standing
+behind her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon Andy and Jeff is goin&#8217; to be regular
+little prayin&#8217; Sammies from this out,&#8221; jeered the
+newcomer.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Granny Lusk has given her consent for them
+and the gals to be wedded,&#8221; remarked Judith
+softly. To her&mdash;and perhaps to Cliantha and
+Pendrilla also&mdash;the main importance of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310' name='page_310'></a>310</span>
+twins&#8217; conversion was in this permission, which
+had been withheld so long as they were wild and
+had a bad name.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I heared of another weddin&#8217; that might interest
+ye,&#8221; Blatch insinuated. &#8220;Want to come
+and walk a piece over by the Big Spring,
+Judy?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith turned uncertainly. The boys had
+passed on up to the sheds to get on dry clothing.
+It was nearly time for her to be going back to the
+waggon. Bohannon was dipping Doss Provine&#8217;s
+sister Luna. A group of trembling, tearful
+candidates, mostly young girls, were being
+heartened and encouraged for the ordeal by the
+helpers on the bank.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell me here&mdash;cain&#8217;t ye?&#8221; she said listlessly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I heared from a feller that got it from another
+feller,&#8221; Blatch began smilingly, &#8220;that Huldy
+Spiller an&#8217; Creed Bonbright was wedded and gone
+to Texas. I reckon hit&#8217;s true, becaze the man that
+told me was aimin&#8217; to buy the Bonbright farm.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith did not cry out. She hoped her colour
+did not change very much, for Blatch&#8217;s eyes were
+on her face. After a while she managed to say
+in a fairly steady voice,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_311' name='page_311'></a>311</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Does Wade know? Have ye sent any word
+to him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; drawled Blatch. &#8220;Unc&#8217; Jep aimed to
+break off with me, and he left you the only one o&#8217;
+the family that dared speak with me. Mebbe you
+would like to write an&#8217; tell Wade?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; sighed Judith hopelessly.
+&#8220;What&#8217;s the use?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Farewell,&#8221; said Blatch, using a common
+mountain form of adieu. &#8220;I reckon Unc&#8217; Jep
+won&#8217;t want to see me standin&#8217; around talkin&#8217; to
+ye. You tell Wade,&#8221; significantly. &#8220;The sooner
+he gets Huldy out of his head the better for him.
+No use cryin&#8217; over spilt milk. They&#8217;s as good
+fish in the sea as ever come out of it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He looked long at her downcast face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jude, the man that told me that about Bonbright,&#8221;
+he said, speaking apparently on sudden
+impulse, &#8220;&#8217;lowed that the feller had left you&mdash;give
+ye the mitten. You&#8217;re a fool ef ye let that
+be said, when his betters is wantin&#8217; ye.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Without another word, without a glance, he
+turned and slouched swiftly away down the path
+behind the fringe of bushes by the creek side.</p>
+<p>The baptising was over. Judith, crossing the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_312' name='page_312'></a>312</span>
+stream, saw her uncle&#8217;s waggon, Beck and Pete
+already hitched to it, being loaded with Jim Cal
+and his tribe. Andy and Jeff were horseback
+with the Lusk girls. She hurried forward to join
+them and make ready for departure when, to her
+dismay, she encountered Drane at the foot of the
+slope coming toward her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wasn&#8217;t that thar Blatchley Turrentine?&#8221;
+inquired the elder.</p>
+<p>The girl nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t see him in the church,&#8221; Drane pursued.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon he wasn&#8217;t there,&#8221; assented Judith
+lifelessly, making as though to pass on.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He jest came here to have speech with you,
+did he?&#8221; inquired the man, nervously, brushing
+his sandy whiskers with unquiet fingers.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon he did,&#8221; acknowledged Judith
+without coquetry, without interest.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jude!&#8221; burst out the widower, &#8220;I promised
+you I never would again ax you to wed; but I&#8217;m
+obliged to know ef you&#8217;re studyin&#8217; about takin&#8217;
+that feller.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Judith, resenting nothing, &#8220;I
+never did aim to wed Blatch Turrentine, and
+I never will.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_313' name='page_313'></a>313</span></p>
+<p>The elder stood directly in her path, blocking
+the way and staring down at her miserably for
+a long minute.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what you always used to tell me,&#8221;
+he remarked finally with a heavy sigh. &#8220;Back
+in them days when you let me hope that I&#8217;d see
+you settin&#8217; by my fireside with my children on
+your knees, you always talked thataway about
+Blatch&mdash;I reckon you talked thataway of me
+to him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith&#8217;s pale cheek slowly crimsoned. She
+looked upon the ground. &#8220;I&#8217;m mighty sorry,&#8221;
+she said slowly.</p>
+<p>Elihu Drane&#8217;s faded eyes lighted with fresh
+fires. He caught the hand that hung by her side.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Jude&mdash;do you mean it?&#8221; he cried. &#8220;Do
+you care? You don&#8217;t know how the chaps all
+love ye and want ye. That old woman I&#8217;ve
+got doin&#8217; for &#8217;em ain&#8217;t fittin&#8217; to raise &#8217;em. Everybody
+tells me I&#8217;ve got to marry and give &#8217;em a
+mother, but I cain&#8217;t seem to find nobody but you.
+If you feel thataway&mdash;if you&#8217;ll&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith drew her hand away with finality, but
+her eyes were full of pitying kindness. She knew
+now what she had done to this man. By the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_314' name='page_314'></a>314</span>
+revealing lamp of her own suffering she read his.
+Back in the old days she had counted him only
+one more triumph in her maiden progress.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; she said gravely, &#8220;I ain&#8217;t studyin&#8217;
+about marryin&#8217; anybody. I&#8217;m mighty sorry
+that I done thataway. I&#8217;m sorry, and ashamed;
+but I have to say no again, Elder Drane. There
+ain&#8217;t never goin&#8217; to be no other answer.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s that feller Bonbright,&#8221; declared the
+elder sternly as he stood aside to let her pass.
+&#8220;Good Lord, why ain&#8217;t the man got sense enough
+to come back and claim his own!&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXII_EBBTIDE' id='XXII_EBBTIDE'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_315' name='page_315'></a>315</span>
+<h2>Chapter XXII</h2>
+<h3>Ebb-Tide</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Life closed in on Judith after that with an iron
+hand. She missed sorely the children&#8217;s
+demands upon her, their play and prattle and
+movement about the place. Huldah was gone.
+Wade was gone. She could get no news of Creed.
+The things to love and hate and be jealous of
+seemed to have dropped out of her existence, so
+that the heart recoiled upon itself, the spirit
+wrestled blindly in darkness with an angel which
+was but its own self in other guise.</p>
+<p>Day by day she turned from side to side for an
+exit from the fiery path she trod, and cried out to
+Heaven that she could not bear it&mdash;she could not
+stand it&mdash;there must be some way other than
+this!</p>
+<p>The Lusk girls and the Turrentine twins were
+to have a double wedding. The preparations
+for this event were torture to Judith. Everybody,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_316' name='page_316'></a>316</span>
+it seemed, could be happy but her own poor self.
+Even the fact that Jeff and Andy were changed,
+kinder to her, more considerate, better men in
+every way, had its own sting. If this could have
+been so before, the wreck of her world need not
+have come about.</p>
+<p>Blatch kept rigorously to his own side of the
+Gulch, yet once in a while Judith met him on the
+highroad; and then, while he approached her with
+the carefullest efforts toward pleasing, he showed
+the effects of anxiety, the hard life, and the fact
+that he had begun to drink heavily&mdash;a thing he
+had never done before.</p>
+<p>Spring would terminate his lease of the Turrentine
+farm, and then he must seek other quarters
+for his illicit traffic. His situation was doubled in
+danger by the fact that it could not be disguised
+how his uncle had turned upon him. Now that
+one did not, supposably, incur the displeasure of
+the Turrentines by giving information concerning
+Blatch and his still, the enterprise was a much
+safer one, and he trembled in hourly terror of
+its being undertaken by some needy soul. This
+terror gave a certain ferocity to his manner. Also
+the man who had come in with him to take Jim
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_317' name='page_317'></a>317</span>
+Cal&#8217;s place in the partnership was a more undesirable
+associate even than Buck Shalliday.</p>
+<p>Judith watched all these things with an idle
+lack of interest that was strangely foreign to her
+vivid human temperament. As time passed and
+she could hear nothing from Creed Bonbright,
+nor of him beyond what Blatch had told her, and
+the connection she made between it and Iley&#8217;s
+report of Huldah&#8217;s marriage, the inaction of her
+woman&#8217;s lot was almost more than she could
+endure. Of an evening after her milking was
+over she would stand at the draw-bars under the
+wide, blue, twilight sky, and stare with her great,
+black, passionate eyes into the autumn dusk,
+and her whole being went forth with such an
+intensity of longing that it seemed some part of it
+must find Creed, wherever he was, and speak for
+her to him.</p>
+<p>After Iley&#8217;s announcement in September Judith
+never approached her nor talked to her again,
+though the shrew was growing strangely mild
+and disciplined since Jim Cal had broken with
+Blatch Turrentine and was become a partner in
+his father&#8217;s affairs&mdash;a husband who is out of the
+good books of other people is a scold-maker with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_318' name='page_318'></a>318</span>
+the type of woman Jim Cal had married. To go
+near Pendrilla and Cliantha was to be overwhelmed
+instantly with the joyous details of
+their wedding preparations. Judith flinched from
+bringing her troubles before such happy eyes.
+She had but Aunt Nancy.</p>
+<p>It was bitter hard times at the little cabin
+on The Edge. Doss Provine had begun actively
+looking for a &#8220;second,&#8221; and his courting operations
+sorely interfered with the making of the
+small crop. Nancy took the field behind the
+plough; but her efforts came late and availed little.
+There was scarcely food for their mouths; she
+was continually harassed by anxiety concerning
+Pony, who had got to running with a bad crowd
+in Hepzibah. And finally the thing happened
+which had not been since Big Turkey Track was
+a mountain and Nancy Card was born in that
+small cabin. At her wit&#8217;s end, she took Little
+Buck and Breezy and went away to visit a married
+daughter whose husband worked in a machine-shop
+in a valley settlement, leaving Doss Provine
+to stay with his kin for the time. There was
+plenty at her daughter&#8217;s table, and a warm welcome
+awaiting her and the children; besides, the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_319' name='page_319'></a>319</span>
+man of the house had promised to find a job for
+her spoiled boy, and give him the masculine oversight
+and discipline he needed. At Hepzibah she
+gathered up that rather astonished young man,
+exerting for once the real authority that was in
+her, and with him set out on this formidable
+journey.</p>
+<p>Just once old Jephthah went past that closed
+door. Just once he looked on the little front
+yard spilling over its rived palings with autumn
+blossoms. And he came home so out of joint
+with life, in so altogether impossible a mood,
+that it was fairly unsafe to mention as innocent a
+matter as the time of day to him. Up to now
+perhaps he had not known what a very large
+place in his life those almost daily quarrels with
+his old sweetheart filled. Now the restlessness
+which had come with the trouble over Creed
+Bonbright was renewed; he wandered about
+aimlessly, with a good word for nothing and
+nobody, and opined darkly that his liver was out
+of order.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aunt Nancy told me one time that she would
+almost be willin&#8217; to wed you to get a chance
+to give you a good course of spring medicine for
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_320' name='page_320'></a>320</span>
+that thar liver,&#8221; remarked Judith casually. And
+then she looked up with a wan little smile, to
+find an expression in her uncle&#8217;s eyes that set
+her wondering.</p>
+<p>Oh, dear Heaven&mdash;was it like that? Would
+she grieve for Creed all her life long, till she was
+an old, old woman? She declared it should not
+be so. Love would never be within her reach&mdash;within
+the reach of her utmost efforts&mdash;and
+escape her, leave her an empty husk to be blown
+by the wind of years to the dust pile of death.
+One day in this mood she broke down and talked
+to the Lusk girls.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He said he&#8217;d shore come back,&#8221; she concluded
+hopelessly. &#8220;Well, anyhow, he named things
+that would be done when he come back. I call
+that a promise. I keep thinking he&#8217;ll come
+back.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Pendrilla sat, her great china-blue eyes fixed
+on Judith&#8217;s tense, pale, working face, and the big
+tears of pure emotional enjoyment began to slip
+down her pink cheeks. In the glow of Judith&#8217;s
+splendid, fiery nature, the two pale little sisters
+warmed themselves like timid children at a chance
+hearth. As the full, vibrant voice faltered into
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_321' name='page_321'></a>321</span>
+silence, Cliantha went forward and took her
+favourite position on her knees beside Judith,
+her arms raised and slipped around the taller
+girl&#8217;s waist.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; she began, with a sort of frightened
+assurance. &#8220;Ef my lover had gone from me
+thataway, and I didn&#8217;t know whar he was at,
+an&#8217; couldn&#8217;t git no news to him nor from him, I
+know mighty well and good what <i>I&#8217;d</i> do.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; whispered Judith, young lioness that
+she was, reduced to taking counsel from this
+mouse, &#8220;what would you do, Clianthy?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d make me a dumb supper and call him,&#8221;
+asserted the Lusk girl with tremulous resolution.</p>
+<p>&#8220;A dumb supper!&#8221; echoed Judith, and then
+again, on a different key, &#8220;a dumb supper. I
+never studied about such as that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She brooded a moment on the thought, and
+the girls said nothing, watching her breathlessly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you reckon hit&#8217;d do me any good?&#8221; she
+questioned then, half-heartedly. &#8220;Why, dumb
+suppers always seemed to me jest happy foolishness
+for light-hearted gals that had sweethearts.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no!&#8221; disclaimed Pendrilla, joining her
+sister on the floor at Judith&#8217;s feet. &#8220;They ain&#8217;t
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_322' name='page_322'></a>322</span>
+nothin&#8217; like foolishness about a shore-enough
+dumb supper. Why, Judith, Granny Peavey,
+our maw&#8217;s mother, told us oncet about a dumb
+supper that her and two other gals made when
+she was but sixteen year old, and her sweetheart
+away from her in Virginny, and she didn&#8217;t know
+whar he was at, an&#8217; they brought her tales agin
+him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221; prompted Judith feverishly. &#8220;Did it
+do any good? Did she find out anything?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Her and two others went to a desarted house
+at midnight&mdash;you know that&#8217;s the way, Jude.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith nodded impatiently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They tuck &#8217;em each some bread an&#8217; salt, an&#8217; a
+candle to put the pins in and name. They done
+everything backwards&mdash;ye have to do everything
+backwards at a dumb supper. I don&#8217;t know
+what happened when the candle burned down to
+the other girls&#8217; pins&mdash;I forget somehow&mdash;but when
+the pin Granny had stuck in the candle an&#8217; named
+for her lover was melted out and fell, the do&#8217;
+opened and in he walked and set down beside
+her. They wasn&#8217;t a word said betwixt &#8217;em. He
+tasted her salt, an&#8217; he et her bread; and then
+he was gone like a flash! And at that very same
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_323' name='page_323'></a>323</span>
+identical time that thar young man was a-crossin&#8217;
+the mountains of Virginny. It drawed him&mdash;don&#8217;t
+you see, Judith?&mdash;it drawed him to Granny.
+He came back to her, shore enough, three months
+after, and they was wedded. He was our grandpap,
+Adoniram Peavey&mdash;and every word of that&#8217;s
+true.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith sank lower in her splint-bottomed chair,
+looking fixedly above the flaxen heads at her
+knees, out through the open door, across the chip
+pile, and away to the bannered splendours of the
+autumn slopes.</p>
+<p>Cliantha laid her head in Judith&#8217;s lap and began
+to whimper.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;s awful things chanced at them thar
+dumb suppers,&#8221; she shivered. &#8220;I hearn tell of
+one gal that never had no true-love come, but jest
+a big black coffin hopped in at the do&#8217; and bumped
+around to her place and stopped &#8217;side of her. My
+law, I believe I&#8217;d die ef sech as that should chance
+whar I was at!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith&#8217;s introverted gaze dropped to the girl&#8217;s
+face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon that gal died,&#8221; she suggested musingly,
+&#8220;I don&#8217;t know as I&#8217;d care much ef the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_324' name='page_324'></a>324</span>
+coffin come for me. Unless&mdash;he&mdash;was to come,
+I&#8217;d ruther it would be the coffin. Pendrilly,&#8221;
+with a sudden upflash of interest, &#8220;what is it that
+comes? Is it the man hisself&mdash;or a ghost?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;T ain&#8217;t a ghost&mdash;a shore-enough ha&#8217;nt,&#8221;
+argued Pendrilla soberly, sitting back on her heels,
+&#8220;not unless &#8217;n the man&#8217;s dead, hit couldn&#8217;t be.
+Hit wasn&#8217;t no ha&#8217;nt of Grandpap Peavey&mdash;and yet
+hit wasn&#8217;t grandpap hisself. I reckon it was a
+sort of seemin&#8217;&mdash;jest like a vision in the Bible.
+Don&#8217;t you, Jude?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I &#8217;low,&#8221; put in Cliantha doubtfully, &#8220;that
+if the right feller is close by when he&#8217;s called
+by a dumb supper, he comes hisself. But ef
+he&#8217;s away off somewhars that he cain&#8217;t git to the
+place, then this here seemin&#8217; comes. An&#8217; ef he&#8217;s
+dead and gone&mdash;why you&#8217;ll see his ha&#8217;nt.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;s jest three of us,&#8221; whispered Pendrilla.
+&#8220;Three is the right number&mdash;but I know in my
+soul I&#8217;d be scared till I wouldn&#8217;t be no manner of
+use to anybody.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s comin&#8217; close to Hollow Eve,&#8221; suggested
+Cliantha. &#8220;That&#8217;s the time to hold a dumb
+supper ef one ever should be held. Hit&#8217;ll work
+then, ef it wouldn&#8217;t on no other night of the year.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_325' name='page_325'></a>325</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;It has to be held in a desarted house,&#8221; Pendrilla
+reiterated the condition. &#8220;Ef you was to
+hold a dumb supper, Jude, we could go to the
+old Bonbright house itse&#8217;f&mdash;ef we had any way
+to git in.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got the key,&#8221; said Judith scarcely above
+her breath. &#8220;Creed left it with me away last
+April, to get things for the&mdash;for the play-party.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXIII_THE_DUMB_SUPPER' id='XXIII_THE_DUMB_SUPPER'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_326' name='page_326'></a>326</span>
+<h2>Chapter XXIII</h2>
+<h3>The Dumb Supper</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was the thirty-first of October, All Souls&#8217;
+eve, that mystic point of contact between the
+worlds when quick and dead are fabled to walk
+the ways of earth together, to meet eye to eye,
+and hold converse. A web of mountain legend
+clings dimly about this season.</p>
+<p>The spirit of it&mdash;weird, elfin&mdash;was abroad, the
+air was full of it as, alone out in the gusty darkness
+of the autumn night, at eleven o&#8217;clock,
+Judith walked swiftly toward the Lusk place.
+Wrapped in a little packet she carried bread and
+salt, and a length of candle. She went across
+fields, and thus cut down the distance till it was
+possible to walk it in fifteen minutes.</p>
+<p>As she approached the house, Speaker, a barely
+grown hound-pup, came rollicking out to meet
+her, leaping about her shoulder-high, frisking back
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_327' name='page_327'></a>327</span>
+toward the porch and waiting for her, all the
+while barking joyously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My Lord!&#8221; said Pendrilla&#8217;s sleepy small
+voice when Judith tapped on their window in the
+wing of the building where the girls roomed.
+&#8220;Ef that thar fool hound-pup ain&#8217;t loose! I hope
+he don&#8217;t wake up Grandpap. Cain&#8217;t you make
+him hush, Judith?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith stooped and caressed the dog for a
+moment, quieting him. The girls presently appeared
+in the doorway fully dressed and, as it
+seemed, with their packets made, in addition to
+which Cliantha carried an old lantern unlighted
+in her hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll light it as soon as we get out in the road,&#8221;
+she announced whisperingly.</p>
+<p>When they would have secured the dog that
+he might not follow them, they found that he,
+wise for his age, had disappeared.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I bet he&#8217;s run down the road apiece; he&#8217;ll
+be a-hidin&#8217; in the bushes waitin&#8217; for us,&#8221; Cliantha
+opined pessimistically. But there was nothing
+to be done about it, and they set out, to be
+intercepted in just such manner as she foretold.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I vow, I ain&#8217;t so mighty sorry Speaker&#8217;s along
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_328' name='page_328'></a>328</span>
+of us,&#8221; Pendrilla said after they had vainly browbeaten,
+threatened, and stoned the hound to drive
+him back through the gate. &#8220;He&#8217;s a mighty heap
+of company and protection out thisaway in the
+night.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Girls,&#8221; said Judith, suddenly halting them all
+in the little byroad which they were travelling,
+&#8220;don&#8217;t you think we&#8217;d better cut across here?
+Hit&#8217;ll be a lot nearer.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Grandpap&#8217;s jest ploughed that thar field to
+put in his winter wheat,&#8221; objected Pendrilla.
+&#8220;Hit&#8217;ll make mighty bad walkin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But we&#8217;ll get there quicker,&#8221; urged Judith
+feverishly, and that closed the argument. Between
+them the Lusk girls had succeeded in lighting
+the old lantern; by its illumination the party
+climbed the rail fence, and struggled for some
+distance across the loose hillocks of ploughed
+ground.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit wouldn&#8217;t make such awful walkin&#8217; if it
+had been drug,&#8221; Cliantha murmured. In the
+mountains they hitch a horse to a log or a large
+piece of brush and, dragging this over the ploughed
+ground, make shift to smooth it without a harrow.</p>
+<p>They had hobbled about one third of the toilsome
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_329' name='page_329'></a>329</span>
+way when there came a rush of galloping
+hoofs, the girls had barely time to crouch and
+cry out, Speaker barked loud, and suddenly half
+a dozen young calves ran almost into them.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh landy!&#8221; cried Pendrilla. &#8220;Ef them thar
+calves ain&#8217;t broke the fence again! Grandpap
+will be so mad&mdash;and we don&#8217;t darst to tell him that
+we know of it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come on,&#8221; urged Judith. &#8220;We&#8217;ve got to get
+over there.&#8221;</p>
+<p>But it was found when they would have moved
+forward that they could not shake off their unwelcome
+escort. The calves had been tended
+occasionally in the dusk by a man with a lantern,
+and they hailed this one as a beacon of hope.
+Finally even Judith, desperately impatient to be
+gone, agreed that they would have to turn back
+and put the meddlesome creatures into their
+pasture and lay up the fence before they could
+make any progress.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;ll save time,&#8221; she commented briefly, as
+though time were the only thing worth considering
+now.</p>
+<p>At last, one after the other, they climbed the
+fence at the side of the Bonbright place. The
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_330' name='page_330'></a>330</span>
+air was soft, heavy with coming rain. Up through
+the weed-grown yard they went, greeted and
+beckoned by the odours of Mary Bonbright&#8217;s
+garden, thyme and southernwood, herbs by the
+path-side, clumps of brave chrysanthemums, a
+wandering spray or two of late-blooming honeysuckle.
+Judith trembled and locked her teeth
+together in anguish as she remembered that other
+night in the odorous dusk when she and Creed had
+stood under these trees and sought in the darkness
+for the bush of sweet-scented shrub.</p>
+<p>The empty house bulked big and black before
+them in the gloom. She took the key from her
+pocket and opened the front door, Pendrilla
+and Cliantha clinging to her in an ecstasy of
+delicious terror. She stepped into the front room,
+struck a match, and lighted her candle. It was
+half-past eleven by the small nickel alarm-clock
+which she carried. Its busy, bustling, modern
+tick roused strange, incongruous echoes in the old
+house, and reproved their errand.</p>
+<p>Speaker made himself at home, coming in
+promptly, seeking out the corner he preferred, and
+turning around dog-fashion before he lay down
+and composed himself to half-waking slumbers.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_331' name='page_331'></a>331</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon in here will be the best place,&#8221;
+murmured Cliantha, seeking a candlestick from
+the mantel for their light. &#8220;We could set around
+this table.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s more better ef we-all set on the flo&#8217;,&#8221;
+reminded Pendrilla doubtfully. &#8220;Don&#8217;t ye ricollect?
+all the dumb suppers we ever hearn tell of
+was held thataway. Set on the flo&#8217; and put
+yo&#8217; bread and salt on the flo&#8217; in front of you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mebbe that&#8217;s becaze they was held in desarted
+houses, and most generally desarted houses
+don&#8217;t have no tables nor chairs in &#8217;em,&#8221; Cliantha
+speculated.</p>
+<p>From the moment the lantern revealed the
+room to them, Judith had stood drawn back
+against the wall curiously rigid, her hand at her
+lip, her over-bright eyes going swiftly from one
+remembered object to another. This fleeting
+gaze fixed itself at last on the inner door.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll go in the other room a minute for&mdash;for
+something,&#8221; she whispered finally. &#8220;You gals
+set here. I&#8217;ll be right back. I&#8217;ve got two
+candles.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She lighted the second candle, left the girls
+arranging the dumb supper, and stole, as though
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_332' name='page_332'></a>332</span>
+some one had called her, into that room which
+she had made ready for Creed&#8217;s occupancy on the
+night of the play-party. It had reverted to its
+former estate of dust and neglect. She looked
+about her with blank, desolate eyes which finally
+found upon the bed a withered brown something
+that held her gaze as she crept toward it&mdash;the
+wreath of red roses!</p>
+<p>There it was, the pitiful little lure she had put
+forward to Love, the garland she had set in place
+to show Creed how fine a housewife she was, how
+grandly she would keep his home for him. The
+brave red roses, the bold laughing red roses, their
+crimson challenge was shrivelled to darkened
+shreds, each golden heart was a pinch of black
+dust; only the thorny stems remained to show what
+queen of blossoms had been there.</p>
+<p>She knelt beside the bed, and when the Lusk
+girls, frightened at her long absence, crept timidly
+in to look for her, they found her strangling
+passionate sobs in its white covering.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s most twelve o&#8217;clock, Jude,&#8221; whimpered
+Cliantha.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s come on to rain,&#8221; supplied Pendrilla
+piteously, and a gusty spatter on the small-paned
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_333' name='page_333'></a>333</span>
+window confirmed her words, as the three
+girls went back into the room where the candle
+stood in the middle of the floor with the three
+portions of bread and salt about it.</p>
+<p>The pale little sisters glanced at each other,
+and then at Judith, wistfully, timorously, almost
+more in terror of her than of their anomalous
+situation, this new, unknown Judith who scarce
+answered when she was spoken to, who continually
+failed them, who looked so strangely about her
+and wept so much.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pendrilly an&#8217; me has done put our pins in close
+to the bottom,&#8221; Cliantha explained deprecatingly.
+&#8220;Hit wouldn&#8217;t do any good to have Andy an&#8217;
+Jeff come trompin&#8217; in here&mdash;though I shore would
+love to see either or both of &#8217;em this minute,&#8221;
+she concluded forlornly, as they set the door
+ajar and the long slanting lines of rain began to
+drive obliquely in at the opening.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Push the candle back whar the draught won&#8217;t
+git a fair chance at it,&#8221; quavered Pendrilla.
+&#8220;We&#8217;re obliged to have the do&#8217; open, or what
+comes cain&#8217;t git in. An&#8217; we mustn&#8217;t ne&#8217;er a one
+of us say a word from now on, or hit&#8217;ll break
+the charm.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_334' name='page_334'></a>334</span></p>
+<p>Judith moved the candle and bent to thrust
+her pin in, close to the top where the melting
+wax might soon free it, concentrating all her soul
+in a passionate cry that Creed should come to
+her or send her some sign. Then she crouched
+on the floor next to Pendrilla and nearest to the
+door, and the three waited with pale faces.</p>
+<p>The wavering light of the candle, shaken by
+gusts which brought puffs of mist in with them,
+projected huge, grotesque shadows of the three
+heads, and set them dancing upon the walls. The
+hound-pup raised his head, cocked his ears
+dubiously, and whined under his breath.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that?&#8221; gasped Cliantha. &#8220;Didn&#8217;t
+you-all hear somethin&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith was staring at the candle flame and
+made no reply. Her big dark eyes had the look
+of one self-hypnotised.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Lordy! Ye ortn&#8217;t to talk at a dumb
+supper&mdash;but I thort I hearn somebody walkin&#8217;
+out thar in the rain!&#8221; chattered Pendrilla.</p>
+<p>The old house creaked and groaned in the
+rising autumn storm, as old houses do. The
+rain drummed on the roof like fingers tapping.
+The wind stripped dry leaves from the bough,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_335' name='page_335'></a>335</span>
+or scooped them up out of the hollows where
+they lay, and carried them across the window, or
+drove them along the porch, in a gliding, whispering
+flight that was infinitely eerie.</p>
+<p>In their terror the girls looked to Judith. They
+saw that she was not with them. Her gaze was on
+the pin in the candle. Back over her heart swept
+the sweetness of her first meeting with Creed. She
+could see him stand talking to her, the lifted face,
+the blue eyes&mdash;should she ever see them again?</p>
+<p>Then suddenly the flame twisted and bent, the
+tallow melted swiftly on one side, and Judith&#8217;s
+pin fell to the floor.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s a-comin&#8217;!&#8221; hissed Cliantha frantically.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Lord! I wish &#8217;t we hadn&#8217;t&mdash;&#8221; Pendrilla
+moaned.</p>
+<p>The dog uttered a protesting sound between
+a growl and a yelp. He raised on his forelegs,
+and the hair of his head and neck bristled.</p>
+<p>Outside, a heavy stumbling step came up the
+walk. It halted at the half-open door. That
+door was flung back, and in the square of dripping
+darkness stood Creed Bonbright, his face death
+white, his eyes wide and fixed, the rain gemming
+his uncovered yellow hair.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_336' name='page_336'></a>336</span></p>
+<p>A moment he stood so, and the three stared
+at him. Then with a swish of leaves in the wind
+and a spatter of rain in their faces, the candle
+blew out. The girls screamed and sprang up.
+The hound backed into his corner and barked
+furiously. Whatever it was, it had crossed the
+threshold and was in the room with them.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jude&mdash;Jude!&#8221; shrieked Cliantha. &#8220;Run!
+Come on, Pendrilly!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith felt a wavering wet hand fumbling toward
+her in the darkness. It clasped hers; the arm
+went around her; she raised her face, and the cold
+lips of the visitant met her warm tremulous ones.</p>
+<p>For an instant she had no thought but that
+Creed had returned from the dead to claim her&mdash;and
+she was willing to go. Then she was aware
+of a swift rush, as the fleeing girls went past them,
+and the patter of the hound&#8217;s feet following.
+Slowly the newcomer&#8217;s weight sagged against her;
+he crumpled and went to the floor, dragging her
+down in his fall.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Girls! Clianthy! Pendrilly!&#8221; she cried as she
+crouched there, clinging to the prostrate form.
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t leave me&mdash;it&#8217;s Creed himself. You got
+to he&#8217;p me!&#8221;</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_337' name='page_337'></a>337</span>
+<img src='images/illus-336.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 320px; height: 478px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 320px;'>
+&#8220;The door was flung back and in the darkness stood Creed Bonbright.&#8221;<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the girls were gone like frightened hares.
+As she got to her feet in the doorway she could
+hear the sound of their flying footsteps down the
+lane. All was dead still in the room behind her,
+yet only an ear as fine as hers could have distinguished
+those light, receding footfalls that
+finally melted into the far multitudinous whisper
+and rustle of the storm.</p>
+<p>She turned back in the dark and knelt down
+beside him, passing a light, tender hand over his
+face and chest. He breathed. He was a living
+man.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed,&#8221; she whispered loud and desperately.
+There was no movement or response.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed,&#8221; raising her voice. &#8220;O my God! Creed,
+darlin&#8217; cain&#8217;t you hear me? It&#8217;s me. It&#8217;s Jude&mdash;poor
+Jude that loves you so&mdash;cain&#8217;t you answer
+her?&#8221;</p>
+<p>There came no reply. She lifted the cold hand,
+and when she let go of it, it fell. She leaped to
+her feet in sudden fear that he might die while
+she delayed here. With trembling fingers she
+struck a match and lit her candle. Her eye fell
+on the two pins the girls had thrust in it and
+named for Andy and Jeff. With a swift motion
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_338' name='page_338'></a>338</span>
+she plucked them out and threw them on the
+floor. She looked from the prostrate figure to the
+bed in the corner. No&mdash;she couldn&#8217;t lift him to
+lay him there; but she ran and brought pillows
+and covers, raising his head upon the one, lapping
+him softly in the other.</p>
+<p>When all was done that she could do, there was
+the instant need to hurry home for help. She
+hated terribly to leave him alone in the dark,
+yet a lighted candle with a man so ill was a risk
+that she dared not run&mdash;he might move about and
+set the house on fire. When she closed the darkened
+room with its stark figure lying under the
+white covers, her heart sank and sank. She must
+turn the key upon him. There was no good in
+hesitating. Only her strong will, her high courage,
+sustained her as she locked the door, and
+turning ran, with feet that love and terror winged,
+toward her own home. The rain drenched her;
+the darkness seemed a thing palpable; she slipped
+and fell, got to her feet and ran on. Jephthah
+Turrentine, asleep in his own cabin, heard the
+sound of beating palms against his door, and a
+voice outside in the dark and the rain that cried
+upon him.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_339' name='page_339'></a>339</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle Jep! Uncle Jep! For God&#8217;s sake get
+up quick and help me. Creed Bonbright&#8217;s come
+home to his house, and I think he&#8217;s dead or dyin&#8217;
+over there.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXIV_A_CASE_OF_WALKING_TYPHOID' id='XXIV_A_CASE_OF_WALKING_TYPHOID'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_340' name='page_340'></a>340</span>
+<h2>Chapter XXIV</h2>
+<h3>A Case of Walking Typhoid</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>&#8220;Uh&mdash;<i>huh</i>!&#8221; said the old man as he straightened
+up after a long examination of Creed. &#8220;I
+thort so. He&#8217;s got a case o&#8217; walkin&#8217; typhoid, an&#8217;
+looks like he&#8217;s been on his feet with it till hit&#8217;s
+plumb wore him out.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He stood staring down at the prostrate figure,
+which had neither sound nor movement, the
+fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to
+stir the chest.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Walkin&#8217; typhoid,&#8221; he repeated. &#8220;I&#8217;ve met
+up with some several in my lifetime. Cur&#8217;ous
+things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon
+he&#8217;s been puny along ever sence he got that
+ball in his shoulder, and hit&#8217;s ended up in this
+here spell of fever.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will he die, Uncle Jep?&#8221; whispered Judith,
+crouching beside him, her dark eyes roving
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_341' name='page_341'></a>341</span>
+desperately from the still form to her uncle&#8217;s
+countenance. &#8220;What must we do for him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;N-no&mdash;I reckon he has a chance,&#8221; hesitated
+Jephthah. Then, glancing at her white, miserable
+face, &#8220;an&#8217; ef he has, hit&#8217;s to git him away from
+here an&#8217; into bed right. Lord, I wish &#8217;t the boys
+had been home to he&#8217;p us out. Well, we&#8217;ll have
+to do the best we can.&#8221;</p>
+<p>As he spoke he put the word into action, getting
+a length of home-made carpet to put in the bottom
+of the waggon before he should lay in the feather-bed
+upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked,
+despite the look of acute anxiety, the old man&#8217;s
+eye was brighter, his step was freer, his head was
+borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since
+the trouble came.</p>
+<p>Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed
+with her help to lift the unconscious man
+into the waggon and place him, his head in
+Judith&#8217;s lap, for the journey home.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You mind now, Judy,&#8221; he admonished, almost
+sternly, &#8220;ef he comes to hisse&#8217;f you speak to him
+mighty quiet and pleasant-like. Don&#8217;t you set
+to cryin&#8217;&mdash;don&#8217;t you make no fuss. &#8217;Tain&#8217;t every
+gal I&#8217;d trust thisaway. Nothin&#8217; worse for a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_342' name='page_342'></a>342</span>
+sick man than to get him excited.&#8221; He took
+the lines and drove with infinite care and caution,
+walking beside the horse.</p>
+<p>But his warning was unnecessary; Creed never
+roused from the lethargy in which his senses were
+locked. They got him safely home, the old man
+undressed him and laid him comfortably in that
+big show-bed in the front room that was given to
+any guest of honour.</p>
+<p>Morning was breaking when Judith, coming into
+the kitchen, found Andy and Jeff sitting by the
+fire, and Dilsey Rust in charge.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yo&#8217; uncle sont fer me,&#8221; the old woman said.
+&#8220;He &#8217;lowed he needed yo&#8217; he&#8217;p takin&#8217; keer o&#8217;
+Bonbright.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith sat with Creed while the others had
+breakfast. When her uncle went out, closing the
+door softly behind him, leaving her alone with her
+recovered treasure, she went and knelt down by
+the bed, and looked at its silent occupant with a
+bursting heart.</p>
+<p>Here was Creed, Creed for whom she had longed
+and prayed. He had come back to her. She
+stared at the wasted face, the transparent temples
+where the blue veins showed through, the black
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_343' name='page_343'></a>343</span>
+circles beneath the lashes of the closed eyes. No,
+no, this was not Creed, this dying man who
+mocked her longing with a semblance of her
+lover&#8217;s return!</p>
+<p>There was a sound at the door. Andy and Jeff
+came awkwardly in, and while they all stood
+looking, Creed&#8217;s eyes opened suddenly upon them.
+Andy put out a hand swiftly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m mighty sorry for&mdash;for all that chanced,&#8221;
+he said huskily.</p>
+<p>&#8220;So &#8217;m I,&#8221; Jeff instantly seconded him.</p>
+<p>Creed looked at them both with a little puzzled
+drawing of the brows; then the ghost of a smile
+flickered across his lips, and his hand that lay on
+the covers moved weakly toward theirs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s all right,&#8221; he said, scarcely above a
+whisper&mdash;the first words he had uttered. &#8220;I
+told&mdash;Aunt Nancy&mdash;you were good&mdash;boys&mdash;&#8221; he
+faltered to a hesitating close, his eyelids drooped
+over the tired eyes; but they flashed open once
+more with a smile that included Judith and her
+uncle standing back of the two.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re all&mdash;mighty&mdash;good&mdash;to me,&#8221; said
+Creed Bonbright. And again he sank into that
+lethargic sleep.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_344' name='page_344'></a>344</span></p>
+<p>As the day advanced came the visitors that
+are the torment of a sick-room in the country.
+It would scarcely have been thought that a bare
+land like that could produce so many. Finally
+Judith went to her uncle and begged that Creed
+be no longer made a show of, and that old Dilsey
+set out food in the other room and entertain those
+who came, without promising that they should see
+the sick man.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uh&mdash;huh,&#8221; agreed Jephthah, understandingly,
+&#8220;I reckon yo&#8217; about right, Jude. Creed&#8217;s obliged
+to lay there like a baby an&#8217; sleep ef he&#8217;s to have
+any chance for his life. I don&#8217;t want to fall out
+with the neighbours, but we&#8217;ll see if we cain&#8217;t
+make out with less visitin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>But this prohibition was not supposed to apply
+to Iley Turrentine, a member of the family.
+About eight o&#8217;clock that morning, having then
+for the first time heard of the arrival at the cabin,
+she came hurrying across the slope with the baby
+on her hip. Long abstinence had made keen
+that temper of hers, and here was a situation
+where virtue itself cried to arms. She was eager
+to give Creed Bonbright a piece of her mind.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You cain&#8217;t go in unless&#8217;n you&#8217;ll promise to be
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_345' name='page_345'></a>345</span>
+plumb quiet&mdash;not to open yo&#8217; mouth,&#8221; Judith told
+her sharply. &#8220;Uncle Jep ain&#8217;t here right now&mdash;but
+that&#8217;s what he said.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t Bonbright know folks? Cain&#8217;t a body
+talk to him? Is he plumb outen his head?&#8221;
+demanded Iley, somewhat taken aback.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He knew some of us a while ago,&#8221; admitted
+Judith, &#8220;but mostly he doesn&#8217;t notice nothing&mdash;jest
+stares right in front of him, and Uncle Jep
+said we mustn&#8217;t let him be talked to nor werried.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The big red-headed woman, considerably lowered
+in note, stepped inside the door of the sick-room,
+hushing the child in her arms. A moment
+she stood staring at the bed and its single occupant,
+at the pale face on the pillow, then she
+burst suddenly into tempestuous sobs and fled.</p>
+<p>Judith followed her out.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the matter, Iley? You never set
+much store by Creed Bonbright&mdash;what you cryin&#8217;
+about?&#8221; she asked.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit&#8217;s&mdash;Huldy,&#8221; choked the sister. &#8220;I reckon
+you thort I talked mighty big about the business
+the last time you an&#8217; me had speech consarnin&#8217;
+hit; but the facts air that I don&#8217;t know a thing
+about whar she&#8217;s at, nor how she&#8217;s doin&#8217;. Judy,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_346' name='page_346'></a>346</span>
+ef yo&#8217; a-goin&#8217; to take keer o&#8217; the man, cain&#8217;t
+ye please ax him for me when did he see Huldy
+last, an&#8217;&mdash;an&#8217; is they wedded?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith assented. She knew what her uncle
+would think of such an inquiry being put to the
+sick man, yet her own heart so fiercely demanded
+knowledge on this point that she promised Iley
+she would ask the question as soon as she
+dared.</p>
+<p>The week that followed was a strange one to
+active Judith Barrier, used to out-door life under
+the sky for such a large part of her days. Now
+those same days were bounded by the four walls
+of a sick-room, the sole matter of importance in
+them whether the invalid took his gruel well,
+whether he had seemed better, whether her uncle
+spoke encouragingly of the eventful outcome of
+this illness. Old Jephthah himself nursed Creed,
+and Judith was but a helper; yet, such was her
+torture of uncertainty, of anxiety, that she often
+left to go to her own room and get some sleep,
+only to return and beg that she might be allowed
+to sit outside the threshold for the rest of the night
+and be ready if she were needed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ain&#8217;t no use wearin&#8217; yourself out thataway,&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_347' name='page_347'></a>347</span>
+her uncle used to say kindly. &#8220;That won&#8217;t do
+Creed no good, nor you neither. I wish to the
+Lord I had Nancy here to he&#8217;p me!&#8221;</p>
+<p>For in this day of real need he dropped all banter
+about Nancy&#8217;s value in sick-room practice, and
+longed openly for her assistance. Creed had
+been in the house nearly a week and was showing
+marked improvement, when Judith got a message
+from Blatch Turrentine&mdash;Would she be at the
+draw-bars &#8217;long about sundown? He had something
+to tell her.</p>
+<p>She paid no attention to the request, but it
+put her in mind to do finally what she had long
+contemplated&mdash;write to her cousin Wade. It was
+but a short scrawl, stating that Creed Bonbright
+was sick at their house, and not able to tell them
+anything concerning Huldah, and that Iley and
+the others were troubled. Would Wade please
+ask information in Hepzibah, and write to his
+affectionate cousin.</p>
+<p>Every day Iley made a practice of coming up
+and sitting dejectedly in the kitchen till Judith
+entered the room, when she would draw her
+mysteriously to one side and say:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have ye axed him yet? What did he tell ye?
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_348' name='page_348'></a>348</span>
+I&#8217;m plumb wo&#8217; out and heart-broke&#8217; about it,
+Jude.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Though Judith realised fully just how much
+of this display proceeded from a desire on Iley&#8217;s
+part for notice, yet her own passionate, rebellious
+heart seconded the idle woman, and allowed the
+continual harping on that string to finally drive
+her to the set determination that, as soon as
+Creed could talk to her at all, she would ask him
+about Huldah.</p>
+<p>Had she lacked resolution, the patient himself
+would have supplied and hardened it. About
+this time he developed a singular form of low
+delirium in which he would lie with closed eyes,
+murmuring&mdash;murmuring&mdash;murmuring to himself
+in a hurried, excited whisper. And always the
+burden of his distress was:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must get to her. Where is she? It&#8217;s a
+long ways. Oh, I&#8217;ve got to get to her&mdash;there&#8217;s
+nobody else.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Kneeling by his bed, her burning gaze upon
+his shut eyes and moving lips, Judith racked
+her soul with questioning. Often she heard her
+own name in those fevered whisperings; once he
+said with sudden determination, &#8220;I&#8217;m going
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_349' name='page_349'></a>349</span>
+home.&#8221; But she listened in vain for mention of
+Huldah.</p>
+<p>And what might that mean? All that she
+hoped? Or all that she dreaded? Oh, she could
+not bear this; she must know; she must&mdash;must&mdash;must
+ask him.</p>
+<p>The Evil One, having provided the counsel, was
+not slow in following it up with the necessary
+opportunity. Judith was sitting with Creed
+alone, on a Wednesday night&mdash;he had come to
+them the preceding Tuesday. Her uncle being
+worn out had planned to sleep till midnight, thus
+dividing the watch with her. About eleven
+o&#8217;clock Creed opened his eyes and asked in what
+seemed to her a fairly natural tone for a drink.
+She brought it to him, and when he had drank he
+began speaking very softly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad I came back to the mountains,&#8221; he
+said in a weak, whispering voice. &#8220;I promised
+you I&#8217;d come, and I did come, Judith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; answered Judith, putting down the
+glass and seating herself at the bedside, taking
+his hand and stroking it softly, studying his face
+with intent, questioning eyes. &#8220;You know where
+you are now, don&#8217;t you, Creed?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_350' name='page_350'></a>350</span></p>
+<p>He smiled at her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m in the front room at your house where
+we-all danced the night of the play-party,&#8221; he
+said. &#8220;I loved you that night, Judith&mdash;only
+I hadn&#8217;t quite found out about it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The statement was made with the simplicity
+of a child&mdash;or of a sick man. It went over
+Judith with a sudden, sweet shock. Then her
+jealous heart must know that it was really all hers.
+Nerve racked as only a creature of the open can
+be after weeks of confinement in a sick-room,
+torn with the possessive passion of her earth-born
+temperament, she stood up suddenly and asked
+him in a voice of pain that sounded harsh and
+menacing,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed, whar&#8217;s Huldy?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; returned Creed tremulously.
+The blue eyes in their great hollows came up to
+her face in a frightened gaze. Instantly they lost
+their clearness; they clouded and filmed with that
+look of confusion which had been in them from
+the first.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re married to her&mdash;ain&#8217;t you?&#8221; choked
+Judith, horrified at what she had done, loathing
+herself for it, yet pushed on to do more.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_351' name='page_351'></a>351</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; whispered Creed miserably. &#8220;Sit down
+by me again, Judith. Don&#8217;t be mad. What are
+you mad about? I forget&mdash;there was awful
+trouble, and somebody was shot&mdash;oh, how they
+all hate me!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The fluttering moment of normal conditions
+was gone. The baffled, confused eyes closed; the
+thin hands began to fumble piteously about the
+covers; the pale lips resumed their rapid motion,
+while from between them flowed the old, swift
+stream of broken whispers.</p>
+<p>Judith had quenched the first feeble flame of
+intelligence that flickered up toward her. She
+remained a moment staring down at her handiwork,
+then covered her face, and burst out crying.
+An ungentle grasp descended upon her shoulder.
+Her uncle, standing tall and angry behind her,
+thrust her from the room.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thar now!&#8221; he said with carefully repressed
+violence, lest his tones should disturb the sick
+man. &#8220;You&#8217;ve raised up a pretty interruption
+with my patient. I &#8217;lowed I could trust you,
+Jude. What in the world you fussin&#8217; with Creed
+about? For God&#8217;s sake, did you see him? You&#8217;ve
+nigh-about killed him, I reckon. Didn&#8217;t I tell
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_352' name='page_352'></a>352</span>
+you not to name anything to him to werry
+him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He says he&#8217;s married Huldy,&#8221; said Judith
+in a strangled voice.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say! He&#8217;d say anything&mdash;like he is now,&#8221;
+retorted her uncle, exasperated. &#8220;An&#8217; he&#8217;d shore
+say anything on earth that was put in his mouth.
+I don&#8217;t care if he&#8217;s married forty Huldy&#8217;s; what
+I want is for him to get well. Lord, I do wish
+I had Nancy here, and not one of these fool young
+gals with their courtin&#8217; business and their gettin&#8217;
+jealous and having to have a rippit with a sick
+man that don&#8217;t know what he&#8217;s talkin&#8217; about,&#8221;
+he went on savagely.</p>
+<p>But high-spirited Judith paid no attention to
+the cutting arraignment.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you think that&#8217;s true&mdash;oh, Uncle Jep, do
+you reckon he didn&#8217;t mean it?&#8221; was all she said.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see as it makes any differ,&#8221; retorted
+her uncle, testily. &#8220;Marryin&#8217; Huldy Spiller ain&#8217;t
+no hangin&#8217; matter&mdash;but hit&#8217;ll cost that boy his
+life ef you fuss with him and git him excited and
+all worked up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith turned and felt her way blindly up the
+steep little stair to her own room. That night
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_353' name='page_353'></a>353</span>
+she prayed, not in a formulated fashion, but to
+some vague, over-brooding goodness that she hoped
+would save her from cruelty to him she loved.</p>
+<p>The next morning Creed was plainly set back
+in his progress toward sound rationality, though
+there seemed little physical change. He recognised
+no one, and was much as he had been on
+those first days. While this condition of affairs
+held, and it lasted nearly a week, there was no
+need for Jephthah to repeat his caution. But one
+morning when Judith went in to relieve her uncle,
+Creed smiled at her again with eyes that knew.</p>
+<p>As soon as they were alone together, he asked
+her to come and sit by him, and told her with
+tolerable clearness how he had followed Blatch
+Turrentine onto the train at Garyville, how he
+had fainted there, and only recovered consciousness
+when they were halfway to the next station.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was too bad off for them to leave me anywhere,
+and they carried me plumb to Atlanta.
+I was in the hospital there a long while. Looks
+like I might have written to you&mdash;but I thought
+the best I could do was to let you alone&mdash;I&#8217;d
+made you trouble enough,&#8221; he ended with a
+wistful, half-hopeful glance at her face.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_354' name='page_354'></a>354</span></p>
+<p>Judith, taught by bitter experience, tried to
+meet this with the gentle, reassuring cheerfulness
+of the nurse. It was all right. He mustn&#8217;t talk
+too much. He was here now. They didn&#8217;t
+need any letter. But strive as she might she
+could not keep out of her voice a certain alien
+tone; and afterward the bitter thought dogged
+her that he had told her nothing definite. She
+knew nothing, after all, about his relations with
+Huldah; the girl might even, as Blatch declared,
+have been on the train, and gone to Atlanta with
+him, and he have held back this information.</p>
+<p>Perhaps, considering her temperament, Judith
+did as well as could have been expected in the
+three days that followed&mdash;days in which Creed
+seemed to make fair physical gain, but to grow
+worse and worse mentally. Never once did she
+put into words the query that ate into her very
+soul, quite innocent of the fact that it spoke in
+every tone of her voice, in every movement of her
+head or hand, and kept the ailing mind to which
+she ministered at tremble with the strain to
+answer.</p>
+<p>On the fourth day, fretted past endurance
+by the situation, Judith permitted herself some
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_355' name='page_355'></a>355</span>
+oblique hints and suggestions, on the heels of
+which she left to prepare his breakfast. Returning
+to the sick-room with the bowl of broth, she
+met the strange, unexpected, unsolicited reply to
+all these withheld demands. Creed greeted her
+with a half-terrified smile.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you meet her goin&#8217; out?&#8221; he asked.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did I meet who, Creed?&#8221; inquired Judith,
+setting the bowl down on a splint-bottomed
+chair, spreading a clean towel across the quilts,
+and preparing for his breakfast. &#8220;Has there
+been somebody in here to see you a&#8217;ready?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It was only Huldah,&#8221; deprecated Creed.
+&#8220;You said&mdash;you asked&mdash;and she just slipped in
+a minute after you went out.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith straightened up with so sudden a movement
+that the chair rocked and the contents of
+the bowl slopped dangerously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Which way did she go?&#8221; came the sharp
+challenge.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Out that door,&#8221; indicating with an air of
+childlike alarm the front way which led directly
+into the yard.</p>
+<p>Judith ran and flung it open. Nobody was
+in sight. Heedless of the sharp wintry air that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_356' name='page_356'></a>356</span>
+blew in upon the patient, she stood searching
+the way over toward Jim Cal&#8217;s cabin.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see her,&#8221; she called across her shoulder.
+&#8220;Mebbe she&#8217;s in the house yet.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She closed the door reluctantly and came back
+to the bedside.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Creed plaintively, lifting a doubtful
+hand to his confused head, &#8220;she ain&#8217;t here. She
+allowed you-all were mad at her, and I reckon
+she&#8217;ll keep out of sight.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But she had to come to see you&mdash;her wedded
+husband,&#8221; accused Judith sternly.</p>
+<p>He nodded mutely with a motion of assent.
+He seemed to hope that the admission would
+please Judith. The broth stood untouched,
+cooling on the chair.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is she stayin&#8217; down at Jim Cal&#8217;s?&#8221; came
+Judith&#8217;s next question.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She never named it to me where she was
+stayin&#8217;,&#8221; returned Creed wearily. As before,
+Judith&#8217;s ill-concealed anger and hostility was as
+a sword of destruction to him; yet now he had
+more strength to endure with. &#8220;She just come&mdash;and
+now she&#8217;s gone.&#8221; He closed his eyes, and
+leaned his head back among his pillows. The
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_357' name='page_357'></a>357</span>
+white face looked so sunken that Judith&#8217;s heart
+misgave her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t you eat your breakfast now, Mr. Bonbright?&#8221;
+she said stiffly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want any breakfast, thank you. I
+can&#8217;t eat,&#8221; returned Creed very low.</p>
+<p>Judith pressed her lips hard together to refrain
+from mentioning Huldah again. She knew that she
+had injured Creed, yet for the life of her she could
+not get out one word of kindness. Finally she
+took her mending and sat down within sight of the
+bed, deceiving herself into the belief that he slept.</p>
+<p>The next day an almost identical scene pushed
+Judith&#8217;s strained nerves to the verge of hysteria.
+In the afternoon when the old man came to
+relieve her he returned almost immediately from
+the sick-room, called her downstairs once more,
+and complained of Creed&#8217;s progress.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the matter?&#8221; he asked. &#8220;Look like
+somethin&#8217; has went wrong here right lately.
+Ever sence you got that fool notion in yo&#8217; head
+that Creed and Huldy was man and wife, he&#8217;s
+been goin&#8217; down in his mind about as fast as his
+stren&#8217;th come up. The best thing you can do
+is to put it out of yo&#8217; head.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_358' name='page_358'></a>358</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, they <i>air</i> wedded,&#8221; returned Judith
+passionately. &#8220;They ain&#8217;t no use to fergit it,
+&#8217;caze she&#8217;s done been here&mdash;she&#8217;s down at Jim
+Cal&#8217;s right now; and when we-all are out of the
+room he says she slips in to visit him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The girl stood trembling; her rounded cheeks
+that used to blush with such glowing crimson were
+white; she was a figure to move any one who
+loved her to pity; but the old man regarded her
+with strong contempt.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good Lord&mdash;is <i>that</i> what&#8217;s ailin&#8217; ye?&#8221; he
+burst out. &#8220;You might at least have had the
+sense you was born with, and asked somebody
+is Huldy here. You know in reason it shows that
+Creed&#8217;s out of his head&mdash;when he tells you a tale
+like that. The Lord knows there&#8217;s no fool in the
+world like a jealous woman. Do ye want to kill
+the boy?&mdash;or run him crazy?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith struggled with her tears.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle Jep,&#8221; she finally choked out without
+actually sobbing. &#8220;I won&#8217;t say another word&mdash;now
+that I know. I ain&#8217;t got nothin&#8217; agin&#8217; Creed
+Bonbright, nor his wife&mdash;why should I have?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Some ruth came into the scornful glance those
+old black eyes bent on her.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_359' name='page_359'></a>359</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re a good gal, Jude,&#8221; Jephthah said
+softly, &#8220;ef ye air somethin&#8217; unusual of a fool in
+this business. But I reckon I got to take this
+boy out o&#8217; yo&#8217; hands someway. I&#8217;m obliged
+to leave Creed with ye for one short while&mdash;an&#8217;
+agin&#8217; my grain it goes to do it&mdash;an&#8217; go fetch him
+a nurse that won&#8217;t take these tantrums. But
+mind, gal, it&#8217;s Creed&#8217;s reason I&#8217;m leavin&#8217; with
+you; mebbe his life&mdash;but sartain shore his reason.
+I won&#8217;t be gone to exceed two days. Ye can hold
+out that long, cain&#8217;t ye?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll do the best I can, Uncle Jep,&#8221; said
+Judith with unexpected mildness. &#8220;An&#8217; ef
+Huldy &#8217;s here&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;My Lord!&#8221; broke in Jephthah. &#8220;Why don&#8217;t
+ye go to Iley an&#8217; set yo&#8217; mind at rest about Huldy?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hit is at rest,&#8221; returned Judith darkly.
+&#8220;When Creed come here, Iley was at me every
+day to ask him whar was Huldy; but I take notice
+that sence that day he named Huldy visitin&#8217; him
+Iley ain&#8217;t been a-nigh the place.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The old man heaved a heavy sigh.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, ye say ye&#8217;ll do yo&#8217; best? Hit&#8217;s apt
+to be a good best, Jude. In two days, ef I live,
+I&#8217;ll be back here, an&#8217; I&#8217;ll bring he&#8217;p.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXV_A_PERILOUS_PASSAGE' id='XXV_A_PERILOUS_PASSAGE'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_360' name='page_360'></a>360</span>
+<h2>Chapter XXV</h2>
+<h3>A Perilous Passage</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was a strange thing to Judith to be left alone
+in the house, in charge of it and the sick man.
+Old Dilsey did the cooking and all the domestic
+labour. Had Wade been at home, and the patient
+any other than Creed Bonbright, she would
+have had a capable assistant at the nursing.
+Andy and Jeff tried to be as kind as they could.
+But they were an untamed, untrained pair, helpless
+and hapless at such matters, and their approaching
+wedding kept them often over at the
+Lusk place. From Iley Judith held savagely
+aloof.</p>
+<p>It was on the second morning of her uncle&#8217;s
+absence that Dilsey Rust brought again that
+message from Blatch, and Judith caught at it.
+She had done her best; she had refrained from
+any questions; but the night before Creed told
+her without asking that Huldah had been in to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_361' name='page_361'></a>361</span>
+see him twice again. As her patient&#8217;s physical
+strength notably increased, his appeal to her
+tender forbearance of course lessened, and the
+raw insult of the situation began to come home
+to her.</p>
+<p>She put a shawl over her head and ran swiftly
+down through the chill November weather to the
+draw-bars, where in the big road outside Turrentine
+slouched against a post waiting for her.
+The man spoke over his shoulder.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Howdy, Jude&mdash;you did come at last.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ef yo&#8217; goin&#8217; to say anything to me, you&#8217;ll have
+to be mighty quick, Blatch,&#8221; she notified him,
+shivering. &#8220;I got to get right back.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;s somebody new&mdash;and yet not so new&mdash;a-visitin&#8217;
+in the Turkey Tracks that you&#8217;d like
+to know of,&#8221; he prompted coolly. &#8220;Ain&#8217;t that
+so?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huldy,&#8221; she gasped, her dark eyes fixed upon
+his grey ones.</p>
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I &#8217;lowed you&#8217;d take an intrust in that thar
+business, an&#8217; I thort as a friend you ort to be told
+of it,&#8221; he added virtuously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s she at?&#8221; demanded Judith.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_362' name='page_362'></a>362</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Over at my house,&#8221; announced Turrentine
+easily, with a backward jerk of his head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;At <i>yo&#8217;</i> house!&#8221; echoed Judith; &#8220;at <i>yo&#8217;</i> house!
+Why, hit ain&#8217;t decent.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huh,&#8221; laughed Blatch. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know about
+decent. She was out thar takin&#8217; the rain; she
+had nobody to roof her; an&#8217; I bid her in, &#8217;caze I&#8217;m
+in somewhat the same fix myse&#8217;f.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No one to roof her,&#8221; repeated Judith.
+&#8220;What&#8217;s henderin&#8217; her from comin&#8217; over this
+side the Gulch?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, seein&#8217; the way she&#8217;s done Wade I
+reckon she &#8217;lows she&#8217;d better keep away from
+his pap&#8217;s house. She&#8217;s at the outs with Iley&mdash;Jim
+Cal&#8217;s lady sont her word she needn&#8217;t never
+show her face thar agin. She gives it out to
+everybody that&#8217;ll listen at her talk that she&#8217;s
+skeered o&#8217; you &#8217;count o&#8217; Bonbright.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith studied his face with half-incredulous
+eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How long has she been there?&#8221; she interrogated
+keenly.</p>
+<p>Turrentine seemed to take time for reflection.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lemme see,&#8221; he ruminated, &#8220;she come a
+Wednesday night. Hit was rainin&#8217;, ef you
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_363' name='page_363'></a>363</span>
+remember, an&#8217; I hearn something outside, and it
+scairt me up some, fer fear it was revenuers.
+When I found hit was Huldy, I let her in, an
+she&#8217;s been thar ever sence.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Wednesday night! It was Thursday morning
+that Creed had first announced the visit of his wife.
+Oh, it must be true! Judith trembled all through
+her vigorous young body with a fury of despair.
+As always, Blatchley had found the few and
+simple words to bid her worser angel forth. She
+even felt a kind of hateful relish for the quarrel.
+They had tricked her. They had made a fool of
+her. She had suffered so much. She longed to
+be avenged.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Judy,&#8221; murmured Blatch softly, bending
+toward her but not laying a hand upon her, &#8220;you
+white as a piece o&#8217; paper, an&#8217; shakin&#8217; from head to
+foot. That&#8217;s from stayin&#8217; shet up in the house
+yonder nussin&#8217; that feller Bonbright night an&#8217;
+day like a hirelin&#8217;. W&#8217;y, he never did care nothin&#8217;
+for ye only becaze ye was useful to him. Ye
+stood betwixt him an&#8217; danger; ye he&#8217;ped him out
+when he needed it wust. An&#8217; he had it in mind
+to fool ye from the first. Now him and Huldy
+Spiller has done it. Don&#8217;t you let &#8217;em. You
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_364' name='page_364'></a>364</span>
+show &#8217;em what you air. I&#8217;ve got a hoss out
+thar, and Selim&#8217;s down in the stable. I&#8217;ll put
+yo&#8217; saddle on him. Git yo&#8217; skirt, honey. Let&#8217;s
+you and me ride over to Squire Gaylord&#8217;s and
+be wedded. Then we&#8217;ll have the laugh on these
+here smart folks that tries to fool people.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He leaned toward her, all the power of the man
+concentrated in his gaze. Perhaps he had never
+wanted anything in his twenty-seven years as
+he now wanted Judith Barrier and her farm and
+the rehabilitation that a union with her would
+give him. Once this girl&#8217;s husband, he could
+curtly refuse to rent to Jephthah Turrentine,
+who had, he knew, no lease. He could call into
+question the old man&#8217;s stewardship, and even up
+the short, bitter score between them. He could
+reverse that scene when he was sent packing and
+told to keep his foot off the place.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Judy,&#8221; he breathed, deeply moved by all this,
+&#8220;don&#8217;t ye remember when we was&mdash;befo&#8217; ever
+this feller come&mdash;Why, in them days I used to
+think shore we&#8217;d be wedded.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith rested a hand on the bars and, lips apart,
+stared back into the eager eyes of the man who
+addressed her. Blatchley had always had some
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_365' name='page_365'></a>365</span>
+charm for the girl. Power he did not lack; and
+his lawlessness, his license, which might have
+daunted a feebler woman, liberated something
+correspondingly brave and audacious in her. He
+had been the first to pay court to her, and a girl
+does not easily forget that.</p>
+<p>For a moment the balance swung even. Then
+it bore down to Blatch&#8217;s side. She would go.
+Yes, she would. Creed might have Huldah.
+The girl might be his wife, or his widow. She,
+Judith Barrier, would show them&mdash;she would show
+them. Her parted lips began to shape to a
+reckless yes. The word waited in her mind
+behind those lips all formed. Her swift imagination
+pictured to her herself riding away beside
+Blatch leaving the sick man who had been cause
+of so many humiliations to her to die or get well.
+Blatch, watching narrowly, read the coming consent
+in her face. His hand stole forward toward
+the draw-bars.</p>
+<p>Her salvation was in a very small and commonplace
+thing. The picture of herself riding beside
+Blatch Turrentine brought back to her, with an
+awakening shock, the recollection of herself and
+Creed riding side by side, her arm across his
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_366' name='page_366'></a>366</span>
+shoulder, his drooping head against it. How
+purely happy she had been then&mdash;how innocent&mdash;how
+blest! What were these fires of torment that
+raged in her now? No, no! That might be lost
+to her; but even so, she could not decline from its
+dear memory to a mating like this. Without a
+word she turned and ran back to the house, never
+looking over her shoulder in response to the one
+or two cautious calls that Blatch sent after her.</p>
+<p>Judith&#8217;s day was mercifully full of work. When
+Creed did not require her, Dilsey demanded help
+and direction, and one or two errands from outside
+kept her mind from sinking in upon itself.
+It was night-fall, Andy was lending her his awkward
+aid in the sick-room, when Jeff came in and
+beckoned the two of them out mysteriously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How&#8217;s Bonbright this evenin&#8217;, Jude? Do
+you reckon I could have speech with him?&#8221; he
+asked in a troubled tone.</p>
+<p>Judith shook her head. Her own near approach
+to absolute failure in her charge that morning
+made her the more punctilious now.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No.&#8221; She spoke positively. &#8220;Uncle Jep
+said he wasn&#8217;t to be werried about anything.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, he&#8217;s settin&#8217; up some, ain&#8217;t he?&#8221; said
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_367' name='page_367'></a>367</span>
+the boy in surprise. &#8220;I thort he looked right
+peart.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; agreed Judith dejectedly, &#8220;he&#8217;s gettin&#8217;
+his strength all right; he does look well. But you
+ax him questions, or name anything to him to
+trouble him, an&#8217; it throws him right back. Uncle
+Jep says hit&#8217;s more his mind than his body now.
+What is it ye want from Creed? Cain&#8217;t I tend
+to it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t reckon a gal like you could he&#8217;p any,&#8221;
+Jeff said doubtfully. His eye wandered toward
+his twin. &#8220;I reckon this is men&#8217;s business.
+I&#8217;ve got word that Huldy Spiller&mdash;or some say
+Huldy Bonbright&mdash;is over at Blatch&#8217;s cabin, and
+he&#8217;s got her shut up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith&#8217;s heart gave a great leap as of terror;
+the thing was out at last&mdash;people knew it. Then
+that heavily beating heart sank sickeningly; what
+difference to her, though all the world knew it?
+Yet she held to her trust.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, shore not, Jeff. You cain&#8217;t <i>nigh</i> talk to
+him about nothin&#8217; like that,&#8221; she maintained.
+&#8220;Uncle Jep made me promise that nothin&#8217; should
+be named to him to excite him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, then,&#8221; pursued Jeff, &#8220;pappy not bein&#8217;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_368' name='page_368'></a>368</span>
+here, nor Wade, and Jim Cal over at Spiller&#8217;s,
+an&#8217; the gal not havin&#8217; no men folks in reach, me
+an&#8217; Andy has got to look after this thing. Fact
+is, Blatch sent word that ef we wanted her we
+could come over and git her.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know as we do want her&mdash;I don&#8217;t know
+as we do,&#8221; put in Andy. &#8220;And we both promised
+pappy that we wouldn&#8217;t set foot on the land
+whilst Blatch had it rented.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then ag&#8217;in,&#8221; debated Jeff&mdash;&#8220;Oh, no, buddy,
+we cain&#8217;t leave the gal thar. We&#8217;re plumb obliged
+to find out if she wants to come away, anyhow.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Andy turned to his cousin.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you say, Jude? Ort we to go?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith locked her hands hard together and
+held down her head, fighting out her battle.
+She longed to say no. She longed to shout out
+that Huldah Spiller might take care of herself,
+since she had been so unwomanly as to run after
+men and bring all this trouble on them. What
+she did say, at the end of a lengthened struggle,
+was:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I think both of you ort to go. Can it be
+did quiet? You got to think of her good name.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Jeff nodded.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_369' name='page_369'></a>369</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, how air we goin&#8217; to be sure that gal&#8217;s
+over there?&#8221; inquired Andy, still half reluctant.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, she&#8217;s there,&#8221; returned Judith heavily; and
+when the boys regarded her with startled looks,
+&#8220;I ain&#8217;t seen her, but she&#8217;s been on the mountain
+since Thursday. She&#8217;s been slippin&#8217; over to
+visit&mdash;her&mdash;Creed named it to me then.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well that does settle it,&#8221; Andy concluded.
+&#8220;Reckon Blatch has shut her up for pure meanness.
+When was we to go? Was there any time
+sot?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;To-night,&#8221; Jeff informed them. &#8220;Any time
+after ten o&#8217;clock&#8217;ll do&mdash;that was the word I got.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, that&#8217;ll be all right,&#8221; agreed Andy;
+&#8220;I can fix Creed up for the night, and ef we git
+Huldy away in the dark nobody need know of
+the business&mdash;not even Bonbright.&#8221;</p>
+<p>A slow flush rose in Judith&#8217;s pale cheeks. But
+she offered no comment on this aspect of the case.
+She only said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Just do what you think best, and don&#8217;t name
+it to me again, please.&#8221; Then, as both boys
+looked wonderingly at her, she added haltingly,
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve got enough to werry over&mdash;with a sick
+man here on my hands, an&#8217; Uncle Jep gone.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_370' name='page_370'></a>370</span></p>
+<p>She went to her room. When at midnight she
+slipped down as of custom to see how all fared in
+the sick-room, she found the patient sleeping
+quietly, and Andy ready for the trip across the
+Gulch. The boys were going unarmed; they felt
+no fear of treachery on Blatch&#8217;s part&mdash;it could
+profit him nothing to injure either of them in so
+public a way, and indeed he had never shown
+them any ill-will.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXVI_HIS_OWN_TRAP' id='XXVI_HIS_OWN_TRAP'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_371' name='page_371'></a>371</span>
+<h2>Chapter XXVI</h2>
+<h3>His Own Trap</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>&#8220;I reckon that&#8217;ll about do for you, my pretty
+young men,&#8221; remarked Blatchley Turrentine
+as he put the last knot in the line with which he
+was securing Andy to a splint-bottomed chair.</p>
+<p>His concluding words were the refrain of a
+familiar old ballad, and he continued to hum this
+as he straightened up and set his hands on his
+hips, regarding the twins through wickedly
+narrowed eyes. He was flushed with drink and
+inclined, as always at such times, to swagger with
+a sort of savage playfulness.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Scalf, you ain&#8217;t got yo&#8217; feller half tied,&#8221; he
+broke out, jerking the cord around Jeff. &#8220;Why,
+Lord A&#8217;mighty! I could pull myse&#8217;f a-loose from
+that mess o&#8217; rope inside o&#8217; five minutes,&#8221; and he
+set to work to make his cousin secure.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do yo&#8217; own dirty work,&#8221; growled Scalf. &#8220;Yo&#8217;
+the only one that&#8217;s a-goin&#8217; to profit by it.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_372' name='page_372'></a>372</span></p>
+<p>It was after midnight. When the two boys had
+approached Blatch&#8217;s cabin as agreed, they had
+been set upon from behind, pinioned, and taken to
+the cave where the still was. Here they now sat
+bound and helpless.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you aim to make out of it, Blatch?&#8221;
+asked Jeff, offering the first remark that had come
+from either of them since their capture.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is&mdash;uh&mdash;&#8221; Andy glanced at Scalf, and strove
+to keep Huldah&#8217;s name out of it&mdash;&#8220;is what we
+come for here yet?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Blatch burst into a great horse laugh and
+slapped his thigh.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What you come after,&#8221; he repeated enjoyingly.
+&#8220;Lord&mdash;Lord! What you come after!
+You was easy got. I counted on Jude to set
+you on, and I see I never counted none too
+much.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you aim to make out of it?&#8221; persisted
+Andy.</p>
+<p>The light from the fire built at the back of the
+cave, whose smoke went up a cleft and entered
+the chimney of the cabin far above, illuminated
+the dark interior flickeringly. Blatch went to a
+jug on a shelf, noisily poured a drink into a tin
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_373' name='page_373'></a>373</span>
+cup, swallowed it, and then addressed himself
+to his cousins.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yo&#8217; pappy ordered me off his land. My
+lease is up next month. I got to git out of here
+anyhow, and I aimed to raise a stir befo&#8217; I went.
+This here town podner what I got after you-all
+quit me,&#8221; glancing negligently at Scalf, &#8220;has
+many a little frill to his plans, and he knows Dan
+Haley, the marshal, right well. Sometimes I
+misdoubt that he come up on Turkey Track to
+git in with me and git the reward that I&#8217;m told
+Haley has out for the feller that can ketch me
+stillin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He wheeled and looked fully at Scalf with these
+words, and the town man made haste to turn
+his back, warming his hands at the blaze. Blatch
+laughed deep in his throat.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Scalf&#8217;s on the make,&#8221; he asserted with grim
+humour. &#8220;He needed somebody to give up to
+Dan Haley, and as I hain&#8217;t got no likin&#8217; for
+learnin&#8217; to peg shoes in the penitentiary, I &#8217;lowed
+mebbe the trade would suit you-all boys, an&#8217; I
+sont over for ye.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The twins writhed in their chairs as much as
+their tight bandings would permit. How simple
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_374' name='page_374'></a>374</span>
+they had been to trust the mercy of a desperate
+man. And they knew Blatch Turrentine. In
+days past, they had been on the inside, pupils
+and assistants in such work as this. They stole
+sheepish looks at each other. But the message
+he had sent them was yet to be explained. If
+Huldah was not with him, how had he known she
+was on the mountain at all?</p>
+<p>&#8220;What made you send the word you did?&#8221;
+burst out Andy wrathfully.</p>
+<p>Blatch had moved over by the fire.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I hearn through old Dilsey Rust&mdash;that
+I&#8217;ve had a-listenin&#8217; at key-holes and spyin&#8217;
+through chinks&mdash;about Bonbright&#8217;s talk concernin&#8217;
+Huldy, and I thort&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>At these words ancient Gideon Rust, posted
+as sentinel outside the cave&#8217;s entrance, keeping
+himself warily from view of the prisoners, craned
+forward and stared with fallen jaw, reckless
+of observation. Humble tenants, pensioners of
+Judith and the Turrentines, with these words
+Blatch had wantonly stripped the poor roof from
+above their grey heads, and turned them out
+defenceless, to the anger of that strong family.
+Come what would, he must protest.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_375' name='page_375'></a>375</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Now Blatch,&#8221; he whined, &#8220;you ort not to
+go a-namin&#8217; names like you do. You said that
+Dilsey nor me, nary one, needn&#8217;t be known in
+this business.&#8221;</p>
+<p>In his excitement he came fully into the light.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope you-all boys understand that I didn&#8217;t
+aim to do ye a meanness. Yo&#8217; pap&mdash;I&mdash;I hope
+he won&#8217;t hold this agin&#8217; us. The Turrentines has
+been mighty good friends to Dilsey&mdash;and here&#8217;s
+Blatch lettin&#8217; on to &#8217;em like she was a spy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, what else is she?&#8221; asked Blatch with an
+oath. &#8220;What else are any of ye? The last one
+of ye would sell yo&#8217; own fathers and mothers.
+Don&#8217;t I know ye? A man&#8217;s only chance is to
+get ye scared of him, or give ye somebody else
+to tell tales on&mdash;and that&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve done.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He turned his attention once more to Andy
+and Jeff, and left the old man staring aghast,
+plucking at his beard.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve bought me a good team, an&#8217; I&#8217;m goin&#8217;
+to move my plunder out of here,&#8221; he told them.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve done picked me a fine place over yon,&#8221; jerking
+his head vaguely in the direction of the Far
+Cove. &#8220;Every stick and ravellin&#8217; that belongs
+to me I&#8217;ll take, exceptin&#8217; the run of whiskey that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_376' name='page_376'></a>376</span>
+I&#8217;ll leave in the still here for to make the marshal
+shore he&#8217;s got the right thing. You might
+expect him any time to-morrow. Old Gid here
+will lead him in, or Scalf, and the testimony
+they stand ready to give means penitentiary to
+you two.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon you-all won&#8217;t deny that you have
+made many a run of blockaded whiskey right
+here in this cave,&#8221; put in Scalf, nervously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s so&mdash;that&#8217;s so, boys, I&#8217;ve seed ye
+many a time,&#8221; whimpered Gideon Rust, almost
+beside himself with terror. &#8220;I hope ye won&#8217;t
+hold it ag&#8217;in us that we he&#8217;ped to have ye took
+instead of Blatch here. Blatch is a hard man
+to deal with&mdash;he&#8217;s been too much fer me&mdash;and hit
+wouldn&#8217;t do you all no manner of good ef he
+was took along with ye. I don&#8217;t see that yo&#8217;
+any worse off ef he goes free.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The twins looked at each other and forebore
+to reply. Blatch moved over to Scalf, and after
+some muttered parley with the town partner
+strode away into the dark. Scalf himself waited
+only long enough to be sure that Blatch had left,
+then slipped away, posting the old man down the
+path as lookout.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_377' name='page_377'></a>377</span></p>
+<p>Alone in the cave, it was long before either boy
+spoke. Then came a rush of angry comment
+and bitter reflection which interrogated the situation
+from all sides, tending always to the conclusion
+that it was mighty hard, when a man had
+given up his evil courses, when he had just joined
+the church and was about to get married, to have
+the whole ugly score to pay. They sat cramped
+and miserable in their splint-bottomed chairs and
+the hours wore away till dawn in this dismal
+converse. Pappy was right&mdash;he was mighty right.
+If they ever got out of this&mdash;But there, Blatch
+wasn&#8217;t apt to make a failure.</p>
+<p>It was broad daylight when at last Blatch
+Turrentine brought his team up and as close to
+the cave&#8217;s mouth as he dared. It was loaded
+already with a considerable amount of furniture
+and clothing from the cabin, and he climbed down
+the steep approach to take from the cave the
+jugged whiskey, and the keg or two which was
+aging there. His eyes were reddened; but the
+dark flush which had been on his face had now
+given place to a curious pallor. There was a new
+element in his mood, a different note in his bearing,
+a suggestion of furtive hurry and anxiety.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_378' name='page_378'></a>378</span></p>
+<p>He was not afraid of the marshal. Haley could
+not be on the mountain before noon. But he had
+left that behind in the little log stable from which
+his team came that cried haste to his going.</p>
+<p>Gord Bosang from whom he was to buy the
+horses was a man somewhat of Blatch&#8217;s own ilk.
+Cavalierly called out of bed after midnight and
+offered only a partial cash payment&mdash;all that
+Blatch had been able to raise&mdash;he had angrily
+refused to let the team be taken off the place.
+Turrentine&#8217;s situation was desperate. He must
+have the horses. In the quarrel that followed,
+he struck to clear this obstacle from his path; but
+whether he had left a dead man lying back there
+on the hay&mdash;whether it was a possible charge of
+murder he was now fleeing from&mdash;he had not
+stopped to find out. He had got back to his cabin
+with all haste, pitched his ready belongings into the
+wagon, and now he came down to the still to get
+the last, and see that all there was working out
+right.</p>
+<p>As his foot reached the opening he uttered a
+loud exclamation, then leaped into the cave.
+Both chairs were empty, the ropes lying cut beside
+them. He sprang back to the rude doorway and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_379' name='page_379'></a>379</span>
+gave the usual signal&mdash;the screech-owl&#8217;s cry. It
+was inappropriate at this time, yet he could
+not risk less, and he sent it forth again and
+again.</p>
+<p>Getting no answer he ventured cautiously to
+call Gideon Rust&#8217;s name, and when this failed
+he looked about him and came to a decision. The
+boys were gone. The fat was in the fire. Yet&mdash;he
+returned to it&mdash;the marshal could not be there
+before noon. He had time to remove the whiskey
+if he worked hard enough. He glanced at the
+still. The worm and appurtenances were of
+value. He had saved money for nearly two years
+to buy the new copper-work. He wondered if he
+might empty and take it also.</p>
+<p>For half an hour he toiled desperately, carrying
+filled jugs up the steep and hiding them carefully
+in his loaded wagon. The kegs he could not move
+alone, and set to work jugging the fluid from them.
+Sweat poured down his face, to which, though he
+drank repeatedly from the tin cup, no flush
+returned. His teeth were set continually on his
+under lip. His breath came heavily as he lifted
+and stooped. In the midst of his labours a slight
+noise at the cave entrance brought him to his feet,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_380' name='page_380'></a>380</span>
+staring in terror. The sight of trembling Gideon
+Rust in the opening reassured him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come in here, you old davil, and help me jug
+this whiskey,&#8221; he cried out. &#8220;Whar&#8217;s Scalf?
+How come you an&#8217; him to let them boys git
+away? What do you reckon I&#8217;m a-goin&#8217; to do
+to you for it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, is them fellers gone?&#8221; quavered the old
+man, craning his neck to look gingerly in. &#8220;I
+never seen nothin&#8217; movin&#8217; up here, but&mdash;they
+was a gal or so come norratin&#8217; past on the path; I
+&#8217;lowed when I seed calicker that it mought be
+Huldy, you named her so free.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, shut yo&#8217; fool mouth and get yo&#8217;se&#8217;f to
+work,&#8221; ordered Blatch. &#8220;I&#8217;ve got to be out o&#8217;
+this.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He turned his back on old Gid and forgot
+him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ef I thort I had time I&#8217;d take my still with
+me,&#8221; he ruminated, going close to it and laying
+a fond touch upon the copper-work. &#8220;I&#8217;m a
+mind to try it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hands up, Turrentine!&#8221; came a short sharp
+order from outside. Blatch whirled like a flash,
+and looked past Gideon Rust in the doorway.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_381' name='page_381'></a>381</span>
+Over the old man&#8217;s shaking shoulders, he saw the
+levelled rifles of the marshal and his posse.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thar,&#8221; whispered ancient Gideon fairly weeping,
+as they closed in on Turrentine and snapped
+the handcuffs on his wrists, &#8220;now mebbe ye
+won&#8217;t name a pore old woman&#8217;s name so free,
+ef you <i>have</i> bought her to yo&#8217; will, and set her
+to spy on them that&#8217;s been good friends to her.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXVII_LOVE_S_GUERDON' id='XXVII_LOVE_S_GUERDON'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_382' name='page_382'></a>382</span>
+<h2>Chapter XXVII</h2>
+<h3>Love&#8217;s Guerdon</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Judith left Andy in charge of her
+patient and mounted the ladderlike stair
+to her own small room under the eaves, she felt
+no disposition to sleep. She did not undress, but
+sat down by the window and stared out into the
+black November night. Despite everything, there
+had come a sort of peace over her tumult, a
+stilling that was not mere weariness. She was
+like a woman who has just been saved from a
+shipwreck, snatched away from the imminent
+jaws of doom&mdash;chastened, and wondering a little.
+Intensely thankful for what she had escaped, she
+sat there in the dark, cold little room, Judith
+Barrier, safe from the sin of a godless union, from
+the life that would have been hers as Blatchley
+Turrentine&#8217;s wife.</p>
+<p>In the light of her danger, familiar things took
+on a new face, strange, yet dear and welcome.
+She turned and gazed with childish eyes up at the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_383' name='page_383'></a>383</span>
+decent beams of her rooftree, glad that they still
+sheltered her a maid, glad that the arms of her
+home were about her.</p>
+<p>With remorseless honesty she went back over
+her years. Always in the past months of suffering
+she had blamed this or that extraneous circumstance
+with her undoing; now she saw and recognised
+and acknowledged that nothing and nobody
+had brought disaster upon her but herself. It
+was not because Blatchley Turrentine was a bad,
+lawless man, not because the boys were reckless
+fellows, led and influenced by him, that all this
+trouble had come. If she, Judith Barrier, had
+dealt fairly and humbly by her world, she
+might have had the lover of her choice in peace
+as other girls had&mdash;even as Cliantha and Pendrilla
+had. But no, such enterprises as contented
+these, such stir as they made among their kind,
+would not do her. She must seek to cast her
+spells upon every eligible man within her reach.
+She must try her hand at subjugating those who
+were difficult, pride herself on the skill with which
+she retained half a dozen in anxious doubt as to
+her ultimate intentions concerning them.</p>
+<p>Her forehead drooped to the window pane and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_384' name='page_384'></a>384</span>
+her cheeks burned as she recollected times and
+seasons and scenes that belonged to the years when
+Blatch was building up his firm belief that she
+loved him, and would sometime marry him. It
+had been a spirited, dangerous game to her then,
+nothing more.</p>
+<p>Her passionate, possessive nature was winning
+to higher ground, leaving, with pain and travail
+of spirit, the plane on which her twenty years
+had been lived. The past months of thwarting,
+failure, and heart-hunger had prepared for this
+movement, to-night it was almost consciously
+making. She was coming to the place where, if
+she might not have love, she could at least be
+worthy of it. The little clock which had measured
+her vigils that night of the dumb supper
+slanted toward twelve. She got to her feet with a
+long sigh. She did not know yet what she meant
+to do or to forbear doing; but she was aware,
+with relief, of a radical change within her, a
+something awakened there which could consider
+the right of Creed&mdash;even of Huldah; which could
+submit to failure, to rejection&mdash;and be kind.
+Slowly she gathered up her belongings and took
+her way downstairs.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_385' name='page_385'></a>385</span></p>
+<p>When the door of the sick-room closed behind
+the boys, she went and knelt down beside the bed
+and looked fixedly at the sleeper. With the birth
+of this new spiritual impulse the things Blatch
+Turrentine had said of Creed and Creed&#8217;s intentions
+dropped away from her as fall the dead
+leaves from the bough of that most tenacious of
+oak trees which holds its withered foliage till
+the swelling buds of a new spring push it off.
+He was a good man. She felt that to the innnermost
+core of her heart. She loved him. She believed
+she would always love him. As for his
+being married to Huldah, she would not inquire
+how that came about, how it could have happened
+while she felt him to be promised to herself.
+There was&mdash;there must be&mdash;a right way for even
+that to befall. She must love him and forgive
+him, for only so could she face her life, only so
+could she patch a little peace with herself and
+still the gnawing agony in her breast. Long she
+knelt thus.</p>
+<p>Who that knows even a little the wonders of
+the subjective mind, who that has tested the
+marvellous communication between the mood of
+nurse and patient, will doubt that the sick man,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_386' name='page_386'></a>386</span>
+lying passive, receptive, got now Judith&#8217;s message
+of peace and relaxation. The girl herself,
+powerful, dominating young creature, had been
+fought to a spiritual standstill. She was at
+last forced to her knees, and the atmosphere
+which her passionate struggles had long disturbed
+grew serene about her. Even a wavering note
+of something more joyous than mere peace, a
+courage, a strength that promised happiness must
+have radiated from her to him. For Creed&#8217;s
+eyes opened and looked full into hers with a
+wholly rational expression which had long been
+absent from their clear depths.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Judith&mdash;honey,&#8221; he whispered, and fumbled
+vaguely for her hand upon the coverlet.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Creed&mdash;what is it? What do you want?&#8221;
+she asked tremulously, taking the thin fingers in
+her warm clasp.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nothing&mdash;so long as I&#8217;ve got you,&#8221; he returned
+contentedly. &#8220;Can&#8217;t I sit up&mdash;and won&#8217;t
+you sit down here by me and talk awhile?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Gently smiling, Judith helped him to sit up,
+and piled the pillows back of his head and
+shoulders, noting almost with surprise how well
+he looked, how clear and direct was his gaze.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_387' name='page_387'></a>387</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been sick a long time, haven&#8217;t I?&#8221; he
+asked.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; the girl replied, drawing up a chair
+and seating herself. &#8220;Hit&#8217;s more&#8217;n six weeks
+that Uncle Jep an&#8217; me has been takin&#8217; care of
+you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He lifted her hand and stroked it softly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;A body gets mighty tired of a sick fellow,&#8221;
+he said wistfully.</p>
+<p>Judith&#8217;s eyes filled at the pitiful little plea, but
+she could not offer endearments to Huldah&#8217;s
+husband.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t tired of you,&#8221; she returned in a low,
+choked voice. &#8220;I most wisht I was. Creed&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>She slipped from her chair dropping on her
+knees beside him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed, I want to tell you now while I can do
+it that the boys is gone to get Huldy. She can
+take care of you after this&mdash;but I&#8217;ll help. I
+ain&#8217;t mad about it. I was aimin&#8217; to tell you
+that the next time she come in you should bid
+her stay. God knows I want ye to be happy&mdash;whether
+it&#8217;s me or another.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Bewilderment grew in the blue eyes regarding
+her so fixedly.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_388' name='page_388'></a>388</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Huldah?&#8221; he repeated. And then again in a
+lower, musing tone, &#8220;Huldah.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes&mdash;yo&#8217; wife, Huldy Spiller,&#8221; Judith urged
+mildly. &#8220;Don&#8217;t you mind namin&#8217; it to me the
+first time she slipped in to visit you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>An abashed look succeeded the expression of
+bewilderment. A faint, fine flush crept on the
+thin, white cheek.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I do,&#8221; Creed whispered, with a foolish little
+smile beginning to curve his lips; &#8220;but there
+wasn&#8217;t a word of truth in it&mdash;dear. I&#8217;ve never
+seen the girl since she left Aunt Nancy&#8217;s that
+Saturday morning.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What made you say it then?&#8221; breathed
+Judith wonderingly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; faltered the sick man. &#8220;It
+seemed like you was mad about something; and
+then it seemed like Huldah was here; and then&mdash;I
+don&#8217;t know Judith&mdash;didn&#8217;t I say a heap of
+other foolishness?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The simple query reproved his nurse more than
+a set arraignment would have done. He had
+indeed babbled, in his semi-delirium, plenty of
+&#8220;other foolishness,&#8221; this was the only point upon
+which she had been credulous.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_389' name='page_389'></a>389</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh Creed&mdash;honey!&#8221; she cried, burying her
+face in the covers of his bed, &#8220;I&#8217;m so &#8217;shamed.
+I&#8217;ve got such a mean, bad disposition. Nobody
+couldn&#8217;t ever love me if they knew me right well.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She felt a gentle, caressing touch on her bowed
+head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Jude, darling,&#8221; Creed&#8217;s voice came to her, and
+for the first time it sounded really like his voice,
+&#8220;I loved you from the moment I set eyes on you.
+I didn&#8217;t sense it for a spell, but I come to see that
+you were the one woman in the world for me.
+There never was a man done what went more
+against the grain than I the night I parted from
+you down at the railroad station and let you go
+back when you would have come with me&mdash;so
+generous&mdash;so loving&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>He broke off with a choking sigh, and Judith
+raised her head in a sort of consternation. Were
+these the exciting topics that her Uncle Jep would
+have banished from the sick-room? she wondered.
+But no, Creed had never looked so nearly a well
+man as now. He raised himself from the pillows.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t!&#8221; she called sharply, as she sprang up
+and slipped a capable arm under his shoulders,
+laying his head on her breast. &#8220;You ort not to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_390' name='page_390'></a>390</span>
+do thataway,&#8221; she reproached him. &#8220;When
+you want anything I&#8217;ll git it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want a thing, but this,&#8221; whispered
+Creed, looking up into her eyes. &#8220;Nothing,
+only&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith read the mute prayer aright, and tears
+of exquisite feeling blinded her. As she looked
+at him, there was loosed upon her soul the whole
+tide of passionate tenderness which had gathered
+there since first she saw him standing, eager, fearless,
+selfless, on the Court House steps at Hepzibah.
+The yellow head lay on her arm now; those blue
+eyes which, in many bitter hours since that time,
+had seemed as unattainable to her love as the sky
+itself, were raised to her own, they were pleading
+for her kiss. She bent her face; the full red lips
+met Creed&#8217;s. The weary longing was satisfied; the
+bitterness was washed away.</p>
+<p>They remained quietly thus, Creed drinking in
+new life from her nearness, from her dearness.
+When she would have lifted her head, his thin
+hand went up and was laid over the rounded cheek,
+bringing the sweet mouth back to his own.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll need a heap of loving, Judith,&#8221; he whispered,&mdash;&#8220;a
+heap. I&#8217;ve been such a lone fellow
+all my days. You&#8217;ll have to be everything and
+everybody to me.&#8221;</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_391' name='page_391'></a>391</span>
+<img src='images/illus-390.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 332px; height: 480px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 332px;'>
+&#8220;They had forgotten all the world save themselves and their love.&#8221;<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Judith&#8217;s lavish nature, so long choked back
+upon itself, trembled to its very core with rapture
+at the bidding. It seemed to her that all of
+Heaven she had ever craved was to do and be
+everything that Creed Bonbright needed. She
+answered with an inarticulate murmur of tenderness,
+a sound inexpressibly wooing and moving.
+All that she had felt, all that she meant for the
+future, surged strong within her&mdash;was fain for
+utterance. But Judith was not fluent; she must
+content herself with doing and being&mdash;Creed
+could speak for her now. She cherished the fair
+hair with loving touch, nestling the thin cheek
+against her soft, warm one.</p>
+<p>The beautiful storm-rocked craft of Judith&#8217;s
+passion was safe at last in Love&#8217;s own harbour;
+the skies were fair above it, and only Love&#8217;s
+tender airs breathed about its weary sails.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll be wedded in the spring,&#8221; Creed&#8217;s lips
+murmured against her own. &#8220;I&#8217;ll carry home
+a bride to the old place. Oh, we&#8217;ll be happy,
+Judith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>All through the latter part of the night, while
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_392' name='page_392'></a>392</span>
+the two lovers were drawing out of the ways of
+doubt and pain and misunderstanding, into so
+full and sweet a communion, the November breeze
+had been rising; toward dawn it moved quite
+steadily. And with its impulse moved the cedar
+tree, a long, smooth swaying, that set free that
+tender, baritone legato to which Judith&#8217;s ears
+had harkened away last March, when she came
+home from Hepzibah after first seeing Creed Bonbright.
+It was the voice which had talked to her
+throughout the spring, the early summer, through
+autumn&#8217;s desolate days, when the waiting in ignorance
+of his whereabouts and of his welfare seemed
+almost more than she could bear; it was the voice
+which had called upon her so tragically, so insistently,
+the night of the raid on Nancy Card&#8217;s cabin.
+But Creed himself was here now; Creed&#8217;s own lips
+spoke close to her ear. The cedar tree had its
+song to itself once more; she no longer needed its
+music. Its sound was unheard by her, as the
+flame of a candle is unseen in the strong light of
+the sun.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXVIII_A_PROPHECY' id='XXVIII_A_PROPHECY'></a>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_393' name='page_393'></a>393</span>
+<h2>Chapter XXVIII</h2>
+<h3>A Prophecy</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Over the shoulder of Yellow Old Bald up
+came the sun, bannered and glorious; the
+distant ranges glowed in his splendours; the sere
+fields about the place were all gilded. The small-paned
+eastern window of the sick-room let in a
+flood of morning light. Gone was the bird choir
+that used to welcome his earliest rays, swept
+south by the great tide of migration. Those that
+remained, snowbird, cardinal, and downy woodpecker&mdash;the
+&#8220;checkerbacker&#8221; of the mountaineer,&mdash;harboured
+all night and much of the day in the
+barn loft and in Judith&#8217;s cedar tree. Their
+twittering sounded cheerily about the eaves.</p>
+<p>Back and forth in the puncheon-floored kitchen
+trudged old Dilsey Rust&#8217;s heavy-shod foot, carrying
+her upon the appointed tasks of the day.</p>
+<p>In the quiet sick-room, where the low, alternating
+voices had subsided into an exchange of
+murmured words, suddenly Creed dropped his
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_394' name='page_394'></a>394</span>
+head back to stare at his companion with startled
+eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Judith!&#8221; he exclaimed. &#8220;Where are the
+boys?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He glanced at the window, then about the
+room.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s broad day. That word Blatch sent
+was a decoy; Huldah Spiller isn&#8217;t on the
+mountain. Somebody must go over there.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Judith rose swiftly to her feet.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My Lord, Creed! I forgot all about &#8217;em,&#8221;
+she said contritely. &#8220;Ye don&#8217;t reckon Blatch
+would harm the boys? And yet yo&#8217; right&mdash;it
+does look bad. I don&#8217;t know what to do,
+honey. They ain&#8217;t a man on the place till Uncle
+Jep comes. But maybe he&#8217;ll be along in about
+an hour.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She hurried to the window and stared over toward
+the Gulch; and at the moment a group of
+people topped the steep, rising into view one after
+the other out of the ravine, and coming on
+toward the house.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here they are now,&#8221; she said with relief
+in her tones. &#8220;Thar&#8217;s Andy&mdash;Jeff, Pendrilly&mdash;why,
+whatever&mdash;The Lusk girls is with &#8217;em!
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_395' name='page_395'></a>395</span>
+They&#8217;s another&mdash;Creed, they <i>have</i> got Huldy!
+And that last feller&mdash;no, &#8217;tain&#8217;t Blatch&mdash;of all
+things&mdash;it&#8217;s Wade! They&#8217;re comin&#8217; straight to
+this door. Shall I let them in?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Creed&#8217;s steady voice. &#8220;Let them
+right in.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She ran swiftly to slip an extra pillow under
+her patient&#8217;s shoulders, straighten the covers
+of the bed, and put all in company trim. Her
+eye brightened when she saw him sitting so erect
+and alert almost like his old self. Somebody
+rattled the latch.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come in, folks,&#8221; Creed called, speaking out
+with a roundness and decision that it did her
+heart good to hear.</p>
+<p>They all pushed into the room, the men shouldering
+back a little, glancing anxiously at the sick
+man, the Lusk girls timid, but Huldah leading
+the van.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How&#8217;s Creed?&#8221; cried the irrepressible one,
+bounding into the room and looking about her.
+&#8220;Wade got yo&#8217; letter, Cousin Judy, an&#8217; I says
+to him that right now was the time for us to make
+a visit home. Wade&#8217;s got him a good place on
+the railroad, and I like livin&#8217; in the settlement;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_396' name='page_396'></a>396</span>
+but bridal towers is all the go down thar, and we
+&#8217;lowed we&#8217;d take one.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Every inch of her raiment bespoke the bride,
+and it did not take Creed many moments to understand
+the situation, put out a thin white hand
+and, smiling, offer his congratulations. Wade
+received them with some low-toned, hesitating
+words of apology.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Law, Cousin Creed&#8217;s ready to let bygones be
+bygones, Wade, honey!&#8221; his wife admonished him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;<i>Cousin</i> Creed?&#8221; echoed the obtuse Jeff.</p>
+<p>Wade&#8217;s wife whirled to put a ready arm around
+Judith&#8217;s waist. &#8220;Why, you an&#8217; him is a-goin&#8217; to
+be wedded, ain&#8217;t you Judy? I always knowed,
+and I always said to everybody that I named
+it to, that you was cut out and made for each
+other. We heared tell from everybody in the
+Turkey Tracks that you an&#8217; Creed was goin&#8217;
+to be wedded as soon as he got well&mdash;then I
+reckon he&#8217;ll be my cousin, won&#8217;t he?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Creed looked past the whispering girls to where
+Andy and Jeff stood. As the boys moved toward
+the bed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you find Blatch?&#8221; he asked, with a man&#8217;s
+directness. &#8220;How did you-all make out?&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_397' name='page_397'></a>397</span></p>
+<p>Andy opened his lips to answer, when there
+was a clatter of hoofs outside. As they all
+turned to the window, Jephthah Turrentine&#8217;s
+big voice, with a new tone in it, called out to
+somebody.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hold on thar, honey&mdash;lemme lift ye down.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ain&#8217;t Uncle Jep goin&#8217; to be proud when he
+sees how well you air?&#8221; Judith, stooping, whispered
+to Creed. &#8220;He went off to get somebody to he&#8217;p
+nurse you, because he said I done you more harm
+than good.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your Uncle Jep don&#8217;t know everything,&#8221;
+returned Creed softly.</p>
+<p>No mountaineer ever knocks on a door, but
+Jephthah Turrentine made considerable racket
+with the latch before he entered the room.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh&mdash;you air awake,&#8221; he said cautiously, then,
+looking about at the others, &#8220;an&#8217; got company
+so airly in the mornin&#8217;.&#8221; He glanced from the
+newcomers to his patient. &#8220;You look fine&mdash;fine!&#8221;
+he asserted with high satisfaction; then turning
+over his shoulder, &#8220;Come right along in, honey&mdash;Creed&#8217;ll
+be proud to see ye.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He paused on the threshold, reaching back a
+hand and entered, pulling after him Nancy Card&mdash;who
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_398' name='page_398'></a>398</span>
+was Nancy Card no longer. A wild-rose
+pink was in her withered cheeks under the frank
+grey eyes. She smiled as Judith had never
+imagined she could smile. But even then the
+young people scarcely fathomed the situation.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Creed,&#8221; cried the old man, &#8220;I&#8217;ve brung ye the
+best doctor and nurse there is on the mountings.
+Nancy she run off and left us, and I had to go
+after her, and I &#8217;lowed I&#8217;d make sartain that she&#8217;d
+never run away from me again, so I&#8217;ve jest&mdash;we
+jest&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye ain&#8217;t married!&#8221; cried Judith, sudden
+light coming in on her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We air that,&#8221; announced old Jephthah radiantly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Jude, I jest had to take him,&#8221; apologised
+Nancy. &#8220;Here was him with the rheumatics
+every spring, an&#8217; bound and determined that
+he&#8217;d lay out in the bushes deer-huntin&#8217; like
+he done when he was twenty, and me knowin&#8217;
+in reason that a good course of dandelion and
+boneset, with my liniment well rubbed in, would
+fix him up&mdash;why, I jest <i>had</i> to take him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She looked about her for support, and she got
+it from an unexpected quarter.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_399' name='page_399'></a>399</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I think you done jest right,&#8221; piped up
+Huldah, who had been a silent spectator as long
+as she could endure it, &#8220;I&#8217;m mighty glad I&#8217;ve
+got a new mother-in-law, &#8217;caze I know Pap Turrentine&#8217;s
+apt to be well taken keer of in his old
+days.&#8221;</p>
+<p>His old days! Nancy looked indignantly from
+the red-haired girl to her bridegroom who, in her
+eyes, was evidently still a sprightly youth.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huh!&#8221; she remarked enigmatically. Then
+with a sudden change; &#8220;Yit whilst we are
+a-namin&#8217; sech, honey, won&#8217;t you jest run out to
+my saddle and bring me the spotted caliker
+poke off&#8217;n hit&mdash;hit&#8217;s got my bundle of yarbs in it.
+I&#8217;ll put on a drawin&#8217; of boneset for you befo&#8217; I
+set down.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right, Nancy&mdash;but I reckon I&#8217;ll have to
+clear these folks out of this sick-room fust,&#8221;
+responded old Jephthah genially. &#8220;We&#8217;re apt
+to have too much goin&#8217; on for Creed.&#8221;</p>
+<p>But as they were marshalled to leave, the
+noise of a new arrival in the kitchen brought
+the curious Huldah to the door and she threw it
+wide to admit Iley, into whose arms she promptly
+precipitated herself with voluble explanations,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_400' name='page_400'></a>400</span>
+which covered her career from the time she left
+Jim Cal&#8217;s cabin till that moment.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You an&#8217; Wade are wedded? Why couldn&#8217;t
+you let a body know?&#8221; inquired Iley wrathfully,
+grasping her by the shoulder, holding her off
+for somewhat hostile inspection.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what I say,&#8221; echoed Jim Cal&#8217;s voice
+from the doorway where he harboured, a trifle
+out of sight. &#8220;Ef you-all gals would be a little
+mo&#8217; open an&#8217; above-bo&#8217;d about yo&#8217; courtin&#8217; business
+hit would save lots of folks plenty of trouble.
+Here&#8217;s Iley got some sort o&#8217; notion that Huldy
+was over at Blatch&#8217;s, an&#8217; she put out an&#8217; run me
+home so fast that I ain&#8217;t ketched my breath
+till yit.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Over at Blatch&#8217;s?&#8221; old Jephthah looked
+angrily about him, and Judith made haste to
+explain the whole matter, detailing everything
+that had led up to the trouble.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We-all talked it over, Uncle Jep, and as you
+wasn&#8217;t here we made out to do the best we
+could, and the boys went.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;After me!&#8221; crowed Huldah. &#8220;An&#8217; thar I was
+on the train &#8217;long o&#8217; Wade comin&#8217; to Garyville
+that blessed minute.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_401' name='page_401'></a>401</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Blatch had us hog-tied an&#8217; waitin&#8217; for
+the marshal to come an&#8217; cyart us down and send
+us to the penitentiary,&#8221; Jeff set forth the case.
+&#8220;But you know how Blatch is, always devilin&#8217;
+folks; he made old Gid Rust mad, an&#8217; when
+Clianthy an&#8217; Pendrilly met the old man out on the
+road soon this mornin&#8217;, he told &#8217;em to take a
+knife and come up to the cave an&#8217; they could
+keep what they found.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never was so scairt in my life,&#8221; Cliantha
+asseverated. Her china-blue eyes had not yet
+resumed their normal size or contour, and the
+assertion was easily believed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nor me neither,&#8221; agreed Pendrilla. &#8220;I says
+to him, says I, &#8216;Now you, Gid Rust, do you &#8217;low
+we&#8217;re crazy? We&#8217;re a-lookin&#8217; for old Boss and
+Spot, an&#8217; we ain&#8217;t a-goin&#8217; up yon nary step.&#8217;
+An&#8217; he says to us, says he, &#8216;Gals, you never mind
+about no cows,&#8217; he says. &#8216;Hit&#8217;ll shore be the
+worse for Andy and Jeff Turrentine ef you don&#8217;t
+git yo&#8217;selves up thar an&#8217; git up thar quick.&#8217;
+An&#8217; with that he gives us his knife out of his
+pocket, &#8217;caze we didn&#8217;t have none, and we
+run the whole blessed way, and cut the boys
+a-loose.&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_402' name='page_402'></a>402</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I was that mad when I seen &#8217;em tied up thataway,&#8221;
+chimed in Cliantha, &#8220;that I wouldn&#8217;t
+a &#8217;cared the rappin&#8217; o&#8217; my finger ef old Blatch
+Turrentine hisself had been thar. I&#8217;d &#8217;a&#8217; stood
+right up to him an&#8217; told him what I thort o&#8217;
+him an&#8217; his works.&#8221; There are conditions, it is
+said, in which even the timid hare becomes
+militant, and doves will peck at the intruder.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I reckon I got to get you folks out
+of here now for sartain,&#8221; said Jephthah as she
+made an end. &#8220;Nancy, honey, is the yarbs
+you wanted for Creed in with them you&#8217;re
+a-goin&#8217; to use on me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The little old woman felt of Creed&#8217;s fingers,
+she laid a capable hand upon his brow. Then
+she flashed one of her quick, youthful smiles at
+her husband.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You named it to me about Jude and Creed
+being at the outs,&#8221; she said frankly; &#8220;but I see
+they&#8217;ve made up their troubles. The boy
+don&#8217;t need no medicine.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Jephthah stared at his transformed patient,
+and admitted that it was so.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well he does need some peace and quiet,&#8221;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_403' name='page_403'></a>403</span>
+the head of the house maintained as he ushered
+his clan into the adjoining room.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle Jephthah,&#8221; called Creed&#8217;s quiet voice,
+with the ring of the old enthusiasm in it, as his
+host was leaving the room. &#8220;Do you remember
+telling me that the trouble with my work on the
+mountain was, I was one man alone? Do you
+remember saying that if I was a member of a
+big family&mdash;a great big tribe&mdash;that I&#8217;d get along
+all right and accomplish what I set out for?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say sech a lot of foolishness, son, I cain&#8217;t
+ricollect it all. Likely I did say that. Hit
+mought have some truth in it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Creed, carrying the hand he held
+to his lips, &#8220;I reckon I&#8217;ll be a member of a big
+tribe now; maybe I can take up the work yet,
+and do some good.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The old man looked at him. Here was the
+son of his heart&mdash;of his mind and nature&mdash;the
+congenial spirit; the welcome companion, interested
+like himself in abstractions, willing to
+stake all on an idea. Days of good comradeship
+stretched before these two. He reached down
+a brown right hand, and Creed&#8217;s thin white one
+went out to meet it in a quick, nervous clasp.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_404' name='page_404'></a>404</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Son,&#8221; spoke out Jephthah in that deep,
+sonorous voice of his, &#8220;Creed, boy, what you set
+out to do was a work for a man&#8217;s lifetime; but
+God made you for jest what you aimed then to
+do and be. Yo&#8217; mighty young yet, but you
+air formed for a leader of men. To the last day
+of its life an oak will be an oak and a willer a
+willer; and yo&#8217; head won&#8217;t be grey when you
+find yo&#8217; work and find yo&#8217;self a-doin&#8217; it right.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pap Turrentine!&#8221; called Huldah from the
+kitchen, &#8220;Maw wants ye out here.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The door swung wide; it showed a vision of
+Nancy Turrentine, flushed, bustling, capable, the
+crinkled grey hair pushed back above those
+bright eyes of hers with a prideful hand, entering
+upon the administration of her new realm. Oh,
+it had not been easy for one of her spirit to be a
+poor little widow, living out on the Edge, with
+nobody but slack Doss Provine to do for her,
+hardly dishes enough to set the table, often not
+much to put in them, eking out a scanty living
+by weaving baskets of white-oak splits. When
+Judith rode up to the cabin on the Edge that
+evening of late March, it was the hardest time
+of the year; now was the mountaineer&#8217;s season
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_405' name='page_405'></a>405</span>
+of cheer and abundance&mdash;his richest month.
+Outside, nuts were gathering, hunting was good,
+and she had for her provider of wild meat the
+mightiest hunter in the Turkey Tracks. Jephthah
+Turrentine&#8217;s home was ample and well
+plenished. There was good store of root crops
+laid up for winter. Judith had neglected such
+matters to tend on Creed, but Nancy was already
+putting in hand the cutting and drying of pumpkins,
+the threshing out of beans. Here were
+milk vessels a-plenty to scald and sun&mdash;and
+filling for them afterward. Oh, enough to do
+with!&mdash;the will to do had always been Nancy&#8217;s&mdash;and
+for yokefellow in the home, one who would
+carry his share and pull true&mdash;a real man&mdash;the
+only one there had ever been for Nancy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pap,&#8221; called Huldah&#8217;s insistent voice again.</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right&mdash;I&#8217;m a-comin&#8217;,&#8221; declared Jephthah,
+then, with the door in his hand, turned back,
+meaning to finish what had been in his mind to
+say to Creed.</p>
+<p>Jephthah Turrentine was himself that day
+a bridegroom, wedded to the one love of his life;
+he appreciated to the full that which had come
+to Creed. He had thought to say to the boy
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_406' name='page_406'></a>406</span>
+that now was the opening of great things, to
+remind him that one must first live man&#8217;s natural
+life, must prove himself as son, brother, husband,
+father, and neighbour, before he will be accepted
+or efficient in the larger calling. He would have
+said that life must teach the man before the man
+could teach his fellows.</p>
+<p>But the words of homely wisdom in which he
+would have clothed this truth remained unspoken.
+He glanced back and saw the dark
+head bent close above the yellow one, as Judith
+performed some little service for Creed. The
+girl&#8217;s rich brown beauty glowed and bloomed
+before the steady, blue fire of her lover&#8217;s eyes.
+She set down her tumbler and knelt beside him.
+Their lips were murmuring, they had forgotten
+all the world save themselves and their love.
+Jephthah looked at the rapt young faces; these
+two were on the mount of transfiguration; the
+light ineffable was all about them.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lord, what&#8217;s the use of a old fool like me
+sayin&#8217; I, ay, yes or no to sech a pair as that?&#8221;
+he whispered as he went out softly and closed
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS***</p>
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+</pre>
+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Judith of the Cumberlands, by Alice MacGowan,
+Illustrated by George Wright
+
+
+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: Judith of the Cumberlands
+
+
+Author: Alice MacGowan
+
+
+
+Release Date: September 4, 2008  [eBook #26527]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 26527-h.htm or 26527-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/5/2/26527/26527-h/26527-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/5/2/26527/26527-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS
+
+by
+
+ALICE MACGOWAN
+
+Author of
+"The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage,"
+"The Last Word," "Huldah," "Return," Etc.
+
+With Illustrations in Colour by George Wright
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "The moonlight flickered on the blade in his hand
+as he reeled backward over the bluff" (page 145).]
+
+
+
+
+Grosset & Dunlap
+Publishers, New York
+
+Copyright, 1908
+by
+Alice MacGowan
+
+This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers,
+G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+To my mountain friends, dwellers in lonely cabins, on winding horseback
+trails and steep, precarious roads; or in the tiny settlements that
+nestle in the high-hung inner valleys; lean brown hunters on remote paths
+in the green shadowed depths of the free forest, light-stepping,
+keen-eyed, humorous-lipped, hitting the point as aptly with an instance
+as with the old squirrel gun they carry; wielders of the axe by many a
+chip pile, where the swinging blade rests readily to answer query or
+offer advice; tanned, lithely moving lads following the plough, turning
+over the shoulder a countenance of dark beauty; grave, shy girls, pail in
+hand, at the milking-bars in dawn or dusk; young mothers in the doorway,
+looking out, babe on hip; big-eyed, bare-footed mountain children
+clinging hand in hand by the roadside, or clustered like startled little
+partridges in the shelter of the dooryard; knitters in the sun and
+grandams by the hearth; tellers and treasurers all of tales and legends
+couched in racy old Elizabethan English; I dedicate this--their book and
+mine.
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+I have been so frequently asked how I, a woman, came by my intimate
+acquaintance with life in the more remote districts of the southern
+Appalachians, particularly in the matter of illicit distilling, that I
+think it not amiss to here set down a few words as to my sources of
+knowledge.
+
+I have always lived in a small city in the heart of the Cumberlands, and
+a portion of each year was spent in the mountains themselves. The speech
+of Judith and her friends and kin has been familiar to me from childhood;
+their point of view, their customs and possessions as well known to me as
+my own. Then when I began to write, I was one summer at Roan Mountain, on
+the North Carolina-Tennessee line, probably less than two hundred miles
+from Chattanooga by the railway, and Gen. John T. Wilder, who had
+campaigned all through the fastnesses of that inaccessible region,
+suggested to me that I buy a mountain-bred saddle horse, and ride such a
+route as he would give me, bringing up, after about a thousand miles of
+it, at my home. To follow the itinerary that the old soldier marked out
+on the map for me was to leave railroads and modern civilisation as we
+know it, penetrate the wild heart of the region, and, depending on the
+wayside dwellers for hospitality and lodging from night to night, be
+forcibly thrust into an intimate comprehension of a phase of American
+life which is perhaps the most primitive our country affords.
+
+I was more than eight weeks making this trip, carrying with me all
+necessary baggage on my capacious, cowgirl saddle with its long and
+numerous buckskin tie-strings. At first I shrank very much from riding up
+to a cabin--a young woman, alone, with garments and outfit that must
+challenge the attention and curiosity of these people--in the dusk of
+evening or in a heavy rain-storm, and asking in set terms for lodging.
+But it took only a few days for me to find that here I was never to be
+stared at, wondered at, nor questioned; and that, proffering my request
+under such conditions, I was met by instant hospitality, and a grave,
+uninquiring courtesy unsurpassed and not always equalled in the best
+society, and I seemed to evoke a swift tenderness that was almost
+compassion.
+
+During this journey I became acquainted with some features of mountain
+life which I might never have known otherwise. My best friends in the
+mountains in the neighbourhood of my own home had always been a little
+shy of discussing moonshine whiskey and moonshiners; but here I earned a
+dividend upon my misfortunes, being more than once taken for a revenue
+spy; and in the apologetic amenities of those who had misjudged me, which
+followed my explanations and proofs of innocence, I have been shown in a
+spirit of atonement, illicit still and "hideout." I have heard old
+Jephthah Turrentine make his protest against the government's attitude
+toward the mountain man and his "blockaded still." I have foregathered
+with the revenuers in the settlements at the foot of the circling purple
+ranges, and been shown the specially made axes and hooks they carry with
+them for breaking up and destroying the simple appurtenances of the
+illicit manufacture. Knowing that Blatch Turrentine's still must have
+cost him three hundred dollars, I cannot wonder that a mountain man, a
+thrifty fellow like Blatch, should have lingered, even in great danger,
+over the project of carrying it with him.
+
+These dwellers in the southern mountain region, the purest American
+strain left to us, hold the interest and appeal of a changing, vanishing
+type. The tide of enlightenment and commercial prosperity must presently
+sweep in and absorb them. And so I might hope that a faithful picture of
+the life and manners I have sought to represent in _Judith of the
+Cumberlands_ would be the better worth while.
+
+                                                             A. Mac G.
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+CHAPTER                              PAGE
+     I.  Spring                         1
+    II.  At "The Edge"                 20
+   III.  Suitors                       47
+    IV.  Building                      64
+     V.  The Red Rose and the Briar    83
+    VI.  The Play-Party                99
+   VII.  Kisses                       112
+  VIII.  On the Doorstone             124
+    IX.  Foeman's Bluff               135
+     X.  A Spy                        152
+    XI.  The Warning                  161
+   XII.  In the Lion's Den            181
+  XIII.  In the Night                 199
+   XIV.  The Raid                     207
+    XV.  Council of War               221
+   XVI.  A Message                    235
+  XVII.  The Old Cherokee Trail       244
+ XVIII.  Bitter Parting               261
+   XIX.  Cast Out                     273
+    XX.  A Conversion                 282
+   XXI.  The Baptising                302
+  XXII.  Ebb-Tide                     315
+ XXIII.  The Dumb Supper              326
+  XXIV.  A Case of Walking Typhoid    340
+   XXV.  A Perilous Passage           360
+  XXVI.  His Own Trap                 371
+ XXVII.  Love's Guerdon               382
+XXVIII.  A Prophecy                   393
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Judith of the Cumberlands
+
+Chapter I
+
+Spring
+
+
+"Won't you be jest dressed to kill an' cripple when you get that on!
+Don't it set her off, Jeffy Ann?"
+
+The village milliner fell back, hands on hips, thin lips screwed up, and
+regarded the possible purchaser through narrowed eyes of simulated
+ecstasy.
+
+"I don't know," debated the brown beauty, surveying herself in a
+looking-glass by means of an awkwardly held hand-mirror. "'Pears to me
+this one's too little. Hit makes me look like I was sent for and couldn't
+come. But I do love red. I think the red on here is mightly sightly."
+
+Instantly the woman of the shop had the hat off the dark young head and
+in her own hands.
+
+"This is a powerful pretty red bow," she assented promptly. "I can take
+it out just as easy as not, and tack it onto that big hat you like. I
+believe you're right; and red certainly does go with yo' hair and eyes."
+Again she gazed with languishing admiration at her customer.
+
+And Judith Barrier was well worth it, tall, justly proportioned,
+deep-bosomed, long-limbed, with the fine hands and feet of the true
+mountaineer. The thick dusk hair rose up around her brow in a massive,
+sculptural line; her dark eyes--the large, heavily fringed eyes of a
+dryad--glowed with the fires of youth, and with a certain lambent shining
+which was all their own; the stain on her cheeks was deep, answering to
+the ripe red of the full lips.
+
+In point of fact Mrs. Rhody Staggart the milliner considered her a big,
+coarse country girl, and thought that a pair of stout corsets well pulled
+in would improve her crude figure; but she dealt out compliments without
+ceasing as she exchanged the red bow for the blue, and laboriously pinned
+the headgear upon the bronze-brown coils, admonishing gravely, "Far over
+to one side, honey--jest the way they're a-wearin' them in New York this
+minute."
+
+The buyer once more studied her mirror, and its dumb honesty told her
+that she was beautiful. Then she looked about for some human eyes to make
+the same communication.
+
+"What's a-goin' on over yon at the Co't House?" she inquired with languid
+interest, looking across the open square.
+
+"They's a political speakin'," explained the other. "Creed Bonbright he
+wants to be elected jestice of the peace and go back to the Turkey Tracks
+and set up a office. Fool boy! You know mighty well an' good they'll run
+him out o' thar--or kill him, one."
+
+Although the girl had herself ridden down from Turkey Track Mountain that
+morning, and the old Bonbright farm adjoined her own, the news held no
+interest for her. She wished the gathering might have been something more
+to her purpose; but she solemnly paid for the hat, and with the cheap
+finery on her stately young head, which had been more appropriately
+crowned with a chaplet of vine leaves, moved to the door. She hoped that
+standing there, waiting for the boys to bring her horse, she might
+attract some attention by her recently acquired splendour.
+
+She looked up at the Court House steps. The building was humbly in the
+Greek manner, as are so many of the public structures in the South.
+Between its great white pillars, flaking paint and half-heartedly
+confessing their woodland genesis, stood a tall young man, bareheaded.
+The doubtful sunlight of a March day glinted on his uncovered yellow
+hair. He was speaking rapidly in a fervid fashion that seemed beyond the
+occasion; in his blue eyes shone something of the fanatic's passion; his
+bearing was that of a man who conceives himself to have a mission and a
+message.
+
+Judith looked at him. She heard no word of what he was saying--but him
+she heard. She heard the high, vibrant voice, saw the fair hair on the
+upflung head, the rapt look in the blue eyes with their quick-expanding
+pupils. Suddenly her world turned over. In a smother of strange,
+uncomprehended emotions, she was gropingly glad she had the new hat--glad
+she had it on now, and that Mrs. Staggart herself had adjusted it. On
+blind impulse she edged around into plainer view, pushing freely in
+amongst the fringe of men and boys, an unheard-of thing for a well taught
+mountain girl to do, but Judith was for the moment absolutely unconscious
+of their humanity.
+
+"You never go a-nigh my people," cried Bonbright in that clear thrilling
+tenor that is like a trumpet call, "you never go a-nigh them with the
+statute--with government--except when the United States marshal takes a
+posse up and raids the stills and brings down his prisoners. That's all
+the valley knows of the mountain folks. The law's never carried to
+anybody up there except the offenders and criminals. The Turkey Track
+neighbourhoods, Big and Little, have got a mighty bad name with you-all.
+But you ought to understand that violence must come when every man is
+obliged to take the law into his own hands. I admit that it's an eye for
+an eye and a tooth for a tooth with us now--what else could it be? And
+yet we are as faithful to each other, as virtuous, and as God-fearing a
+race as those in the valley. I am a mountain man, born and bred in the
+Turkey Tracks; and I ask you to send me back to my neighbours with the
+law, that they may learn to be good citizens, as they are already good
+men and women."
+
+Upon the word, there broke out at the farthest corner of the square an
+abrupt splatter of sound, oaths, cries, punctuated by the swift staccato
+of running feet. The ringing voice came to a sudden halt. Out of a little
+side street which descended from the mountain, a young fellow burst into
+view, running in long leaping bounds, his hands up. Behind him lumbered
+Dan Haley the United States marshal, a somewhat heavy-set man, puffing
+and panting, yelling, "Halt! halt! halt!" and finally turning loose a
+fusillade of shots aimed high over the fleeing lad's head. There was a
+drawing back and a scattering in every direction.
+
+"Hey, Bonbright!" vociferated a man leaping up from the last step where
+he had been sitting, pointing to where the marshal's deputy followed
+behind herding five or six prisoners from the mountains, "Hey, Bonbright!
+There's some of your constituency--some God-fearing Turkey-Trackers--now,
+but I reckon you won't own 'em."
+
+"I will!" shouted Bonbright, whirling upon him, and one got suddenly the
+blue fire of his hawk-like eye with the slant brow above. "They _are_ my
+people, and the way they're treated is what I've been trying to talk to
+you-all about."
+
+"Well, you better go and take them fellers some law right now," jeered
+his interlocutor. "Looks like to me they need it mighty bad."
+
+"That's just what I'm about," answered Bonbright. "God knows they'll get
+no justice unless I do. That's my job," and without another word or a
+look behind him he made his way bareheaded through the group on the steps
+and down the street.
+
+Meantime the pursued had turned desperately and dodged into the millinery
+store whence Judith Barrier had emerged a little earlier. Instantly there
+came out to the listeners the noise of falling articles and breaking
+glass, and the squeals and scufflings of the women. The red-faced marshal
+dived in after his quarry, and emerged a moment later holding him by one
+elbow, swearing angrily. Creed Bonbright came up at the instant, and
+Haley, needing some one to whom he could express himself, explained in
+voluble anger:
+
+"The damned little shoat! Said if I'd let him walk a-loose he'd give me
+information. You can't trust none of them."
+
+Bonbright laid a reassuring touch on the fugitive's shoulder as Haley
+fumbled after the handcuffs.
+
+"I ain't been into no stillin', Creed!" panted the squirming boy.
+
+"Well, don't run then," admonished Bonbright. "You've got no call to.
+I'll see that you get justice."
+
+While he spoke there wheeled into the square, from a nearby waggon-yard,
+two young mountaineers on mules, one leading by the bridle-rein a sorrel
+horse with a side-saddle on it. At sight of the marshal and those with
+him, an almost imperceptible tremor went through the pair. There was a
+flicker of nostril, a rounding of eye, as their glance ran swiftly from
+one to another of Haley's prisoners. They were like wild game that winds
+the hunter.
+
+"St! You Pony Card, is that them?" whispered Haley, sharply nudging the
+prisoner he held. "Turn him a-loose, Bonbright; I've got him handcuffed
+now."
+
+The boy--he was not more than sixteen--choked, reddened, held down his
+head, studying the marshal's face anxiously from beneath lowered
+flax-coloured brows.
+
+"Yes, them's Andy and Jeff Turrentine," Bonbright heard the husky,
+reluctant whisper. "Now cain't I go?"
+
+The newcomers were beyond earshot, but the by-play was ominous to them.
+The lean young bodies stiffened in their saddles, the reins came up in
+their hands. For a moment it seemed as if they would turn and run for it.
+But it was too late. Without making any reply Haley shoved his prisoner
+into the hands of the deputy and with prompt action intercepted the two
+and placed them under arrest. Bonbright observed one of the boys beckon
+across the heads of the gathering crowd before he dismounted, and noted
+that some one approached from the direction of the Court House steps and
+received the three riding animals. In the confusion he did not see who
+this was. Haley spoke to his deputy, and then drew their party sharply
+off toward the jail, which could be used temporarily for the detention of
+United States prisoners. To the last the young Turrentines muttered
+together and sent baleful glances toward Bonbright, whom they plainly
+conceived to be the author of their troubles. Poor Pony Card plodded with
+bent head mutely behind them, a furtive hand travelling now and again to
+his eyes.
+
+Such crowd as the little village had collected was following, Bonbright
+with the rest, when he encountered the girl who had come from the
+milliner's shop. She stood now alone by the sorrel horse with the
+side-saddle on it, holding the bridle-reins of the two mules, and there
+was a bewildered look in her dark eyes as the noisy throng swept past her
+which brought him--led in the hand of destiny--instantly to her side.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked her. "Can I help you?" And Judith who, in
+her perturbation, had not seen him before, started violently at the words
+and tone.
+
+"They've tuck the boys," she hesitated, in a rich, broken contralto, that
+voice which beyond all others moves the hearts of hearers, "I--I don't
+know how I'm a-goin' to get these here mules home. Pete he won't lead so
+very well."
+
+"Oh, were you with the men Haley arrested?" ejaculated Bonbright.
+
+"Yes, they're my cousins. I don't know what he tuck 'em for," the young,
+high-couraged head turned jailward; the dark eyes flashed a resentful
+look after the retiring posse.
+
+"It looks like to me, from what Haley said, that there's nothing against
+them," Bonbright reassured her. "But they're likely to be held as
+witnesses--that's the worst about this business.
+
+"I was going over there right now to see what can be done about it--being
+a sort of lawyer. But let me help you first. I'm Creed Bonbright--reckon
+you know the name--born and raised on Big Turkey Track."
+
+Judith's heart beat to suffocation, the while she answered in commonplace
+phrase, "I shorely do. My name is Judith Barrier; I live with Uncle
+Jephthah Turrentine, on my farm. Hit's right next to the old Bonbright
+place. We've been livin' thar more'n four years. I hate to go back and
+tell Uncle Jep of the boys bein' tuck; and that big mule, Pete, I don't
+know how I'm a-goin' to git him out o' the settlement, he's that mean and
+feisty about town streets."
+
+"I reckon I can manage him," Bonbright suggested, looking about. "Oh,
+Givens!" he called to a man hurrying past. "When you get over there ask
+Haley not to take any definite action--I reckon he wouldn't anyhow. I'm
+going to represent the prisoners, and I'll be there inside of half an
+hour. Now let me put you on your horse, Miss Judith, and I'll lead the
+mules up the road a piece for you."
+
+And so it came about that Judith sprang to the back of the sorrel nag
+from Creed Bonbright's hand. Creed, still bareheaded, and wholly
+unconscious of the fact, walked beside her leading the mules. They passed
+slowly up the street towards the mountainward edge of Hepzibah, talking
+as they went in the soft, low, desultory fashion of their people.
+
+The noises of the village, aroused from its usual dozing calm, died away
+behind them. Beyond the last cabin they entered a sylvan world all their
+own. While he talked, questioning and replying gravely and at leisure,
+the man was revolving in his mind just what action would be best for the
+prisoners whose cause he had espoused. As for Judith, she had forgotten
+that such persons existed, that such trivial mischance as their arrest
+had just been; she was concerned wholly with the immediate necessity to
+charm, to subjugate the man.
+
+[Illustration: "Creed walked beside her leading the mules."]
+
+A rustic belle and beauty, used to success in such enterprises, in the
+limited time at her command she brought out for Creed's subduing her
+little store of primitive arts. She would know, Pete suggesting the
+topic, if he didn't despise a mule, adding encouragingly that she did.
+The ash, it seemed, was the tree of her preference; didn't he think it
+mighty sightly now when it was just coming into bloom? His favourite
+season of the year, his favoured colour, of such points she made inquiry,
+giving him, in an elusive feminine fashion, ample opportunity to relate
+himself to her. And always he answered. When all was spoken, and at the
+first sharp rise she drew rein for the inevitable separation, she could
+not have said that she had failed; but she knew that she had not
+succeeded.
+
+"Ye can jest turn Pete a-loose now," she told him gently. "He'll foller
+from here on."
+
+Bonbright, on his part, was not quite aware why he paused here, yet it
+seemed cold and unfriendly to say good-bye at once, Again he assured her
+that he would go immediately to the jail and find what could be done for
+her cousins. There was no more to be said now--yet they lingered.
+
+It was a blowy, showery March day, its lips puckered for weeping or
+laughter at any moment, the air full of the dainty pungencies of new
+life. Winged ants, enjoying their little hour of glory, swarmed from
+their holes and turned stone or stump to a flickering, moving grey. About
+them where they stood was the awakening world of nature. Great, pale blue
+bird-foot violets were blooming on favoured slopes, and in protected
+hollows patches of eyebright made fairy forests on the moss, while under
+tatters of dead leaves by the brookside arbutus blushed. Above their
+heads the tracery of branches was a lace-work overlaid with fanlike
+budding green leaves, except where the maples showed scarlet tassels, or
+the Judas tree flaunted its bold, lying, purple-pink promise of fruitage
+never to be fulfilled.
+
+Could two young creatures be wiser than nature's self? It was the new
+time; all the gauzy-winged ephemerae in the moist March woods were
+throbbing with it, buzzing or flashing about seeking mates and nectar.
+The earth had wakened from her winter sleep and set her face toward her
+ancient, ardent lover, the sun. In the soul of Judith Barrier--Judith the
+nature woman--all this surged strongly. As for the man, he had sent forth
+his spirit in so general a fashion, he conceived himself to have a
+mission so impersonal, that he scarce remembered what should or should
+not please or attract Creed Bonbright.
+
+Judith dreaded lest he make his farewells before she had from him some
+earnest of a future meeting. He could not say good-bye and let her leave
+him so! It seemed to her that if he did she should die before she reached
+the mountain-top. Dark, rich, earth-born, earth-fast, material, she
+looked down at Creed where he stood beside her, his hand on the sorrel's
+neck, his calm blue eyes raised to hers. Her gaze lingered on the fair
+hair flying in the March breeze, above a face selfless as that of some
+young prophet. Her eager, undisciplined nature found here what it craved.
+Coquetry had not availed her; it had fallen off him unrecognised--this
+man who answered it absently, and thought his own thoughts. And with the
+divine pertinacity of life itself she delved in the ancient wisdom of her
+sex for a lure to make him rise and follow her. It was not bright eyes
+nor red lips that could move or please him? But she had seen him moved,
+aroused. The hint was plain. Instantly abandoning her personal siege, she
+espoused the cause of her bodiless rival.
+
+"I--I heard you a-speakin' back there," she said with a little catch in
+her breath.
+
+Bonbright's eyes returned from the far distances to which they had
+travelled after giving her--Judith Barrier, so worthy of a blue-eyed
+youth's respectful attention--a passing glance. She replied to his gaze
+with one full of a meaning to him at that time indecipherable;
+nevertheless it was an ardent, compelling look which he must needs answer
+with some confession of himself.
+
+"You wouldn't understand what I was trying to tell about," he began
+gently. "Since I've been living in the valley, where folks get rich and
+see a heap of what they call pleasure, I've had many a hard thought about
+the lives of our people up yonder in the mountains. I want to go back to
+my people with--I want to tell them--"
+
+The girl leaned forward in her saddle, burning eyes fixed on his intent
+face, red lips apart.
+
+"Yes--what?" she breathed. "What is it you want to say to the folks back
+home? You ort to come and say it. We need it bad."
+
+"Do you think so?" asked Bonbright doubtfully. "Do you reckon they would
+listen to me? I don't know. Sometimes I allow maybe I'd better stay here
+where the Judge wants me to till I'm an older man and more experienced."
+
+He studied the beautiful, down-bent face greedily now, but it was not the
+eye of a man looking at a maid. His thoughts were with the work he hoped
+to do. Judith's heart contracted with fear, and then set off beating
+heavily. Wait till he was an old man? Would love wait? Somebody else
+would claim him--some town girl would find the way to charm him. In sheer
+terror she put down her hand and laid it upon his.
+
+"Don't you never think it," she protested. "You're needed right now.
+After a while will be too late. Why, I come a-past your old home in the
+rain last Wednesday, and I could 'a' cried to see the winders dark, and
+the grass all grown up to the front door. You come back whar you
+belong--" she had almost said "honey"--"and you'll find there is need
+a-plenty for folks like you."
+
+"Well, they all allow that I'll be elected next Thursday," Creed
+assented, busying himself over the lengthening of Beck's bridle, that she
+might lead the mule the more handily. "And if I am I'll be in the Turkey
+Tracks along in April and find me a place to set up an office. If I'm
+elected----"
+
+"Elected! An' ef yo'r not?" she cried, filled with scorn of such a paltry
+condition. What difference could it make whether or not he were elected?
+Wouldn't his hair be just as yellow, his eyes as blue? Would his voice be
+any less the call to love?
+
+He smiled at her tolerantly, handing up the lengthened strap.
+
+"Well, I don't just rightly know what I will do, then," he debated.
+
+"But you're a-comin' up to the Turkey Tracks anyhow, to--to see yo'
+folks," persisted Judith with a rising triumph in her tone.
+
+"Yes," acquiesced Bonbright, "I'll come up in April anyhow."
+
+And with this assurance the girl rode slowly away, leading Beck, the now
+resigned Pete following behind. All the sounds from the valley were
+gathered as in a vast bowl and flung upward, refined by distance. A
+moment she halted listening, then breasted the first rise and entered
+that deep silence which waits the mountain dweller. The great forest
+closed about her.
+
+Creed Bonbright stood for a moment in the open road looking after her.
+Something she had conveyed to him, some call sent forth, which had not
+quite reached the ear of his spirit, and yet which troubled his calm. He
+lifted his gaze toward the bulk of the big mountain looming above him. He
+passed his hand absently through his fair hair, then tossed his head back
+with a characteristic motion. It was good to know he was needed up there.
+It was good to know he would be welcomed. So far the girl had made her
+point. After this the mountains and Judith Barrier would mean one thing
+in the young man's mind. As the shortest way to them both, he turned and
+walked swiftly down toward the settlement and to the undertaking which
+there awaited him.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+At "The Edge"
+
+
+The girl on the sorrel nag and the two riderless animals toiled patiently
+up the broad, timbered flank of Big Turkey Track, following the raw red
+gash in the greenery that was the road.
+
+She gazed with wondering eyes at the familiar landmarks of the trail. All
+was just as it had been when she rode down it at dawn that morning, Andy
+and Jeff ahead on their mules whistling, singing, skylarking like two
+playful bear cubs. It was herself that was changed. She pushed the cheap
+hat off her hot forehead and tried to win to some coherence of thought
+and--so far had she already come on a new, strange path--looked back with
+wondering uncomprehension, as upon the beliefs and preferences of a crude
+primitive ancestress, to the girl who had cared that this hat cost a
+dollar and a half instead of a dollar and a quarter--only a few hours
+since when she bought it at the store. She went over the bits of talk
+that had been between her and Creed Bonbright. What had he said his
+favourite colour was? Memory brought back his rapt young face when she
+put the question to him. She trembled with delight at the recollection.
+His eyes were fixed upon the sky, and he had answered her absently,
+"blue."
+
+Blue! What a fool--what a common thickheaded fool she had been all her
+days! She let the sorrel take his own gait, hooked his bridle-rein and
+Beck's upon the saddle-horn, and lifting her arms withdrew the hatpins
+and took off the unworthy headgear. For a moment she regarded savagely
+the cheap red ribbon which had appeared so beautiful to her; then with
+strong brown fingers tore it loose and flung it in the dust of the road,
+where Pete shied at it, and the stolid Beck coming on with flapping ears
+set hoof upon it.
+
+What vast world forces move with our movements, pluck us uncomprehending
+from the station we had struggled for, and make our sorrowful meat of our
+attained desires! The stars in their courses pivot and swing on these
+subtle attractions, ancient as themselves. Judith Barrier, tearing the
+gaudy ribbon from her hat and casting it upon the road under her horse's
+feet, stood to learn what the priests of Isis knew thousands of years
+ago, that red is the symbol of pleasure and of mere animal comfort, while
+blue is the colour of pure reason.
+
+Halfway up the trail they rode into a cloud that rested trembling on the
+mountain-side, passed through it and emerged upon fitful sunlight. Near
+the top there came a sudden shower which descended with the souse of an
+overturned bucket. It won small attention from Judith, but Pete and Beck
+resented it in mule fashion, with a laying back of ears and lashing out
+of heels. These amenities were exchanged for the most part across the
+intervening sorrel nag and his rider, and Selim replied promptly and in
+kind, almost unseating Judith.
+
+"You Selim!" she cried jerking the rein. "You feisty Pete! You no-account
+Beck! What ails you-all? Cain't you behave?" and once more she lapsed
+into dreaming. It was Selim who, wise and old, stopped at Aunt Nancy
+Card's gate and gave Judith an opportunity to descend if such were her
+preference.
+
+On the porch of the cabin sat a tall, lean, black-eyed old man smoking
+his pipe, Jephthah Turrentine himself. Nancy Card, a dry, brown little
+sparrow of a woman, occupied a chair opposite him, and negotiated a pipe
+quite as elderly and evil-smelling as his own.
+
+The kerchief folded about her neck was notably white; her clean
+check-apron rustled with starch; but the half-grey hair crinkling
+rebelliously from its loose coil was never confined by anything more
+rigorous than a tucking comb. In moments of stress this always slipped
+down, and had to be vigorously replaced, so that stray strands were apt
+to be tossing about her eyes--fearless, direct blue eyes, that looked out
+of her square, wrinkled, weather-beaten little face with the sincere gaze
+of an urchin. Back of her chair lay a bundle of white-oak splits for use
+in her by-trade of basket-weaver; above them hung bundles of drying
+herbs, for Nancy was a sick-nurse and a bit of an herb-doctor. She had
+made a hard and a more or less losing fight against poverty--the men folk
+of these hardy, valiant little women seem predestined to be shiftless.
+
+It came back to Judith dimly as she looked at them--she was in a mood to
+remember such things--that her uncle had courted Nancy Card when these
+two were young people, that they had quarrelled, both had married, reared
+families, and been widowed; and they were quarrelling still! Acrimonious
+debate with Nancy was evidently such sweet pain that old Jephthah sought
+every opportunity for it, and the sudden shower in the vicinity of her
+cabin had offered him an excuse to-day.
+
+Nancy did not confine her practice to what she would have called humans,
+but doctored a horse or a cow with equal success. One cold spring a
+little chicken had its feet frozen in the wet barnyard so badly that it
+lost one of them, and Nancy, who had taken the poor mite into the house
+and nursed it till she loved it, constructed for it a wooden leg
+consisting of a small, light peg strapped to the stump. And thereafter
+Nicodemus, a rooster who must now belie the name since he could not cling
+to a perch with his single foot, became an institution in the Card
+household.
+
+Jephthah Turrentine was a natural bone-setter, and was sent for far and
+near to reduce a dislocation or bandage a broken limb. In the pursuit of
+this which came to be almost a profession, he acquired a good knowledge
+of tending upon the sick, and the bitterness of rival practitioners was
+added to the score between him and Nancy. The case of Nicodemus furnished
+the man with a chance to call the woman a chicken doctor, and the name
+appealing to the humorous side of mountain character stuck to her,
+greatly to her disgust.
+
+Aunt Nancy's dooryard was famous for its flowers, being a riot of pied
+bloom from March till December. Even now fire-in-the-bush and bridal
+wreath made gay the borders.
+
+"Good land, Jude Barrier!" called Nancy herself. "You're as wet as a
+drownded rat. 'Light and come in."
+
+Old Turrentine permitted his niece to clamber from Selim, and secure him
+and both mules.
+
+"Whar's the boys?" he inquired in a great, sonorous bass, the deep,
+true-pitched voice promised by the contours of strong bony arches under
+heavy brows and the strong nose-bridge.
+
+"In jail," responded Judith laconically, turning to enter the gate. Then,
+as she walked up the hard-trodden clay path between the tossing, dripping
+heads of daffodils, "Uncle Jep, did you know Creed Bonbright's daddy?"
+
+"In jail!" echoed Nancy Card, making a pretence of trying to suppress a
+titter, and thereby rendering it more offensive. "Ain't they beginnin'
+ruther young?"
+
+Tall old Jephthah got to his feet, knocked the ashes from his pipe and
+put it in his pocket.
+
+"Who tuck 'em?" he inquired briefly, but with a fierce undernote in his
+tones. "What was they tuck fer?"
+
+"I never noticed," said Judith, standing on the step before them,
+wringing the wet from her black calico riding skirt. "Nobody named it to
+me what they was tuck fer. I was talkin' to Creed Bonbright, and he
+'lowed to find out. He said that was his business."
+
+"Creed Bonbright," echoed her uncle; "what's he got to do with it? He's
+been livin' down in Hepzibah studyin' to be a lawyer--did he have Jeff
+and Andy jailed?"
+
+Judith shook her head. "He didn't have nothing to do with it," she
+answered. "He 'lowed they would be held for witnesses against some men
+Haley had arrested. But he's goin' to come back and live on Turkey
+Track," she added, as though that were the only thing of importance in
+the world. "He says we-all need law in the mountings, and he's a-goin' to
+bring it to us."
+
+"Well, he'd better let my boys alone if he don't want trouble," growled
+old Jephthah but half appeased.
+
+"I reckon a little touch of law now an' agin won't hurt yo' boys," put in
+Nancy Card smoothly. "My chaps always tuck to law like a duck to water. I
+reckon I ain't got the right sympathy fer them that has lawless young
+'uns."
+
+"Yo' Pony was arrested afore Andy and Jeff," Judith remarked suddenly,
+without any apparent malice. "He was the first one I seen comin' down the
+road, and Dan Haley behind him a-shootin' at him."
+
+Jephthah Turrentine forebore to laugh. But he deliberately drew out his
+old pipe again, filled it and stepped inside for a coal with which to
+light it.
+
+"Mebbe yo' sympathies will be more tenderer for me in my afflictions of
+lawless sons after this, Nancy," he called derisively over his shoulder.
+
+"Hit's bound to be a mistake 'bout Pony," declared the little old woman
+in a bewildered tone. "Pone ain't but risin' sixteen, and he's the
+peacefullest child----"
+
+"Jest what I would have said about my twin lambs," interrupted old
+Jephthah with twinkling eye, as he appeared in the doorway drawing
+mightily upon the newly lighted pipe, tossing his great beard from side
+to side of his mighty chest. "My chaps is all as peaceful as kittens; but
+some old woman gits to talkin' and gives 'em a bad name, and it goes from
+lip to lip that the Turrentine boys is lawless. Hit's a sad thing when a
+woman's tongue is too long and limber, and hung in the middle so it works
+at both ends; the reppytations hit can destroy is a sight."
+
+"But a body's own child--they' son! They' bound to stan' up for him,
+whether he's in the right or the wrong," maintained Nancy stoutly.
+
+"Huh," grunted Jephthah, "offspring is cur'ous. Sometimes hit 'pears like
+you air kin to them, and they ain't kin to you. That Pony boy of your'n
+is son to a full mealsack; he's plumb filial and devoted thataway to a
+dollar, if so be he thinks you've got one in yo' pocket. The facts in the
+business air, Nancy, that you've done sp'iled him tell he's plumb rotten,
+and a few of the jailings that you so kindly ricommend for my pair won't
+do him no harm."
+
+Nancy tossed up her head to reply; but at the moment a small boy,
+followed by a smaller girl, coming around the corner of the house,
+created a diversion. The girl, a little dancing imp with a frazzle of
+flying red hair and red-brown eyes, catching sight of Judith ran to her
+and flung herself head foremost in the visitor's lap, where Judith cooed
+over her and cuddled her, rumpling the bright hair, rubbing her crimson
+cheek against the child's peachy bloom.
+
+"Little Buck and Beezy," said Nancy Card, addressing them both, "Yo' unc'
+Pony's in jail. What you-all goin' to do about it?"
+
+The small brown man of six stopped, his feet planted wide on the sward,
+his freckled face grave and stern as became his sex.
+
+"Ef the boys goes down for to git him out, I'm goin' along," Little Buck
+announced seriously. "Is they goin', granny?"
+
+"I'll set my old rooster on the jail man, an' hit'll claw 'im," announced
+Beezy, reckless of distance and likelihood. "My old rooster can claw dest
+awful, ef he ain't got but one leg."
+
+Nancy chuckled. These grandchildren were the delight of her heart.
+
+The rain had ceased for the moment; the old man moved to the porch edge,
+sighting at the sky.
+
+"I don't know whar Blatch is a-keepin' hisself," he observed. "Mebbe I
+better be a-steppin'."
+
+But even as he spoke a tall young mountaineer swung into view down the
+road, dripping from the recent rain, and with that resentful air the best
+of us get from aggressions of the weather. Blatchley Turrentine, old
+Jephthah's nephew, was as brown as an Indian, and his narrow, glinting,
+steel-grey eyes looked out oddly cold and alien from under level black
+brows, and a fell of stiff black hair.
+
+When the orphaned Judith, living in her Uncle Jephthah's family, was
+fourteen, the household had removed from the old Turrentine place--which
+was rented to Blatchley Turrentine--to her better farm, whose tenant had
+proved unsatisfactory. Well hidden in a gulch on the Turrentine acres
+there was an illicit still, what the mountain people call a blockade
+still; and it had been in pretty constant operation in earlier years.
+When Jephthah abandoned those stony fields for Judith's more productive
+acres, he definitely turned his own back upon this feature, but Blatch
+Turrentine revived the illegal activities and enlisted the old man's boys
+in them. Jeff and Andy had a tobacco patch in one corner where the ground
+suited, and in another field Jim Cal raised a little corn. Aside from
+these small ventures, the place was given over entirely to the secret
+still. The father held scornfully aloof; his attitude was
+characteristic.
+
+"Ef I pay no tax I'll make no whiskey," he declared. "You-all boys will
+find yourselves behind bars many a time when you'd ruther be out
+squirrel-huntin'. Ef you make blockade whiskey every fool that gits mad
+at you has got a stick to hold over you. You are good-Lord-good-devil to
+everybody, for fear they'll lead to yo' still; or else you mix up with
+folks about the business and kill somebody an' git a bad name. These here
+blockaded stills calls every worthless feller in the district; most o'
+the foolishness in this country goes on around 'em when the boys gits
+filled up. I let every man choose his callin', but I don't choose to be
+no moonshiner, and ef you boys is wise you'll say the same."
+
+As Blatchley came up now and caught sight of the animals tethered at the
+fence he began irritably:
+
+"What in the name of common sense did Andy and Jeff leave they' mules
+here for? I can't haul any corn till I get the team and the waggon
+together."
+
+"Looks like you've hauled too many loads of corn that nobody knows the
+use of," broke out the irrepressible Nancy. "Andy and Jeff's in jail, and
+some fool has tuck my little Pone along with the others."
+
+Blatch flung a swift look at his uncle; but whatever his private
+conviction, to dishonour a member of his tribe in the face of the enemy,
+on the heels of defeat, was not what Jephthah Turrentine would do.
+
+"The boys is likely held for witnesses, Jude allows," the elder explained
+briefly. "You take one mule and I'll ride 'tother," he added. "I'll he'p
+ye with the corn."
+
+This was a great concession, and as such Blatchley accepted it.
+
+"All right," he returned. "Much obliged."
+
+Then he glanced unconcernedly at Judith, and, instead of making that
+haste toward the corn-hauling activities which his manner had suggested,
+moved loungingly up the steps. Beezy, from her sanctuary in Judith's lap,
+viewed him with contemptuous disfavour. Her brother, not so safely
+situated, made to pass the intruder, going wide like a shying colt.
+
+With a sudden movement Blatchley caught the child by the shoulders. There
+was a pantherlike quickness in the pounce that was somehow daunting from
+an individual of this man's size and impassivity.
+
+"Hold on thar, young feller," the newcomer remarked. "Whar you a-goin'
+to, all in sech haste?"
+
+"You turn me a-loose," panted the child. "I'm a-goin' over to my Jude."
+
+"Oh, she's yo' Jude, is she? Well they's some other folks around here
+thinks she's their Jude--what you goin' to do about it?"
+
+All this time he held the small, dignified atom of humanity in a
+merciless grip that made Little Buck ridiculous before his beloved, and
+fired his childish soul to a very ecstasy of helpless rage.
+
+"I'll--kill--you when I git to be a man!" the child gasped, between tears
+and terror. "I'll thest kill you--and I'll wed Jude. You turn me
+a-loose--that's what you do."
+
+Blatch laughed tauntingly and raised the little fellow high in air.
+
+"Ef I was to turn you a-loose now hit'd bust ye," he drawled.
+
+"I don't keer. I----"
+
+Around the corner of the cabin drifted Nicodemus, the wooden-legged
+rooster, stumping gravely with his dot-and-carry-one gait.
+
+"Lord, Nancy, thar comes the one patient ye ever cured!" chuckled old
+Jephthah. "I don't wonder yo're proud enough of him to roof him and
+affectionate him for the balance of his life."
+
+"I reckon you'd do the same, ef so be ye should ever cure one," snapped
+Nancy, rising instantly to the bait, and turning her back on the others.
+"As 't is, ef they hilt the buryin' from the house of the feller that
+killed the patient I reckon Jude wouldn't have nothin' to do but git up
+funeral dinners."
+
+Little Buck, despairing of granny's interference, began to cry. At the
+sound Judith came suddenly out of a revery to spring up and catch him
+away from the hateful restraining hands.
+
+"I don't know what the Lord's a-thinkin' about to let sech men as you
+live, Blatch Turrentine!" she said almost mechanically. "Ef I was
+a-tendin' to matters I'd 'a' had you dead long ago. Ef you're good for
+anything on this earth I don't know what it is."
+
+"Oh, yes you do," Blatchley returned as the old man started down the
+steps. "I'd make the best husband for you of any feller in the two Turkey
+Tracks--and you'll find it out one of these days."
+
+The girl answered only with a contemptuous glance.
+
+"Come again--when you ain't got so long to stay," Nancy sped them sourly.
+"Jude, you'd better set awhile and get your skirts dry." She looked after
+Blatch as he moved up the road, then at little Buck, so ashamed of his
+trembling lip. Her face darkened angrily. She turned slowly to Judith.
+
+"What you gwine to do with that feller, Jude?" she queried
+significantly.
+
+"Do? Why, nothin'. He ain't nothin' to me," responded the girl
+indifferently.
+
+"He ain't, hey? Well, he's bound to marry ye, honey," said the older
+woman.
+
+"Huh, he ain't the first--and won't be the last, I reckon," assented
+Judith easily.
+
+"Ye'd better watch out fer that man, Jude," persisted Nancy, after a
+moment's silence. "He'll git ye, yet. I know his kind. He ain't a-keerin'
+fer yo' ruthers--whether you want him or no. He jest aims to have
+_you_."
+
+"Well, I reckon he'll about have to aim over agin," observed the unmoved
+Judith.
+
+"An' Elder Drane? Air ye gwine to take him?--I know he's done axed ye,"
+pursued Nancy hesitantly.
+
+"'Bout 'leven times," agreed Judith with perfect seriousness. "No--I
+wouldn't have the man, not ef he's made of pure gold." She added with a
+sudden little smile and a catch of the breath: "Them's awful nice chaps
+o' his; I'd most take him to git them. The baby now--hit's the sweetest
+thing!" And she tumbled Beezy tumultuously in her lap, then suddenly
+inquired, apparently without any volition of her own, "Aunt Nancy, did
+you know Creed Bonbright's folks?"
+
+"Good Lord, yes!" returned old Nancy. "But come on inside and set, Jude.
+This sun ain't a-goin' to dry yo' skirt. Come in to the fire. Don't take
+that thar cheer, the behime legs is broke, an' it's apt to lay you
+sprawling. I've knowed Creed Bonbright sence he wasn't knee-high to a
+turkey, and I knowed his daddy afore him, and his grand-daddy, for the
+matter of that."
+
+Avoiding the treacherous piece of furniture against which she had been
+warned, Judith slipped out of her wet riding-skirt and arranged it in
+front of the fire to dry, turning then and seating herself on the broad
+hearth at Nancy's knee, where she prompted feverishly,
+
+"And is all the Bonbrights moved out of the neighbourhood?"
+
+The old woman drew a few meditative whiffs on her pipe.
+
+"All gone," she nodded; "some of 'em killed up in the big feud, and some
+moved away--mostly to Texas." Presently she added:
+
+"That there Bonbright tribe is a curious nation of folks. They're always
+after great things, and barkin' their shins against rocks in the way.
+Creed's mammy--she was Judge Gillenwaters's sister, down in
+Hepzibah--died when he was no bigger'n Little Buck, and his pappy never
+wedded again. We used to name him and Creed Big 'Fraid and Little 'Fraid;
+they was always round together, like a man and his shadder. Then the
+feuds broke out mighty bad, and the Blackshearses got Esher Bonbright one
+night in a mistake for some of my kin--or so it was thort. Anyhow, the
+man was dead, and Creed lived with me fer a spell till his uncle down in
+Hepzibah wanted him to come and learn to be a lawyer."
+
+"Lived right here--in this house?" inquired Judith, looking around her,
+as she rose and turned the riding-skirt.
+
+"Lord, yes--why not? You would a-knowed all about it, only your folks
+never moved in from the Fur Cove neighbourhood till the year Creed went
+down to the settlement."
+
+The girl sank back on the hearth, but continued to gaze about her, and
+the tell-tale expression in her eyes seemed to afford Nancy Card much
+quiet amusement.
+
+"Do you reckon he'll live with you again when he comes back into the
+mountains?" she inquired finally.
+
+"I reckon he'll be weddin' one of them thar town gals and fetchin' a wife
+home to his own farm over by yo' house," suggested the inveterate tease.
+
+Judith went suddenly white, and then red. "You don't know of anybody--you
+hain't heard he was promised, have you?" she hesitated.
+
+"I ain't hearn that he was, and I ain't hearn that he wasn't," returned
+Nancy serenely. "The gal that gits Creed Bonbright'll be doin' mighty
+well; but also she may not find hit right easy for to trap him. I'll
+promise ef he does come up hyer again I'll speak a good word for you,
+Jude. The Lord knows I don't see how you make out to live with that thar
+old man. You'll deserve a crown and a harp o' gold sot with diamonds ef
+you stan' it much longer."
+
+Judith put on the now thoroughly dried riding-skirt, and the two women
+went outside together.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Aunt Nancy," she said, as she led the sorrel nag to the
+edge of the porch and made ready to mount. "I'll be over and bring the
+pieces for you to start me out on that Risin' Sun quilt a-Wednesday."
+
+It was late afternoon as she took her homeward way across the level of
+the broad mountain-top to the Turrentine place. She left the
+main-travelled road and struck directly into a forest short-cut. After
+the rain earth and sky were newly washed; the clear, sweetened air was
+full of the scent of damp loam and new-ploughed fields; the colours about
+her were freshened and glad, and each distant bird-note rang clear and
+vivid. To Mrs. Rhody Staggart and her likes at Hepzibah she might be a
+crude, awkward country girl; here she was a princess in her own domain;
+and it was a noble realm through which she moved as she went forward
+under the great trees that rose straight and tall from a black soil,
+making pillared aisles away from her on every side. The fern was thick
+under foot--it would brush her saddle-girth, come midsummer. Down the
+long vistas under the greening trees, where the moist air hung thick, her
+bemused eyes caught the occasional roseflash of azalea through the pearly
+mist, her nostril was greeted by their wandering, intensely sweet
+perfume, with its curious undernote of earth smell.
+
+She smiled vaguely at the first butterfly she had seen, and again as she
+noted the earliest lizard basking in the sun-warmed hollow of a big rock.
+Absently her gaze sought for cinnamon fern in low woods, sweet fern in
+the thickets, and exquisite maidenhair just beginning to uncurl from the
+black leaf mould of dripping brakes.
+
+Like a woman in a dream she made her progress, riding through the
+wonderful stillness of the vast wild land, an ocean on which each
+littlest sound was afloat, so that each was given its true value almost
+like a musical tone. An awful, beautiful silence this, brooding back of
+every sound; nothing in such a place gives forth mere senseless noise;
+the ripple of frogs in marsh and spring branch fall upon the sense as
+sweet as bird-songs. The clamour of little falls, the solemn suggestion
+of wind in the pines, the sweet broken jangle of cow-bells, a catbird in
+a tree--a continuous yet zigzag sort of warble, silver and sibilant notes
+alternating,--the rare wild turkey's call along a deeply embowered
+creek--one by one all these came to Judith's dreaming ears, clear,
+perfect, individual, on the majestic sea of silence about her.
+
+She turned Selim's head at a little intersecting trail, and rode
+considerably out of her way to pass the old Bonbright place and brood
+upon its darkened windows and grass-besieged doorstone. Some day all that
+would be changed. Still in her waking dream she unsaddled Selim at the
+log barn, and turned him loose in his open pasture. She laid off her town
+attire, put on her cotton working-dress, kindled afresh the fire on the
+broad hearthstone and got supper. Her Uncle Jephthah and Blatch
+Turrentine came in late, weary from their work of hauling corn to that
+destination which old Nancy had announced as disreputably indefinite. The
+second son of the family, Wade, a man of perhaps twenty-four, was with
+them, and had already been told of the mishap to Andy and Jeff.
+
+Old Jephthah sat at the head of the board, his black beard falling to his
+lap, his finely domed brow relieved against a background of shadows.
+Judith needed the small brass lamp at the hearthstone, and a tallow
+candle rather inadequately lit the supper-table. The corners of the room
+were in darkness; only the cloth and dishes, the faces and hands of those
+about the table showed forth in sudden light or motion.
+
+Hung on the rough walls, and glimpsed in occasional flickers only, were
+Judith's big maple bread-bowl, the churn-dash, spurtle, sedge-broom, and
+a round glass bottle for rolling piecrust; cheek by jowl with old
+Jephthah's bullet moulds and the pot-hooks he had forged for Judith.
+There were strings of dried pumpkin, too, and of shining red peppers. On
+a low shelf, scarce visible at all in the dense shadow, stood a keg of
+sorghum, and one beside it of vinegar, flanked by the butter-keeler and
+the salt piggin with its cedar staves and hickory hoops. And there, too,
+was the broken coffee-pot in which garden seeds were hoarded.
+
+"What's all this I hear about Andy and Jeff bein' took?" inquired a
+plaintive voice from the darkened doorway whose door, with its heavy,
+home-made latch, swung back against the wall on its great, rude, wooden
+hinges, as abruptly out of the shadow appeared a man who set a plump hand
+on either jamb and stared into the room with a round, white, anxiously
+inquiring face. It was Jim Cal, eldest of the sons of Jephthah
+Turrentine, married, and living in a cabin a short distance up the slope.
+"Who give the information?" he asked as soon as he had peered all about
+the room and found no outsider present.
+
+"Well, we hearn that _you_ did, podner," jeered Blatch.
+
+"Come in and set," invited the head of the household, with the
+mountaineer's unforgetting hospitality. "Draw up--draw up. Reach and take
+off."
+
+"Well--I--I might," faltered the fleshy one, sidling toward the table and
+getting himself into a seat. Without further word his father passed the
+great dish of fried potatoes, then the platter of bacon. Judith brought
+hot coffee and corn pone for him. She did not sit down with the men,
+having quite enough to do to get the meal served.
+
+Unheedingly she heard the matter discussed at the table; only when Creed
+Bonbright's name came up was she moved to listen and put in her word.
+Something in her manner of describing the assistance Bonbright offered
+seemed to go against Blatch's grain.
+
+"Got to look out for these here folks that's so free with their offers o'
+he'p," he grunted. "Man'll slap ye on the back and tell ye what a fine
+feller ye air whilst he's feelin' for your pocket-book--that's town
+ways."
+
+The girl was like one hearkening for a finer voice amid all this
+distracting noise; she could hear neither. She made feverish haste to
+clear away and wash her dishes, that she might creep to her own room
+under the eaves. Through her open casement came up to her the sounds of
+the April night: a heightened chorus of little frogs in a rain-fed
+branch; nearer in the dooryard a half-dozen tree-toads trilling
+plaintively as many different minors; with these, scents of growing,
+sharpened and sweetened by the dark. And all night the cedar tree which
+stood close to the porch edge below moved in the wind of spring, and,
+chafing against the shingles, spoke through the miniature music in its
+deep, muffled legato, a soft baritone note like a man's voice--a lover's
+voice--calling to her beneath her window.
+
+It roused her from fitful slumbers to happy waking, when she lay and
+stared into the dark, and painted for herself on its sombre background
+Creed Bonbright's figure, the yellow uncovered head close to her knee as
+he stood and talked at the foot of the mountain trail. And the voice of
+the tree in the eager spring airs said to her waiting heart--whispered it
+softly, shouted and tossed it abroad so that all might have heard it had
+they been awake and known the shibboleth, murmured it in tones of
+tenderness that penetrated her with bliss--that Creed was
+coming--coming--coming to her, through the April woods.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+Suitors
+
+
+April was in the mountains. All the vast timbered slopes and tablelands
+of the Cumberlands were one golden dapple, as yet differentiated by
+darker greens and heavier shadows only where some group of pine or cedar
+stood. April in the Cumberlands is the May or early June of New England.
+Here March has the days of shine and shower; while to February belongs
+the gusty turbulence usually attributed to March. Now sounded the calls
+of the first whippoorwills in the dusk of evening; now the first
+mocking-bird sang long before day, very sweetly and softly, and again
+before moonrise; hours of sun he filled with bolder rejoicings,
+condescending in his more antic humour to mimic the hens that began to
+cackle around the barn. Every thicket by the water-courses blushed with
+azaleas; all the banks were gay with wild violets.
+
+Throughout March's changeful emotional season, night after night in those
+restless vehement impassioned airs, the cedar tree talked ardently to
+Judith. Through April's softer nights she wakened often to listen to it.
+It went fondly over its first assurances. And the time of Creed
+Bonbright's advent was near at hand now. Thought of it made light her
+step as she went about her work.
+
+"Don't you never marry a lazy man, Jude."
+
+The wife of Jim Cal Turrentine halted on the doorstep, a coarse white cup
+containing the coffee she had come to borrow poised in her hand as she
+turned to harangue the girl in the kitchen.
+
+"I ain't aimin' to wed no man. Huh, I say marry! I'm not studyin' about
+marryin'," promptly responded Judith in the mountain girl's unfailing
+formula; but she coloured high, and bent, pot-hooks in hand, to the great
+hearth to shift the clumsy Dutch oven that contained her bread.
+
+"That's what gals allers says," commented Iley Turrentine discontentedly.
+"Huldy's forever singin' that tune. But let a good-lookin' feller come in
+reach and I 'low any of you will change the note. Huldy's took her foot
+in her hand and put out--left me with the whole wash to do, and Jim Cal
+in the bed declarin' he's got a misery in his back. Don't you never wed a
+lazy man."
+
+"Whar's Huldy gone?" inquired Judith, sauntering to the door and looking
+out on the glad beauty of the April morning with fond brooding eyes. The
+grotesque bow-legged pot-hooks dangled idly in her fingers.
+
+"Over to Nancy Cyard's to git her littlest spinnin' wheel--so she _said_.
+I took notice that she had a need for that wheel as soon as ever she
+hearn tell that Creed Bonbright was up from Hepzibah stayin' at the
+Cyards's."
+
+Had not Iley been so engrossed with her own grievances, the sudden heat
+of the look Judith turned upon her must have enlightened her.
+
+"Huldy knowed him right well when she was waitin' on table at Miz.
+Huffaker's boarding-house down at Hepzibah," the woman went on. "I ain't
+got no use for these here fellers that's around tendin' to the whole
+world's business--they' own chil'en is mighty apt to go hongry. But thar,
+what does a gal think of that by the side o' curly hair and soft-spoken
+ways?"
+
+For Judith Barrier at once all the light was gone out of the spring
+morning. The bird in the Rose of Sharon bush that she had taken for a
+thrush--why, the thing cawed like a crow. She could have struck her
+visitor. And then, with an uncertain impulse of gratitude, she was glad
+to be told anything about Creed, to be informed that others knew his hair
+was yellow and curly.
+
+"Gone?" sounded old Jephthah's deep tones from within, as Mrs. Jim Cal
+made her reluctant way back to a sick husband and a house full of work
+and babies. "Lord, to think of a woman havin' the keen tongue that Iley's
+got, and her husband keepin' fat on it!"
+
+"Uncle Jep," inquired Judith abruptly, "did you know Creed Bonbright was
+at Nancy Card's--stayin' there, I mean?"
+
+"No," returned the old man, seeing in this a chance to call at the cabin,
+where, beneath the reception that might have been offered an interloper,
+even a duller wit than his might have divined a secret cordial welcome.
+"I reckon I better find time to step over that way an' ax is there
+anything I can do to he'p 'em out."
+
+"I wish 't you would," assented Judith so heartily that he turned and
+regarded her with surprise. "An' ef you see Huldy over yon tell her she's
+needed at home. Jim Cal's sick, and Iley can't no-way git along without
+her."
+
+"I reckon James Calhoun Turrentine ain't got nothin' worse 'n the old
+complaint that sends a feller fishin' when the days gits warm," opined
+Jim Cal's father. "I named that boy after the finest man that ever walked
+God's green earth--an' then the fool had to go and git fat on me! To
+think of me with a _fat_ son! I allers did hold that a fat woman was bad
+enough, but a fat man ort p'intedly to be led out an' killed."
+
+"Jude, whar's my knife," came the call from the window in a masculine
+voice. "Pitch it out here, can't you?"
+
+Judith took the pocket-knife from the mantel, and going to the window
+tossed it to her cousin Wade Turrentine, who was shaping an axe helve at
+the chip pile.
+
+"Do you know whar Huldy's gone?" she inquired, setting her elbows on the
+sill and staring down at the young fellow accusingly.
+
+"Nope--an' don't care neither," said Wade, contentedly returning to his
+whittling. He was expecting to marry Huldah Spiller, Iley's younger
+sister, within a few months, and the reply was thus conventional.
+
+"Well, you'd better care," urged Judith. "You better make her stay home
+and behave herself. She's gone over to Nancy Card's taggin' after Creed
+Bonbright. I wouldn't stand it ef I was you."
+
+"I ain't standin'--I'm settin'," retorted Wade with rather feeble wit;
+but the girl noted with satisfaction the quick, fierce spark of anger
+that leaped to life in his clear hazel eyes, the instant stiffening of
+his relaxed figure. Like a child playing with fire, she was ready to set
+alight any materials that came within reach of her reckless fingers, so
+only that she fancied her own ends might be served. Now she went uneasily
+back to the hearthstone. Her uncle, noting that she appeared engrossed in
+her baking, gave a surreptitious glance into the small ancient mirror
+standing on the high mantel, made a half-furtive exchange of coats, and
+prepared to depart.
+
+Up at the crib Blatch Turrentine was loading corn, and Jim Cal came
+creeping across from his own cabin whence Iley had ejected him. He stood
+for a while, humped, hands in pockets, watching the other's strong body
+spring lithely to its task. Finally he began in his plaintive,
+ineffectual voice.
+
+"Blatch, I take notice that you seem to be settin' up to Jude. Do ye
+think hit's wise?"
+
+The other grunted over a particularly heavy sack, swung it to the waggon
+bed, straightened himself suddenly, and faced his questioner with a look
+of dark anger.
+
+"I'd like to see the feller that can git her away from me!" he growled.
+
+"I wasn't a-meanin' that," said Jim Cal, patiently but uneasily shifting
+from the right foot to the left. "I'll admit--an' I reckon everybody on
+the place will say the same--that she's always give you mo' reason than
+another to believe she'd have ye. Not but what that's Jude's way, an'
+she's hilt out sech hopes to a-many. What pesters me is how you two would
+make out, once you was wed. Jude's mighty pretty, but then again she's
+got a tongue."
+
+"Her farm hain't," chuckled Blatch, pulling a sack into place; "and I
+'low Jude wouldn't have after her and me had been wed a short while."
+
+"I don't know, Blatch," maintained the fleshy one, timid yet persisting.
+"You're a great somebody for havin' yo' own way, an' Jude's mighty high
+sperrity--why, you two would shorely fuss."
+
+"Not more than once, we wouldn't," returned Blatch with a meaning laugh.
+"The way to do with a woman like Jude is to give her a civil beatin' to
+start out with and show her who's boss--wouldn't be no trouble after
+that. Jude Barrier has got a good farm. She's the best worker of any gal
+that I know, and I aim for to have her--an' this farm."
+
+Within the house now Judith, her cheeks glowing crimson as she bent above
+the heaped coals, was going with waxing resentment over the catalogue of
+Huldah Spiller's personal characteristics. Her hair, huh! she was mighty
+particular to call it "aurbu'n," but a body might as well say red when
+they were namin' it, because red was what it was. If a man admired a
+turkey egg he would be likely to see beauty in Huldah's complexion--some
+folks might wear a sunbonnet to bed, and freckle they would! A vision of
+the laughing black eyes and white flashing teeth that went with Huldah
+Spiller's red ringlets and freckles, and made her little hatchet face
+brilliant when she smiled or laughed, suddenly put Judith on foot and
+running to the door.
+
+"Uncle Jep," she called after the tall receding form, "_Oh_, Uncle Jep!"
+
+He turned muttering, "I hope to goodness Jude ain't goin' to git the
+hollerin' habit. There's Iley never lets Jim Cal git away from the house
+without hollerin' after him as much as three times, and the thing he'd
+like least to have knowed abroad is the thing she takes up with for the
+last holler."
+
+"Uncle Jep," came the clear hail from the doorway, "don't you fail to
+find Huldy and send her straight home. Tell her Iley's nigh about give
+out, and Jim Cal's down sick in the bed--hear me?"
+
+He nodded and turned disgustedly. What earthly difference did it make
+about Jim Cal and Huldah and Iley? Why should Judith suddenly care? And
+then, being a philosopher and in his own manner an amateur of life, he
+set to work to analyze her motives, and guessed obliquely at them.
+
+The sight of his broad, retreating back evidently spurred Judith to fresh
+effort. "Uncle Jep!" she screamed, cupping her hands about her red lips
+to make the sound carry. "Ef you see Creed Bonbright tell him--howdy--for
+me!"
+
+The sound may not have carried to the old man's ears, but it reached a
+younger pair. Blatch Turrentine was just crossing through the grassy yard
+toward the "big road," and Broyles's mill over on Clear Fork, where his
+load of corn would be ground to meal with which to feed that blockaded
+still on the old Turrentine place which sometimes flung a delicate trail
+of smoke out over the flank of the slope across the gulch. As he heard
+Judith's bantering cry, Blatch pulled up his team with a muttered curse.
+He looked down at her through narrowed eyes, jerking his mules savagely
+and swearing at them in an undertone. He was a well-made fellow with a
+certain slouching grace about him as he sat on his load of corn; but
+there were evil promising bumps on either side of his jaws that spoke of
+obstinacy, even of ferocity; and there was something menacing in his
+surly passivity of attitude. He looked at the girl and his lip lifted
+with a peculiar sidelong sneer.
+
+"Holler a little louder an' Bonbright hisself'll hear ye," he commented
+as he started up his team and rattled away down the steep, stony road.
+
+Sunday brought its usual train of visitors. The Turrentine place was
+within long walking distance of Brush Arbor church, and whenever there
+was preaching they could count on a considerable overflow from that
+direction. The Sunday after Creed Bonbright put in an appearance at Nancy
+Card's, there was preaching at Brush Arbor, but Judith, nourishing what
+secret hopes may be conjectured, refused to make any preparation for
+attending service.
+
+"An' ye think ye won't go to meeting this fine sunshiny Sabbath mornin',
+Sister Barrier?" Elder Drane put the query, standing anxious and
+carefully attired in his best before Judith on the doorstep of her home.
+
+She shook her dark head, and looked past the Elder toward the distant
+ranges.
+
+"I jest p'intedly cain't git away this morning," she said carelessly.
+
+The Elder combed his sandy whiskers with a thoughtful forefinger. Not
+thus had Judith been wont to reply to him. Always before, if there had
+been denial, there were too, reasons adduced, shy looks from the corners
+of those dark eyes and tender inquiries as to the health of his
+children.
+
+"Is they--is they some particular reason that you cain't go this
+morning?" the widower inquired cautiously.
+
+There was, and that particular reason lay as far afield as the Edge and
+Nancy Card's place, but Judith Barrier did not see fit to name it to this
+one of her suitors, who had brought her perhaps more glory than any
+other. She was impatient to be rid of him. Like her mother Earth, having
+occupied her time for lo! these several years in the building of an ideal
+from such unpromising materials as were then at hand, she was ready to
+sweep those tentative makings--confessed failures now that she found the
+type she really wanted--swiftly, ruthlessly to the limbo of oblivion.
+
+Elihu Drane stood high among his neighbours; he was a man of some
+education as well as comfortable means. His attention had been worth
+retaining once; now she smiled at him with a vague, impersonal sweetness,
+and repeated her statement that she couldn't go to church.
+
+"I've got too much to do," she qualified finally. "Looks like the work in
+this house never is finished. And there's chicken and dumplin's to cook
+for dinner."
+
+The Elder's pale blue eyes brightened. "Walk down to the gate with me,
+won't you?" he said hopefully, "I've got somethin' to talk to you
+about."
+
+When they were out of earshot of the house, he began eagerly, "Sister
+Barrier you're workin' yourse'f to death here, in the sweet days of your
+youth. I did promise the last time that I never would beg you again to
+wed me, but looks like I can't stand by and hold my peace. If you was to
+trust yourse'f to me things would be different. I never did hold with a
+woman killin' herse'f with hard work. My first and second had everything
+that they could wish for, and I was good and ready to do more any time
+they named what it was. I've got a crank churn. None of these old
+back-breaking, up-and-down dashers for me. I hired a woman whenever my
+wife said the word. I don't think either of mine ever killed a chicken or
+cut a stick of firewood from the time they walked in the front door as a
+bride till they was carried out of it in their coffins."
+
+He stared eagerly into the downcast face beside him, but somewhere Judith
+found strength to resist even these dazzling propositions.
+
+"I ain't studyin' about gittin' wedded," she told him most untruthfully.
+"Looks like I'm a mighty cold-hearted somebody, Elder Drane. I jest can't
+fix it no way but to live here with my Uncle Jep and take care of him in
+his old days. Oh, would you wait a minute?" as they reached the
+horse-block and the Elder began to untie his mount with a discouraged
+countenance. "Jest let me run back to the house--I won't keep you a
+second. I got some little sugar cookies for Mart and Lucy."
+
+Mart and Lucy were the Elder's children. He stood looking after her as
+she ran lithely up the path, and wondered why she could love them so much
+and him so little. She came back laughing and a bit out of breath.
+
+"I expect we'll have company to-day," she told him comfortably. "We
+always do when there's preaching at the church, and I 'low I'd better
+stay home and see to the dinner."
+
+The Elder had scarcely made his chastened adieux when the Lusk girls came
+through the grove walking on either side of a young man.
+
+The Lusk girls were Judith's nearest neighbours--if you excepted Huldah
+Spiller at Jim Cal's cabin, and at the present Judith certainly was in
+the mind to make an exception of her. The sisters were seldom seen apart;
+narrow shouldered, short waisted, thin limbed young creatures, they were
+even at seventeen bowing to a deprecating stoop. Their little faces were
+alike, short-chinned with pink mouths inclined to be tremulous, the eyes
+big, blue, and half-frightened in expression, and the drab hair drawn
+away from the small foreheads so tightly that it looked almost grey. They
+inevitably reminded one of a pair of blue and white night-moths, scarcely
+fitted for a daylight world, and continually afraid of it.
+
+"Cousin Lacey's over from the Far Cove," called Pendrilla before they
+reached Judith. "Ain't it fine? Ef we-all can git up a play-party he says
+he'll shore come ef we let him know in time."
+
+The young fellow with them, their cousin Lacey Rountree, showed
+sufficient resemblance to mark the family type, but his light eyes were
+lit with reckless fires, and his short chin was carried with a defiant
+tilt.
+
+"What you foolin' along o' that old feller for, Judith?" he asked jerking
+an irreverent thumb after the departing Elder.
+
+"I wasn't fooling with him," returned Judith, her red lips demure, her
+brown eyes laughing above them through their thick fringe of lashes.
+"Elder Drane was consulting me about church matters--sech as children
+like you have no call to meddle with."
+
+Young Rountree smiled, "I'll bet he was!" picking up a stone and firing
+it far into the blue in sheer exuberance of youthful joy. "Did he name
+anything about a weddin' in church?"
+
+"Elder Drane is a mighty fine man," asserted Judith, suddenly sober. "Any
+gal might be glad to git him. But its my belief and opinion that his
+heart is buried with his first--or his second," and she laughed out
+suddenly at the unintentional humorous conclusion she had made.
+
+"See here, Jude," the boy put it boldly as the four young people strolled
+toward the house, "you're too pretty and sweet to be anybody's thirdly.
+Next time old man Drane comes pesterin' round you, you tell him that
+you're promised to me--hear?"
+
+Again Judith laughed. It is impossible to talk seriously to a boy with
+whom one has played hat-ball and prisoner's base, whose hair one has
+pulled, and who has, in retort courteous, rolled one in the dust.
+
+"I'm in earnest if I ever was in my life," asserted Lacey, taking it
+quite as a matter of course that Cliantha and Pendrilla should be made
+party to his courting.
+
+And the two little old maids of seventeen looked with wondering
+admiration at Judith's management of all this masculine attention--her
+careless, discounting smile for their swaggering young cousin, her calm
+acceptance of imposing Elder Drane's humble and persistent wooing.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+Building
+
+
+Judith awakened that morning with the song of the first thrush sounding
+in her ears. Day was not yet come, but she knew instantly it was near
+dawn, so soon as she heard the keen, cool, unmatched thrush voice. Not
+elaborate the song like the bobolink, nor passionate like the
+nightingale, nor with the bravura of the oriole; but low or loud, its
+pure tones are always penetrating, piercing the heart of their hearer
+with exquisite sweetness.
+
+The girl lay long in the dark listening, and it seemed to her half
+awakened consciousness that this voice in the April dawn was like Creed
+Bonbright. These notes, lucid, passionless, that yet always stirred her
+heart strangely, and the selfless personality, the high-purposed soul
+that spoke in him, they were akin. The crystal tones flowed on; Judith
+harkened, the ear of her spirit alert for a message. Yes, Creed was like
+that. And her feeling for him too, it partook of the same quality, a
+thing to climb toward rather than concede.
+
+And then after all her tremulous hopes, her plannings, the dozen times
+she had taken a certain frock from its peg minutely inspecting and
+repairing it, that it might be ready for wear on the great occasion, the
+first meeting with Creed found Judith unprepared, happening in no wise as
+she would have chosen. She was at the milking lot, clad in the usual dull
+blue cotton gown in which the mountain woman works. She had filled her
+two pails and set them on the high bench by the fence while she turned
+the calves into the small pasture reserved for them and let old Red and
+Piedy out.
+
+He approached across the fields from the direction of his own house, and
+naturally saw her before she observed him. It was early morning. The sky
+was blue and wide and high, with great shining piles of white cloud
+swimming lazily at the horizon, cutting sharply against its colour.
+Around the edges of the cow-lot peach trees were all in blossom and
+humming with bees, their rich, amethystine rose flung up against the gay
+April sky in a challenge of beauty and joy. The air was full of the
+promises of spring, keen, bracing, yet with an undercurrent of languorous
+warmth. There was a ragged fleece of bloom, sweet and alive with droning
+insects, over a plum thicket near the woods,--half-wild, brambly things,
+cousin on the one hand to the cultivated farm, and on the other to the
+free forest,--while beyond, through the openings of the timber, dogwood
+flamed white in the sun.
+
+Judith came forward and greeted the newcomer, all unaware of the picture
+she made, tall and straight and pliant in her simple blue cotton, under
+the wonderful blue-and-white sky and the passionate purple pink of the
+blossoms, with the scant folds of her frock outlining the rounded young
+body, its sleeves rolled up on her fine arms, its neck folded away from
+the firm column of her throat, the frolic wind ruffling the dark locks
+above her shadowy eyes. There were strange gleams in those dark eyes; her
+red lips were tremulous whether she spoke or not. It was as though she
+had some urgent message for him which waited always behind her silence or
+her speech.
+
+"I thought I'd come over and get acquainted with my neighbours,"
+Bonbright began in his impersonal fashion.
+
+"Uncle Jep and the boys has gone across to the far place ploughing
+to-day," said Judith. "They's nobody at home but Jim Cal and his
+wife--and me." She forebore to add the name of Huldah Spiller, though her
+angry eye descried that young woman ostentatiously hanging wash on a line
+back of the Jim Cal cabin.
+
+"I won't stop then this morning," said Bonbright. "I'll get along over to
+the far place. I wanted to have speech with your uncle. He was at Aunt
+Nancy's the other day and we had some talk; he knows more about what I'm
+aiming at up here then I do. A man of his age and good sense can be a
+sight of help to me."
+
+"Uncle Jep will be proud to do anything he can," said Judith softly.
+"Won't you come in and set awhile?"
+
+She dreaded that the invitation might hurry him away, and now made hasty
+use of the first diversion that offered. He had broken a blooming switch
+from the peach-tree beneath which he stood, and she reproached him
+fondly.
+
+"Look at you. Now there won't never be no peaches where them blossoms
+was."
+
+He twisted the twig in his fingers and smiled down at her, conscious of a
+singular and personal kindness between them, aware too, for the first
+time, that she was young, beautiful, and a woman; before, she had been
+merely an individual to him.
+
+"My mother used to say that to me when I would break fruit blows," he
+said meditatively. "But father always pruned his trees when they were in
+blossom--they can't any of them bear a peach for every bloom."
+
+She shook her head as though giving up the argument, since it was after
+all a matter of sentiment. Her dark, rich-coloured beauty glowed its
+contrast to his cool, northern type.
+
+At present neither spoke more than a few syllables of the spiritual
+language of the other, yet so powerful was the attraction between them
+that even Creed began to feel it, while Judith, the primitive woman, all
+given over to instinct, promptly laid about her for something to hold and
+interest him.
+
+"The young folks is a-goin' to get up a play-party at our house sometime
+soon," she hazarded. "I reckon you wouldn't come to any such as that,
+would you?"
+
+"I'd be proud to come," returned Creed at once. But he spoiled it by
+adding, "I've got to get acquainted with people all over again, it's so
+long since I lived here; and looks like I'm not a very good mixer."
+
+"Will you sure come?" inquired Judith insistently, as she saw him
+preparing to depart.
+
+"I sure will."
+
+"You could stay over night in your own house then--ain't you comin' back,
+ever, to live there?"
+
+"Why, yes, I reckon I might stay there over night, but it's too far from
+the main road for a justice's office."
+
+"Well, if you're going to try to sleep in the house, it ort to be opened
+up and sunned a little; you better let me have the key now," observed
+Judith, assuming airs of proprietorship over his inept masculinity.
+
+Smiling, he got the key from his pocket and handed it to her. "Help
+yourself to anything you want for the party, or any other time," he said
+in mountain fashion.
+
+She looked down at that key with the pride of one to whom had been given
+the freedom of a city. Its possession enabled her to bear it with a fair
+degree of equanimity when Huldah Spiller, having "jest slung her clothes
+anyway onto that line," as Judith phrased it to herself, came panting and
+laughing across the slope between the two houses and called a gay
+"Howdy!" to the visitor. The lively little red haired flirt professed
+greatly to desire news of certain persons in Hepzibah, and as Creed was
+departing sauntered unconcernedly beside him as far as the draw-bars,
+detaining him in conversation there as long as possible. She had an
+instinctive knowledge that Judith, looking on, was deeply disturbed.
+
+Creed set his justice's office about a hundred yards from Nancy Card's
+cabin, on the main road that led through the two Turkey Track
+neighbourhoods out to Rainy Gap and the Far Cove settlement. The little
+shack was built of the raw yellow boards which the new saw-mill was
+ripping out of pine trees over on the shoulder of Big Turkey Track above
+Garyville. Most of the mountain dwellers still preferred log houses, and
+the lumber was sent down the mountain by means of a little gravity
+railway, whose car was warped up after each trip by a patient old mule
+working in a circular treadmill.
+
+God knows with what high hopes the planks of that humble shanty were put
+in place, with what visions sill and window-frame were shaped and joined,
+Aunt Nancy going out and in at her household tasks calling good counsel
+over to him; Beezy, the irrepressible, adding shaving curls to her red
+frazzle; Little Buck, furnished with hammer and tacks, gravely assisting,
+pounding his fingers only part of the time. Hens were coming off. Old
+Nancy had a great time with notionate mothers hatching out broods under
+the floor or in the stable loft, and the plaintive cheep-cheep! of the
+"weedies" added its note to the chorus of sounds as the children followed
+them about, now and then catching up a ball of fluff to pet it,
+undeterred by indignant clucks from the parent.
+
+As Creed whistled over his work, he saw a shadowy train coming down the
+road, the people whom he should help, his people, to whose darkness he
+should bring light and counsel. They knew so little, and needed so much.
+True, his own knowledge was not great; but it was all freely at their
+service. His heart swelled with good-will as he prepared to open his
+modest campaign of usefulness.
+
+To come into leadership naturally a man should be the logical outgrowth
+of his class and time, and this Creed knew he was not. Yet he had
+pondered the matter deeply, and put it thus to himself: The peasant of
+Europe can only rise through stages of material prosperity to a point of
+development at which he craves intellectual attainment, or spiritual
+growth. But the mountaineer is always a thinker; he has even in his
+poverty a hearty contempt for luxury, for material gain at the expense of
+personality. With his disposition to philosophy, fostered by solitude and
+isolation, he readily overleaps those gradations, and would step at once
+from obscurity to the position of a man of culture were the means at
+hand.
+
+"Bonbright," remonstrated Jephthah Turrentine, in the first conversation
+the two held upon the subject, "Ye cain't give people what they ain't
+ready to take. Ef our folks wanted law and order, don't you reckon they'd
+make the move to get it?"
+
+"That's it exactly, Mr. Turrentine," responded Creed quickly. "They need
+to be taught what to want."
+
+"Oh, they do, do they?" inquired Jephthah with a humorous twitch of the
+lips. "Well, ef you're a-goin' to set up to teach, hadn't you better have
+a school-house, place of a jestice's office?"
+
+"Maybe you're right. I reckon you are--exactly right," Creed assented
+thoughtfully. "I'd studied about that considerable. I reckon I'm a more
+suitable age for a schoolmaster than for a justice; and the children--but
+that would take a long time; and I wanted to give the help where it was
+worst needed."
+
+"Oh, well, 'tain't a hangin' matter," old Jephthah smiled at the younger
+man's solemn earnestness. "Ef this new fangled buildin' o' yours don't
+get used for a jestice's office we can turn it into a school-house; we
+need one powerful bad."
+
+The desultory, sardonic, deep-voiced, soft-footed, mountain carpenters
+who worked leisurely and fitfully with Creed were always mightily amused
+by the exactness of the "town feller's" ideas.
+
+"Why lordy! Lookee hyer Creed," remonstrated Doss Provine, over a
+question of matching boards and battening joints, "ef you git yo' pen so
+almighty tight as that you won't git no fresh air. Man's bound to have
+ventilation. Course you can leave the do' open all the time like we-all
+do; but when yo're a-holdin' co't and sech-like maybe you'll want to shet
+the do' sometimes--and then whar'll ye git breath to breathe?"
+
+"I reckon Creed knows his business," put in the old man who was helping
+Doss, "but all these here glass winders is blame foolishness to _me_. Ef
+ye need light, open the do'. Ef somebody comes that you don't want in,
+you can shet it and put up a bar. But saw the walls full o' holes an' set
+in glass winders, an' any feller that's got a mind to can pick ye off
+with a rifle ball as easy as not whilst ye set by the fire of a
+evenin'."
+
+He shook a reprehending head, hoary with the snows of years, and
+containing therefore, presumably, wisdom. He had learned the necessary
+points of life in his environment, and as always occurs, the younger
+generation seemed to him lavishly reckless.
+
+It was only old Jephthah's criticisms that Creed really minded.
+
+"Uh-huh," allowed Jephthah, settling his hands on his hips and surveying
+the yellow pine structure tolerantly; "mighty sightly for them that likes
+that kind o' thing. But I hold with a good log house, becaze it's apt to
+be square. These here town doin's that looks like a man with a bile on
+his ear never did ketch me. Ef ye hew out good oak or pine timber ye
+won't be willin' to cut short lengths for to make such foolishness."
+
+Creed would often have explained to his critics that he did not expect to
+get into feuds and have neighbours pot-hunting him through his glass
+windows, that he needed the light from them to study or read, and that
+his little house was as square as any log hut ever constructed; but they
+lumped it all together and made an outsider of him--which hurt.
+
+Word went abroad to the farthest confines of the Turkey Track
+neighbourhoods, carried by herders who took sheep, hogs, or cows up into
+the high-hung inner valleys of Yellow Old Bald, or the natural meadows of
+Big Turkey Track to turn them loose for the season, recited where one or
+two met out salting cattle, discussed by many a chip pile, where the
+willing axe rested on the unsplit block while the wielder heard how Creed
+Bonbright had done sot up a jestice's office and made peace between the
+Shallidays and the Bushareses.
+
+"But you know in reason hit ain't a-goin' to hold," the old women at the
+hearthside would say, withdrawing their cob pipes to shake deprecating
+heads. "The Bushareses and Shallidays has been killin' each other up
+sence my gran'pap was a little boy. They tell me the Injuns mixed into
+that there feud. I say Creed Bonbright! Nothin' but a fool boy. He better
+l'arn something before he sets up to teach. He don't know what he's
+meddlin' with." All this with a pride in the vendetta as an ancient
+neighbourhood institution and monument.
+
+The office of the new justice never became, as he had hoped it would, a
+lounging place for his passing neighbours. He had expected them to drop
+in to visit with him, when he might sow the good seed in season without
+appearing to seek an occasion for so doing. But they were shy of him--he
+saw that. They went on past the little yellow pine office, on their
+mules, or their sorry nags, or in shackling waggons behind oxen, to
+lounge at Nancy Card's gate as of old, or sit upon her porch to swap news
+and listen to her caustic comments on neighbourhood happenings. And only
+an occasional glance over the shoulder, a backward nod of the head, or
+jerk of the thumb, told the young justice that he was present in their
+recollection.
+
+But there was one element of the community which showed no disposition to
+hold aloof from the newcomer. About this time, by twos and threes--never
+one alone--the virgins of the mountain-top sought Nancy Card for flower
+seed, soft soap recipes, a charm to take off warts, or to learn exactly
+from her at what season a body had better divide the roots of day
+lilies.
+
+Old-fashioned roses begin blooming in the Cumberlands about the first of
+May, and when this time came round Nancy's garden was a thing to marvel
+at. The spring flowers were past or nearly so, and the advent of the
+roses marked the floral beginning of summer. In the forest the dogwood
+petals now let go and fell silently one by one through the shadowed
+green. But over Nancy's fence of weather-beaten, hand-rived palings
+tossed a snow of bloom so like that here they were not missed at all; and
+the mock orange adds to the dogwood's simple beauty the soul of an
+exquisite odour. Small, heavily thorned roses, yellow as the daffodils
+they had succeeded, blushing Baltimore Belles, Seven Sisters all over the
+ricketty porch--one who loved such things might well have taken a day's
+journey for sight of that dooryard in May.
+
+"Well, I vow!" said the old woman one day peering through her window that
+gave on the road, "ef here don't come Huldy Spiller and the two Lusks.
+Look like to me I have a heap of gal company of late. Creed, you're a
+mighty learned somebody, cain't you tell me the whys of it?"
+
+Creed, sitting at a little table deep in some books and papers before
+him, heard no word of his friend's teasing speech. It was Doss Provine,
+at the big fireplace heating a poker to burn a hole through his
+pulley-wheel, who turned toward his mother-in-law and grinned foolishly.
+
+"I reckon I know the answer to that," he observed. "The boys is all a
+warnin' me that a widower is mo' run after than a young feller. They tell
+me I'll have to watch out."
+
+"I say watch out--_you_!" cried Nancy, wheeling upon him with a comically
+disproportionate fury. "Jest you let me ketch you settin' up to any of
+the gals--you, a father with two he'pless chaps to look after, and nobody
+but an old woman like me, with one foot in the grave, to depend on!"
+
+There was one girl however who, instead of multiplying her visits to the
+Card cabin with Creed's advent, abruptly ceased them. Judith Barrier was
+an uncertain quantity to her masculine household; unreasonably elated or
+depressed, she led them the round of her moods, and they paid for the
+fact that Creed Bonbright did not come across the mountain top visiting,
+without being at all aware of where their guilt lay. After that interview
+at the milking lot one thought, one emotion was with her always. Always
+she was waiting for the next meeting with Creed. Through the day she
+heard his voice or his footstep in all the little sounds of the woods,
+the humble noises of the farm life; and at night there was the cedar
+tree.
+
+Now the cedar tree had affairs of its own. When, with the egotism of her
+keen, passionate, desirous youth, the girl in the little chamber under
+the eves listened to its voice in April, it was talking in the soft air
+of the vernal night about the sap which rose in its veins, spicy,
+resinous, odoured with spring, carrying its wine of life into the
+farthest green tips, till all the little twigs were intoxicated with it,
+and beat and flung themselves in joy. And the tree's deep note was a song
+of abiding trust. There was a nest building within its heart--so well
+hidden in that dense thicket that it was safe from the eye of any
+prowler. Hope and faith and a great devotion went to the building. And
+the tree, rich and happy in its own life, cherished generously that other
+life within its protecting arms. Its song was of the mating birds, the
+building birds, the mother joy and father joy that made the nest ready
+for the speckled eggs and the birdlings that should follow.
+
+But to the listening girl the cedar tree was a harp that the winds
+struck--a voice that spoke in the night of love and Creed.
+
+Finally one morning she saddled Selim and, with something in her pocket
+for Little Buck and Beezy, set out for Hepzibah--reckon they's nothin' so
+turrible strange in a body goin' to the settlement when they' out o' both
+needles _an_' bakin' soda!
+
+As she rode up Nancy herself called to her to 'light and come in, and
+finally went out to stand a moment and chat; but the girl smilingly shook
+her head.
+
+"I got to be getting along, thank ye," she said. "I can't stop this
+mornin'. You-all must come and see us, Aunt Nancy."
+
+"Why, what's Little Buck a-goin' to do, with his own true love a-tearin'
+past the house like this and refusin' to stop and visit?" complained
+Nancy, secretly applauding the girl's good sense and dignity.
+
+"Where _is_ my beau?" asked Judith. "I fetched him the first June apples
+off the tree."
+
+"Judy's brought apples to her beau, and now he's went off fishin' with
+Doss and she's got nobody to give 'em to," old Nancy called as Creed
+stepped from the door of his office and started across to the cabin.
+"Don't you want 'em, Creed?"
+
+The tall, fair young fellow came up laughing.
+
+"Aunt Nancy knows I love apples," he said. "If you give me Little Buck's
+share I'm afraid he'll never see 'em."
+
+Judith reached in her pocket and brought out the shiny, small red globes
+and put them in his outstretched hand.
+
+"I'll bring Little Buck a play-pretty from the settlement," she said
+softly. "He'll keer a sight more for hit than for the apples. I wish I'd
+knowed you liked 'em--I'd brought you more. Why don't you come over and
+see us and git all you want? We've got two trees of 'em."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Red Rose and the Briar
+
+
+ALL through April Judith's project of a play-party languished. She had to
+pull steadily against the elders, for not only were the men hard at it
+making ready for the putting in of the year's crops, but it was gardening
+time as well, when even the women and children are pressed in to help at
+the raking up and brush piling. Wood smoke from the clearing fires
+haunted all the hollows. Everybody was preparing for the making of the
+truck patch. Down on the little groups would drop a cloud and blot out
+the bonfire till it became the mere glowing point at the heart of a
+shaken opal--for if you are wise you burn brush on a rainy day.
+
+Old Jephthah opposed the plan for the girl's festivity on another ground.
+"I've got no objection to a frolic, Jude," he observed quietly, on
+hearing the first mention of the matter, "but I wouldn't have no
+play-party at this house. Hit's too handy to that cussed still of
+Blatch's. A passel of fool boys is mighty apt to go over thar an' fill
+theirselves up with corn whiskey, an' the party will just about end up in
+a interruption."
+
+He said no more, and Judith made no reply. Though ordinarily she would
+have hesitated to go against her uncle's expressed wishes, her heart was
+too much set on this enterprise to allow of easy checking. She made no
+reply, but her campaign on behalf of the merrymaking went steadily on.
+
+"I wonder you can have the heart to git up play-parties and the like when
+Andy and Jeff's a-sufferin' in the jail," Pendrilla Lusk plucked up
+spirit to say when the plan was first mooted to her.
+
+Andy and Jeff, the wild young hawks, with the glamour upon them of
+lawless, adventurous spirits, and bold, proper lovers, equally fascinated
+and terrified the Lusk girls--timid, fluttering pair--and were in their
+turn attracted to them by an inevitable law of nature.
+
+"I don't see how it hurts the boys for us to have a dance," rejoined
+Judith with asperity. "If we was all to set and cry our eyes out, it
+wouldn't fetch 'em back on the mountain any quicker." Then with a teasing
+flash, "I'll tell 'em when they git home what you said, though."
+
+"Now, Jude, you're real mean," pleaded Cliantha Lusk sinking to her knees
+beside Judith and raising thin little arms to clasp that young woman
+around the waist. "You ain't a-goin' to tell them fool boys any sech
+truck as that, air ye? Pendrilly jest said it for a sayin'. We'd love to
+come to yo' play-party, whenever it is. I _say_ Andy and Jeff! Let 'em
+git out of the jail the way they got in."
+
+This is the approved attitude of the mountain virgin; yet Cliantha's
+voice shook sadly as she uttered the independent sentiments, and
+Pendrilla furtively wiped her eyes in promising to attend the
+play-party.
+
+All this was in April. By the time May came in, that dread of a belated
+frost which amounts almost to terror in the farmer of the Cumberlands was
+ended; the Easter cold and blackberry winter were over, and all the
+garden truck was planted. Everybody began whole-heartedly to enjoy the
+time of year. The leaves were full size, but still soft; the wind made
+hardly any noise among them. In the pasture lot and fence corners near
+the house, meadow flowers began to star the green. The frog chorus, so
+loud and jubilant in early spring, had subsided now except at night, when
+their treble was accompanied by the bass "chug-chug" of the bull-frogs.
+The mornings were vocal with the notes of yellow hammer, cuckoos; the
+cooing of doves, the squawk of the jay, and the drum of the big
+red-headed woodpecker sounded through the summer woods; while always in
+the cool of the day came the thrush's song. The early corn was in by mid
+April. About the first full moon of May the main crop was planted.
+
+Early in June Judith, walking in the wood, brought home the splendid red
+wood lily, and a cluster too of "ratsbane," with its flowers like a
+little crown of white wax.
+
+The spring restlessness was over throughout all the wild country; life no
+longer stirred and rustled; the leaves hung still in the long sunny
+noons. The air was clear, rinsed with frequent showers; the woods were
+silent except for birds and cow bells. The crops were laid by. The
+huckleberries ripened; the "sarvices" hung thick in the forest. Even the
+blackberries were beginning to turn and Andy and Jeff had been back at
+home more than a week, when Judith finally succeeded in getting her
+forces together and her guests promised. Many of them would have to walk
+four or five miles to sing and play for a few hours, tramping back at
+midnight to lie down and catch what sleep they could before dawn waked
+them to another day of toil. Thursday evening was set for the event. On
+Wednesday the Lusk girls coming in to discuss, found Judith with shining
+eyes and crimson cheeks, attacking the simple housework of the cabin.
+
+"I wish't you'd sing while I finish my churnin'," the girl said, "I'm so
+flustered looks like I can't sca'cely do anything right."
+
+The sisters clasped hands and raised their childish faces. Cliantha had a
+thin, high piping soprano like a small flute, and Pendrilla sang
+"counter" to it. They were repositories of all the old ballads of the
+mountains--ballads from Scotland, from Ireland, from England, and from
+Wales, that set the ferocities and the love-making of Elizabeth's time or
+earlier most quaintly amidst the localities and nomenclature of the
+Cumberlands.
+
+"Sing 'Barb'ry Allen,'" commanded Judith as she swung the dasher with
+nervous energy.
+
+The July sunshine filtered through the leaves of the big muscadine vine
+that covered and sheltered the tiny side porch. Bees boomed about the
+ragged tufts of clover and Bouncing Bet that fringed the side yard. The
+old hound at the chip pile blinked lazily and raised his head, then
+dropped it and slumbered again. Within, the big room was dim and cool.
+The high, thin, quavering voices celebrated the love and woe of cruel
+Barbara Allen. Judith's dark eyes grew soft and brooding; the nervous
+strokes of her dasher measured themselves more and more to the swing of
+the old tune.
+
+"I don't see how anybody can be hardhearted thataway with a person they
+love," she said softly as the song descended to its doleful end.
+
+The next morning Judith hurried her work that she might get through and
+go over to the Bonbright house, there to put in execution her
+long-cherished plan of cleaning it and making it fit for Creed's
+occupancy that night. Old Dilsey Rust, their tenant, came in to help at
+the Turrentine cabin always on occasions like this, or with the churning
+or washing; and penetrated with impatience the girl finally left her
+assistant in charge of matters and set forth through the woods and across
+the fields, the little key which she had carried ever since that morning
+in early April in her pocket like a talisman. At last it was to open her
+kingdom to her. Behind the bolt that it controlled lay not only the home
+of Creed's childhood, but supposably the home of his children. Judith's
+heart beat suffocatingly at the thought.
+
+Halfway across she met Huldah Spiller coming up from the Far spring with
+a bucket of sulphur water which was held to be good for Jim Cal's
+rheumatism.
+
+"Whar ye goin'?" asked Huldah, looking curiously at the broom over
+Judith's shoulder, the roll of cloths and the small gourd of soft soap
+she carried.
+
+"I'm a-goin' whar I'm a-goin'," returned Judith aggressively. But the
+other only smiled. It did not suit her to be offended at that moment.
+Instead, "What are you goin' to wear to-night, Judy?" she inquired
+vivaciously. It was one of the advantages of waiting on table at a
+boarding house in the settlement--pieced out perhaps by the possession of
+red hair--that Huldah had the courage to address Judith Barrier as
+"Judy."
+
+The hostess of the evening's festivities was half in the mind to pass on
+without reply; then her curiosity as to Huldah's costume got the better
+of her, and she compromised, with a laconic,
+
+"My white frock--what are you?"
+
+"Don't you know I went down to Hepzibah after you said you was goin' to
+have a play-party?" asked Huldah, tossing her head to get the red curls
+out of her eyes. "Well, Iley had give me fifty cents on my wages--"
+Huldah worked as a servant in her sister's family, which is not uncommon
+in the mountains--"an' I tuck it and bought me ten yard of five-cent
+lawn, the prettiest blue you ever put yo' eyes on."
+
+"Blue!" A sudden shock went over Judith. She had forgotten; and here
+Huldah Spiller would wear a blue dress, and she--oh, the stupidity, the
+bat-like, doltish, blindness of it!--would be in white, because it was
+now too late to make a change. Out of the very tragedy of the situation
+she managed to pluck forth a smile.
+
+"I was aimin' to wear blue ribbons," she said finally. It had just come
+into her head that she could pull the blue bow from her hat--that blue
+bow with which she had zealously replaced the despised and outcast
+red--and so make shift.
+
+"Blue's my best feller's favourite colour," contributed Huldah, picking
+up the bucket which she had set down, and starting on. "He 'lows it goes
+fine with aurbu'n hair."
+
+"Wade never said that," muttered Judith to herself as she took her way to
+the Bonbright place.
+
+But after all one could not be long out of tune with such a summer day.
+The spicy odour of pennyroyal bruised underfoot, came to her nostrils
+like incense. Even the sickly sweet of jimson blossoms by the draw-bars
+of the milking lot was dear and familiar, while their white trumpets
+whispered of childish play-days and flower-ladies she had set walking in
+procession under the shadow of some big green leaf. Blue--the soft stars
+of spider-wort opening among the rocks reminded her of the hue; blue
+curls and dittany tangled at the path edge; but the very air itself was
+beginning to wear Creed's colour and put on that wonderful, luminous blue
+in which the Cumberlands of midsummer melt cerulean into a sky of lapis
+lazuli. Creed's colour--Creed's colour--her dark eyes misted as they
+searched the far reaches of the hills and found it everywhere.
+
+Jephthah Turrentine used to say that if a man owned enough mountain land
+to set his foot on, he owned the whole of the sky above him; it was a
+truer word than this old mountain dweller could have known, since the
+mere possessor of a city lot, where other tall roofs cut the horizon
+high, must content himself with less of the welkin.
+
+Judith opened the door, went in, closed it behind her, and gazed about.
+There lay over everything a fine dust; there was the look of decay which
+comes with disuse; and the air bore the musty odour of a shut and long
+uninhabited house. The Bonbright home had been a good one for the
+mountains, of hewn logs, and with four rooms, and two great stone
+chimneys. Inside was the furniture which Mary Gillenwaters brought to it
+as a bride when her mountain lover came down to Hepzibah and with the
+swift ardour of his tribe--this Bonbright's fires of eloquence were all
+kindled upon the altar of his mating romance--charmed the daughter of its
+one merchant. These added to the already fairly complete plenishings,
+many of which had come over the mountains from Virginia when Sevier
+opened up the new State, gave an air of abundance, even of sober elegance
+to the room.
+
+Reverently Judith moved among the dumb witnesses and servitors of
+Bonbright generations. Here was the spinning-wheel, here the cards, and
+out in the little room off the porch stood the loom. She had dreams of
+replacing these with a sewing machine. Nobody wove jeans any more--but a
+good carpet-loom now, _that_ might be made useful. Unwilling to hang the
+bedding on bushes for fear of a chance tear from twig or thorn, she
+rigged a line in the back yard, and spread quilt and homespun blanket,
+coarse white sheets and pillowcases that were yellowing with age, out for
+the glad gay wind to play with, for the sunshine to sweeten.
+
+"What a lot of feather beds!" she murmured as she tallied them over.
+"That there ticking is better than you can buy in the stores. My, ain't
+these light and nice!"
+
+All the warm, sunny afternoon she toiled at her self-appointed labour of
+love. She swept and dusted, she scrubbed and cleaned, with capable
+fingers, proud of the strength and skill that made her a good housewife;
+then bringing in the fragrant, homely fabrics, made up the beds and
+placed all back in due order.
+
+"He's boun' to notice somebody's been here and put things to rights," she
+said over and over to herself. "If it looks sightly, and seems like home,
+mebbe he'll give out the notion of stayin' at Nancy Card's, and come and
+live here." She brooded on the bliss of the idea as she worked.
+
+Under the great mahogany four-poster in the front room was slipped a
+trundle-bed that she drew out and looked at with fond eyes. No doubt
+Creed's boyish head had lain there once. She wished passionately that she
+had known him then, all unaware that we never do know our lovers when
+they and we are children. Even those playfellows who are destined to be
+mates find, all on a day, that the familiar companion who has grown up
+beside each has changed into quite a different person.
+
+She rolled the trundle-bed back into place and turned to lift a pile of
+bedding that lay apparently on a chest. When it was raised it revealed
+the clumsy old cradle that had rocked three generations of Bonbrights.
+She stood looking down at it with quickening pulse, then reached a
+fluttering hand and touched its small pillow tenderly. Here had rested
+that golden head, so many years ago; beside it his mother had sat and
+rocked. At the thought Judith was on her knees, her hands falling
+naturally upon the side and rocking the small bed. In a strange conflict
+of dreamy emotion, she swayed it back and forth a moment, and then--what
+woman could resist it?--began to croon an old mountain cradle song.
+Suddenly the westering sun got to the level of a half shrouded window and
+sent a beam in across Judith's bent head.
+
+"My land!" she whispered, getting to her feet. "I ain't got no call to
+stay foolin' here all day. Dilsey'll jest about burn them cakes I told
+her to bake, and I ain't fixed my blue bow for my hair yet."
+
+She swept a glance around the speckless room, gathered up her
+paraphernalia of cleaning, passed out, locked the door, and set her face
+toward home.
+
+In Mary Bonbright's garden, now given over to weeds as the gardens of
+dead women are so apt to be, there had grown a singular, half wild rose.
+This flower was of a clear blood red, with a yellow heart which its five
+broad petals, flinging wide open, disclosed to view, unlike the crimped
+and guarded loveliness of the more evolved sisters of the green-house.
+Mowed down spring after spring by the scythe of Strubley, the renter, the
+vigorous thing had spread abroad, and as Judith stepped from the door its
+exultant beauty caught her eye. Flaming shields of crimson, bearing each
+its boss of filagree gold, the hosts of the red rose stood up bravely in
+the choking grass to which the insensate scythe blade had so often
+levelled them, and shouted to the girl of love and joy, and of youth
+which was the time for both. Wide petalled, burning red, their golden
+hearts open to sun and bee, they were the blossoms for the earth-woman.
+She ran and knelt down beside them.
+
+He had said that his favourite colour was blue--but there are no blue
+roses. She did not follow it far enough to guess that the man who was
+content with the colour of the sky might not get his gaze down close
+enough to earth to care for roses. She bent above them gloating on their
+fierce, triumphant splendour. Was there ever such a colour? But the stems
+were dreadfully short. A sudden purpose grew in her mind. With hasty,
+tremulous fingers she gathered an apronful of the blossoms. Once more she
+unlocked the front door, hurried back to that bed which she had so
+lovingly spread, and on its white coverlet began arranging a great,
+glowing wreath, fashioned by setting a circle of red roses petal to
+petal.
+
+As she worked Cliantha Lusk's ballad came into her head, and she sang it
+under her breath.
+
+    "'And they grew and they grew to the old church top
+    Till they couldn't grow any higher,
+    And there they twined in a true lover's knot,
+    The red rose and the briar.'
+
+"No--that ain't it--
+
+    "'And there they twined in a true lover's knot,
+    For all true lovers to admire.'"
+
+True lovers--she crooned the word over and over. It was sweet to say it.
+She thrilled through all her strong young body with the delight of what
+she was doing.
+
+"He'll wonder who put 'em there," she whispered to herself. "Ef nothin'
+else don't take his eye, these here is shore to."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+The Play-Party
+
+
+Long lanes of light crossed the grass from window and door of the
+Turrentine house; Judith's play-party was in full swing. They were
+dancing or playing in the big front room which was lit only by the rich
+broken shimmer and shine from a fire of pine sticks in the cavernous
+black chimney. Though it was early July the evening, in those altitudes,
+had its own chill, and the heat from this was not unpleasant, while its
+illumination became necessary, for all the lamps and candles available
+were in use out where the tables were spread.
+
+Old Jephthah held state in his own quarters, a detached log cabin
+standing about thirty feet from the main structure, and once used
+probably to house the loom or for some such extra domestic purpose. Here
+too a fire smoldered on the hearthstone, for the head of the Turrentine
+clan was tormented by rheumatism, that plague of otherwise healthy
+primitive man. He lounged now on the doorstep, smoking, ready to
+intercept and entertain any of the older men who might come with their
+women folk. Occasionally somebody rode up, or came tramping down the
+trail or through the woods--a belated merrymaker hurrying in to ask who
+had arrived and who was expected.
+
+To the father's intense disgust Jim Cal had elected to sit with the
+elders that night, and obstinately held his place before the hearthstone
+in the cabin room. Jephthah Turrentine's sons were none of them
+particularly satisfactory to their progenitor. A man of brains, a
+creature to whom an argument was ever more than the mere material thing
+argued about, these male offspring, who took their traits naturally after
+the spindle side, vexed him with resemblance to their handsome,
+high-tempered, brainless mother. But Jim Cal was worse than a bore to his
+father; the old fellow regarded a son who weighed above two hundred
+pounds as a disgrace. And to-night the fact that the door of his room
+commanded a sidelong view of the tables which were being spread, and
+about which Iley circled and scolded, furnished so fair a reason for
+James Calhoun's selection of it as an anchorage that his father was the
+more offended.
+
+"You thar, Unc' Jep?" sounded Blatchley Turrentine's careless voice from
+the dark.
+
+"I make out to be," returned his uncle lazily.
+
+Blatchley came into the circle of dim light about the door, Andy and Jeff
+at his shoulder. Wade followed a moment later.
+
+"Why ain't you-all boys down thar whar the gals is at, playin'?" inquired
+Jim Cal fretfully. "Looks like to me ef I was a young feller an' not
+wedded I wouldn't hang around whar the old men was."
+
+"Is Creed Bonbright comin' over here to-night?" inquired Andy abruptly,
+in obedience apparently to a nudge from Blatch.
+
+"I reckon he is," observed the old man dispassionately. "Jude has purty
+well bidden the whole top of the mountain."
+
+"Is Pone Cyard comin'?" put in Jeff. The twins usually spoke alternately,
+the sum of their conversation counting thus for one.
+
+"That I can't say," returned the old man with mildly ironic emphasis.
+"Mebbe him and the chaps and the lame rooster--_and_ Nancy--will come
+along at the tail of the procession."
+
+"Well," persisted Andy, breaking a somewhat lengthened silence in which
+all the newcomers stood, and through which their breathing could be
+distinctly heard, "well I think Creed Bonbright has got the impudence! He
+come to the jail, whar me and Jeff was at, an' he had some talk with us,
+an' I let him know my mind. He stood in with that marshal--I know it--and
+so does Jeff. Pone Cyard got out quicker becaze Bonbright tipped the
+marshal the wink; but I don't hold with him nor his doin's."
+
+The parent of the twins regarded them both with sardonic black eyes half
+shut. "_You_ don't? And who-all might you be, young fellers?" he asked.
+"This here Bonbright man has come up on Turkey Track to give us a show at
+law. If they's persons engaged in unlawful practices on this here
+mountain top, mebbe he'll knock up against 'em. Them that keeps the law
+and lives decent has no reason to fear the law. Ain't that what you say,
+Blatch?" turning suddenly to his nephew.
+
+The big swart mountaineer drew up his shoulders with a sort of shrug.
+
+"Ef you stand in with Bonbright, Unc' Jep," he said, bluntly, "we might
+as well all go down to Hepzibah and give ourselves up. You've done rented
+me the land, and yo' boys is in the still with me--air ye a-goin' to
+stand from under, and have the marshal forever keepin' us on the jump?"
+
+Old Jephthah looked wordless contempt at the nephew who knew little
+enough to impute such a course to him.
+
+"That's what I say," put in Jim Cal's thin, querulous tones from the back
+of the room--the voice of a fat man in trouble; can anyone say why the
+sorrows of the obese are always comic to the rest of the world? "A body
+cain't sleep nights for thinkin' what may chance."
+
+"Oh,--air you thar, podner?" inquired Blatch, with a sort of ferocious
+banter in his tone which he frequently used toward his fleshy associate.
+"I thort ye was down in the bed sick."
+
+"I was," said Jim Cal sulkily; "but Iley she said--Iley 'lowed----"
+
+Blatch burst into a great horse laugh, which the others joined.
+
+"I know'd in reason ye'd be down when they came any trouble at the
+still," he commented. "Hit always affects yo' health thataway; but I
+didn't know Iley had seed reason to dig ye out. What you goin' to do
+about Bonbright, Unc' Jep--stand in with him?"
+
+"Well--you _air_ a fool," observed the old man meditatively. "Who named
+standin' in with Bonbright, or standin' out agin' him? When I rented you
+my farm for five year I had no thought of yo' starting up that pesky ol'
+still on it. But I never was knowed to rue a trade. My daddy taught me
+when I made a bad bargain to freeze the tighter to it, and I've no mind
+to do other."
+
+"They'd been a still thar," said Blatch defensively.
+
+The old man nodded.
+
+"Oh, yes," he agreed. "Hit had been,--I put it thar. I've made many a run
+of whiskey in my young days--and I've seed the folly of it. I reckon you
+fool boys'll have to see the folly of it too befo' yo've got yo' satisfy.
+As for Creed Bonbright, he 'pears to think that if we have plenty of law
+in the Turkey Tracks we'll all go to heaven in a hand-basket. Mebbe he's
+right, and then agin mebbe he's wrong; but this I know, ain't anybody
+goin' to jump on him in my house, and he gets a fair show when fightin'
+time comes."
+
+"Well, if he ain't standin' in with the marshal, what does he--" began
+Andy's high-pitched boyish voice, when somebody called, "Good evening,"
+in pleasant tones, and Bonbright himself got off a light-stepping mule,
+tethered him to the fence, and came toward the cabin.
+
+He had just returned from a meeting of the County Court at Hepzibah,
+where he did good service in representing the needs of his district,
+fighting hard for more money for schools--the plan heretofore had been to
+let them have only their own pro rata of the school tax.
+
+"It'll pay you a heap better to educate the mountain people than to hire
+their keep in jail," he said to his fellow justices of the valley. "The
+blue-backed speller is the best cure for crime in the mountains that I
+know of."
+
+He failed to get this; but he succeeded in another matter, one less near
+his heart, but calculated to appeal perhaps more strongly to his
+constituents; he secured the opening of a highway for which the people in
+the two Turkey Tracks had struggled and prayed more than twenty years. It
+was with the pride of this victory strong in him that he had set out for
+Judith's play-party. The young fellow might have been pardoned a half
+wistful belief that this first success was the entering wedge and would
+lead swiftly to that standing with his neighbours lacking which he was
+helpless. Yet the sons of the house replied but gruffly to his greeting,
+and, as though his coming had been a signal, the younger group promptly
+disappeared in the direction of the main cabin.
+
+At the old man's hearty invitation, Creed seated himself on the doorstep,
+while his host went in for a coal from the smouldering hearth to light
+his pipe, and joined the guest a moment later.
+
+"Well sir, and how's the law coming on these days?" inquired old Jephthah
+somewhat humorously.
+
+"I reckon it's doing pretty well," allowed Creed. "The law's all right,
+Mr. Turrentine; it's what our people need; and if there comes any failure
+it's bound to be in me, not in the law."
+
+"That's right," old Jephthah commended him. "Stand up for yo' principles.
+Ef you go into a thing, back it. I never could get on with these here
+good-Lord-good-devil folks. I like to know whar a man's at--cain't hit
+him unless 'n you do."
+
+"That's what I say," piped Jim Cal's reedy voice from the interior. "Is
+it true that you've done made up the Shalliday fuss over that thar cow,
+Creed? I thort a jestice of the peace was to he'p folks have fusses,
+place o' settlin' 'em up."
+
+"That's what everybody seems to think," replied Creed rather dolefully.
+"I can't say I'm very proud of my part in the Shalliday matter. It seemed
+to be mighty hard on the widow; but the law was on her brother-in-law's
+side; so I gave my decision in favour of Bill Shalliday, and paid the
+woman for the cow. And now they're both mad at me."
+
+Old Jephthah narrowed his eyes and chuckled in luxurious enjoyment of the
+situation.
+
+"To be shore they air. To be shore they air," he repeated with unction.
+"Ain't you done a favour to the both of 'em? Is they anything a man will
+hate you worse for than a favour? If they is I ain't met up with it
+yet."
+
+"That's what I say," iterated Jim Cal. "What's the use o' tryin' to he'p
+folks to law and order when they don't want it, and you've got to buy 'em
+to behave? When you git to be a married man with chaps, like me, you'll
+keep yo' money in yo' breeches pocket and let other folks fix it up
+amongst themselves about their cows an' sech."
+
+"I had hoped to get a chance to do something that amounted to more than
+settling small family fusses," Creed said in a discouraged tone. "I hoped
+to have the opportunity to talk to many a gathering of our folks about
+the desirability of good citizenship in a general way. This thing of
+blockaded stills keeps us forever torn up with a bad name in the valley
+and the settlement."
+
+Old Jephthah stirred not a hair; Jim Cal sat just as he had; yet the two
+were indefinably changed the moment the words "blockaded still" were
+uttered.
+
+"Do you know of any sech? Air ye aimin' to find out about em?" quavered
+the fat man finally, and his father looked scornfully at him, and the
+revelation of his terror.
+
+"No. I don't mean it in that personal way," Creed answered impatiently.
+"Mr. Turrentine, I wish you'd tell me what you think about it. You've
+lived all your life in the mountains; you're a man of judgment--is there
+any way to show our people the folly as well as the crime of illicit
+distilling?"
+
+Jephthah surveyed with amusement the youth who came to an old moonshiner
+for an opinion as to the advisability of the traffic. He liked the
+audacity of it. It tickled his fancy.
+
+"Well sir," he said finally, "the guv'ment sets off thar in Washington
+and names a-many a thing that I shall do and that I shan't do.
+Howsomever, they is but one thing hit will come here and watch out to see
+ef I keep rules on--and that's the matter o' moonshine whiskey.
+Guv'ment," he repeated meditatively but with rising rancour, "what has
+the guv'ment ever done fer me, that I should be asked to do so much for
+hit? I put the case thisaway. That man raises corn and grinds it to meal
+and makes it into bread. I raise corn and grind hit to meal and make
+clean, honest whiskey. The man that makes the bread pays no tax; guv'ment
+says I shall pay a tax--an' I say I will not, by God!"
+
+The big voice had risen to a good deal of feeling before old Jephthah
+made an end.
+
+"Nor I wouldn't neither," bleated Jim Cal in comical antiphon.
+
+In the light from the open doorway Creed's face looked uneasy.
+
+"But you don't think--you wouldn't--" he began and then broke off.
+
+Old Jephthah shook his head.
+
+"I ain't got no blockade still," he asserted sweepingly. "I made my last
+run of moonshine whiskey many a year ago. I reckon two wrongs don't make
+a right."
+
+Creed's dismay increased. Inexperienced boy, he had not expected to
+encounter such feeling in the discussion of this the one topic upon which
+your true mountaineer of the remote districts can never be anything but
+passionate, embittered, at bay.
+
+"You name the crime of makin' wildcat whiskey," the old man's deep,
+accusing voice went on, after a little silence. "It ain't no crime--an'
+you know it--an' no guv'ment o' mortal men can make a crime out'n it. As
+for the foolishness of it," he dropped his chin on his breast, his black
+eyes looked out broodingly, his great beard rose against his lips and
+muffled his tones, "I reckon the foolishness of a thing is what each
+feller has to find out for hisself," he said. "Daddies has been tryin'
+since the time of Adam to let their knowin' it sarve for their sons; but
+ef one of 'em has made the plan work yit, I ain't heard on it. Nor the
+guv'ment can't neither. A man'll take his punishment for a meanness an'
+l'arn by it; but to be jailed for what's his right makes an outlaw of
+him, an' always will. Good Lord, Creed! What set you an' me off on this
+tune? Young feller, you ort to be down yon dancin' with the gals, instead
+of here talking foolishness to a old man like me."
+
+Creed arose to his tall young height and glanced uncertainly from his
+host to the lighted room from which came the sounds of fiddle and
+stamping feet. It was a little hard for a prophet on his own mountain-top
+to be sent to play with the children; yet he went.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+Kisses
+
+
+With the advent of the four Turrentine boys festivities had taken on a
+brighter air, the game became better worth while.
+
+"Wade, you've got to fiddle," cried Judith peremptorily. A chair was set
+upon a table in the corner, the rather reluctant Wade hoisted to it, and
+soon "Weevily Wheat," as the twitting tune comes from the country
+fiddler's jigging bow, was filling the room.
+
+"I reckon I ought to have asked your ruthers before I took Wade out of
+the game," Judith said to Huldah Spiller as they joined hands to begin.
+
+"Like I cared!" retorted Huldah, tossing her red head till the curls
+bobbed. She was wearing the new blue lawn dress, made by a real store
+pattern cut out of tissue paper, and was supremely conscious of looking
+her best.
+
+The Lusk girls in spotted calico frocks, the dots whereof were pink on
+Cliantha's dress, and blue on Pendrilla's, had bridled and glanced about
+shamefaced when Andy and Jeff came in; they now "balanced" demurely with
+down dropped eyes as the game moved to the music.
+
+Judith had left the supper preparations with the elder women, pieced out
+by the assistance of old Dilsey Rust, and was most active in the games.
+In the white muslin, washed and ironed by her own skilful, capable
+fingers, with the blue bow confining the heavy chestnut braids at the
+nape of her neck, her dark beauty glowed richly. Now the players shifted
+to "Drop the Handkerchief." Judith delighted in this game because,
+fleeter of foot, quicker of hand and eye than the others, she continually
+disappointed any daring swain who thought to have a kiss from her. Her
+shining eyes were ever on the doorway, till Blatch Turrentine left his
+seat at the back of the room and elected to lounge there watching the
+play with the tolerant air of a man contemplating the sports of children.
+It apparently gave him satisfaction that Judith time after time eluded a
+pursuer, broke into the ring and left him to wander in search of a less
+alert and resolute fair.
+
+"Cain't none of the boys kiss yo' gal," panted Huldah Spiller, pausing
+beside him. "I doubt mightily ef ye could do it yo'self 'less'n she had a
+mind to let ye'."
+
+Judith heard, and the carmine on her cheek deepened and spread, while the
+dark eyes above gleamed angrily.
+
+"Come on and play, Blatch," called Wade, jigging away valiantly at his
+fiddle. "We all know who it is you want to kiss--most of us is bettin'
+that you're scared to try."
+
+"Play!" echoed Blatchley in a contemptuous tone. "I say play! When I want
+to buss a gal, I walk up and take my ruthers--like this."
+
+Again that daunting panther quickness of movement from the big slouching
+figure; the powerful lines seemed to melt and flow as he flung himself in
+Judith's direction, and cast one arm firmly about her in such a way that
+it pinioned both her elbows to her side.
+
+"You turn me a-loose!" she cried, even as Little Buck had cried. "That
+ain't fair. I wasn't ready for ye, 'caze ye said ye wouldn't play. You
+turn me a-loose or ye'll wish ye had."
+
+"No fair--no fair!" came the cries from the boys in the ring. "Either you
+stay out or come in. Jude's right."
+
+"Well, some of ye put me out," suggested Blatchley, significantly. He had
+brought a jug of moonshine whiskey over from the still and it was flowing
+freely, though unknown to Old Jephthah, in the loft where most of his
+possessions were kept.
+
+No man moved to lay finger on him. He held Judith--scarlet of face and
+almost in tears--by her elbows, and lowered his mocking countenance to
+within a few inches of her angry eyes.
+
+"Now kiss me pretty, and kiss me all yo'self. I ain't got nothin' to do
+with this; hit's yo' play. You been wantin' to git a chance to kiss me
+this long while," he asserted with derisive humour. "Don't you hold off
+becaze the others is here; that ain't the way you do when we're--"
+
+"Wade--Jim Cal! Won't some o' you boys pull this fool man away," appealed
+Judith. "I wish somebody'd call Uncle Jep. You can hold yo' ugly old face
+there till yo' hair turns grey," she suddenly and furiously addressed her
+admirer. "I'll never kiss ye."
+
+"Oh, yes you will--you always do," Blatchley maintained. "Ef I was to
+tell the folks how blame lovin' ye are when jest you and me is alone
+together----"
+
+He looked over his shoulder to enjoy the triumph of the moment. Blatchley
+Turrentine's delight was to traverse the will of every other human being
+with his own preference. Judith's gaze, tormented, tear-blurred, followed
+his and saw across the shoulders of the others, the shine of Creed
+Bonbright's fair hair, in the doorway. The sight brought from her an
+inarticulate cry. It fired Blatchley to take the kiss which he had vowed
+should be given him. As he bent to do so, Creed stepped forward and laid
+a hand upon his shoulder. The movement was absolutely pacific, but the
+fingers closed with a viselike grip, and there was so sharp a backward
+jerk that the proffered salute was not delivered.
+
+In the surprise of the moment Judith pulled herself free and stood at
+bay. For an instant the two men looked into each other's eyes. Creed's
+blue orbs were calm, impersonal, and without one hint of yielding or
+fear.
+
+"If you don't play fair," he said in argumentative tone, "there's no use
+playing at all. Let's close up the ring and try it again."
+
+All eyes in the room turned to Blatchley Turrentine, the women in a
+flutter of terrified apprehension, the men with a brightening of
+interest; surely he would resent this interference in some notable
+manner. But Blatch was in fact too deadly to be merely high-tempered,
+quick in anger. For a moment he stared at Bonbright, trying to look him
+down; then those odd, whitey-grey eyes narrowed to mere slits. He laid
+the matter up in his mind; this was not the time for settling it--here
+before Judith Barrier and the women. He did not mean to content himself
+with mere fisticuffs, or even a chance pocket-knife which might double in
+his grasp and cut his own hand. To the immense surprise of everybody he
+stretched out his long arms, caught carelessly at the fingers of a player
+on either side of him, and, mending the line, began to move in rhythmic
+time to the fiddle.
+
+It was soon observable that Creed Bonbright's presence caused Huldah
+Spiller's spirits to mount several notes in the octave. Whether it was
+that her own betrothed was looking on, and this an excellent chance to
+show him that even the town feller felt her charm, or merely Creed's
+personal attractions could hardly be guessed.
+
+"Come on," she cried recklessly, "let's play 'Over the River to Feed my
+Sheep.' Strike up the tune, Wade."
+
+The game she mentioned was also a forfeit play, with the difference that
+the kiss was more certain, being taken of mere choice--though delivered,
+of course, with due maidenly reluctance and a show of resisting--whenever
+the girl facing one could be caught over the line. All the young people
+played it; all the elders deprecated it. At the bottom of Judith's heart
+lay one reason for making a play-party and bidding Creed Bonbright to it;
+and now Huldah Spiller was blatantly calling out the unconfessed, the
+unconfessable; Wade was sullenly dropping into the old Scotch air; the
+long lines were forming, men opposite the girls--and the red-headed minx
+had placed herself directly across from Creed!
+
+The laughing chains swayed back and forth to the measure of the
+music--advancing, retreating, pursuing, evading, choosing, rejecting, in
+a gay parody of courtship. Voices were added to that of the fiddle.
+
+    "Hit's over the river to feed my sheep,
+         Hit's over the river to Charley;
+    Hit's over the river to feed my sheep
+        An' to kiss my lonesome darling,"
+
+they sang.
+
+Shadows crouched in the corners, flickering, dancing, threatening to come
+out and play, then shrinking back as the blaze leaped and the room
+widened. The rough brown walls took the shine and broidered themselves
+with a thread of golden tracery. In such an illumination the eyes shone
+with added luster, flying locks were all hyacinthine, the frocks might
+have been silks and satins.
+
+In the movement of the game girls and boys divided. The girls tossed
+beribboned heads in unwonted coquetry, yet showed always, in downcast
+eyes and the modest management of light draperies, the mountain ideal of
+maidenhood. Across from them the line of youthful masculinity swayed;
+tall, lean, brown-faced, keen-eyed young hunters these, sinewy and light
+and quick of movement, with fine hands and feet, and a lazy pride of
+bearing. A very different type from that found in the lowlands, or in
+ordinary rustic communities.
+
+Judith noted the other players not at all; her hot reprehending eyes were
+on the girl in the blue dress. She did not observe that she herself was
+dancing opposite Andy, while Pendrilla Lusk dragged with drooping head in
+the line across from the amiably grinning Doss Provine. Finding herself
+suddenly in the lead and successful, Huldah began to preen her feathers a
+bit. She withdrew a hand from the girl on her right to arrange the small
+string of blue glass beads around her neck.
+
+"Jest ketch to my skirt for a minute," she whispered loudly. "I reckon
+hit won't rip, though most of 'em is 'stitches taken for a friend'--I was
+that anxious to get it done for the party. Oh, Law!"
+
+And then--nobody knew how it happened--she was over the line, her hold on
+the hands of her mates broken, she had tripped and fallen in a giggling
+blue lawn heap fairly at Bonbright's feet. He was in a position where the
+least gallant must offer the salute the game demanded, but to make
+assurance doubly sure Huldah put out her hands like a three-year-old,
+crying,
+
+"He'p me up, Creed, I b'lieve I've sprained my ankle."
+
+The young fellow from Hepzibah was in a mood for play. After all he was
+only a big boy, and he had been long barred out from young people's
+frolics. Here was a gay, toward little soul, who seemed to like him. He
+stooped and caught her by the waist, picking her up as one might a small
+child, and holding her a moment with her feet off the floor. Something in
+the laughing challenge of her face as she protested and begged to be put
+down prompted him as to what was expected. He kissed her lightly upon the
+cheek before he released her.
+
+As he set her down he encountered Wade Turrentine's eye. A spark of tawny
+fire had leaped to life in its hazel depth. The fiddler still clung
+faithfully to his office. If he missed a note now and again, or played
+off key, he might be forgiven. It is to be remembered that he sawed away
+without a moment's pause throughout the entire episode.
+
+Creed reached out to join the broken line and touched Jeff's arm. The boy
+flung away from the contact with a muttered word. He looked helplessly at
+Judith, but she would not glance at him; head haughtily erect, long
+lashes on crimson cheeks, red lip curled to an expression of offence and
+disdain, the young hostess mended the line by joining the hands of the
+two girls on each side of her.
+
+"You-all can go on playin' without me," she said in a constrained tone.
+"I got to see to something in the other room."
+
+"See here, Mister Man," remarked Blatch, as Judith prepared to leave.
+"You're mighty free and permisc'ous makin' rules for kissin' games, but I
+take notice you don't follow none of 'em yo'se'f."
+
+Judith halted uncertainly. To stop and defend Creed was out of the
+question. She was about to interpose with the general accusation that
+Blatch was trying to pick a fuss and break up her play-party, when Iley's
+voice, for once a welcome interruption, broke in from the doorway.
+
+"Jude, we ain't got plates enough for everybody an' to put the biscuit
+on," called Jim Cal's wife. "Ax Creed Bonbright could we borry a few from
+his house."
+
+Judith closed instantly with the diversion. She moved quickly toward the
+door; Bonbright joined her.
+
+"Why yes," he said. "You know I told you to help yourself. Let me go over
+now and get what you want. Is there anything else?"
+
+"That's mighty kind of you, Creed," Judith thanked him. "I reckon I
+better go along with ye and see. I don't think of anything else just now.
+Iley, we'll be back quick as we can with all the plates ye need."
+
+Together they stepped out into the soft dusk of the summer night,
+followed by the narrowed gaze of Blatch Turrentine's grey eyes.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+On the Doorstone
+
+
+Behind them the play was resumed in the lighted room; the whining of the
+fiddle, the thud and stamp of many feet, came to them softened and
+refined by a little distance. They were suddenly drawn together in that
+intimacy of two who leave the company and the lights on a special
+expedition. Judith made an impatient mental effort to release the
+incident of Huldah and the kiss, which had so unreasonably irritated
+her.
+
+"If we was to go acrosst fields hit would be a heap better," she advised
+softly, and they moved through the odorous, myriad-voiced darkness of the
+midsummer night, side by side, without speech, for a time. Then as Creed
+halted at a dim, straggling barrier which crossed their course and laid
+down a rail fence partially that she might the more easily get over in
+her white frock, she returned to the tormenting subject once more,
+opening obliquely:
+
+"You and Huldy Spiller is old friends I reckon. Don't you think she's a
+powerful pretty girl?"
+
+"Mighty pretty," echoed Creed absently. All girls were of an even
+prettiness to him, and Huldah Spiller was a pleasant little thing. He was
+wondering what he had done back there in the play-room that had set them
+all against him.
+
+"Her and Wade is goin' to be wedded come September," put in Judith
+jealously.
+
+"Yo' cousin will be getting a mighty fine wife."
+
+The mountain man is apt to make his comments on the marriages of his
+friends with dignified formality, and Creed uttered the accustomed phrase
+without heat or enthusiasm; but it seemed to Judith that he might have
+said less--or more.
+
+"Well, I never did like red hair," the girl managed to get out finally;
+"but I reckon hit's better than old black stuff like mine."
+
+"My mother's hair was sorter sandy," Creed answered in his gentle,
+tolerant fashion. "Mine favours it." And he had not the wit to add that
+dark hair, however, pleased him best.
+
+Judith stepped beside him for some moments in mortified silence.
+Evidently he was green wood and could by none of her old methods be
+kindled. Then, their eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, they came
+out into a modified twilight in the clearing about the Bonbright house.
+"You better unlock the door and go in first," suggested Judith, in a
+depressed tone.
+
+"Why, I ain't got the key," Creed reminded her. "I left it with
+you--didn't you bring it?"
+
+They drew unconsciously close together in the dark with something of the
+guilty consternation of childish culprits. A mishap of the sort ripens an
+acquaintance swiftly.
+
+"What a gump I was!" Judith breathed with sudden low laughter. He could
+see her eyes shining in the gloom, and the dim outline of her figure. "I
+knowed well an' good you didn't have the key--hit's in the blue bowl on
+the fire-board at home."
+
+"I ought to have thought of it," asserted Creed shouldering the blame.
+"And I'm sorry; I wanted to show you my mother's picture."
+
+"An' _I'm_ sorry," echoed Judith, remembering fleetingly the swept and
+garnished rooms, the wreath of red roses; "I had something to show you,
+too."
+
+Nothing was said of the dishes for the merrymakers at Judith's house.
+Another interest was obtruding itself into the simple, practical
+expedition, crowding aside its original purpose. The girl looked around
+the dim, weed-grown garden, its bushes blots of deeper shadow upon the
+darkness, its blossoms vaguely conjectured by their odour.
+
+"There used to be a bubby bush--a sweet-scented shrub--over in that
+corner," Creed hesitated. "I'd like to get you some of the bubbies. My
+mother used to pick 'em and put 'em in the bureau drawers I remember, and
+they made everything smell nice."
+
+He had taken her hand and led her with him, advancing uncertainly toward
+the flowers. He felt her shiver, and halted instantly.
+
+"Yo' cold!" he said. "Let me take my coat off and put it around ye--I
+don't need it. You got overheated playing back there, and now you'll
+catch a cold."
+
+"Oh, no," disclaimed Judith, whose little shudder had been as much from
+excitement as from the sharp chill of the night air after the heated
+play-room. "I reckon somebody jest walked over my grave--I ain't cold."
+
+But he had pulled off the coat while he spoke, and now he turned to put
+it about her, and drew her back to the doorstep. Judith was full of a
+strange ecstasy as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. The lover's
+earliest and favourite artifice--the primitive kindness of wrapping her
+in his own garment! Even Creed, unready and unschooled as he was, felt
+stir within him its intimate appeal.
+
+A nebulous lightening which had been making itself felt behind the
+eastern line of mountains now came plainly in view, late moon, melancholy
+and significant, as the waning moon always is. By its dim illumination
+Creed saw Judith Barrier standing at the door of his own house, smiling
+at him tremulously, with the immemorial challenge in her dark eyes. To
+that challenge the native man in him--the lover--so long usurped by the
+zealot, the would-be philanthropist, rose thrilling, yet still bewildered
+and uncertain, to respond. Something heady and ancient and eternally
+young seemed to pass into his soul out of the night and the moonlight and
+the shining of her eyes. He was all alive to her nearness, her
+loveliness, to the sweet sense that she was a young woman, he a young
+man, and the loveliness and the dearness of her were his for the
+trying--for the winning. His breath caught in his throat.
+
+"Wait a minute," he whispered hurriedly, though she had not moved. With
+eager hands he wrapped the coat close about her. "Let's sit here on the
+doorstep and talk awhile. There are a heap of things I want to ask you
+about--that I want to tell you."
+
+Young beauty and belle that she was, Judith had been sought and courted,
+in that most primitive society, since she was fourteen. She was love's
+votary by birthright, and her wit and her emotions were schooled in
+love's game: to lure, to please, to exploit, to defend, evade, deny; in
+each postulant seeking, testing, trying for the right man to whom should
+be made love's final surrender. But Creed, always absorbed in vague
+altruistic dreams, had no boyish sweethearting behind him to have taught
+him the ways of courtship.
+
+Fire-flies sparkled everywhere, thickest over the marshy places. A mole
+cricket was chirring in the grass by the old doorstone. Sharp on the soft
+dark air came the call of that woodland night bird which the mountain
+people say cries "chip-out-o'-white-oak," and which others translate
+"chuck-wills-widow."
+
+"I--" he began, hesitated momentarily, then daunted, grasped at the
+familiar things of his life--"I don't get on very well up here. I'm
+afraid I've made a failure of it; but"--he turned to her in a curious,
+groping entreaty, his hat in his hands, the dim moonlight full on his
+fair head and in his eager eyes--"but if you would help me--with you--I
+think I ought to----"
+
+"I say made a failure!" cooed Judith in her rich, low tones. "You ax me
+whatever you want to know. You tell me what it is that you're aimin' to
+do--I say made a failure!"
+
+Her trust was so hearty, so wholesale, she filled so instantly the
+position not only of sweetheart but of mother to a small boy with an
+unsatisfactory toy--that would always be Judith Barrier--that Creed's
+heart--the man's heart--a lonely one, and beginning to feel itself
+misunderstood and barred out from its kind--melted in his bosom. There
+was silence between them, a silence vibrant with the coming utterance.
+But even as the dark, fond, inviting eyes and the troubled, kindling blue
+ones encountered, as Creed lifted the girl's hand timidly, and essayed
+speech, the voice of that one who had stepped on her grave harshly
+aroused them both.
+
+"I vow--I thort it was thieves, an' I was a-goin' to see could I pick off
+you-all," drawled Blatchley Turrentine's level tones from the shadow of
+the garden. Mutely, with a sense of chill and disappointment that was
+like the shock of a physical blow to each, the two young creatures got to
+their feet and turned to leave the place, preparing to go by the high
+road, without consultation. As they passed him near the gate, Blatch
+Turrentine fell in on the other side of the girl and walked with them
+silently for a time.
+
+"Iley sont me over," he said finally. "She was skeered you-all wouldn't
+bring any plates."
+
+Neither Judith nor Creed offered any explanation. Instead:
+
+"Well, I don't see how you're goin' to help anything," said the girl
+bitterly--any presence must have been hateful to her which interrupted or
+forestalled what Creed would certainly have said, that for which her
+whole twenty years had waited.
+
+"Oh, I've got the plates," chuckled Blatch, jingling a bulky package
+under his arm.
+
+"Why, how did you----" began Judith in amazement.
+
+"Uh-huh, I've got my own little trick of gittin' in whar I choose to go,"
+declared Turrentine. He leaned around and looked meaningly at the man on
+her other side, then questioned, "How long do you-all reckon I'd been
+thar?" and examined them keenly in the shadowy half light.
+
+But neither hastened to disclaim or explain, neither seemed in any degree
+embarrassed, though to both his bearing was plainly almost intolerable.
+Thereafter they walked in silence which was scarcely broken till they
+reached the gate and Iley came shrilling out to meet them demanding,
+
+"Did you get them thar plates from Miz. Lusk's, you Blatch Turrentine?"
+
+Judith looked at him with angry scorn. It was the old tyrannical trick
+which she had known from her childhood up, the attempt to maintain an
+ascendency over her by appearing to know everything and be
+everywhere--"like he was the Lord-a'mighty Hisself," she muttered
+indignantly, as Creed joined a group of young men, and she passed in to
+her necessary activities as hostess.
+
+Judith Barrier's play-party won to its close with light hearts and light
+feet, with heavy hearts which the weary body would fain have denied, with
+love and laughter, with jealousy and chagrin, with the slanted look of
+envy, of furtive admiration, or of disparagement, from feminine eyes at
+the costumes of other women, just as any ball does.
+
+The two who had trembled upon the brink of some personal revelation, a
+closer communion, were not again alone together that evening. Amid the
+moving figures of the others, now to his eyes as painted automatons,
+Creed Bonbright watched with strong fascination in which there was a
+tincture that was almost terror, the beautiful girl who had suddenly
+emerged from her class and become for him the one woman.
+
+So adequate, so competent, Judith dominated the situation; passing among
+her guests, the thick dark lashes continually lowered toward her crimson
+cheeks. Some subtle sense told her that the spell was working. Smiles
+from this sweet inner satisfaction curved her red lips. No need to
+look--she knew how his eyes were following her. The exultant knowledge of
+it sang all through her being. Gone were her perturbations, her chilling
+uncertainties. She was at once stimulated and quieted.
+
+Their good-byes were said in the most public manner, yet one glance
+flashed between them which asked and promised an early meeting.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+Foeman's Bluff
+
+
+It was near midnight when Creed sought his patient mule at the rack, to
+find that Doss Provine had ridden the animal away.
+
+"He said you was a-goin' to stay at yo' own house to-night, an' he 'lowed
+ye wouldn't need the mule, an' he was mighty tired. He 'lowed hit was a
+mighty long ja'nt out to the Edge whar he was a-goin'," contributed Blev
+Straley, who seemed to have been admitted to Provine's confidence.
+
+"Mighty long ja'nt--I say long ja'nt!" ejaculated old man Broyles, who
+was engaged in saddling his ancient one-eyed mare. "Ef I couldn't spit as
+fur as from here to the Edge I'd never chaw tobacker agin! Plain old
+fashioned laziness is what ails Doss Provine. I'd nacher'ly w'ar him out
+for this trick, Bonbright, ef I was you."
+
+"Well, I did aim to stay over at my house to-night," said Creed, "But I
+can't. I've got a case to try in the morning, soon, that I've got to look
+up some points on yet to-night. I reckon I'll have to foot it out to Aunt
+Nancy's."
+
+As Creed spoke a fellow by the name of Taylor Stribling, a sort of
+satellite of Blatchley Turrentine's came slouching from the shadows of
+the nearby smoke-house. He watched old man Broyles ride away, and Blev
+Straley take a leisurely departure.
+
+"Mighty bad ye got to hoof it, Creed," he observed. "Ef you've a mind to
+come with me I can show you a short cut through the woods by Foeman's
+Bluff. Hit's right on the first part of my way."
+
+Creed had been long out of the mountains or he would have known that a
+short cut which led by Foeman's Bluff would certainly be a strange route
+toward Nancy Card's cabin; but it was characteristic of the man that
+without question or demur he accepted the proffered friendly turn at its
+face value, and he and Stribling at once took the way which led across
+the gulch to the still. They walked for some time, Stribling leading,
+Creed following, deep in his own thoughts.
+
+"Looks like this is a queer direction to be going," he roused himself to
+comment wonderingly as they dipped into the sudden hollow.
+
+"The trail turns a piece up yon," explained the guide briefly.
+
+Again they toiled on in silence, crossing the dry boulder-strewn bed of a
+stream, travelling always in the dense darkness of the tall timber,
+finally striking the rise, which was so abrupt and steep that they had to
+catch by the path-side bushes to pull themselves up. It was lighter here,
+as the trail mounted toward a region of rocky bluffs where there was no
+big timber, running obliquely across the great promontory that had got
+the name of Foeman's Bluff, from old Ab Foeman whose hideout, still
+unknown, was said to be somewhere in its front.
+
+"Ain't it mighty curious to be goin' up so?" Creed panted. "Aunt Nancy's
+place lies lower than the Turrentines'. By the road it's down hill mighty
+near all the way."
+
+"Thishyer's a short cut," growled the other evasively. "Mind how you
+step. Hit's a fur ways down thar ef a body was to fall."
+
+With the words they came out suddenly on the Bluff itself where the
+trail widened into a natural terrace, and the great rock, solemn with
+majestic peace, faced an infinity of sky with bared brow. As they
+emerged into the light Creed took off his hat and lifted his
+countenance, inhaling the beauty of the summer night. The late moon
+had climbed a third of the way up the heavens; now she looked down with
+a chastened, tarnished light, yet with a dusky, diminished beauty that
+held a sort of mild pathos. Great timbered slopes, inky black in this
+illumination, fell away on every hand down to where the mists lay
+death-white in the valley; behind them was a low, irregular bulk of
+brush-grown rock; and all about the whirr of katydids, a million voices
+blended into one. From a nearby thicket came to them the click and liquid
+gurgle, "Chip-out-o'-white-oak!" It sent Creed's heart and fancy questing
+back to the past hour with the girl on the doorstone. What would he have
+asked, she answered, if Blatch had not interrupted them? He scarcely heard
+the wavering cry of a screech-owl that followed hard upon the
+remembered notes. Stribling, however, noted the latter promptly, and
+began edging toward the shadow as his companion spoke.
+
+"This is mighty sightly," said Creed, looking about him musingly; "I do
+love a moonshiny night."
+
+For a moment there was only the noise of the katydids, backgrounded and
+enfolded by the deep silence of the great mountains. Then someone broke
+out into what was evidently a forced laugh, a long-drawn, girding,
+mirthless haw-haw, the laboured insult of which stung Creed into a
+certain resentment of demeanour.
+
+"What's the joke?" he inquired dryly, turning toward Taylor Stribling.
+But Stribling had silently melted away among the shadows of distant trees
+along the trail. It was Blatchley Turrentine who stood before him
+thrusting forward a jeering face in the uncertain half light, while three
+vaguely defined forms moved and shouldered behind him. The apparition was
+sinister, but if Blatch looked for demonstrations of fear he was
+disappointed.
+
+"What's the joke?" Creed repeated.
+
+"I couldn't hold in when I heared your pretty talk," drawled Blatch,
+setting his hands on his hips and barring the way. "Whar might you be
+a-goin', Mr. Creed Bonbright?"
+
+"Home," returned Creed briefly. "Get out of my road, and I'll be obliged
+to you."
+
+"Yo' road--_yo'_ road!" echoed Blatch. "Well, young feller, besides this
+here road runnin' acrosst the south eend o' the property that I've rented
+on a five-year lease, ef so be that yo're a-goin' to Nancy Cyard's house
+this is a mighty curious direction for you to be travellin' in."
+
+"I was told it was a short cut," said Bonbright controlling his temper. A
+man who was justice of the peace, going home to get ready to try a case
+on the morrow, must not embroil himself.
+
+"Good Lord!" scoffed Blatch. "You claim to be mountain raised, and tell
+me you think this is a short cut from whar you was at to Nancy Cyard's? I
+reckon you'll have to make up another tale."
+
+Bonbright became suddenly aware that he was surrounded, two of the men
+who were with Turrentine having slipped past him and appearing now as
+blots of blacker shadow against the trees on either side of the path by
+which he had come. Turrentine and the remaining man barred the way ahead;
+on the one side was the sheer descent of the bluff; on the other the
+rough, broken rise.
+
+It was like a bad dream. With his usual forthright directness he spoke
+out.
+
+"What is it you want of me--all of you? This meeting never came about by
+chance."
+
+Blatch shook his head. "Yo' mighty right it didn't," he said. "Me an' the
+boys has a word to speak with you, and when we ketch you walkin' on our
+land in the middle o' the night--with whatever intentions--we think the
+time has come for talkin'."
+
+"Andy! Jeff! Is that you?" Creed, the rash, called over his shoulder to
+the two behind him.
+
+An inarticulate growl answered, and then a boyish voice began,
+
+"Yo' mighty free with folks' names, you Creed Bonbright. Me and my
+brother both told you what we thought o' you when you come to the jail. I
+told you then you'd be run out of the Turkey Tracks ef you tried to come
+up here. We don't want no spies."
+
+"Spies!" echoed Creed with a rising note of anger in his voice. "Who said
+I was a spy? What should I be spying on?"
+
+"Yo' friend Mr. Dan Haley might 'a' said you was a spy," suggested Andy's
+higher pitched tones. "As for what you'd be a-spyin' on you know best.
+We're all mighty peaceable, law-abidin' folks in the Turkey Tracks. I
+don't know of nothin' that we're apt to break the law about 'less'n it
+would be beatin' up and runnin' out a spy that----"
+
+The childish bravado of this speech evidently displeased Blatch, who
+wanted the thing done and over with. His heavier, grating tones broke
+in,
+
+"They's jest one thing to be said to you, Creed Bonbright. You've got to
+get out of the Turkey Tracks--and get quick. Air ye goin'?"
+
+"No!" Creed flung back at him. "When I take my orders from you it will be
+a mighty cold day. I came up here in the Turkey Tracks to do a good work
+among my own people. I'm going to stay here and do it in my own way. Is
+that you, Wade Turrentine? What have you got to say to me?"
+
+The second of the men who faced him stirred uneasily at the mention of
+his name. It rankled in the expectant bridegroom's heart that all he
+could complain of concerning Creed Bonbright was that Huldah had thrown
+herself in his way and forced a kiss upon him--not that Bonbright had
+been the amatory aggressor!
+
+"I say what Blatch says," growled Wade as though the words stuck in his
+throat.
+
+More and more the whole thing was like a nightmare to Creed; he felt as
+though with sufficient effort he might throw it off and wake. The four
+men hung at the path-side eyeing him, motionless if he were still, moving
+only if he stirred. Even this scarcely gave him a complete understanding
+of the gravity of his situation.
+
+"Well," he said finally, "I'm going on home. If any of you boys has
+anything to say to me, to-morrow or any day after--you know where to find
+me."
+
+He made as though to pass; but Blatch Turrentine stepped swiftly to the
+middle of the pathway and stood breathing a little short.
+
+"No, by God, we don't!" he panted. "Ef we let you to go this night--we
+don't know whar we'll ever find you again. Mebbe you've got yo' budget
+made up--on yo' way to yo' friend Mr. Dan Haley right now. _Ye don't go
+from here_!"
+
+Instinctively Creed fell back a step. It was out at last--this was
+neither more nor less than a waylaying. Did they mean to kill him? Blatch
+Turrentine had crouched where he stood, and even as the question went
+through the victim's mind, he launched himself with that sudden frightful
+quickness bodily upon Creed.
+
+It would seem that the slighter man must be borne down by the onset. But
+Bonbright gathered himself, his arms shot out and gripped his assailant
+midway. Struggling, panting, gasping, stamping, they wrenched and swayed,
+the three who watched them holding aloof. Then with a sheer effort of
+strength Creed tore the heavier man from his footing and lifted him clear
+of the ground.
+
+With a little sobbing oath Andy ran in. Bonbright could have heaved the
+man he held over his shoulder in that terrific fall well known to deadly
+wrestling. Wade's stern, "Sst! Git back there!" stopped the boy. Even as
+Creed's muscles knotted themselves to the supreme effort came sudden
+memory of what he must stand for to these people. It was his right to
+defend his own life; he must not, in any extremity, take that of another.
+His grip relaxed. Turrentine partially got his feet again; his arms were
+free; the right made a swift movement, and Creed caught the gleam of a
+knife-blade. Without volition of his own he flung all his weight and
+strength into one mighty movement that hurled man and weapon from him.
+
+Plunging, staggering, clutching at the air, Turrentine gave ground. The
+moonlight flickered on the blade in his upflung hand as, with a strangled
+hoarse cry he reeled backward over the bluff.
+
+There was a rending sound of breaking branches, a noise of rolling rocks;
+then deadly silence. For a long moment the men left standing on the cliff
+strained eyes and ears to where Blatch had gone down, then,
+
+"Keep off!" shouted Creed as the three others began silently to close in
+on him. "Stand back, boys. We've had enough of this. Draw off and let me
+get down and see what's happened to him." He kept slowly backing away,
+striving not to be hemmed in against the rock behind him. The others
+warily followed.
+
+"Let you down and finish him, ye mean--don't ye?" screamed Andy with all
+a boy's senseless rage.
+
+"You're a fine one to bring law and order into the Turkey Tracks," Wade
+taunted savagely. "You've brought murder--that's what you've done."
+
+"He drew a knife on me," cried Bonbright. "You all saw that. I only
+shoved him away. I never meant to throw him over the bluff."
+
+"Nobody seen no knife but you, Creed Bonbright," Jeff doggedly
+asseverated. "All three of us seen you fling Blatch over the bluff. You
+ain't in no court of law now. Yo' lies won't do you no good. Yo' where we
+kill the feller that done the killin'."
+
+"How?" said Creed, still backing, feeling his way slowly, seeking for
+some break in the rise behind, the others coming a little closer. "By
+jumpin' on to him somewhere out at night, four to one--or even three to
+one?"
+
+"Yes, by God! thataway, ef we cain't do it no better way," panted Wade.
+
+Years before--heaven knows how many--a little seep of water began to
+gather between two huge stones in the small broken bluff behind Creed.
+Winter after winter the crevice through which the trickle came enlarged,
+the water caught in a natural basin and froze with all its puny might to
+heave the stones apart. The winter before this slow process had closed
+leaving a wedge of rock trembling upon its base, ready to fall into a
+crevice. Yet the opening was masked with vine leaves, and when the spring
+rains finally washed away the mould and the crude doorway tottered and
+sank, the gap thus left was unnoted, invisible to the sharpest eye.
+
+Bonbright pressing close against the rock to pass, stepping warily when
+it was forward, but hugging his barrier as a safety, missed his footing,
+and slipped almost without a sound into this opening. For a moment he
+sustained himself holding to tree roots, hearkening to the voices of
+those above him.
+
+"Wade--you fool! What did you let him get a-past you for?"
+
+And then Wade's heavier tones, "I didn't. He run back yo' way."
+
+He could hear their footsteps pounding to and fro, their hoarse cries
+which finally settled down into a demand for a lantern.
+
+"We can't find Blatch nor do nothing for him, nor git on the track of
+Bonbright nor nothin' else, without a lantern. You Jeff, run round to the
+still; me and Andy'll go back and fetch pap."
+
+Creed sought cautiously for footing, lost all hold, and began a headlong
+descent.
+
+Low limbs thrashed his face and body; again and again his head was dashed
+against rocks or tree stems; his forehead was gashed; the blood poured
+into his eyes; he rolled and bounded and slid down and down and down the
+crevice, and into the ravine, bruised, bleeding, breathless, blinded and
+choked by blood and earth and gravel. He was more than half unconscious
+when he brought up at last with a rib-smashing thump upon a sapling, and
+there he clung like a dazed animal, gasping.
+
+Slowly, as his breath came back to him, and he cleared the blood and dust
+from his eyes, Creed became aware of a dim glow coming through the bushes
+in one direction. For some time he watched it, making ready to get away
+as quickly as possible, since this must be on Blatch Turrentine's land,
+and the light came probably from some of Blatch's party searching for
+Turrentine himself, or for Creed.
+
+But when he noted that the illumination was steady and stationary, he
+began to move hesitatingly in its direction. He had gone probably two or
+three hundred feet when he came to a place whence he had an unobstructed
+view. The light shone out from the cramped opening of a cave. He went
+nearer in a sort of daze. There was nobody to intercept him, Blatch and
+the boys, whom he had left on the bluff above, when he so unexpectedly
+descended from it, being the only sentinels out. No approach was looked
+for from the quarter where he now was, and he found himself, gazing
+directly into Blatch Turrentine's blockaded still. He could distinctly
+see Jim Cal and the fellow Taylor Stribling moving about within the cave.
+They were attending to a run of whiskey. While Bonbright stood
+motionless, not yet fully comprehending the sinister colour his presence
+might wear, there was the thud of running footsteps, Jeff Turrentine
+rounded the boulder on the other side of the cave and called aloud to
+those within,
+
+"Jim Cal! Taylor! Buck! Creed Bonbright's killed Blatch--flung him clean
+over the bluff--and got plumb away from us! Bring a lantern you-all.
+We've got to hunt for Blatch in under Foeman's Bluff--I'll show you
+whar."
+
+Silently Creed drew back into the dense undergrowth. He knew where he
+was, now. As he retreated swiftly in the opposite direction from that in
+which Jeff had approached, he could vaguely hear the excited voices at
+the still, questioning, replying, denouncing, exclaiming. Presently he
+came out upon the main trail, rounded the Gulch, heading for the big road
+and Nancy Card's cabin, his soul sick within him at the events of the
+evening, bitterly regretting the explicit and unwelcome knowledge of the
+secret still which had been forced upon him, feeling himself now a spy
+indeed--a spy and a murderer.
+
+He walked with long nervous strides; beaten and bruised though he was, he
+was unconscious of fatigue; the grief and regret that surged within him
+were as an anodyne to physical pain, and it was less than half an hour
+later that he opened the door of Nancy Card's cabin, his white face
+scratched and bleeding, his torn hands, too, covered with blood, his
+clothing rent and earth-stained, his eyes wild and pain-bright.
+
+"Good Lord, boy! What's the matter with ye?" cried the old woman, coming
+toward him in terror, both hands out. "I sot up for ye, 'caze Pony he
+jest come from Hepzibah an' said that spiled-rotten Andy an' that feisty
+Jeff 'lowed ye was a spy an' they was a-goin' to run ye out of the Turkey
+Tracks."
+
+She laid hold of him and examined him with anxious eyes.
+
+"I was plumb werried about ye. I knowed in reason they was a-goin' to be
+trouble at that fool play-party."
+
+"No, I ain't hurt, Aunt Nancy," said Creed desolately, and he stared past
+her at the wall. "But looks to me like I'm cursed. I meant so well----"
+He choked on the word. "I'd just had a talk with--She said--we--I thought
+that everything was about to come right. And now--I've killed Blatch
+Turrentine, and I've just got away from the others. They was all after
+me."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+A Spy
+
+
+Old Jephthah was winding the clock when the door--which he had closed
+some time ago after the last retiring guests--flung violently open, Andy
+paused, flying foot on the threshold, and gasped out hoarsely,
+
+"Pap--Creed Bonbright's killed Blatch and got away from us!"
+
+The Lusk girls had staid to help Judith clear up, intending to remain
+over night unless Andy and Jeff returned in time to take them home. The
+three young women working at the table lifted pale faces; Pendrilla let
+fall the plate in her hand and broke it. Unconscious of the fact, she
+stood staring with open mouth at the fragments by her feet. Jephthah took
+one more turn mechanically, then withdrew the key and laid it down.
+
+"Whar at?" he inquired briefly.
+
+"Up on our place," said Wade who now appeared at the boy's side.
+"Bonbright throwed him over Foeman's Bluff."
+
+"How come it?" queried the head of the tribe.
+
+"They was a fussin'," began Andy, but his father interrupted him in a
+curious tone.
+
+"Foeman's Bluff," he repeated. "What tuck Bonbright thar at this time o'
+night?"
+
+"That's what I say," panted Jim Cal's voice in the darkness outside. He
+had come straight from the still instead of going with Jeff and the
+others to search; and for all his flesh he had overtaken his brothers.
+But there was none now to demand sardonically why he fled the seat of war
+and ran to the paternal shelter for re-enforcements. "Ef folks go nosin'
+around whar they ain't wanted, sometimes they git what they don't like,"
+he concluded.
+
+Judith, very pale, had parted her lips to utter words of indignant
+defence, and denial of this broad imputation, but before she could speak
+Huldah Spiller irrupted into the room, her red curls flying, her bodice
+clutched about her in such a fashion as to suggest she had been
+undressing when the news reached her.
+
+The mountain woman with temperament is reduced to the outlets of such
+occasions as these, or revival seasons and funerals; and Huldah Spiller,
+having abandoned the protesting Iley with her babies, whom the mother
+could not leave alone, meant to make the most of the occasion.
+
+"You-all ain't got no right to talk the way you do about Creed," the
+red-haired girl burst out. "Him and me's been friends ever sence I went
+to Hepzibah, and there ain't a better man walks the earth. Ef he done
+anything to Blatch hit was becaze Blatch laywayed him an' jumped on him,
+an' he had to. Oh, Lord!" and she began to weep, "I wish't my daddy was
+here--I jest wish Pap Spiller was here. Pore Creed! Ef you-all git yo'
+hands on him, mad thisaway, the Lord knows what will be did!"
+
+Jephthah regarded his postulant daughter-in-law from under lowered, bushy
+brows.
+
+"Kin you make her hush?" he inquired of Wade.
+
+"I ain't got no interest in makin' her hush nor makin' her holler,"
+returned Wade contemptuously. Dishonoured before his clan, his male
+dignity sadly shorn, his woman shrieking out the wrongs and excellences
+of another man--and that man a young and well-favoured enemy--his
+bitterness may be forgiven.
+
+"Fetch the lantern," ordered Jephthah briefly. "We-all have got to git
+over thar and see to this business."
+
+"Well, I'll hush--but I'm goin' along," volleyed Huldah.
+
+"Le's us go too, Jude," pleaded Cliantha Lusk in a trembling whisper.
+"I'm scared to be left here in the house with the men all gone. He might
+take a notion to come and raid the place and kill us. They do thataway in
+feud times. My gran' mammy----"
+
+"Do hush!" choked Judith. But she hurried out in the wake of the
+departing men, Cliantha clinging to one arm, Pendrilla to the other.
+
+They left the doors open, the candles flaring, and nobody to guard but
+the toothless old hound who slept and snored on the chip pile.
+
+The journey to Foeman's Bluff, following the flicker of the lantern in
+Wade's hand, with the voices of the men coming back to her, hoarse,
+fragmentary, ejaculatory, reciting Creed's offences asseverating that
+they had expected nothing else, was like a nightmare to Judith. When
+Cliantha screamed and clung to her and said she thought she saw Creed
+Bonbright in the bushes by the path-side, Judith shook her off angrily,
+but let the clamouring little thing creep back and make her peace.
+
+"I forgot about you and Blatch--Oh, po' Judy!" moaned Cliantha. "Ef hit
+was me goin' to s'arch for the murdered body of my true love I don't know
+as I could put foot befo' foot!"
+
+"The trail's mighty narrow here--I'll go in front," said Judith. She
+freed herself, and thereafter walked alone with bent head.
+
+As they descended into the hollow Andy began to hoo-ee; and finally he
+was answered from the neighbourhood of the bluff. Up this they climbed,
+since on this side they were cut off from the region below it by an
+impassable gulley. Halting on the top and looking down, they could see a
+lantern moving about and catch faint sound of the men's voices.
+
+"Who's down thar?" Jephthah's big rolling bass sent out the call. There
+was an ominous hesitation before Jeff's perturbed tones replied,
+
+"Hit's me, pap, me an' Buck Shalliday an' Taylor Stribling."
+
+Andy found a tall tree at the bluffs edge, and began to descend through
+its branches with the swiftness and agility of a monkey.
+
+"How is he--is he alive?"
+
+The old man put the query at the edge of the gulf, stooping, peering
+over. Jim Cal sat down suddenly and began wiping his forehead. The
+moonlight showed his round face very pale under its beaded sweat.
+
+"Andy'll git hisself killed!" whimpered Pendrilla.
+
+And Huldah broke into loud hysteric weeping, on the tide of which
+"Creed--Pap Spiller--Blatch Turrentine" were cast up now and again.
+
+"Hush, cain't ye?" demanded Jephthah, angrily; "I cain't hear one word
+they answer me down thar. Hello, boys. Is he livin'?"
+
+Andy had evidently reached the searchers at the foot of the cliff. Loud,
+confused voices came up to those above. Finally,
+
+"W'y, Pap, we ain't never found him," Jeff called.
+
+"Ye _what_?" demanded the father incredulously.
+
+"We ain't--never--found him," reiterated Jeff doggedly.
+
+The old man drew back sharply with a look of swift anger in his face.
+
+"Well, ef ye hain't found him by now ye better quit lookin', hadn't ye?"
+he suggested as he straightened to his full height and turned his back.
+
+"Creed Bonbright's jest about been here an' hid the body, that's what
+he's done," Taylor Stribling clamoured after him in futile explanation.
+But the old man gave no heed. Lantern in hand, he was already addressing
+himself to a careful examination of the scene of the struggle. The torn
+vines where Creed had fallen through the fissure instantly caught his
+eye.
+
+"Come up here, you-all!" he turned and shouted toward the gulf. He swung
+his lantern far out over the crevice. "Look at that," he said quietly.
+"Thar's whar yo' man got away from ye." He handed the lantern to Wade,
+and swung himself lightly down where Creed had fallen.
+
+"Better let me go, Pap," said Wade, and Judith mutely stared after the
+old man as he disappeared into the dark.
+
+For fifteen minutes or more the watchers on the cliff waited and
+trembled, straining ears and eyes. In that time they were joined by those
+from the foot of the bluff, all but Stribling, who, the boys said, had
+"gone on home." Then they heard sounds of clambering in the cleft, and
+the old man's face appeared in the well of inky shadow, pale, the black
+eyes burning, the great black beard flowing backward to join the darkness
+behind him. Wade held his lantern high. It lit a circle of faces on which
+terror, anger, and distress wrought. Judith could scarcely look at her
+uncle, and a great trembling shook her limbs, so that she laid hold of a
+little sapling by which she stood, and closed her eyes.
+
+"Well," said the old man on a falling note, and his voice sounded
+hollowly from the cleft, "well, I reckon this does settle it--whether
+Blatch is hurt or no. How many of ye was a-workin' in the still
+to-night?"
+
+"I was," quavered Jim Cal; "me and Taylor Stribling and Buck Shalliday.
+Blatch had left a run o' whiskey that had to be worked off, and when he
+didn't come I turned in to 'tend to it--why, Pap?"
+
+"Ef Bonbright wanted to find out about the still he shore made it, that's
+all," answered Jephthah. "Ye can see right into it from whar he went. Ef
+you-all boys wants to stay out o' the penitentiary I reckon Creed
+Bonbright's got to leave the Turkey Tracks mighty sudden," and he swung
+himself heavily to the level of the cliff.
+
+"That's what I say," whispered Jim Cal, pasty pale and quivering. "We've
+got it to do."
+
+Old Jephthah looked darkly upon his sons.
+
+"Well, settle it amongst ye, how an' when. I'll neither meddle nor make
+in this business. I don't know how all o' this come about, nor what
+you-all an' Blatch Turrentine air up to. You've made an outsider o' me,
+an' an outsider I'll stay. Ef ye won't tell me the truth, don't tell me
+no lies. Come on, gals."
+
+He strode into the homeward trail, the four girls falling in behind his
+tall figure. Judith was sick with misery and uncertainty; the Lusk girls
+looked back timidly at Andy and Jeff; even Huldah was mute.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+The Warning
+
+
+Five o'clock Friday morning found Creed, pale, hollow-eyed, a strip of
+Nancy's home-made sticking plaster over the cut on brow and cheek, but
+otherwise composed and as usual, at the pine table in his little shack,
+working over the references which applied to the case he was to try that
+morning. But an hour later brought old Keziah Provine to the door to
+borrow the threading of a needle with white thread.
+
+"I hearn they had an interruption," she began, pushing in past Nancy and
+the two children, "but thar--you kin hear anything these days and times.
+They most gen'ally does find trouble at these here play-parties, that's
+why I'm sot agin 'em."
+
+Poor old soul, it was not on account of her rheumatic legs, her toothless
+jaws, nor her half-blind eyes that she objected to play-parties, of
+course.
+
+"I got no use for 'em," she pursued truthfully, "specially when they're
+started up too close to a blockade still. They named it to me that Creed
+had done killed one of the Turrentine boys--is that so?"
+
+"No," returned Nancy stoutly. "By the best of what I kin git out o'
+Creed, him and Blatch was walkin' along, an' Blatch missed his footin'
+and fell off o' Foeman's Bluff. Creed tried to he'p him, an' fell an' got
+scratched some. I reckon the Turrentines'll tell it different, but that's
+what I make out from what Creed says."
+
+"Lord, how folks will lie!" admired Keziah, piously. "Now they tell that
+Blatch was not only killed up, but that some one--Creed, or some o' them
+that follers him--tuck the body away befo' they could git to it. They say
+they was blood all over the bushes, an' a great drug place whar Blatch
+had been toted off. One feller named a half-dug hole sorter like a grave;
+but thar! I never went over to see for myse'f, an' ye cain't believe the
+half o' what ye hear."
+
+"Well, I'd say not," snapped Nancy. "Not ef hit was sech a pack o' lies
+as that."
+
+Thread in hand old Keziah lingered till Arley Kittridge came with his
+mother's baking-pan and request for a little risin'. Arley it seemed had
+been commissioned to find out what he could on behalf of the Kittridge
+family. And so it went till breakfast-time.
+
+How these things travel in a neighbourhood where there is no telephone,
+postman, milkman, nor morning paper, and where the distances are
+considerable, is one of the mysteries of the mountains--yet travel they
+do, and when time came for court to open Creed found that he had a crowd
+which would at any other juncture have been highly gratifying.
+
+Every man that came in glanced first at the cut on his cheek, swiftly
+noted the pale face, sunken, purple-rimmed eyes, the scratched hands,
+then looked hastily away. Several made proffers of an alliance with him,
+being at outs with the Turrentines. All reiterated the story of the
+missing body.
+
+"You done exactly right," old Tubal Kittridge told him. "With a man like
+Blatchley Turrentine, hit's hit first or git hit. I wonder he ever let ye
+git as far as Foeman's Bluff; but if you made good use o' yo' time, I
+reckon you found out what you aimed to," and he winked laboriously at
+poor Creed's crimsoning countenance.
+
+"I wasn't trying to find out anything, Mr. Kittridge. Blatch forced the
+quarrel upon me. I was on my way home at the time."
+
+"Well, a lee-tle out of yo' way, wasn't ye?" objected Kittridge, slightly
+offended at not being offered Bonbright's confidence.
+
+The case on the docket, one that had interested Creed deeply, being the
+curious matter of a mountain creek which in the spring storms had changed
+its direction, scoured off a good field and flung it to the opposite side
+of the road, thus giving it to a new owner, dragged wearily. Who cared
+about the question of a few rods of mountain land, even if it had raised
+good tobacco, when the slayer of one of the bullies of the neighbourhood
+sat before them--a man who had not only killed his victim but had, within
+fifteen minutes, hidden all traces of the body--and the opening of a new
+feud was taking place before their eyes?
+
+At noon Creed, in despair, adjourned his court, setting a new date for
+trial, explaining that this Turrentine matter ought to be looked into,
+and he believed it was not a proper day for him to be otherwise engaged.
+Then he sought old Tubal Kittridge.
+
+"There's something I want you to do for me," he said.
+
+"Shore--shore; anything in the world," Kittridge agreed eagerly.
+
+"Aunt Nancy won't hear of my going over to the Turrentines'," hesitated
+Creed. "I looked for them to be here--some of them--long before this."
+
+"Huh-uh; ah, Law, no--they won't come in the daytime," smiled Kittridge.
+
+Creed looked annoyed.
+
+"They will be welcome, whenever they come," he asserted. "What I want you
+to do is to go to Jephthah Turrentine and say to him that I thought I
+ought to go over, and that I'll do so now if he wants me to--or I'll meet
+him here at the office, or anywhere he says."
+
+"Huh-uh--uh!" Old Tubal shook his head, his eyes closed in quite an
+ecstasy of negation. "You cain't git Jep Turrentine in the trap as easy
+as all that," he said half contemptuously. "Why, he'd know what you was
+at a leetle too quick."
+
+Bonbright looked helpless indignation for a moment, then thought better
+of it and repeated:
+
+"I want you to go and tell him that I'm right here, ready to answer for
+anything I've done, and that I would like to talk to him about it. Will
+you do it?"
+
+"Oh,--all right," agreed Kittridge in an offended tone. "There's plenty
+would stand by ye; there's plenty that would like to see the Turrentines
+run out of the country; but if ye want to fix it some new-fangled way I
+reckon you'll have to." And to himself he muttered as he took the road
+homeward, "I say go to the Turrentines with sech word at that! That boy
+must think I'm as big a fool as he is."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the Turrentine home life dragged on strangely. Jephthah in his own
+cabin, busied himself overhauling some harness. The boys had been across
+at the old place, presumably making a thorough inspection of the scene of
+the trouble. Judith went mechanically about her tasks, cooking and
+serving the meals, setting the house in order. Only once did she rouse
+somewhat, and that was when Huldah Spiller flounced in and flung herself
+tempestuously down in a chair.
+
+"How you come on, Judy?" inquired the red-haired damsel.
+
+"About as usual," returned Judith coldly, and would fain have added,
+"none the better for seeing you."
+
+"I jest had to run over and see how you was standin' it," Huldah pursued
+vivaciously. "I cried all night--didn't you?"
+
+"What for?" inquired Judith angrily.
+
+"Oh--I don't know. I'm jest thataway. Git me started an' thar's no
+stoppin' me. But then I've knowed Creed so mighty long--him an' me was
+powerful good friends, and my feelin's is more tenderer than some folks's
+anyhow."
+
+"Huldy," said Judith in a tone so rigidly controlled that it made the
+other jump, "ef you'll jest walk yo'self out of here I'll be obliged to
+you. I've stood all I can. I don't want to say anything plumb bad to you,
+but ef you set thar an' talk to me like that for another minute I will."
+
+"Oh, you po' thing!" cried Huldah, jumping to her feet. "I declare to
+goodness I forgot all about you an' Blatch. Here I've been carryin' on
+over Creed Bonbright--and you mighty near a widder. You po' thing!"
+
+Judith faced around with such blazing eyes from the biscuits she was
+moulding that Huldah beat a hasty retreat, dodged out of the door, and
+ran up the slope. At Jim Cal's cabin she paused and looked about her
+uncertainly. Iley had the toothache, and for various reasons was proving
+a poor audience for her younger sister's conversation. The day had been a
+trying one to Huldah's excited nerves, a sad anti-climax after the
+explosions of the night before. It was five o'clock. The men were all
+over at the old place. If she but had an excuse to follow them, now. Why,
+the whole top of the Bald above Foeman's Bluff, and the broad shelf below
+it, were covered with huckleberry bushes! She put her head in at the
+door. Iley looked up from the hot brick which she was wrapping in a wet
+cloth with ten drops of turpentine on it preparatory to applying the same
+to her cheek above the swollen tooth.
+
+"Ef you say 'Creed Bonbright'--or 'kill'--or 'Blatch Turrentine,'--to me,
+I vow I'll hit ye," she warned shrilly. "I ain't never raised hand on ye
+yet sence ye was a woman grown, but do it I will!"
+
+"I wasn't goin' to say nothin' about nothin'," asserted Huldah
+sweepingly. "I was jest goin' to ax did ye want any huckleberries, and
+git a pail to pick some."
+
+She sought out a small tin lard bucket as she spoke, and Iley's silence
+presumably assenting, within twenty minutes was picking away eagerly on
+the Bald above the bluff.
+
+Below her stretched meadows drunk with sun--breathless. A rain crow
+called from time to time "C-c-c-cow! cow! cow!" The air was still heavy
+with faint noon-day smells, the sky tarnished with heat.
+
+"I wonder where in all creation them boys has got theirselves to," she
+ruminated as she peered about, dragging green berries and leaves into her
+bucket, for which Mrs. Jim Cal would afterward no doubt scold her
+soundly. "'Pears to me like I hearn somebody talkin' somewhars."
+
+She pushed cautiously down to the edge of the rocks where the bushes grew
+scatteringly, pretending to herself that she wanted a bit of wild
+geranium that flourished in a crevice far below the top. Setting down her
+pail she threw herself on her face, her arms over the edge, and reached.
+But the fingers hung suspended, opened in air, her mouth open too, and
+she listened greedily to faint sounds of men's voices.
+
+"I'll bet it's old Ab Foeman's hideout that nobody but him and the
+Cherokees knowed of," she muttered to herself. "Some one's found it
+and--Lord, look at that!"
+
+From the bushes below her, coming apparently out of the living rock
+itself, crept Andy, and then Jeff Turrentine. Now she could see the
+narrow, door-like opening of the cave which had given them up, and
+realised how, from below, it passed for a mere depression in the rock.
+
+Huldah drew back silently, inch by inch, and instinctively pulled her
+black calico sunbonnet over her red curls as she crouched down among the
+huckleberry bushes. When she looked again Andy and Jeff had disappeared,
+but she could see the head and shoulders of a man who still lay at the
+cave's mouth--and that man was Blatch Turrentine!
+
+At first she shuddered, thinking that she had come upon the dead body;
+then she noted a tiny trail of smoke, and, by craning a little farther
+around, saw that Blatchley lay at ease with a pipe in his mouth,
+smoking.
+
+"The triflin', low-down, lyin' hound!" she muttered to herself. "I'm
+a-goin' this very minute and tell Creed Bonbright."
+
+She hesitated, glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the
+Turrentine cabin, then bent dubiously and set up her overturned bucket.
+Not a berry had spilled from it, yet the sight of its mishap gave her an
+idea. Quietly slipping through the bushes till she was far enough away to
+dare run, she hurried home to the cabin.
+
+"Iley," she gasped, as soon as she put her head in at the door, "I upsot
+my berry pail and lost most of the fruit. Can you make out with that?"
+and she set the little bucket on the table.
+
+"I reckon I'll have to, ef you've got so work-brickle ye won't pick any
+more," returned Iley.
+
+"I would--I'd git ye all ye need," protested Huldah with unexpected
+meekness, "but I'm jest obliged to go over to--" she had all but said
+Creed Bonbright's, but she caught herself in time and concluded lamely.
+"I jest have obliged to run down to Clianthy Lusk's and see can she let
+me have her crochet needle for to finish up my shawl."
+
+She delayed for no criticism or demur on Iley's part, but was off with
+the last word, and once out of sight of Jim Cal's cabin she took a short
+cut through the woods and ran; but in spite of her best efforts darkness
+began to gather before she won to the high road, for the evening had
+closed in early, thick and threatening; a mountain thunder-storm was
+brewing. Opposite a tempestuous, magnificent sunset, there had reared in
+the eastern sky a tremendous thunder-head, a palace of a thousand snowy
+domes, turning to gold, and then flushing from base to crown like a
+gigantic many-petalled rose. It swept steadily up and over, hiding the
+sky, and leaving the earth in almost complete darkness. There were low
+rolls of thunder, at first mellow and almost musical, crashing always
+louder and stronger as they came nearer. The wind thrashed and yelled
+through the tossing forest; and as she approached the Card cabin she
+heard the banging of barn shutters, the whipping of tree boughs against
+the windows. There were the first spears of rain flung at roof and door;
+and it was in the torrent itself which followed fast that Huldah beat
+upon that closed door, giving her name and demanding entrance. Within,
+Creed Bonbright sprang up from where he sat with a book in his hand, his
+eyes fixed on vacancy, and would have answered her, but Old Nancy put a
+hasty palm over his lips.
+
+"Hush--for God's sake," she whispered.
+
+They stood in the lighted cabin, all on foot by this time, and listened
+intently, tall Creed, the little grey-haired woman clinging to him and
+restraining him, Doss with his light eyes goggling, and Little Buck and
+Beezy hand in hand, studying their grandmother's face, not their
+father's.
+
+"Who is it?" quavered Nancy. "I'm all alone in here, and I'm scared to
+let wayfarers in."
+
+"It's me--Huldy Spiller--Aunt Nancy," called back the voice in the rain.
+
+"Well, I vow! You know how things air, Huldy--what do ye want, chile?"
+
+"I want Creed Bonbright. I've got something to tell him."
+
+"Thar--ye see now," breathed the old woman, turning toward Creed. Then
+she raised her voice.
+
+"He ain't here, honey," she lied unhesitatingly.
+
+"Why don't ye go to his office--that's whar he stays at."
+
+"Oh, for the Lord's sake--Aunt Nancy!" came back the girl's shrill,
+terrified tones. "I've done been to the office; I know in reason Creed
+ain't there, or he'd a-answered me. Please let me in; I'm scared some of
+the Turrentines'll come an' ketch me."
+
+At this Creed strode to the door, Nancy dragging back on his arm and Buck
+and Beezy seconding her with all their small might, while Provine
+spluttered ineffectually in the background.
+
+"Hit's a lie," hissed Nancy. "She's a decoy. Ef you open that thar do'
+with the light on ye, they'll shoot ye over her shoulders. Hit was did to
+my man thataway in feud times. Don't you open the do' Creed."
+
+"Why, Aunt Nancy," remonstrated Creed, almost smiling, "this isn't like
+you. There's nothing but a girl there in the rain. Keep out of range if
+you're scared. I'm sure going to open that door."
+
+[Illustration: "They stood in the lighted cabin and listened intently."]
+
+As he made ready to do so Nancy flew back to the table and blew out the
+light, and the next minute Huldah Spiller, dripping like a mermaid, was
+standing in the middle of the darkened room, and Doss Provine, breathing
+short, was barring the door behind her.
+
+"Who's here?" gasped the girl peering about the gloom. "What air you-all
+a-goin' to do to me?"
+
+Nancy relighted the lamp and set it on the table, and Huldah discovered
+with a long-drawn sobbing sigh of relief that there was no one save the
+immediate family present.
+
+"I came quick as I could," she began in the middle of her story, grasping
+Creed by the arm and shaking him in the violence of her emotion and
+insistence. "Blatch Turrentine's alive. Andy and Jeff have got him hid
+out. I seed him myse'f with my own eyes, in a hideout thar below Foeman's
+Bluff, not more'n a hour ago. I'll bet he aims to layway you, ef he
+cain't git ye hung for murderin' of him. You got to git out o' here. It
+was as much as my life was worth to come over and tell ye. I'm afraid to
+go back. I'm goin' right on down to Hepzibah and stay thar."
+
+"Come up closeter to the fire," commanded Nancy, who had watched the girl
+keenly throughout her recital. "Doss, put some sticks on and git a little
+blaze so she can dry herself. Huldy, you're a good girl to come over and
+warn Creed--when was you aimin' to go to Hepzibah?" She looked up from
+the hearth where she knelt with the frankest inquiring gaze.
+
+"To-night--right now," half whimpered Huldah. "I'm scared to go back. I'm
+scared to be here on the mountain at all."
+
+"And did ye aim to have Creed go along of ye?" old Nancy questioned
+mildly.
+
+"Yes--yes--he'd better," agreed Huldah hysterically. "Hit's the onliest
+way for him now."
+
+Nancy caught Creed's eye above the girl's drenched head, and shook her
+own warningly. Leaving Doss to look after the newcomer, she drew the
+young justice into the kitchen.
+
+"Whatever ye do," she warned him hastily, "don't you put out with that
+red-headed gal in the dark. Things may be adzackly as she says--looks to
+me like she thinks she's a-speakin' the truth; but then agin the
+Turrentines might a' sent her for to draw you out. They wouldn't like to
+shoot ye in my cabin, 'caze they know me and my kinfolks would be apt to
+raise a fuss; but halfway down the mountain with this sweetheart of
+Wade's--huh-uh, boy; I reckon they could tell their own tale then, of how
+you come by yo' death. Don't you go with her."
+
+"I wasn't aiming to, Aunt Nancy," said Creed quietly. "As soon as I heard
+that Blatch Turrentine was alive, I intended to go right over and have a
+talk with old Jephthah. He's a fair-minded man, and if he is informed
+that his nephew is living I think he and I can come to terms."
+
+"Fa'r-minded man!" echoed Nancy contemptuously. "Jephthah Turrentine a
+fa'r-minded man! Well, Creed, ef I hadn't no better eye for a fat chicken
+than you have for a fa'r-minded man, you wouldn't enjoy yo' dinner at my
+table as well as you do. I say fa'r-minded! This thing has got into a
+feud, boy, and in a feud you cain't trust nobody--_nobody_!"
+
+Creed went back into the room, and Nancy reluctantly followed him. Huldah
+was getting dry and warm, and that fluent tongue of hers was impatiently
+silent. As soon as she saw the returning pair she began to repeat again
+the details of her information--how she had glimpsed the hidden man
+through the bushes, how she knew in reason he could be none other than
+Blatch. Nancy exchanged a glance of intelligence with Creed.
+
+"Ye see!" she murmured, aside. "Ef she _ain't_ a decoy they've sont, she
+don't know nothin' for sartin."
+
+"I'm scared of all the Turrentines," Huldah declared. "They're awful
+folks. From the old man down to Jude, they scare me. I reckon Jude's had
+a big hand in this," she went on excitedly. "Her and Blatch is goin' to
+wed shortly, and she'd be shore to know any meanness he was into. I'll be
+glad to git shet of sech. When you're ready to be a-steppin' Creed, I
+am."
+
+She looked up at the young fellow with a sort of unwilling worship.
+
+"I don't aim to go with you, Huldah," he said gently. "You love Wade
+Turrentine, and Wade loves you; you was to be wedded this fall. I don't
+aim for any affairs of mine to part you two."
+
+The girl hung her head, painfully flushed, her eyes full of tears.
+
+"I don't care nothin' about Wade," she choked. "Him and me has----"
+
+"I reckon you've quarrelled" said Creed, sympathetically. "That needn't
+come to anything. I'm going over and talk to Jephthah Turrentine
+to-morrow morning, and I want you to come with me!"
+
+"No," said Huldah getting to her feet and looking strangely at him. "The
+rain's about done now; the moon'll be comin' up in half a hour--I'm
+a-goin' on down to Hepzibah, like I said I was. Ef Wade Turrentine wants
+me, he knows whar to come for me. Ef he thinks of me as he said he did
+the last time we had speech together--w'y, I never want to put eyes on
+his face again. Oh--Creed, I wish't you'd come with me!"
+
+"But it was me you quarrelled about," remonstrated Bonbright with that
+sudden clear vision which ultra-spiritual natures often show, and that
+startling forthrightness of speech which amazes and daunts the
+mountaineer. "I'm the last man you ought to leave the mountain with,
+Huldah, if you want to make up with Wade."
+
+"How--how did you know?" whispered the girl, staring at him. "Well,
+anyhow, I ain't never a-goin' back thar."
+
+She could not be prevailed on to go to bed with Aunt Nancy, when Doss
+Provine and the children were asleep, and Creed had gone to his quarters
+in the little office building, but sat by the fire all night staring into
+the embers, occasionally stirring them or putting on a stick of wood. At
+the earliest grey of dawn she waked Nancy, bidding the elder woman fasten
+the door after her. Declining in strangely subdued fashion her hostess's
+offer of hot coffee, she stepped noiselessly out and, with a swift look
+about, dived into the steep short-cut trail which led almost straight
+down the face of Big Turkey Track, from turn to turn of the main road.
+
+A cloud clung to the Side; the foliage of only the foremost trees emerged
+from its blur, and these were dimmed and flatted as though a soft white
+veil were tangled among their leaves. Into this white mystery of dawn the
+girl had vanished.
+
+Nancy looked curiously after her a moment, then glanced swiftly about as
+Huldah had done, her eyes dwelling long on Creed's little shack, standing
+peaceful in the morning mists. Softly she turned back, and closed and
+barred the door.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+In the Lion's Den
+
+
+At seven o'clock, despite entreaties and warnings, Creed mounted his mule
+and set out for the Turrentine place.
+
+"Don't you trust nothin' nor nobody over thar," Nancy followed him out to
+the gate to reiterate. "Old Jephthah Turrentine's as big a rascal as
+they' is unhung. No--I wouldn't trust Judith neither (hush now, Little
+Buck; you don't know what granny's a-talkin' about); she's apt to git
+some fool gal's notion o' being jealous o' Huldy, or something like that,
+and see you killed as cheerful as I'd wring a chicken's neck. (For the
+Lord's sake, Doss, take these chil'en down to the spring branch; they
+mighty nigh run me crazy with they' fussin' an' cryin'!) Don't you trust
+none on 'em, boy."
+
+"Why, Aunt Nancy, I trust everybody on that whole place, excepting
+Blatchley Turrentine," said Creed sturdily. "Even Andy and Jeff, if I had
+a chance to talk to them, could be got to see reason. They're not the
+bloodthirsty crew you make them out. They're good folks."
+
+She looked at him in exasperation, yet with a sort of reluctant approval
+and admiration.
+
+"Well," she sighed, as she saw him mount and start, "mebbe yo' safer
+goin' right smack into the lion's den, like Dan'el, than you would be to
+sneak up."
+
+Summer was at full tide, and the world had been new washed last night.
+Scents of mint and pennyroyal rose up under his mule's slow pacing feet.
+The meadow that stretched beyond Nancy's cabin was a green sea, with
+flower foam of white weed and dog-fennel; and the fence row was a long
+breaker with surf of elder blossom, the garden a tangle of bean-vine
+arbours. The corn patch rustled valiantly; the pastures were streaked
+with pale yellow primroses; and Bob Whites ran through the young crops,
+calling.
+
+Creed rode forward. A gay wind was abroad under the blue sky. Every
+tiniest leaf that danced and flirted on its slender stem sent back gleams
+of the morning sunlight from its wet, glistening surface. The woods were
+full of bird songs, and the myriad other lesser voices of a midsummer
+morning sounded clear and distinct upon the vast, enfolding silence of
+the mountains.
+
+It seemed beyond reason out in that gay July sunshine that anything dark
+or tragic could happen to one. But after all man cannot be so different
+from Nature which produces him, and the night before had given them a
+passionate, brief, destructive thunder-storm. Creed noted the ravages of
+it here and there; the broken boughs, the levelled or uprooted herbage,
+the washed and riven soil, as his mule moved soberly along.
+
+At the Turrentine cabin all was quiet. The young men of the house had
+been out the entire night before guarding the trails that Creed Bonbright
+should not leave the mountains secretly. A good deal of moonshine whiskey
+went to this night guarding, particularly when there was the excuse of a
+shower to call for it, and the watchers of the trails now lay in their
+beds making up arrears of sleep. Jephthah stood looking out of his own
+cabin door when, about fifteen minutes ahead of Creed, Taylor Stribling
+tethered his half-broken little filly in the bushes at the edge of the
+clearing, and ran across the grassy side yard.
+
+"Bonbright's out an' a-headin' this way!" he volleyed in a hoarse whisper
+as he approached the head of the clan.
+
+"Who's with him?" asked Jephthah, turning methodically back into the room
+for the squirrel gun over the door.
+
+"Nobody. He ain't got no rifle. I reckon he's packin' a pistol, though,
+of course. Nancy Cyard bawled an' took on considerable when he started.
+Shall I call the boys?"
+
+"No," returned Jephthah briefly, replacing the clean brown rifle on its
+fir pegs. "No, I don't need nobody, and I don't need Old Sister. I reckon
+I can deal with one young feller alone."
+
+He walked unhurriedly toward the main house. Stribling stood looking
+after him a moment, uncertainly. The spy's errand was performed. He had
+now his dismissal; it would not do to be seen about the place at this
+time. He went reluctantly back to the waiting filly, mounted and turned
+her head toward a high point that commanded the big road for some
+distance. A little later Jephthah Turrentine sat in the open
+threshing-floor porch of the main house smoking, Judith within was busy
+looking over and washing a mess of Indian lettuce and sissles in a
+piggin, when Creed rode into the yard.
+
+The ancient hound thumped twice with a languid tail on the floor; Judith,
+back in her kitchen, stayed her hand, and stared out at the newcomer with
+parted lips which the blood forsook; Jephthah's inscrutable black eyes
+rose to Creed's face and rested there; nothing but that aspect, pale,
+desolate, ravaged, the strip of plaster running from brow to cheek,
+marked the difference between this visit and any other.
+
+Yet the old house seemed to crouch close, to regard him askance from
+under lowering eyes, as though through all its timbers ran the message
+that the enemy was here.
+
+"Good morning," he hailed.
+
+"Howdy. 'Light--'light and come in," Jephthah adjured him, without
+rising, "I'm proud to see ye."
+
+His own countenance was worn and haggard with sleeplessness and anxiety,
+but with the mountaineer's dignified reticence he passively ignored the
+fact, assuming a detached manner of mild jocularity.
+
+Creed, under inspection from six pairs of eyes, though there was only one
+individual visible to him, got from his mule, tethered the animal, and
+came and seated himself on the porch edge.
+
+"Aunt Nancy didn't want me to come over this morning," he began with that
+directness which always amazed his Turkey Track neighbours and put them
+all astray as to the man, his real meaning and intentions.
+
+"Well, now--didn't she?" inquired the other innocently. "Hit was a fine
+mornin' for a ride, too, and I 'low ye' had yo' reasons for comin' in
+this direction--not but what we're proud to see ye on business or on
+pleasure."
+
+"Are any of the boys about?" asked Creed, suddenly looking up.
+
+"I don't know adzackly whar the boys is at," compromised Jephthah,
+soothing his conscience with the fiction that one might be lying in one
+bed and another in some place to him unknown. "Was there any particular
+one you wanted to see?"
+
+"I was looking for Wade," said Creed briefly, and a silent shock went
+through one of the men kneeling on the bed inside the log wall, peering
+through a chink at the visitor.
+
+Judith could bear the strain no longer. Torn by diverse emotions, she
+snatched up a bucket, ran out of the back door and down to the spring.
+Returning with it, and her composure somewhat repaired, she dipped a cool
+and dripping gourdful, walked swiftly through the front room and stood
+abruptly before Creed, presenting it with almost no word of greeting,
+only the customary, "Would ye have a fresh drink?"
+
+"Thank you," said Creed taking the gourd from her hand and lifting his
+eyes to her face. He needed no prompting now; his own heart spoke very
+clearly; he knew as he looked at her that she was all the world to
+him--and that he was utterly lost and cut off from her.
+
+Jephthah, on the porch, and those unseen eyes within, watched the two
+curiously, while Creed drank from the gourd, emptied out what water
+remained, and returned it to Judith, and she all the while regarded him
+with a burning gaze, finally bursting out:
+
+"What do you want to see Wade about? Is it--is it Huldy?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Judith, it's Huldah," Creed assented quietly.
+
+"I don't know as its worth while talkin' to Wade about that thar gal,"
+put in Jephthah meditatively. "She sorter sidled off last night and left
+the place, and I think he feels kinder pestered and mad like. My boys is
+all mighty peaceful in their dispositions, but it ain't the best to talk
+to any man when he's had that which riles him."
+
+"Whar is Huldy Spiller?" demanded Judith standing straight and tall
+before the visitor, disdaining the indirection of her uncle's methods.
+"Is she over at you-all's?"
+
+"That's what I wanted to talk to Wade about," returned Creed evasively.
+"Huldah's a good girl, and I'm sorry if he thinks--I'd hate to be the one
+that----"
+
+For a moment Judith stared at him with incredulous anger, then she
+wheeled sharply, went into the house and shut the door. Creed turned
+appealingly to the older man. He had great faith in Jephthah Turrentine's
+good sense and cool judgment. But the young justice showed in many ways
+less comprehension of these, his own people, than an outsider born and
+bred. Jephthah Turrentine was no longer to be reckoned with as a man--he
+was the head of a tribe, and that tribe was at war.
+
+"I don't know as that thar gal is worth namin' at this time," he
+vouchsafed, almost plaintively. "Ef she had taken Jim Cal's Iley 'long
+with her, I could fergive the both of 'em and wish ye joy. As it is,
+she's neither here nor thar. Ef you had nothin' better to name to my son
+Wade, mebbe we'd as well talk of the craps, and about Steve Massengale
+settin' out to run for the Legislature."
+
+Creed stood up, and in so doing let the little packet of papers he held
+in his hand drop unnoted to the grass. He scorned to make an appeal for
+himself, yet it seemed worth while to let his adversaries know that he
+was aware what they would be at.
+
+"Who found Blatch Turrentine's body and removed it?" he asked abruptly.
+
+Blatch's body,--unknown to his uncle and Judith--at that moment reposing
+comfortably upon a bed in the loft room adjoining the porch, heaved with
+noiseless chuckles.
+
+Old Jephthah's eyes narrowed. "We 'low that ye might answer that question
+for yo'self," he said coolly. "Word goes that you've done hid the body,
+so murder couldn't be proved."
+
+The visitor sighed. He was disappointed. He had hoped the old man might
+have admitted--to him--that Blatch had not been killed.
+
+"Mr. Turrentine," he began desperately, "I know what you people believe
+about me--but it isn't true; I'm not a spy. When I came upon that still,
+I was running for my life. I never wanted to know anything about
+blockaded stills."
+
+"Ye talked sort o' like ye did, here earlier in the evenin'," said the
+old man, rearing himself erect in his chair, and glaring upon the fool
+who spoke out in broad daylight concerning such matters.
+
+"I didn't mean that personally," protested Creed. "I wish to the Lord I
+didn't know anything about it. I'm sorry it chanced that I looked in the
+cave there and saw your son----"
+
+"You needn't go into no particulars about whar you looked in, nor what
+you seed, nor call out no names of them you seed," cut in the old man's
+voice, low and menacing; and around the corner of the house Jim Cal,
+where he had stolen up to listen, trembled through all the soft bulk of
+his body like a jelly; and into his white face the angry blood rushed.
+
+"Wish ye didn't know nothin? Yes, and you'll wish't it wuss'n that befo'
+yo're done with it," he muttered under his breath.
+
+"I don't intend to use that or any other information against a neighbour
+and a friend," Creed went on doggedly. "But they can't make me leave the
+Turkey Tracks. I'm here to stay. I came with a work to do, and I mean to
+do it or die trying."
+
+The old man's head was sunk a bit on his breast, so that the great black
+beard rose up of itself and shadowed his lower face. "Mighty fine--mighty
+fine," he murmured in its voluminous folds. "Ef they is one thing finer
+than doin' what you set out to do, hit's to die a-tryin'. The sort of
+sentiments you have on hand now is the kind I l'arned myself out of the
+blue-backed speller when I was a boy. I mind writin' em out big an' plain
+after the teacher's copy."
+
+Creed looked about him for Judith. He had failed with the old man, but
+she would understand--she would know. His hungry heart counselled him
+that she was his best friend, and he glanced wistfully at the door
+through which she had vanished; but it remained obstinately closed as he
+made his farewells, got dispiritedly to his mule and away.
+
+Judith watched his departure from an upper window, smitten to the heart
+by the drooping lines of the figure, the bend of the yellow head.
+Inexorably drawn she came down the steep stairs, checking, halting at
+every step, her breast heaving with the swift alternations of her mood.
+The door of the boys' room swung wide; her swift glance descried Wade's
+figure just vanishing into the grove at the edge of the clearing.
+
+The tall, gaunt old man brooded in his chair, his black eyes fixed on
+vacancy, the pipe in his relaxed fingers dropped to his knee. Up toward
+the Jim Cal cabin Iley, one baby on her hip and two others clinging to
+her skirts, dodged behind a convenient smoke-house, and peered out
+anxiously.
+
+Judith stepped noiselessly into the porch; the old man did not turn his
+head. Her quick eye noted the paper Creed had dropped. She stooped and
+picked it up unobserved, slipped into the kitchen, studying its lines of
+figures which meant nothing to her, caught up her sunbonnet and, glancing
+warily about, made an exit through the back door. She ran through a long
+grape-arbour where great wreathing arms of Virgin's Bower aided to shut
+the green tunnel in from sight, then took a path where tall bushes
+screened her, making for the short cut which she guessed Creed would
+take.
+
+Down the little dell through which she herself had ridden that first day
+with what wonderful thoughts of him in her heart, she got sight of him,
+going slowly, the lagging gait of the old mule seeming to speak his own
+depression. The trees were all vigorous young second growth here, and
+curtained the slopes with billows of green. The drying ground sent up a
+spicy mingling of odours--decaying pine needles, heart leaf, wintergreen
+berries, and the very soil itself.
+
+Bumblebees shouldered each other clumsily about the heads of milk-weed
+blossoms. Cicada droned in long, loud crescendo and diminuendo under the
+hot sun of mid forenoon. A sensitive plant, or as Judith herself would
+have said, a "shame briar," caught at her skirts as she hastened. Dipping
+deeper into the hollow, the man ahead, riding with his gaze upon the
+ground, became aware of the sound of running feet behind him, and then a
+voice which made his pulses leap called his name in suppressed, cautious
+tones. He looked back to see Judith hurrying after him, her cheeks aflame
+from running, the sunbonnet carried in her hand, and her dark locks
+freeing themselves in little moist tendrils about her brow where the tiny
+beads of perspiration gathered.
+
+"You dropped this," she panted, offering the paper when she came abreast
+of him.
+
+For a moment she stood by the old mule's shoulder looking up into the
+eyes of his rider. It was the reversal of that first day when Creed had
+stood so looking up at her. Some memory of it struggled in her, and
+appealed for his life, anyhow, from that fierce primitive jealousy which
+would have sacrificed the lover of the other woman.
+
+"I--I knowed the paper wasn't likely anything you needed," she told him.
+"I jest had to have speech with you alone. I want to warn you. The boys
+is out after you. They ain't no hope, ef the Turrentines gits after you.
+Likely we're both watched right now. You'll have to leave the
+mountains."
+
+Creed got quickly from the mule and stood facing her, a little pale and
+very stern.
+
+"Do you hold with them?" he asked. "I had no intention of killing Blatch.
+The quarrel was forced on me, as they would say if they told the truth."
+
+"Well, they won't tell the truth," said Judith impatiently. "What differ
+does it make how come it? They're bound to run ye out. Hit's a question
+of yo' life ef ye don't go. I--I don't know what makes me come an' warn
+ye--but you and Huldy had better git to the settlement as soon as ye
+can."
+
+Creed saw absolutely nothing in her coupling of his name with Huldah
+Spiller's, but the fact that both were under the displeasure of the
+Turrentines. She searched his face with hungry gaze for some sign of
+denial of that which she imputed. Instead, she met a look of swift
+distress.
+
+"I've got to see Wade about Huldah," Creed asserted doggedly. "I promised
+her--I told her----"
+
+Judith drew back.
+
+"Well, see Wade then!" she choked. "There he is," and she pointed to the
+wall of greenery behind which her quicker eyes had detected a man who
+stole, rifle on shoulder, through the bushes toward a point by the
+path-side.
+
+"What do I care?" she flung at him. "What is it to me?--you and your
+Huldy, and your grand plans, and your killin' up folks and a-gittin' run
+out o' the Turkey Tracks! Settle it as best ye may--I've said my last
+word!"
+
+Her breast heaved convulsively. Bitter, corroding tears burned in her
+flashing eyes; rage, jealousy, thwarted passion, tenderness denied, and
+utter terror of the outcome--the time after--all these tore her like wild
+wolves, as she turned and fled swiftly up the path she had come.
+
+The pale young fellow with the marred, stricken face, standing by the
+mule, looked after her heavily. Those flying feet were carrying away from
+him, out of his life, all that made that life beautiful and blest. Yet
+Creed set his jaw resolutely, and facing about once more, addressed
+himself to the situation as it was.
+
+"Wade--Wade Turrentine!" he called. "Come out of there. I see you. Come
+out and talk to me."
+
+With all the composure in life Wade slouched into the opening of the
+path.
+
+"You've got good eyes," was his sole comment. Then, as the other seemed
+slow to begin, "What might you want speech with me about?" he inquired.
+
+"It's about Huldah," Creed opened the question volubly now. "You love
+her, and she loves you. She came over to warn me because we are old
+acquaintances and friends, and I guess she don't want you to get into
+trouble. Is it true that her life is not safe if she stays here on the
+mountain?"
+
+Wade's pleasant hazel eyes narrowed and hardened.
+
+"You're a mighty busy somebody about things that don't consarn ye," he
+remarked finally.
+
+"But this does concern me," Creed insisted. "I can't be the cause of
+breaking up a match between you and Huldah----"
+
+He would have gone further, but Wade interrupted shaking his head.
+
+"No--I reckon you cain't. Hit'd take more than you to break up any match
+I was suited with. Mebbe I don't want no woman that's liable to hike out
+and give me away whenever she takes the notion."
+
+"Oh, come now, Wade," said Bonbright, with good-natured entreaty in his
+voice. "You know she wouldn't give you away. She didn't mean any harm to
+you. I'll bet you've done plenty of things twice as bad, if Huldah had
+the knowing of them."
+
+"Mebbe I have," agreed Wade, temperately, and suddenly one saw the
+resemblance to his father. "Mebbe I have--but ye see I ain't the one
+that's bein' met up with right now. I ain't carin' which nor whether
+about Huldy Spiller; but _you've_ got to walk yo'self from the Turkey
+Tracks--and walk sudden and walk straight, Mr. Creed Bonbright--or you'll
+come to more trouble with the Turrentines. I tell ye this in pure good
+will."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+In the Night
+
+
+In dark silence Judith made ready a late breakfast for the boys, leaving
+her coffee-pot as of custom on its bed of coals in the ashes, hot bread
+in the Dutch oven, and a platter of meat on the table. Jeff and Andy
+straggled in and ate, helping themselves mutely, with sidelong glances at
+her stormy face.
+
+During the entire forenoon Wade was off the place, but the twins put in
+their time at the pasture over the breaking of a colt to harness. Old
+Jephthah was in his room with the door shut. Jim Cal, almost immediately
+on Creed's departure, had retired to the shelter of his own four walls,
+and, sick and trembling, taken to his bed, after his usual custom when
+the skies of life darkened.
+
+Dinner was got ready with the same fury of mechanical energy. During its
+preparation Iley stole to the door and looked in. The only women on the
+place, held outside the councils of the men, she longed to make some
+unformulated appeal to Judith, to have at least such help and comfort as
+might come from talking over the situation with her. But when the
+desolate dark eyes looked full into hers, and uttered as plainly as words
+the question that the sister dreaded, Jim Cal's wife turned and fled.
+
+"She might as well 'a' said 'Huldy,'" whimpered the vixen, plucking at
+her lip and hurrying back, head down, to her own cabin.
+
+The day dragged its slow length. The sun in the doorway had crept to the
+noon-mark, and away again. Flies buzzed. A cicada droned without. The old
+hound padded in to lie down under the bed.
+
+After dinner Jephthah went away somewhere, and the boys gathered in their
+room, whence Judith could hear the clink and snap which advised her that
+the guns were having a thorough overhauling, cleaning, and oiling. She
+looked helplessly at the door. What could she do? Follow Creed as Huldah
+had done? At the thought, all her bitterness surged back upon her. What
+had she been able to accomplish when she stood face to face alone with
+him on the woods-path? Nothing. She turned and addressed herself once
+more savagely to her tasks. That was what women were for--women and
+mules. Men had the say-so in this world. She--she the owner of this
+house, its real mistress--was to cook three meals a day for the men
+folks, and see nothing and say nothing.
+
+Supper was the only meal at which the entire family gathered that day. It
+was eaten in an almost unbroken silence, the younger boys plainly
+hesitating to speak to either Judith or their father. Save for elliptical
+requests for food, the only conversation was when Wade offered the
+opinion that it looked like it might rain before morning, and his father
+replied that he did not think it would. Leaving the table without further
+word, Jephthah returned to his own quarters; the boys drifted away one by
+one giving no destination.
+
+The light that used to wink out in friendly fashion from the smaller
+cabin across the slope was darkened. Jim Cal had crawled out of bed after
+a somewhat prolonged conversation with Wade. A little later he had
+sullenly harnessed up a mule of Blatch's and, with Iley and the children,
+started for old Jesse Spiller's, out at Big Buck Gap, the sister
+maintaining to the last that Huldah must certainly have gone out to
+pap's, and would be found waiting for them at the old home.
+
+There was nobody left on the place but Judith and her uncle. The girl
+went automatically about her Saturday evening duties, working doggedly,
+trying to tire herself out so that she might sleep when the time came
+that there was nothing to do but go to bed. As she passed from her
+storeroom, which she had got Wade to build in the back end of the
+threshing-floor porch, to the great open fireplace where a kettle hung
+with white beans boiling that would be served with dumplings for the
+Sunday dinner, as she took down and sorted over towels and cloths that
+were not needed, but which made a pretext for activity, her mind ground
+steadily upon the happenings of the past days. She could see Creed's face
+before her as he had looked the night of the play-party. What coarse,
+crude animals the other men were beside him! She could hear his voice as
+it spoke to her in the dark yard at the Bonbright place, and her breath
+caught in her throat.
+
+She must be up and away; she must go to him and warn him, protect him
+against these her fierce kindred.
+
+Then suddenly came the vision of Creed's laughing mouth as he bent to
+claim the forfeited kiss when Huldah Spiller had openly pushed herself
+across the line "and mighty nigh into his arms." Huldah had run hot-foot
+to warn him. Arley Kittridge brought word of having seen her dodge into
+the Card orchard on her way to the house on the evening before, and
+nobody had had sight of her since.
+
+Judith's was a nature swayed by impulse, more capable than she herself
+was aware of noble action, but capable also of sudden, irrational
+cruelty. Just now her soul was at war with itself, embittered by rage, by
+what she had done, by what she had left undone, by her helplessness, by
+what she desired to do. Finally, despairing of any weariness bringing
+sleep--she had tried that the night before and failed--she put by her
+work and went up to her room, undressed and lay down in the dark.
+
+For a long time she interrogated the blackness about her with wide open
+eyes. The house was strangely still. She could hear the movement and
+squawk of a chicken in one of the trees in the side yard when some fellow
+lodger disturbed it, or a sudden breeze shook the limb upon which it
+roosted. She wondered if the boys had come back yet and slipped in
+quietly. Had she slept at all? About eleven o'clock there arose an
+unquiet, gusty, yet persistent wind, that moved the cedar tree against
+the edge of the porch roof and set it complaining. For a time it moaned
+and protested like a man under the knife. Then its deep baritone voice
+began to cry out as though it were calling upon her. The tree had long
+ceased to mean anything other than Creed to Judith, and now its outcry
+aroused her to an absolute terror. Again and again as the wind the tree,
+so those tones shook her heart with their pain and love and anguish of
+entreaty.
+
+Finally she arose in a kind of torture, slipped on her clothes and went
+through all the rooms. They were silent and empty. Not a bed had been
+disturbed. She breathed loud and short in irrepressible excitement.
+
+"They're all over at the still," she whispered, clutching at the breast
+of her dress, and shivering. But the old man never went near the still,
+she knew that. For a while she struggled with herself, and then she said,
+"I'll just go and listen outside of Uncle Jep's door. That won't do any
+harm. Ef so be he's thar, then the boys is shore at the still. Ef he
+ain't----"
+
+She left her mentally formed sentence unfinished and, on feet that fear
+winged, stole through the side yard, across the long, lush, uncut grass
+to her uncle's door.
+
+The old man must have been a light sleeper, or perhaps he was awake
+before she approached, for he called out while she yet stood irresolute,
+her hand stretched toward the big wooden latch.
+
+"Who's thar?"
+
+Startled, abashed, she replied in a choked, hesitating tone.
+
+"It's only me--Jude. I reckon I'm a fool, Uncle Jep. I know in reason
+there ain't nothin' the matter. But I jest couldn't sleep, and I got up
+and looked through the house, and the boys is all gone, and I got sorter
+scared."
+
+He was with her almost instantly.
+
+"I reckon they're all over 'crost the gulch," he said in his usual
+unexcited fashion, though she noted that he did not go back into his
+room, but joined her where she lingered in the dark outside.
+
+"Of course they air," she reassured herself and him. "Whar else could
+they be?"
+
+"Now I'm up, I reckon I mought go over yon myself," the old man said
+finally. "My foot hurts me this evening; I believe I'll ride Pete. I took
+notice the boys had all the critters up for an early start in the
+mornin'."
+
+Both knew that this was a device for investigating the stables, and
+together they hurried to the huddle of low log buildings which served to
+house forage and animals on the Turrentine place. Not a hoof of anything
+to ride had been left. The boys would not have taken mules or horse to go
+to the still--so much was certain. In the light of the lantern which
+Jephthah lit the two stood and looked at each other with a sort of
+consternation. Then the old man fetched a long breath.
+
+"Go back to the house, Jude," he said not unkindly, putting the lantern
+into her hand; and without another word he set off down the road running
+hard.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+The Raid
+
+
+Earlier that same Saturday evening, while Judith Barrier was fighting out
+her battle, and trying to tire down the restless spirit that wrung and
+punished her, Nancy Card, mindful of earlier experiences in feud times,
+was getting her cabin in a state of defence.
+
+"You know in reason them thar Turrentines ain't a-goin' to hold off
+long," she told Creed. "They're pizen fighters, and they allus aim to hit
+fust. No, you don't stay out in that thar office," as Creed made this
+proffer, stating that it would leave her and her family safer. "I say
+stay in the office! Why, them Turrentines would ask no better than one
+feller for the lot of 'em to jump on--they could make their brags about
+it the longest day they live of how they done him up."
+
+So it came to pass that Creed was sitting in the big kitchen of the Nancy
+Card cabin while Judith wrought at her fruitless labours in her own home.
+Despite the time of year, Nancy insisted on shutting the doors and
+closing the battened shutters at the windows.
+
+"A body gets a lot of good air by the chimney drawin' up when ye have a
+bit of fire smokin'," she said. "I'd ruther be smothered as to be shot,
+anyhow."
+
+Little Buck and Beezy, infected by the excitement of their elders,
+refused peremptorily to go to bed. "Let me take the baby," said Creed
+holding out his arms. "She's always good with me. She can go to sleep in
+my lap."
+
+"Beezy won't go to sleep in _nobody's_ lap," that young lady announced
+with great finality. "Beezy never go to sleep _no_ time--_nowhere_."
+
+"All right," agreed the young fellow easily, cutting short a futile
+argument upon the grandmother's part. "You needn't go to sleep if you can
+stay awake, honey. You sit right here in Creed's lap and stay awake till
+morning and keep him good company, won't you?"
+
+The red head nodded till its flying frazzles quivered like tongues of
+flame. Then it snuggled down on the broad breast, that moved rhythmically
+under it, and very soon the long lashes drooped to the flushed cheeks and
+Beezy was asleep.
+
+Aunt Nancy had picked up Little Buck, but that young man had the
+limitations of his virtues. Being silent by nature he had not so much to
+keep him awake as the loquacious Beezy, and by the time his father on the
+other side of the hearth had dropped asleep and nearly fallen into the
+fire a couple of times, been sternly admonished by the grandmother, and
+gone to fling himself face down upon a bed in the corner, Little Buck was
+sounder asleep than his sister.
+
+The old woman got up and carried her grandson to the bed, laid him down
+upon it and, taking basin and towel, proceeded to wipe the dusty small
+feet before she took off his minimum of clothing and pushed him in
+between the sheets.
+
+"Minds me of a foot-washin' at Little Shiloh," she ruminated. "Here's me
+jest like the preacher and here's Little Buck gettin' all the sins of the
+day washed off at once."
+
+She completed her task, and was taking Beezy from Creed's arms to lay her
+beside her brother on the bed, when a tap--tap--tapping, apparently upon
+the window shutter, brought them both to their feet, staring at each
+other with pale faces.
+
+"What's that?" breathed Nancy. "Hush--hit'll come again. Don't you answer
+for your life, Creed. Ef anybody speaks, let it be me."
+
+Again the measured rap--rap--rap!
+
+"You let my Nick in," murmured Beezy sleepily, and Creed laughed out in
+sudden relief. It was the wooden-legged rooster, coming across the little
+side porch and making his plea for admission as he stepped.
+
+Something in the incident brought the situation of affairs home to Creed
+Bonbright as it had not been before.
+
+"Aunt Nancy," he said resolutely, "I'm going to leave right now and walk
+down to the settlement. I've got no business to be here putting you and
+the children in danger. It's a case of fool pride. They told me down at
+Hepzibah that I'd be run out of the Turkey Tracks inside of three months
+if I tried to set up a justice's office here. I felt sort of ashamed to
+go back and face them and own up that they were right--that I had been
+run out. I ought to have been too much of a man to feel that way. It
+makes no difference what they say--the only thing that counts is that I
+have failed."
+
+"You let me catch you openin' that do' or steppin' yo' foot on the road
+to-night!" snorted Nancy belligerently. "Why, you fool boy, don't you
+know all the roads has been guarded by the Turrentines ever since they
+fell out with ye? They 'lowed ye would run of course, and they aimed to
+layway ye as ye went. I could have told 'em ye wasn't the runnin' kind;
+but thar, what do they know about----"
+
+She broke off suddenly, her mouth open, and stood staring with
+fear-dilated eyes at Creed.
+
+"Hello!" came the hail from outside.
+
+Nancy let the baby slip from her arms to the floor, and the little thing
+stood whimpering and rubbing her eyes, clinging to her grandmother's
+skirts.
+
+"Hush--hush!" cautioned the old woman, barely above her breath.
+
+"Hello! Hello in thar! You better answer--we see yo' light. Hello in
+thar!"
+
+"Whose--voice--is that?" breathed old Nancy.
+
+"It sounded like Blatch Turrentine's," Creed whispered back as softly.
+
+"Hit do," she agreed with conviction.
+
+Suddenly a shot rang out, and Doss Provine sat up on the edge of the bed
+with a gurgle of terror. Little Buck wakened at the same instant, and ran
+to his grandmother.
+
+"I ain't scared, Granny," he asseverated, "I kin fight fer ye."
+
+"Hush--hush!" cautioned Nancy, bending to gather in the sun-burned tow
+head at her knee.
+
+Another shot followed, and after it a voice crying,
+
+"You've got Creed Bonbright in thar. You let him come out and talk to us,
+or we'll batter yo' do' in."
+
+"You Andy--you Jeff!" shouted the old woman in sudden rage. "Ef you want
+Creed Bonbright you know whar to find him. You go away and let my do'
+alone."
+
+"You quit callin' out names, Nancy Cyard," responded the first, menacing
+voice out of the darkness. "We know Bonbright's in thar, and we aim to
+have him out--or burn yo' house--accordin' to yo' ruthers."
+
+Creed had parted his lips to answer them, when old Nancy sprang at him
+and set her hand over his open mouth.
+
+"You hush--and keep hushed!" she whispered urgently.
+
+"I just wanted to call to the boys and tell them I'm here," Creed
+whispered to her. "Aunt Nancy, I'm bound to go out there and talk to them
+fellows. I cain't stay in here and let you and the children suffer for
+it."
+
+"Aw, big-mouthed, big-talkin' brood--what do I keer for them?" demanded
+Nancy, tossing her head with a characteristic motion to get the grey
+curls away from her fearless blue eyes; whereupon the tucking comb
+slipped down and had to be replaced, "You ain't a-goin' out thar," she
+whispered vehemently from under her raised arm, as she redded back the
+straying locks with it. Nancy had the reckless, dare-devil courage those
+blue eyes bespoke. Presuming a bit, perhaps, on her age and sex, she yet
+ran risks that many men would have shunned without deeming themselves
+cowards. "You ain't a-goin' out thar, I tell ye," she reiterated. "I
+wouldn't let ye ef they burnt the house down over our heads. Pony'll be
+along pretty shortly from Hepzibah, and when he sees 'em I reckon he's
+got sense enough to git behind a bush and fire at 'em--that'll scatter
+'em."
+
+As if inspired to destroy this one slender hope, the voice outside spoke
+again, tauntingly.
+
+"Nancy Cyard, we've got yo' son Pony here--picked him up on the road--an'
+ef yo'r a mind to trade Creed Bonbright for him, we'll trade even. Better
+dicker with us. Somepin' bad might happen this young 'un."
+
+At the words, Creed wheeled and made for the door, Nancy gripping him
+frantically but mutely.
+
+"Creed--boy--honey!"--she breathed at last, "they's mo' than one kind o'
+courage. This is jest fool courage--to go an' git yo'se'f killed up. Them
+Turrentines won't hurt Pone. But you--oh, my Lord!"
+
+"I reckon ye better let him go, maw," Doss Provine chattered from the
+bed's edge where he still crouched. "Hit's best that it should be one,
+ruther than all of us."
+
+Old Nancy flung him a glance of wordless contempt. Beezy ran and tangled
+herself in the tall young fellow's legs, halting him.
+
+"Creed," the old woman urged, still below her breath, holding to his arm.
+"Creed, honey, as soon as you open that do' and stand in the light, yo'r
+no better than a dead man. Listen!"
+
+All caution had been thrown aside by the besiegers. Hoarse voices
+questioned and answered outside, sounds of stumbling footsteps surrounded
+the house.
+
+"Boys," called Creed in that clear, ringing voice of his that held
+neither fear nor great excitement, "I'm coming out to talk to you. Aunt
+Nancy, take the children away. You've got it to do."
+
+"Well, come on," replied the voice without. "Talk--that's all we want.
+You'll be as safe outside as in--and a damn' sight safer."
+
+Nancy gathered up her youngsters, flung them in a heap into their
+father's lap, and, overturning and putting out the candle as she went,
+sprang to the hearth to quench a small flame which had risen among the
+embers there.
+
+"Ye might have some sense!" she panted angrily. "The idea of walkin'
+yo'se'f into a lighted doorway for them fellers to shoot at! For God's
+sake don't open that do' till I get the lights out!"
+
+But Creed was not listening. He had pulled the big pine bar that held the
+battened door in place, and now flung it wide, stepping to the threshold
+and beginning again,
+
+"Boys----"
+
+He uttered no further word. A rifle spoke, a bullet sang, passed through
+the cabin and buried itself in the old-fashioned chimneypiece. Creed fell
+where he stood. As he went down across the threshold, Nancy whirling
+around to the door, bent over his prostrate form.
+
+Outside, the ruddy, shaken shine from a couple of lightwood torches which
+stood alone, where they had been thrust deep into the garden mould made
+strange gouts and blotches of colour on Nancy's flower beds. A group of
+men halted, drawn together, muttering, just beyond the palings. Each had
+a handkerchief tied across the lower part of his face, a simple but
+effectual disguise.
+
+Her groping hand came away from the prostrate man, red with blood; she
+dashed it across her brow to clear her eyes of blowing hair. At the
+moment a figure burst through the grove of saplings by the roadside, a
+tall old man whose long black beard blew across his mighty chest that
+laboured as he ran. His hat was off in his hand, his face raised; he had
+no weapon. With a gasp of relief Nancy recognised him, yet rage mounted
+in her, too.
+
+"Yes--come a-runnin'," she muttered fiercely. "Come look at what you and
+yo'rn have done!"
+
+As he leaped into the clearing the old man's great black eyes, full of
+sombre fire, swept the scene. They took in the prone figure across the
+threshold, the blood upon the doorstone, and on Nancy's brow and hair.
+
+"Air ye hurt? Nancy, air ye hurt?" he cried, in such a tone as none there
+had ever heard from him.
+
+"Am I hurt?--No!" choked the old woman, trying to get a hold on Creed's
+broad shoulders and drag him back into the room. "I ain't hurt, but it's
+no credit to them wolves that you call sons of yo'rn. They've got Pone
+out thar, ef they hain't shot him yit. And they've killed the best man
+that ever come on this here mountain. Oh, Creed--my pore boy! You Doss
+Provine! Come here an' he'p me lift him." She reared herself on her knees
+and glared at the group by the gate. "He had no better sense than to take
+ye for men--to trust the word ye give, that he was safe when he opened
+the do'. Don't you come a step nearer, Jep Turrentine," she railed out at
+him suddenly, as the old man drew toward the gate. "I've had a plenty o'
+you an' yo' sons this night. They're jest about good enough to shoot me
+while I'm a-tryin' to git this po' dead boy drug in the house, an' then
+burn the roof down over me an' my baby chil'en. You Doss Provine, walk
+yo'se'f here an' he'p me."
+
+Doss, who found the presence of Jephthah Turrentine reassuring, whatever
+his mother-in-law might say, slouched forward, and between them they
+lifted the limp figure.
+
+"God knows I don't blame ye, Nancy," muttered the old man in his beard,
+as the heavy door was dragged shut, and the bar dropped into place. Then
+he advanced upon the men at the palings.
+
+At Jephthah's first appearance the tallest of these had dropped swiftly
+back into the shadows on the other side of the road and was gone.
+Unsupported, the four or five who were left shuffled uneasily, beneath
+the old man's fierce eye.
+
+"Where's Pone Cyard?" he demanded.
+
+"We hain't tetched him, pap. We never seed him. We said that to draw
+'em."
+
+"Huh!" ejaculated Jephthah, as though further comment were beyond him.
+"Git yo' ridin' critters," he gave the short, sharp order. "Fetch Pete to
+me." And he whirled his back, and stalked out into the main road.
+
+A hundred yards or so up, there was a sound of hoofs and tearing bushes,
+as the boys came through the greenery with their mules. Pete was led up
+and the bridle-rein presented in meek silence. By the dim, presaging
+light of the little waning moon, delaying somewhere down below the
+shoulder of Big Turkey Track, old Jephthah took it, set foot in stirrup,
+and made ready to swing to saddle. Then he slowly withdrew the foot and
+turned back.
+
+"Take them cussed rags off o' yo' faces!" he burst out in a fury of
+contempt. "Now. Who laid out this night's work? Well, speak up--how come
+it?"
+
+Dead silence answered. Of the three who faced him not one--lacking the
+leader who had skulked away at Jephthah's approach--could have explained
+just why he was there. And none of them would betray the man who had led
+them there and left them to answer as best they might for their actions
+to the head of the tribe.
+
+"Uh-huh, I thort so," nodded the old man bitterly, as they yet stood
+mute. "Ain't got a word to say for yo'selves. No, and they ain't a word
+to be said. Yo' sons in my house. I was thar--I was standin' with ye
+about this business. Why couldn't this be named to me? What call had ye
+to sneak around me--to make a fool o' me, an' shame me?"
+
+He waited. Receiving no response, he concluded as he got to the mule's
+back,
+
+"You do me thisaway once mo'--jest once mo'--and hit will be a plenty."
+
+With that he gave Pete the rein, and the mule's receding heels flung dust
+in the dismayed countenances he left behind him.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+Council of War
+
+
+The Turrentine clan was gathering for consultation, Judith knew that. It
+was Sunday, and much of this unwonted activity passed as the ordinary
+Sabbath day coming and going. But there was a steady tendency of tall,
+soft-stepping, slow-spoken, keen-eyed males toward old Jephthah's
+quarters, and Judith had got dinner for the two long-limbed, black-avised
+Turrentine brothers, Hawk and Chantry, from over in Rainy Gap; and old
+Turrentine Broyles, a man of Jephthah's age, had ridden in from Broyles's
+Mill that morning.
+
+With the natural freedom of movement that Sunday offers, information from
+the Card neighbourhood came in easily. Inevitably Judith learned all the
+details of last night's raid; and everybody on the place knew that Creed
+Bonbright was alive, and that he was not even seriously wounded. He had
+been observed through the open door of Nancy's cabin moving about the
+rooms inside. Arley Kittridge declared that he had seen Bonbright, in the
+grey of early morning, his head bound up and his left arm in a sling,
+cross from Nancy's house to his office and back again, alone.
+
+Sunday brought the Jim Cals home, too. Iley, humiliated and savage,
+bearing in her breast galling secret recollections of Pap Spiller's
+animadversions on her management of Huldah, raged all day with the
+toothache, and a pariah dog might have pitied the lot of the fat man.
+
+All day, as Judith cooked, and washed her dishes, and entertained her
+visitors, the events of last night's raid were present with her. When at
+the table one of the boys stretched a hand to receive the food she had
+prepared, she looked at it with an inward shuddering, wondering, was this
+the hand that fired the shot?
+
+All day as she talked to her women visitors of patchwork patterns, or the
+making of lye soap, as she admired their babies and sympathised with
+their ailments, her mind was busy with the inquiry what part she should
+take in the final inevitable crisis. She remembered with a remorse that
+was almost shame how, at their last interview, she had plucked back from
+Creed her rescuing hand in jealous anger. That big mother kindness that
+there was in her spoke for him, pleaded loud for his life, when her hot
+passionate heart would have had revenge for his slight.
+
+Yes, she had to save Creed Bonbright if she could, and to be of any use
+to him she must know what was planned against him. It was dark by the
+time the women-folk had gone their ways and the men remaining had
+assembled definitely in old Jephthah's separate cabin. No gleam of light
+shone from its one window. Judith watched for some time, then taking a
+bucket as a pretext walked down the path to the cow-lot, which led her
+close in to the cabin. She could hear as she approached the murmur of
+masculine voices. Secure from observation in the darkness, she crept to
+the window and listened, her head leaned against the wooden shutter. Old
+Jephthah was speaking, and she realised from his words that she had
+chanced upon the close of their council.
+
+The big voice came out to her in carefully lowered tones.
+
+"Well, Broyles, yo' the oldest, an that's yo' opinion. Hawk an' Chantry
+says the same. Now as far as I'm concerned--" the commanding accents
+faltered a little--"I'm obliged to agree with you. The matter has got
+where we cain't do no other than run him out. I admit it. I'll say yes to
+that."
+
+Judith trembled, for she knew they spoke of Creed.
+
+"Well, Jep, you better not put too many things in the way," came accents
+she recognised as Turrentine Broyles's, "or looks like these-here boys is
+liable to find theirselves behind bars befo' snow flies."
+
+"Huh-uh," agreed the old man's voice. "I know whar I'm at. I ain't lived
+this long and got through without disgrace or jailin' to take up with it
+at my age; but they don't raid no more cabins. I freed my mind on that
+last night; I made myself cl'ar; an' that's the one pledge I ax for. Toll
+him away from the place and layway him, if you must, to run him out. But
+they's to be no killin', an' no mo' shootin' up houses whar they is women
+and chil'en. This ain't no feud."
+
+"All right--we've got yo' word for it, have we?" inquired Buck Shalliday
+eagerly. "You'll stand by us?"
+
+Suddenly a brand on the hearth flamed up, and Judith peering through a
+crack of the board shutter had sight of her uncle standing, his height
+exaggerated by the flickering illumination, tall and black on the
+hearthstone. About him the faint light fell on a circle of eager, drawn
+faces, all set toward him. As she looked he raised his hand above his
+head and shook the clenched fist.
+
+"I've got obliged to," he groaned. "God knows I had nothing against Creed
+Bonbright. And I can't say as I've got anything against him yit. But I've
+got a-plenty against rottin' in jail. I'd ruther die."
+
+"Will ye come with us, pap?" Jim Cal instantly put the question, and as
+he spoke the light went suddenly out.
+
+"No," returned old Jephthah doggedly. "I won't make nor meddle. I've give
+you my best advice; I sont for Hawk an' Chantry, here, an' for Turn
+Broyles, to do the same. We've talked it over fa'r an' squar', aimin' to
+have ye do this thing right--" He broke off, and then amended sombrely,
+"--As near right as sech a thing can be did. But you-all boys run into
+this here agin' my ruthers, an' you'll jest have to git out yo'selves.
+All I say is, no killin', and no raidin' of folks' homes."
+
+"No _mo'_ killin', ye mean,--don't ye?" asked Jim Cal. The fat man,
+goaded beyond reason, was ready to turn and fight at last.
+
+"No, I don't," answered his father. "When I mean a thing I can find the
+words to say it without any advice. As for Blatch bein' killed--you boys
+think yo' mighty smart, but you'd show yo' sense to tote fair with me and
+tell me all that's goin' on. I wasn't born yesterday. I've seen
+interruptions and killin's befo' I seen any of you. An' I'll say right
+here in front o' yo' kinfolks that's come to he'p you out with their
+counsels--an' could do a sight better ef you'd tell 'em the truth--that I
+never did think it was likely that Creed Bonbright made away with a body
+inside of fifteen minutes. That tale's too big for me--but I'm askin' no
+questions. Settle it your own way--but for God's sake settle it. Him
+knowin' what he does an' havin' been did the way you boys have done him,
+he's got to go. Run him out--an' run him out quick. Don't you dare tell
+me how, nor when, nor what!"
+
+Judith started back as the sounds within told her that the men were
+groping their way to the door. As she stood concealed by darkness, they
+issued, made their quiet adieux, and went over to the fence where she
+could hear the stamping of the tethered animals. Cut off from the house,
+she retreated swiftly down the path toward the stable and would have
+entered, but some instinct warned her back. As she paused uncertain,
+hearing footsteps approaching from behind, indefinably sure that there
+was danger in front, there sounded a cautious low whistle. Those who came
+from the cabin answered it. She drew back beneath one of the peach-trees
+by the milking-pen--the very one from which Creed had broken the
+blossoming switch, with which she reproached him. Flat against its trunk
+she crouched, as six men went past her in the gloom.
+
+"Who's here?" demanded a voice like Blatch Turrentine's, and at the sound
+she began suddenly to shudder from head to foot. Then she pulled herself
+together. This was no ghost talking. It was the man himself.
+
+"Me," answered Jim Cal's unmistakable tones, "an' Wade, an' Jeff, an'
+Andy. Buck and Taylor's both with us--and that's all."
+
+The man within opened the grain-room door, and the six newcomers
+entered.
+
+"Whar's old man Broyles, an' Hawk an' Chantry?" questioned Blatch.
+
+"They rid off home," said Shalliday.
+
+"Well, what does Unc' Jep say?" demanded Blatch, plainly not without some
+anxiety.
+
+Before anyone could answer,
+
+"Hark ye!" came Jim Cal's tones tremulously. "Didn't I hear somebody
+outside? Thar--what was that?"
+
+In her excitement and interest Judith had moved nearer with some noise.
+
+"I vow, podner," came Blatch's rich, rasping tones. "Ef I didn't know it
+was you I'd be liable to think they was a shiverin' squinch-owl in here
+with us. Buck, step out and scout, will ye? Git back as soon as ye can,
+'caze we're goin' to have a drink."
+
+She heard the rattle of a tin cup against the jug. As she moved carefully
+down the way toward the spring, Blatch's voice followed her, saying
+unctuously:
+
+"Had to go through hell to get this stuff--spies a-follerin' ye about,
+an' U.S. marshals a-threatenin' ye with jail--might as well enjoy it."
+
+She dipped her bucket in the spring branch, and bore it dripping up the
+path a short way. If Buck Shalliday met her, she had an errand and an
+excuse for her presence which might deceive him. When she came within
+sight of the stables once more she set down her bucket and stood
+listening long. Something moved outside the logs. They had posted their
+sentry then. She groaned as she realised that what she had heard was
+inadequate and insufficient. The knowledge was there to be had for a
+little daring, a little cunning.
+
+Just as she had become almost desperate enough to walk up to the place
+and make pretence of being one with them, a stamp from the figure outside
+the corner told her that it was a tethered mule instead of a man.
+Emboldened she stole nearer, and found a spot where she could crouch by
+the wall so hidden among some disused implements that she might even have
+dared to let them emerge from their hiding-place and pass her. Again
+Blatch was speaking.
+
+Blatchley Turrentine had come to his uncle's house, a youth of
+seventeen--a man, as mountain society reckons things. At that time Andy
+and Jeff were seven-year-olds, Wade a big boy of thirteen; and even Jim
+Cal, of the same years but less adventurous in nature, had been so
+thoroughly dominated by the newcomer that the leadership then established
+had never been relinquished. And now the artfully introduced whiskey had
+done its work; these boys were quite other than those who had gone in
+sober and grave less than half an hour before, their father's admonitions
+and the counsels of old man Broyles and their Turrentine kindred lying
+strongly upon them.
+
+Judith heard no demur as Blatch detailed their plans.
+
+"They's no use to go to Unc' Jep with what I've been a-tellin' ye," the
+voice of natural authority proclaimed. "I tell ye Polk Sayles says he's
+seen Bonbright meet Dan Haley about half way down the Side--thar whar Big
+Rock Creek crosses the corner of the Sayles place--mo' than once sense
+he's been on the mountain. Now with what that man knows, and with the
+grudges he's got, you let him live to meet Dan Haley once mo' and even
+Unc' Jep is liable to the penitentiary--but tell it to Unc' Jep an' he
+won't believe ye. He's got a sort of likin' for the feller."
+
+"That's what I say," Jim Cal seconded in a voice which had become
+pot-valiant. "Pap is a old man, and we-all that air younger have obliged
+to take care on him."
+
+At any other time these pious sentiments would have brought a volley of
+laughter from Blatchley, but this evening Judith judged from the sounds
+that he clapped the fat man on the shoulder as he said heartily:
+
+"Mighty right you air, James Calhoun. Unc' Jep is one of the finest men
+that ever ate bread, but his day is pretty well over. Ef we went by him
+and old man Broyles and Hawk and Chantry, we'd find ourselves in trouble
+mighty shortly. They's but one way to toll Bonbright out to whar we want
+him. We've got to send word that Unc' Jep will meet him at moonrise and
+talk to him. The fool is plumb crazy about talkin' to folks, and looks
+like he cain't get it through his head that Unc' Jep ain't his best
+friend. It'll fetch him whar nothin' else will."
+
+"And we've got to hunt up something else for you to ride, Blatch, ef Jim
+Cal an' me takes the mules," Jeff remarked. "Jude mighty nigh tore up the
+ground when she found we'd had Selim last night. She give it out to each
+and every that nobody is to lay a hand on him day or night from this
+on."
+
+The girl outside heard Blatch's hateful laugh, and knew with a great
+throb of rage who had ridden her horse the night before.
+
+There was a stir among the men seated, Judith conjectured, on the
+grain-room floor, and a little clinking, as the jug of corn whiskey was
+once more brought into play by Blatch. Presently,
+
+"All right," said Buck Shalliday. "I'll bring Lige's mule. And I'll have
+a message got to Bonbright that Jephthah Turrentine wants to see and talk
+with him out at Todd's corner at moonrise a-Monday night. Will that suit
+ye?"
+
+"Hit'll answer," returned Blatch. "Let's see," he calculated; "that'll be
+about two o'clock. Ef he comes up to the scratch we'll git Mr. Man as he
+goes by the big rock in the holler acrosst from the spring. That rock and
+the bushes by it gives plenty of cover. They's bound to be light enough
+to see him by, with the moon jest coming up, and I want to hear from
+every man present that he'll shoot at the word. I don't want any feller
+in the crowd that'll say he didn't pull trigger on Bonbright. Ef we all
+aim and shoot, nary a one of us can say who killed him--and killed he's
+got to be."
+
+The listening girl hoped for some demur, but Blatch Turrentine and his
+potent counsellor, the jug, dominated the assembly, and there came a
+striking of hands on this, a hoarse murmuring growl of agreement. She
+doubled low to avoid being seen against the sky and hurried back toward
+the cabin as she heard the men preparing to leave the grain-room.
+
+Brave as any one of them there, enterprising and full of the spirit of
+leadership, Judith addressed herself promptly to saving Creed Bonbright.
+She went straight to her uncle's cabin. No mountaineer ever raps on a
+door. Judith shook the latch, at first gently, then, getting no response,
+more and more imperatively, at length opening and walking in, with a
+questioning, "Uncle Jep?"
+
+There was no answer, no sound or movement. With hasty fingers she raked
+together the brands of the fire; they flickered up and showed her an
+untenanted room. The bed was untouched, the old man's hat and coat were
+gone. The pegs above the door where Old Sister always rested were empty.
+
+Instantly there flashed upon Judith the intuition that her uncle,
+heartsick and ill-affected toward the quarrel, had silently withdrawn
+until it should have been settled one way or another. Well, she must work
+alone.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+A Message
+
+
+When Judith stole noiselessly into the house and up to her room, she
+could hear the boys preparing for bed in their own quarters, with
+unwonted jesting and laughter, and even some occasional stamping about
+which suggested horse-play; and her lip curled angrily as she recalled
+Blatch's jug of corn whiskey.
+
+She lay thinking, thinking; and at length there evolved itself in her
+mind a plan for getting Creed safely out of the mountains by way of an
+ancient Cherokee trail that ran down the gulch through a distant corner
+of the old Turrentine place. By this route they would reach the railroad
+town of Garyville, quite around the flank of Big Turkey Track from
+Hepzibah. She could do that. She knew every step of the way. The trail
+was a disused, forgotten route of travel, long fenced across in several
+places, and scoured out of existence at certain points by mountain
+streams; but she had known every foot of it in years past; she could
+travel it the darkest night; and Selim was her own horse; she need ask
+nobody.
+
+When she got so far, came the pressing question of how to send word to
+Creed. She must see and warn him before the men put their plan into
+practice. But she was well aware that she herself was under fairly close
+espionage, and that her first move in the direction of Nancy Card's cabin
+would bring the vague suspicions of her household to a certainty. Where
+to find a messenger? How to so word a message that Creed would answer it?
+These were the questions that drove sleep from her pillow till almost
+morning.
+
+She rose and faced the dawn with haggard eyes. Unless she could do
+something this was the last day of Creed's life. In a tremor of
+apprehension she got through her morning duties, cooking and serving a
+breakfast to the three boys, who made no comment on their father's
+absence, and whose curious looks she was aware of upon her averted face,
+her down-dropped eyelids. She felt alone indeed, with her uncle gone, and
+the boys who had been as brothers to her almost since babyhood suddenly
+become strangers, their interests and hers hostile, destructive to each
+other.
+
+Woman will go to woman in a pinch like this, and in spite of her
+repugnance at the thought of Huldah, Judith late in the afternoon made
+her way over to the Jim Cal cabin and asked concerning its mistress'
+toothache.
+
+"Hit's better," said Iley briefly. Her head was tied up in a medley of
+cloths and smelled loud of turpentine, camphor, and a lingering bouquet
+of assafoetida. She was not a hopeful individual to enlist in a
+chivalrous enterprise.
+
+"Huldy git back yet?" Judith asked finally.
+
+"No, an' she needn't never git back," snapped Iley. "Her and Creed
+Bonbright kin make out best they may. I don't know as I mind her bein'
+broke off with Wade. One Turrentine in the fambly's enough fer me."
+
+"Air her and Creed Bonbright goin' to be wedded?" inquired Judith
+scarcely above her breath.
+
+"_Air_ they?" echoed Xantippe, settling her hands on her hips and
+surveying Judith with an angry stare, the dignity of which was sadly
+impaired by a yellow flannel cloth-end which persisted in dabbling in her
+eye. "Well, I should hope so! I don't know what gals is comin' to in this
+day an' time--follerin' 'round after the young men like you do. Ef I'd a'
+done so when I was a gal my mammy'd have took a hickory to me. That's
+what she would. Here's Jim Cal be'n rarin' around here like a chicken
+with its head off 'caze Huldy run away with Creed Bonbright, and here
+_you_ air askin' me do I think Creed and Huldy is apt to marry. What kind
+of women do ye 'low the Spiller gals is, anyhow?"
+
+Judith turned away from so unpromising an ally. She was accused of
+running after Creed Bonbright. When he got her message it would be with
+Huldah Spiller beside him to help him read it. The thought was bitter. It
+gave that passionate heart of hers a deadly qualm; but she put it down
+and rose above it. Huldah or no Huldah, she could not let him die and
+make no effort.
+
+Leaving Jim Cal's cabin she walked out into the woods, and only as she
+turned at the edge of the clearing and looked back to find Iley furtively
+peering after her from the corner of the house did she realise that the
+woman's words had been dictated because she had been taken into the
+confidence of the men and set to keep an eye on Judith.
+
+At the conviction a feeling of terror began to gain ground. She was like
+a creature enmeshed in a net weak in its cordage, but many-stranded and
+hampering; turn whichever way she would some petty restriction met her.
+She moved aimlessly forward, reasonably sure that she was not followed or
+observed, since she was going away from rather than toward the Card
+place. About a mile from the cabin of old Hannah Updegrove, a weaver of
+rag carpet, she suddenly came upon two little creatures sitting at a
+tree-foot playing about one of those druidical-looking structures that
+the childhood of the man and the childhood of the race alike produce. It
+was Little Buck and Beezy come to spend the day with old Hannah who, on
+their father's side, was kin of theirs, and making rock play-houses in
+the tree-roots to put over the time. Judith ran to the children, gathered
+them close, and hugged them to her with whispered endearments in which
+some tears mingled.
+
+Then for half an hour followed the schooling of Little Buck for the
+message which he was to carry, and which Beezy must be so diverted that
+she would not even hear.
+
+Judith plaited grass bracelets for the fat little wrists, fashioned
+bonnets of oak leaves, pinning them together with grass stems, and then
+sending Beezy far afield to gather flowers for their trimming. On long
+journeys the little feet trudged, to where the beautiful, frail, white
+meadow lilies rose in clumps from the lush grass of the lowlands. She
+fetched cardinal flowers from the mud and shallow water beyond them, or
+brought black-eyed Susans from the sun of open spaces. And during these
+expeditions Judith's catechism of the boy went on.
+
+"How you goin' to git home, Little Buck?"
+
+"Pappy's a-comin' by to fetch us."
+
+"When?"
+
+"A little befo' sundown?"
+
+"You goin' straight home?"
+
+"Yes, Jude, we' goin' straight home to Granny, why?"
+
+"Never mind, honey. Is Creed there at yo' house?"
+
+A silent nod.
+
+"Is--honey, tell Jude the truth--is it true that he ain't bad hurt? Could
+he ride a nag?"
+
+Little Buck looked all around him, drew close to his big sweetheart, and
+pulled her down that he might whisper in her ear.
+
+"I know somethin' that Granny and Creed don't know I know, but I mus'n't
+tell it to anybody--only thest you. Creed--no, he ain't so awful bad
+hurt--he walks everywheres most--he's a-goin' to take the old nag and go
+over to Todd's corner to see yo' Unc' Jep, about moonrise to-night. They
+said that--Granny an' Creed. An' they fussed. Granny, she don't want him
+to go; but Creed, he thest will--he's bull-headed, Creed is."
+
+Judith caught her breath. They had got the message to him then, and he
+was going. Well, her appointment with him must be first.
+
+"Little Buck, honey, ef you love me don't you forget one word I say to
+you now," she whispered chokingly, holding the child by both hands.
+
+He rounded eyes of solemn adoration and acquiescence upon her.
+
+"You say to Creed Bonbright that Judith Barrier says he must come to her
+at the foot of Foeman's Bluff--on yon side--as soon after dark as he can
+git there. Tell him to come straight through by the short cut; hit'll be
+safe; nobody'll ever study about him comin' in this direction. As soon
+after hit's plumb dark as he can git there--will ye say that? Will ye
+shore tell Creed an' never tell nobody but Creed?"
+
+"But he won't go," said Little Buck wisely. "Granny's scared to have him
+go to talk to yo' Unc' Jep, but she'd be a heap scareder to have him come
+to you, 'caze you' one o' the Turrentines too--ain't ye, Judith?"
+
+Judith's face whitened at the weakness of her position.
+
+"I would come, Judith, becaze I love you an' you love me--but Creed, he
+won't," said the boy.
+
+"You tell him Little Buck," she whispered huskily, terror and shame
+warring in her face, "tell him that I do love him. Tell him I said for
+God's sake to come--if he loves me."
+
+The child's eyes slowly filled. He dropped them and stood staring at the
+ground, saying nothing because of the blur. Finally:
+
+"I'll tell him that--ef you say I must," he whispered. And loving, tender
+Judith, in her desperate preoccupation, never noted what she had done to
+her little sweetheart.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+The Old Cherokee Trail
+
+
+"The supper's all ready for you boys," Judith called in to Wade whose
+whistle sounded from his own room. "Hit's a settin', kivered, on the
+hearth; the coffee-pot's on the coals. Would you-all mind to wait on
+yo'selves, an' would you put the saddle on Selim for me? I'm goin' over
+to Lusks'. I'll eat supper there; I may stay all night; but I'll be home
+in the mornin' soon to git you-all's breakfast."
+
+"Why--why, pap 'lowed----"
+
+"Well, Uncle Jep ain't here. Ef you don't want to----"
+
+"Oh, that's all right Judith. Of course it's all right. But you say
+you're goin' to ride to Lusks'?--to ride?" hesitated Wade uneasily.
+Judith flung up her head and stared straight at him with angry eyes.
+
+"Yes," she said finally, "when I leave this place for over night I'd
+ruther know whar my hoss is at. I'll take him along."
+
+"Oh,--all right," her cousin hastened to agree; "I never meant to make
+you mad, Jude. Of course I'd jest as soon saddle up for you. I don't
+wonder you feel thataway. I never like to have anybody use my ridin'
+critter."
+
+Judith had made her point. She let it pass, and went sombrely on with her
+preparation for departure. Wade still hesitated uneasily. Finally he said
+deprecatingly,
+
+"Ef ye don't mind waitin' a minute I'll eat my supper, an' ride over with
+ye--I was a-goin' after supper anyhow; I want to see Lacey Rountree ef
+he's not gone back home yit."
+
+"I'll be glad to have ye," answered Judith quietly. "I don't mind
+waitin'." And Wade, plainly relieved, hurried out to the stables.
+
+They rode along quietly in the late summer afternoon; the taciturn habit
+of the mountain people made the silence between them seem nothing
+strange. Arrived at the Lusks', both girls came running out to welcome
+their visitor. She saw Wade's sidelong glance take note of the fact that
+Grandpap Lusk led away Selim to the log stable. Lacey Rountree was gone
+home to the Far Cove, and Wade lingered in talk with Grandpap Lusk a
+while at the horse-block, then got on his mule and, with florid
+good-byes, rode back home, evidently at rest as to Judith.
+
+The evening meal was over. Judith helped Cliantha and Pendrilla prepare a
+bit of supper for herself, aided in the clearing away and dish-washing,
+and after they had sat for a while with Granny Lusk and the old man in
+the porch, listening to the whippoorwills calling to each other, and all
+the iterant insect voices of a July night, went to their own room.
+
+"Girls," said Judith softly, drawing the two colourless little creatures
+to the bed, and sitting down with one on each side of her, "girls," and
+her voice deepened and shook with the strain under which she laboured, "I
+want you to let me slip out the back door here, put my saddle on Selim,
+and go home, quiet, without tellin' the old folks. I was goin' home by
+daylight in the mornin' anyhow, to get the boys' breakfast," as the girls
+stared at her in wordless surprise. "I've got a reason why I'd ruther go
+now--and I'd ruther the old folks didn't know. Will ye do this for me?"
+
+The sisters looked at each other across their guest's dark eager face,
+and fluttered visibly. They would have been incapable of deceit to serve
+any purpose of their own; they were too timid to have initiated any
+actions not in strict accordance with household laws; but the same gentle
+timidity which made them subservient to the rules of their world, made
+them also abject worshippers at the shrine of Judith's beauty and force
+and fire.
+
+"Shore, shore," they both whispered in a breath.
+
+"I hate to have ye go Jude--" began Cliantha; but Pendrilla interrupted
+her.
+
+"An' yit ef Jude would ruther go--and wants to slip out unbeknownst, why
+we wouldn't say nothin' about it, and jest tell granny and grandpap in
+the mornin' that she left soon to git the boys' breakfast."
+
+They watched her pass quietly out the back door and toward the log
+stable, their big blue eyes wide with childish wonder and interest.
+Judith with her many suitors, moving in an atmosphere of romance, was to
+them a figure like none other, and she was now in the midst of tragic
+doings; the glamour that had always been upon her image was heightened by
+the last week's occurrences. They turned back whispering and shut the
+door.
+
+Thus it was that Judith found herself on Selim, moving, free from
+suspicion or espionage, toward the point below Foeman's Bluff where she
+had sent word to Creed to meet her.
+
+The big oaks shouldered themselves in black umbels against the horizon;
+pointed conifers shot up inky spires between them. The sky was only
+greyish black, lit by many stars, and Judith trembled to note that their
+dim illumination might almost permit one to recognise an individual at a
+few paces distance. Without misadventure she came to the spot designated,
+urged Selim in under the shadow of a tree, dismounted, and stood beside
+him waiting. Would Creed come? Would Huldah persuade him that the message
+was only a decoy? Would he come too late? Would some of the boys
+intercept him, so that he should never come at all?
+
+At the last thought she started and leaned out recklessly to search the
+dark path with desperate eyes. Perhaps she had better venture forward and
+meet him. Perhaps after all it would be possible for her to get closer to
+Nancy Card's. Then in the midst of her apprehensions came the sound of
+shod hoofs.
+
+She had chosen this point for two reasons: first the old trail she meant
+to follow down the mountain passed in close to the spot; and second it
+was the last place they would expect Bonbright to approach; his way to it
+would never be guarded. But of course she ran the risk of Blatch himself
+or some of his friends and followers appearing. And now she held her
+breath in intense anxiety as the trampling came nearer.
+
+There appeared out of the dense shadow of the bluff a man walking and
+leading a mule by its bridle. She knew the mule, because she got the
+silhouette of it against the sky, and directly after she saw that the man
+who led it was tall, with a bandaged head, which he carried in a manner
+unmistakable, and one shoulder gleaming white--she guessed that that was
+because his coat was off where the bandages lay under his white shirt and
+over the wound in his shoulder. It was Creed. With a throb of unspeakable
+thankfulness she realised that she had till now dreaded that if he came
+at all Huldah would be with him. She moved out from the dense shadow.
+
+"Whar--whar's Huldy?" she questioned before she would trust herself to
+believe. But Creed, full of the wonder of her message, dropped the mule's
+bridle and came toward her his uninjured arm outstretched. He put the
+inquiry by almost impatiently.
+
+"Huldah? She went on down to Hepzibah soon Saturday morning," he said. "O
+Judith, did you mean it--that word you sent me by Little Buck?"
+
+He came swiftly up to her, snatching her hand eagerly, pressing it hard
+against his breast, leaning close in the twilight to study her face.
+
+"You couldn't mean it," he hurried on passionately, tremulously, "not
+now; you just pity me. Little Buck cried when he told me what you said,
+honey. He was jealous. But he needn't have been--need he Judith? You just
+pity me."
+
+Creed's manner and his words were instant reassurance to Judith's womanly
+pride. But immediately on the relaxation of that pain rose clamouring her
+anxiety for his safety--his life.
+
+"Yes, yes, Creed," she murmured vehemently. "I did mean it--I sure meant
+every word of it. But we got to get right away from here. Do ye reckon ye
+can stand it to ride as far as the foot of the mountain? Ye got to
+go--and I'm here to take ye."
+
+They drew out of the path and into the deep blackness beneath the trees.
+There was but a hundredth chance that anybody would be passing here, or
+watching this point, yet that hundredth chance must be guarded against.
+
+Poor Creed, he detained her, he clung to her hands hungrily, and invoked
+the sound of her voice. So much hate had daunted him, the strength and
+sweetness of her presence, the warm tenderness of her tones, were like
+balm to his lacerated spirit.
+
+"I couldn't go to-night--dear----" he faltered, abashed that the first
+word he uttered to her must be a denial. "You're mighty sweet and good to
+offer to take me--I don't know what I have ever done that you should risk
+this for me--but I'm to have a chance to talk to your Uncle Jephthah at
+moonrise to-night, and I can't turn my back on that. He's a fair-minded
+man and I'll make this thing right yet."
+
+Judith shuddered. "Don't you never believe it," she urged in a panting
+whisper. "Uncle Jep hadn't a thing on earth to do with that word goin' to
+you. He's left home. I can't find him nowhars, or I'd have went straight
+to him and begged him to help me out when I found what the boys was
+aimin' to do. Hit was Blatch planned it all. I tell ye Creed, Blatch
+Turrentine is alive--you never killed him when you flung him over the
+bluff--and while he lives you can't stay here. He's bound to kill ye."
+
+"Have you seen Blatch, yourself, Judith?" Creed asked quickly.
+
+"Oh, laws, no. He's a layin' out in the woods somewheres, aimin' to make
+Uncle Jep believe you killed him. But I heard him plain enough--I heard
+him and the boys fix it all up--hid out from Uncle Jep down in the
+grain-room. There's to be seven of 'em a-waitin' down by the big hollow,
+and when they git you betwixt them an' the sky at moonrise they're all
+promised to shoot at once, so that nary man dast to go back on the others
+when you're killed."
+
+Wounded, appalled, the young fellow drew back from her and clung to the
+saddle of the old mule, with a boyish desire to hide his face against the
+arm which he threw over it.
+
+"How they hate me!" he breathed at last. "Oh, I've failed--I've failed. I
+meant so well by them all--and I've got nothing but their hate. But I
+won't run. I never ran from anything yet. I'll stay here and take what
+comes."
+
+Perhaps in his extremity the despair of this speech was but an
+unconscious reaching out for Judith's expressed affection, the warmth and
+consolation of her love. If this were so, the movement brought him what
+he craved. In terror she laid hold upon him, holding to his unwounded
+arm, pressing her cheek upon his shoulder, making her protest in swift
+passionate sentences.
+
+"What good will it do for you to get yourself killed--tell me that? Every
+one of them men will be murderers, when you've stayed and seen it
+through. Lord, what differ is it whether sech critters as them love you
+or hate you? 'Pears to me I would ruther have their ill-will as their
+good-will. Don't you have no regards for them that is good friends to
+you? _I_ care. _I_ understand what it was you was tryin' to do. I thort
+it was fine. Air you goin' to break my heart by stayin' here to git
+yourself killed? Oh, don't do it, Creed. You let me take you out of the
+mountains, or I'll never know what it is to sleep in peace."
+
+His arm slipped softly round her waist and drew her close against his
+side, so close that the two young creatures, standing silent in the midst
+of the warm summer night, could almost hear the beating of each other's
+heart. In spite of their desperate situation they were tremulously
+happy.
+
+"I thank my God for you, Judith," murmured Creed, bending to lay his
+cheek timidly against hers. "Never was a man in trouble had such a sweet
+helper. It's mighty near worth it all to have found you. Maybe you never
+would have cared for me at all if this hadn't come about--if I hadn't
+needed you so bad."
+
+Judith's lavish heart would have hastened to break its alabaster jar of
+ointment at love's feet with the impetuous avowal that he had been dear
+to her since first she looked on him. But there was instant need of
+haste; the situation was full of danger; that confession, with all its
+sweetness, might well wait a more secure time and place. She got to her
+horse glowing with hope, feeling herself equal to the dubious enterprise
+before them.
+
+"Whatever you say honey," Creed assured her. "Do with me as you will. I'm
+your man now."
+
+They had wheeled their mounts toward the open.
+
+"Hark! What's that?" whispered Judith.
+
+The quavering cry of a screech-owl came across the gulch to them. The
+girl crouched in her saddle, shivering slightly, and stroking Selim's
+nose so that he might make no stir nor sound.
+
+"They use--that--for a signal," she breathed at last. "The boys is out
+guardin' the trails. And 'pears like they're a-movin'. We got to go
+quick."
+
+They set forth in silence; Judith riding ahead, skirted at a considerable
+distance the buildings on the old Turrentine place, then followed down a
+rocky stream-bed, dry now and leading abruptly into a ravine. Here the
+girl took her bearings by the summits she could see black against the
+star-lit sky, and, avoiding the open, made for the old Indian trail which
+would lead them directly down to Garyville. They could ride abreast
+sometimes, and they began to talk together in these broken intervals.
+
+"And Little Buck cried when he told you," Judith said, in that tender,
+brooding voice of hers. "That was my fault. I'm mighty sorry. I wouldn't
+'a' hurt the child's feelings for anything; but I never thought."
+
+"I fixed it up with him some," said her lover, quickly. "I told him you
+only said that because I was hurt and you was sorry for me. I thought I
+was telling the truth."
+
+"Uncle Jep feels mighty bad about this business," she began another time,
+hastening to offer what consolation she could. "Nothin' would have made
+him willin' to it, but the fear that when you brought the raiders up he'd
+get took hisself. He ain't had nothin' to do with stillin' for more'n six
+year, but of course hit's on his land, and the boys is his sons. He says
+he's too old to go to the penitentiary."
+
+Creed reached out in the gloom and got the girl's hand.
+
+"Oh, Judith, darling!" he said eagerly. "Let me tell you right now, and
+make you understand--I never had any more notion of bringing raiders into
+the mountains than you have yourself. I do know that blockaded stills and
+what they mean are the ruin of this country; but honey, you've got to
+believe me when I say I never wanted to get any information about them or
+break them up."
+
+The girl harkened, with close attention to the man--the lover--but with
+simple indifference to the gist of what he was saying. It was plain that
+she would have loved and followed him had he been a revenue officer
+himself.
+
+"I'll tell Uncle Jep," she said presently. "He'll be mighty proud. He
+does really set a heap of store by you, and they all know it. But I ain't
+never goin' to let you talk like that to him," she added, the note of
+proud possession sounding in her voice. "Ef you're goin' to live in the
+mountains you'll have to learn not to have much to say about moonshine
+whiskey and blockaded stills--you never do know who you might be
+hittin'."
+
+"You'll take good care of me, won't you Judith?" he said fondly, pressing
+the hand he held. "And I reckon I need it--I surely do manage to get into
+misunderstandings with people. But that wasn't the trouble with Blatch
+Turrentine--he never thought any such thing as that I was a spy. He was
+mad at me about something else--and I don't know yet what it was."
+
+Judith laughed softly, low in her throat, so far had they come from the
+uncertainty, strain, and distress of an hour before. When next the trail
+narrowed and widened again, she came up on his left, the side of the
+injured arm, but which brought her nearer to him, leaned close and laying
+her hand on his shoulder, whispered,
+
+"I reckon I know. I reckon you'll have to blame me with Blatch's
+meanness."
+
+"Why, of course that was it!" exclaimed Creed. He looped the bridle on
+his saddle horn, reached up and drew her hand across his shoulders and
+around his neck. "That's what comes of getting the girl that everybody
+else wants," he said with fond pride. "But nobody else can have her now,
+can they? Say it Judith--say it to me, dear."
+
+Judith made sweet and satisfying response, and they rode in silence a
+moment. Then she halted Selim thoughtfully.
+
+"This path takes off to Double Springs, Creed," she said, mentioning the
+name of a little watering place built up about some wells of chalybeate
+and sulphur water. "We might--do ye think mebbe we'd better go there?"
+
+Creed, who felt his strength ebbing, calculated the distance. They had
+seen, as they made the last turn under the bluff, the lights flaring at
+the Garyville station. Double Springs was more than a mile farther. "I
+reckon Garyville will be the best, dear," he returned gently. Then, "I
+wish I had cut a little better figure in this business--on account of
+you," he added wistfully. "You're everything that a man could ask. I
+don't want you to be ashamed of me."
+
+"Ashamed of you!" Judith's deep tones carried such love, such scorn of
+those who might not appreciate the man of her choice, that he was fain to
+be comforted.
+
+"If we had known each other better from the first I reckon you would have
+kept me out of these fool mistakes I've made," the young fellow said
+humbly.
+
+"You ain't made no mistakes," Judith declared with reckless loyalty,
+"Hit's the other folks--Blatch Turrentine and them that follers him--no
+good person could git along with them. Are you much tired Creed? Does yo'
+shoulder pain you?"
+
+"No, dear," he said softly, laying his cheek against the hand which he
+had drawn around his neck. "Nothing pains me any more. I'm mighty
+happy."
+
+And together thus they rode forward in darkness, toward Garyville and
+safety.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+Bitter Parting
+
+
+In the sickly yellow flare of the kerosene lamps around the Garyville
+station Judith got her first sight of Creed's face: sunken, the blood
+drained from it till it was colourless as paper, the eyes wild, purple
+rimmed, haggard--it frightened her. She was off of Selim in a moment,
+begging him to get down and sit on the edge of the platform with her,
+here on the dark side where nobody would notice them, and they could
+decide what was to be done next.
+
+He dismounted slowly, stumblingly, gained the edge of the platform, and
+there sat with drooping head. Judith tied the two animals and ran to sit
+beside him.
+
+"Ye ain't goin' to faint air ye?" she asked anxiously. "Lean on me,
+Creed. I wish't I knew what to do for ye!"
+
+The young fellow, half unconscious indeed, put his head down upon her
+shoulder with a great shuddering sigh.
+
+"I'll be better in a minute, dear," he whispered. "I reckon I got a
+little tired--riding so far."
+
+For some time Judith sat there, Creed's head on her shoulder, the black
+night all about them, the little lighted station empty save for the
+clicking of the telegraph instrument, and the footsteps of the station
+master who had opened up for the midnight train. She was desperately
+anxious and at a loss which way to turn. And yet through all her being
+there rolled a mighty undernote of joy. As to the dweller on the coast
+the voice of the sea is the undertone to all the sounds of man's
+activities, so beneath all her virginal hesitancies, her half terror of
+what she had done, surged and sang the knowledge that Creed was hers, her
+avowed lover. She, Judith, had him here safe; she had brought him away
+out of the mountains, from those who would have harmed him--and those who
+would have loved him too well. In all her plannings up to this time she
+had never quite been able to see clearly what should come after getting
+Creed down into the valley. Over her stormily beating heart now there
+rose and fell a little packet of bills, savings above necessary
+expenditures on the farm, and her own modest expenses, savings which had
+been accumulating since Uncle Jephthah rented the place, and now amounted
+to some hundreds of dollars. These she had put in the bosom of her frock
+when she set out on this enterprise, with, as she now realised, the
+vaguest expectation of ever returning to her uncle's house.
+
+"Creed," she whispered, "air ye better?"
+
+"Yes," responded her charge, "yes--I'm better." But he made no movement
+to raise his head, and with eyes long accustomed to darkness she was able
+to see that his lids were still closed.
+
+"Creed," she began again, "what shall I do for you now? Must I go ask at
+the hotel will they give you a room? Have you--have you got money with
+you?"
+
+Bonbright roused himself.
+
+"I'm all right now," he said in a strained tone. "Yes, dear, I've got
+some money with me, and a little more in the bank at Hepzibah. I can get
+hold of that any time I want to. I don't know just what I'll do," he
+looked around him bewildered. This had not been his plan, and the long
+ride down the mountain, and above all the happiness of being with Judith,
+of her avowals had made him forgetful of its exigencies. "I reckon I'll
+make out. You needn't worry about me any more, Judith. I'm safe down
+here."
+
+These words sounded dreadfully like a dismissal to the girl. She locked
+her hands hard together in her lap and fought for composure. An older or
+a more worldly woman would have said to him promptly that she could not
+leave him in this case, and that if they were ever to be married it must
+be now. But all the traditions of the mountain girl's life and upbringing
+were against such a course. She gazed at him helplessly.
+
+"I ain't got but one friend on this earth, looks like," began Creed
+wearily, as he got to his feet, "and now I'm obliged to send her away
+from me."
+
+It was more than Judith could bear. She lifted her swimming eyes to him
+in the dusk; he was recovering self command and strength, but he was
+still white, shaken, the bandaged head and shoulder showing how close he
+had been to death. Her love overbore virgin timidity and tradition.
+
+"Don't send me away then," she said in the deepest tones of that rich,
+passionate voice of hers. "Ef hit's me you're namin' when you speak of
+having but one friend--don't send me away, Creed."
+
+He came close and caught her hand, looking into her face with wondering
+half comprehension of her words. That face was dyed with sudden, burning
+red. She hoped and expected that he would make the proffer which must
+come from him. When he did not, she burst out in a vehement, tense
+whisper,
+
+"If--if you love me like you said you did----"
+
+Creed hesitated, bewildered. He was too ill to judge matters aright, but
+he knew one thing.
+
+"I do love you," he said with mounting firmness. "I may be a mighty poor
+sort of a fellow--I've begun to think so of late--but I love you."
+
+Judith put out both hands blindly toward him whispering,
+
+"And I love you. I don't want nothin' but to be with you an' help you,
+an' take keer of you. I'll never leave you."
+
+For a moment the young fellow felt only the dizzy rapture of her frank
+confession. In that instant he saw himself accepting her sacrifice,
+taking her in his arms; in anticipation he tasted the sweetness of her
+lips. Then pure reason, that shrew who had always ruled his days, spoke
+loud, as the bitterness of his situation rolled back upon him.
+
+"No--no!" he cried. "Judith--honey--I can't do that. Why, I'd be robbing
+you of everything in the world. Your kin would turn against you. Your
+farm would be lost to you, I reckon--I don't know when I'll be able to go
+back and claim mine."
+
+In the moment of strained silence that followed this speech, with a sense
+of violent painful revulsion the girl pushed him back when he would
+timidly have clung to her. What woman ever appreciated prudence in a
+lover? It is not a lover's virtue. Her farm--her farm! He could listen to
+her confession of love for him, and speculate upon the chances of her
+losing her farm by it! She had one shamed, desperate instant when she
+would have been glad to deny the words she had spoken. Then Creed,
+reading her anger and despair by the light of his own sorrows, said
+brokenly:
+
+"You feel--you're offended at me now--but Judith, you wouldn't love me if
+I had taken you at your word, and ruined all your chances in life.
+I--Judith--dear--I'll make this thing right yet. I'll come back--and
+you'll forgive me then."
+
+With a sudden flaring up of strength he took quiet mastery of the
+situation. He kissed her tenderly, but sadly, not such a kiss as either
+could ever have imagined their first would be.
+
+"I love you too well to let you wed a man that's fixed like I am--a man
+that's made such a failure of life--a fugitive--a fellow that has nothing
+to offer you, and no more standing with your people than a hound dog. I
+love you better than I do myself or my comfort--or even my life."
+
+In anguished silence Judith received the caress; dumb with misery she got
+to her horse. Creed stood looking up at her for their last words, when,
+with a rattle and clang, the train from the North swept in and halted.
+Selim jibed and fought the bit as any sensible mountain horse feels
+himself entitled to do under similar circumstances; but Judith heeded him
+almost not at all.
+
+"My Lord--who's that?" she cried, staring toward the lighted train where
+the figure of a man mounted the platform.
+
+"What is it?" queried Creed.
+
+"Hit looked like Blatch," whispered the girl; "but I reckon it couldn't
+a-been."
+
+"Blatch!" echoed Creed, all on fire in an instant--where now was her poor
+invalid whose head she had pillowed, of whom she had thought to take
+care? "Blatch Turrentine!--Good-bye, honey--you mustn't be seen with me.
+If Blatch is here I've got to find and face him. You see that, don't
+you?--You understand."
+
+And he turned and left her so. Oh, these men, with their quarrels and
+their nice points of honour--while a woman's heart bleeds under the
+scuffling feet!
+
+She watched him hurry to the train, his staggering step advertising how
+unfit he was for any such attempt, watched him mount the platform where
+she had seen the man that looked like Blatch; and then the conductor
+swung his lantern, the wheels began to revolve, she half cried out, and
+Selim at the end of his patience, bolted with her and never stopped
+running till he had topped the rise above the village.
+
+Here, with some ado, she got him quieted, brought to a standstill, got
+off and tightened the girth, for the saddle was slipping dangerously. She
+climbed on once more, mounting from a fallen tree, and was moving again
+up the trail when, down toward Garyville, someone called her name.
+
+"Judith!"
+
+She did not turn her head. She knew to whom the voice belonged. As he
+rode up to her:
+
+"What you doin' here, Blatch Turrentine?" she demanded fiercely, "an'
+what'll the boys say to you for slippin' away from 'em to-night?"
+
+He took her inferred knowledge of all his enterprises without a word of
+comment. Bringing his mule up closer to her where she sat on Selim he
+answered:
+
+"The boys know whar I'm at. We got word last evenin' that the man I sell
+to was waitin' for me in Garyville. He don't know nobody but me in the
+business, and nobody but me could do the arrent. I hauled a load down,
+an' I would have been back in plenty time, ef I hadn't met you and
+Bonbright right thar whar that old Cherokee trail comes into the
+Garyville road."
+
+Judith started, her face burned in the darkness, but she said nothing.
+Blatch peered curiously at her as he went on:
+
+"I reckon you never took notice of the waggon that was under the bluff
+thar by the turn, but that was my waggon, and I was a-settin' on it. I
+wheeled myse'f round, when I seed 'twas Bonbright, and follered you two
+down to Garyville, and put up my mules."
+
+Again he peered sharply at her.
+
+"Jude," as she still sat silent, "I won't tell the boys what kept me--I
+won't tell them nary thing about you. I'll just let on that I happened to
+see Bonbright at Garyville."
+
+"You tell what you're a mind to," said Judith bitterly. "I don't keer
+what you say."
+
+Blatchley took the retort coolly. But his light grey eyes narrowed under
+the black brows.
+
+"Bonbright seemed mightily upsot," he commented. "Went off on the train
+an' left his mule a-standin'."
+
+_Went off on the train!_ Judith's heart leaped, then stood still.
+
+"Ye needn't werry about it--I had Scomp put it up, 'long o' my other 'n.
+He'll send 'em both up a Wednesday. I reckon it ain't to be wondered at
+Bonbright was flustered. Who do you 'low he went with on the railroad
+train? Jude, air you so easy fooled as to think it was a new notion for
+him to go to Garyville? Didn't he name it to you that it was a better
+place than Double Springs?"
+
+Leaning close and watching her face, he saw in it confirmation.
+
+"Shore. They was a little somebody on the railroad train waitin' to go on
+with him--after he'd done kissed you good-bye--and _left_ you!"
+
+Judith sat, head up, staring at him. Her less worthy nature was always
+instantly roused by this man's approach. Savage resentment, jealousy,
+hate, stirred in her crushed spirit; they raised their heads; their
+movement crowded out grief and humiliation. It must be true--she had
+proposed Double Springs, and he had said Garyville would be better. He
+had refused in so many words her offer of herself. He had kissed her----
+
+"No!--no!--no!" she cried to the man before her, "don't you look at
+me--don't you speak to me."
+
+"Why, Judith," he protested, hanging on Selim's flank and talking to her
+as she whirled the sorrel into the road and put him at the slope at a
+pace which that petted animal very much resented, "why Judith, ef one
+feller goes back on you thataway you be mad at him--he's the one to be
+mad at. Here's me, I stand willin' to make it up. Creed Bonbright has
+shamed you--he's left you; but you could make him look like a fool if you
+would only say the word--and you and me would----"
+
+"Now you go back!" Judith turned upon him as one speaks to a dog who is
+determined to follow. "I ain't nary 'nother word to say to you. Leave me
+alone!"
+
+"But Judith, hit ain't safe for you to be ridin' up here in the night
+time, thisaway," Blatch insisted. "Lemme jest go along with you----"
+
+"I'll be a mighty heap safer alone than I'd be with you," Judith told
+him, urging Selim ahead, "and anybody that knows you well will say so.
+You--go--back."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+Cast Out
+
+
+Judith reached the Top in the grey, disillusioning light of early dawn.
+The moon, a ghastly wraith, was far down in the west, the east had not
+yet taken any hint of rose flush, but held that pallid line of greyish
+white that precedes sunrise.
+
+She clambered across the Gulch, her tired horse stumbling with drooping
+head over the familiar stones, and rode slowly up to the home place. The
+huddle of buildings looked gaunt, deserted, inhospitable. There was light
+here enough to see the life which in daytime made all homelike, but which
+now, quenched and hidden, left all desolate, forbidding. As sleep takes
+on the semblance of death, so the sleeping house took on the semblance of
+desertion. The chickens were still humped on their perches in the trees,
+the cows had not come up to the milking-pen, their calves lay in a little
+bunch by the fence fast asleep. To the girl's heavy heart it seemed a
+spot utterly forlorn in the chill, sad, ironic half-light of the
+slow-coming morning.
+
+She rode directly to the barn, unsaddled, and put her horse out. As she
+was coming back past her uncle's cabin, she saw the old man himself
+sitting in the door. He was fully dressed; his hat lay on the doorstone
+beside him, and against the jamb leaned Old Sister. He looked up at her
+with a sort of indifferent, troubled gaze.
+
+"So you got back, Jude," he said quietly.
+
+"Yes, Uncle Jep," she returned as quietly.
+
+He made no comment on her riding skirt which she held up away from the
+drenching dew. He asked no questions as to where she had been, or what
+her errand. She noted that he looked old and worn.
+
+"I'm mighty sorry it happened," he began abruptly, quite as though he was
+continuing a conversation which they had intermitted but a few moments,
+"mighty sorry; but I don't see no other way. I've studied a heap on it.
+Folks that stirs up trouble, gits trouble. I----"
+
+He broke off and sat brooding.
+
+"I'm glad you ain't mad at me for the part I've tuck in it," Judith began
+finally.
+
+"Don't tell me." He raised a hasty, protesting hand. "I don't want to
+know nothin' about it. All is, _I_ couldn't have things according to my
+ruthers, and they had to go as they must. Hit ain't what a man means that
+makes the differ--hit's what he does that we count. Them that stirs up
+trouble, finds trouble."
+
+"I reckon so, Uncle Jep," said the girl, drooping as she stood.
+
+"They ain't been a roof between my head and the sky sence I left this
+house," the old man's big voice rumbled on monotonously, hollowly. "I
+tromped the ridges over to'ds Yeller Old Bald. I left mankind and their
+works behind me, and I have done a power of thinking; but I can't make
+this thing come out no other way."
+
+He ceased and sat looking down. The girl could fancy his solitary meals
+where he cooked what he had killed and ate it, to lie down under the sky
+and sleep. Women are denied this fleeing to the desert to be alone with
+God and their sorrow. She envied him the privilege. She had no heart to
+repeat to him Creed's statements that he was not a spy. That was all
+past--wiped out by the parting between her and her lover.
+
+"Yes, Uncle Jep," she uttered low, and with bent head she moved
+dejectedly on toward the house.
+
+Here all the boys were sleeping noisily after their vigils of the night
+before. About three o'clock, or a little after, they had come home to
+find their father turning in at the gate. With their disappointment fresh
+upon them they broke through his command of silence, and Wade told him
+how they and Blatch had planned the ambush, how Blatch had been called
+away, how they had waited in the hollow for Creed, who had promised to
+"come and talk to them," how he had never come, but how Arley Kittridge a
+few minutes ago had ridden up to notify them that Bonbright was gone from
+Nancy Card's, and that the mule was gone with him. None of the watchers
+could say what direction he took, except to give earnest assurances that
+he had not left by any trail leading down the mountain. "He's bound to be
+over here somewhars," Wade concluded, "and Blatch not havin' got back
+from Garyville, they two has met somewhars."
+
+The old man listened in silence, and when his son had made an end offered
+neither comment nor reply. He passed over without a word the revelation
+of the deceit about Blatch's supposed killing. It was as though, weary
+and foredone, he dismissed the young fellows to the logic of events--to
+life itself--for response, explanation, or punishment.
+
+Judith changed her dress, bathed her pale face, and set about preparing
+breakfast. And that was a strange meal when she had finally put it on the
+table and bidden them to it. The sons sat in their places like chidden
+schoolboys, furtively studying their father's ravaged visage, looking at
+each other and muttering requests or replies. They were all aware of the
+ugliness of their several offences. Creed's strange disappearance,
+Blatch's failure to return, the utter collapse of their errand, these had
+shaken them terribly.
+
+About a third of the way through the meal Jim Cal shuffled in.
+
+"Do you mind givin' me some breakfast, Jude?" he asked humbly. "Iley an'
+the chaps is all sound asleep. I hate to wake 'em, an' I never was no
+hand to do for myse'f."
+
+"Set and welcome," said Judith, mechanically placing a chair for the one
+who had been most resolute of all that Creed must die. So it was that
+they were all seated about the board when Blatch Turrentine, without a
+word, made his appearance in the door. Without moving his head Jephthah
+turned those sombre eyes of his upon his nephew, and regarded him
+steadily. The younger man stopped where he was on the threshold.
+
+"So ye ain't dead?" inquired his uncle finally.
+
+"I reckon that ain't news to you, is it?" asked Blatch, making as though
+to come in and take his place at the table.
+
+For a moment the loyalty of the tribal head, the hospitality of the
+mountaineer, warred in old Jephthah's heart with deep, strong resentment
+against this man. Then he said without rising,
+
+"Yes, hit's news. But you may take it that hit's news I ain't heard. I
+reckon we'll just leave it that you _air_ dead. The lease on the ground
+over thar runs tell next spring. I'll not rue my bargain, but no son of
+mine sets his foot on yo' land and stays my son, and you don't put yo'
+foot in this house again. You give it out that you was dead--stay dead."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Blatch. "Yo' a-blamin' the whole business on me, air
+ye? Well, that's handy. What about them fine fellers that's settin' at
+meat with ye now? I reckon the tale goes that I led 'em into all their
+meanness."
+
+Jim Cal dropped his head and stared at the bit of cornbread in his pudgy
+fingers; Wade glanced up angrily; the twins stirred like young hounds in
+leash; but Jephthah quieted them all with a look.
+
+"Blatch," began the head of the house temperately, even sadly, "yo' my
+brother's son. Sam and me was chaps together, and I set a heap of store
+by him. Sam's been gone more than ten year, and in that time I've aimed
+to do by you as I would by a son of my own. I felt that hit was something
+I owed to Sam. But ef I owed hit hit's been paid out. Yo' Sam's son, but
+also yo' a Blatchley, and I reckon the Blatchley blood had to show up in
+ye. My boys is neither better nor worse than others, but when I say that
+I don't aim to have you walk with 'em, I say what is my right. What I
+owed yo' daddy, and my dead brother, has been paid out--hit's been paid
+plumb out."
+
+Now that it was made plain, Blatch took the dismissal hardily. Perhaps he
+had been more or less prepared for it, knowing as he would have phrased
+it that his uncle wanted but half a chance to break with him. He was
+aware, too, that the secret of his illicit traffic was safe in the old
+man's hands, and that indeed Jephthah would strain a point to defend him
+for the name's sake if for nothing else.
+
+"All right," he said, "ef them's yo' ruthers, hit suits me. What do
+you-all boys say?--I reckon Unc' Jep'll let ye speak for yo'selves--this
+one time."
+
+"I say what pap says," came promptly from Wade. And, "Jeff an' me thinks
+it's about time pap's word went with his boys," put in the younger and
+more emotional Andy.
+
+"All right, all right," agreed Blatch in some haste, finding the battle
+to go thus sweepingly against him. "I wont expect no opinions from you,
+podner, tell you've had time to run home an' ax Iley what air they. Ye
+ain't named Judith, Unc' Jep," he went on, glancing to where the girl
+knelt on the hearthstone dishing up corn pones from the Dutch oven.
+"Cain't she come over and visit me when she has a mind?"
+
+"Judith's her own mistress. She can use her ruthers," returned Jephthah
+briefly, "but I misdoubt that you'll be greatly troubled with her
+company."
+
+"Help me git my things out of the cupboard thar, Jude, won't ye?" asked
+Blatch civilly enough.
+
+Without reply, without glancing at him, Judith preceded him into the
+fore-room, opened the doors and sought out his clean clothing, making it
+into a neat pile on the table.
+
+"You come over and see me sometimes, won't ye, Judy?" whispered the tall
+man as he bundled these up. "I won't tell who I seen you with."
+
+Judith looked at him with wordless contempt. Her own pain was so great
+that even anger was swallowed up in it.
+
+"Tell anybody you're a mind to," she said listlessly. "I ain't
+a-carin'."
+
+"I may git word of him, Jude," persisted Blatch as he was departing. "Ef
+I do would you wish to hear it? Ef you say yes, I'll send ye notice."
+
+Again she glanced at him with that negligent disdain. What could he do to
+her now who had lost all? She was beyond the reach of his love or his
+malice.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+A Conversion
+
+
+And now Judith's days strung themselves on the glowing thread of
+midsummer weather like black beads on a golden cord, a rosary of pain.
+She told each bead with sighs, facing the morning with a heavy heart that
+longed for darkness, lying down when day was over in dread of the night
+and a weariness that brought no sleep. And the cedar tree, swayed in the
+raw autumn air, talking to itself sombrely of the empty nest in its
+heart, sounded upon her wakeful ears a note of desolation and despair.
+For all the Turkey Tracks soon knew that Blatch Turrentine was sound and
+whole; all Hepzibah knew it eventually--and Creed Bonbright neither
+returned nor made any sign.
+
+The embargo being removed, Judith went straight to Nancy Card.
+
+In the preoccupation of her sorrow, she might have forgotten Little
+Buck's wounded heart; but when as of custom Beezy came rioting out to
+meet her, the man child hung back with so strange a countenance that she
+needs must note it.
+
+"Come here, honey," she urged tenderly--her own suffering made her very
+pitiful to the childish grief.
+
+Little Buck came slowly up to his idol, lifting doubtful eyes to her
+face. The girl's ready arm went swiftly round the small figure.
+
+"Are you pestered about that word I sent Creed Bonbright by you?" she
+whispered.
+
+The little boy nodded solemnly, and you could see the choke in his
+throat.
+
+"Well, you don't need to be," she reassured him. "I had to send jest that
+word, Little Buck--jest that very word; nothin' less would 'a' brought
+him."
+
+Again the child nodded, twisting around to look in her face, his own
+countenance clearing a bit.
+
+"But it don't make any differ between you an' me, does it, honey?" she
+pursued. "You're Jude's man, jest the same as you ever was, ain't ye? You
+wouldn't never need to be jealous of anybody; 'cause you know all the
+time that Judy loves you."
+
+Silently the small man put his arms round her neck and hugged her
+hard--an unusual demonstration for Little Buck. And during her entire
+stay he hung close about, somewhat to Nancy's annoyance, seeming to find
+plentiful joy in the contemplation of his recovered treasure.
+
+The loss of Creed had meant a good deal to Nancy. More like a son than a
+boarder in her house, he had brought with him a sense of support and
+competence such as the hard-worked little woman had never known. With his
+going, she was back again in the old helpless, moneyless situation, with
+Pony on her hands a growing problem and anxiety, and Doss Provine but a
+broken reed on which to lean. Such inquiries after Creed as they managed
+to set afoot fetched no return.
+
+"Hit ain't like Creed to be scared and keep runnin'," she would repeat
+pathetically. "I know in reason something awful has chanced to that boy.
+Either that, or it's like they're all beginning to say, he's wedded and
+gone to Texas same as his cousin Cyarter done. Cyarter Bonbright run away
+with a gal on the night she was to have wedded another feller--tuck her
+right out of the country and went to Texas. That's Bonbright nature: they
+ain't much on sweet-heartin' an' sech, but when they git it, they git it
+hard."
+
+She laid a loving hand on the girl's shoulder, and leaned around to look
+frankly into the beautiful, melancholy, dark face with the direct, honest
+grey eyes that would admit no concealments between herself and those whom
+she really cared for.
+
+"I speak right out to you, Jude," she said kindly, "'caze I see how hit's
+been between you an' Creed, an' hit'll hurt you less if you get used to
+the idy of givin' him up. Him treated the way he was, I don't know as I'd
+blame him."
+
+But Judith could have blamed him. It was only when despair pressed too
+hard that she could say she would be glad to know he was alive even
+though he belonged to somebody else. Yet to credit Blatch's story for a
+moment, to think he had gone that night with Huldah Spiller, was to open
+the heart's door on such a black vista of treachery and double-dealing in
+Creed's conduct, to so utterly discredit his caring for herself, that she
+had no defence but to disbelieve the whole tale, and this she was
+generally able to do.
+
+But as far away as Hepzibah a small event was preparing that should break
+the monotony of Judith's grievous days. Venters Drane, the elder's
+twelve-year-old boy, going to school in the village, fell ill of
+diphtheria. When word was brought to the father--a widower and wise--he
+loaded his three younger children and their small belongings into the
+waggon and drove over to the Turrentine place.
+
+"I jest p'intedly ain't got nary another place to leave 'em, Sister
+Barrier, nor nary another soul on earth that I could trust 'em with like
+I could with you," he said wistfully, after he had explained the
+necessities of the case. "I'm on my way down now to get Venters and bring
+him home--look at that, will ye!" as the baby made a dash for Judith who
+stood by the wheel looking up.
+
+"They're mighty welcome, Elder Drane," Judith declared warmly, receiving
+the little fellow in open arms. "I'll be glad to do for 'em."
+
+Martin and Lucy were old-fashioned, repressed, timid children, with the
+pathetic outlook of young persons brought up by a melancholy, ancient
+hireling. But the baby, glowing-eyed, laughing-mouthed rogue, staggering
+valiantly on sturdy, emulous legs, taking tribute everywhere with all
+babyhood's divine audacity, walked straight into her heart. He slept
+beside her at night, for him she darkened and quieted the house of
+afternoons, lying down with him to watch his slumbers, to brood with
+mother fondness upon the round, rosy, small face, and the even, placid
+breathing.
+
+Drane had brought such clothing as they had, but Judith found them
+ill-provided, and set to work for them at once. Being a capable
+needlewoman she soon had them apparelled more to her liking, and the
+labour physicked pain. Sitting in the porch sewing, with the baby
+tumbling about the floor at her feet and Mart and Lucy building
+play-houses in the yard under the trees, Judith began dimly to realise
+that life, somewhere and at some time, might lack all she had so
+passionately craved, all she so piercingly regretted, and yet hold some
+peace, some satisfaction. True she was still desolate, robbed,
+despairing, yet with the children to tend there were hours when she
+almost lost sight of her own sorrow, in the sweet compulsion of doing for
+them.
+
+Jim Cal shook his head over these arrangements. "Looks like to me ef I
+was a widower with chaps, trying to wed a fine lookin', upheaded gal like
+Jude, I'd a' kep' the little 'uns out of her sight as much as I could,
+'stid of fetchin' 'em right to her. Hit seems now as though she muched
+them greatly, but she's sartin shore to find out what a sight o' trouble
+chaps makes, and ain't any woman wantin' more work than she's 'bleeged to
+have."
+
+Lacking active concerns of his own, James Calhoun was always greatly
+interested in those of the persons about him. Judith's doings, on account
+of her reticence, beauty and high spirit, proved a theme of unending,
+mild interest.
+
+"Jude," he opened out one day as he sat on the edge of the porch while
+his cousin was busy with some sewing for her little visitors, "did ye
+hear 'bout Lace Rountree?"
+
+Judith never moved her eyes from her work. "I know they's sech a person,"
+she said evenly, "if that's what you mean."
+
+"No, but have ye heared of how he's a-doin' here lately?" persisted the
+fat man. "I don't know as anybody has named anything special to me about
+Lacey Rountree or his doin's," Judith returned with a rising irritation.
+"Why should they?"
+
+Jim Cal heaved a wheezy sigh. "'Caze yo' said to be the cause of it," he
+expounded with lugubrious enjoyment. "Lace Rountree is fillin' hisse'f up
+on corn whiskey and givin' it out to each and every that he's goin' plumb
+straight _di_-rect to the dav-il, an' all on yo' accounts--'caze you
+wouldn't have 'im. Now what do you make out o' that?"
+
+"I make out that some folks are mighty big fools," retorted Judith with
+asperity. "Lace Rountree is no older than Jeff and Andy--he's two years
+younger'n I am--why, he's like a child to me. I never no more thought of
+Lace Rountree than I'd think of--well, not so much as I would of Little
+Buck Provine."
+
+"Uh-huh," agreed Jim Cal shaking his head dolefully, "that's the way you
+talk; but you-all gals had ort to have a care how you toll fellers on.
+Here's Huldy got Wade so up-tore about her that he's a-goin' to dash out
+and git him a place on the railroad whar he's mighty apt to be killed up;
+and you----"
+
+"I what?" prompted Judith sharply, as he came to a wavering pause.
+
+"Well--they was always one man that you give good reason to expect you'd
+wed him. I myse'f have heared you, more'n forty times I reckon, say to
+Blatch Turrentine--or if not say it in so many words, at least----"
+
+"Cousin Jim," broke in Judith, carefully ignoring this last charge, "so
+far as that Lace Rountree is concerned, did you ever know of a reckless
+feller that come to no good but what he had some gal at whose door he
+could lay it all? I vow I never did. They ain't a drinkin' whiskey becaze
+they like it; they don't git into no interruptions becaze they're
+mad--it's always 'count o' some gal that has give 'em the mitten. I'll
+thank you not to name Lace Rountree to me again, nor--nor anybody else,"
+as she saw his eyes wander to the sewing in her lap.
+
+"Well, Drane's old enough to look out for hisse'f," said Jim Cal, rising
+and trying his joints apparently for a movement toward home. "Ef you
+choose to toll him on by takin' care of his chaps, that's yo' lookout,
+and his lookout--'taint mine; but 'ef I was givin' the man advice, I'd
+say to him that he might about as well take 'em home, or hunt up some
+other gal to leave 'em with, 'caze yo' apt to much the chil'en and then
+pop the do' in the daddy's face."
+
+The weeks brought piecemeal confirmation of Jim Cal's dismal forebodings.
+Elihu Drane took advantage of every pretext to haunt about the roof that
+sheltered his children. Though he was not with the sick boy, he made the
+presence of a "ketchin' town disease" in his home, reason for not coming
+near the little ones, but called Judith down to the draw-bars to talk to
+him. When he had her there at such disadvantage, he so pertinaciously
+urged his unwelcome suit that he made her finally glad to be rid of the
+children, to see him, when Venters was once more well, take them away
+with him and give her respite from his importunities.
+
+In the case of Wade, too, the fat man's pessimistic expectations were
+realised; the young man did, early in August, dash out and secure a place
+on the railroad. Mountain people write few letters. They heard nothing
+from him after the first message which told them where he was employed
+and what wages he was to have.
+
+It was September when Iley announced to Judith that she had word from
+some of Pap Spiller's kin who were living in Garyville, that
+acquaintances of theirs from Hepzibah, coming down to the circus at the
+larger town, had given them roundabout and vague news of Huldah. The girl
+had delayed in Hepzibah but a few days. The story as it came up on the
+mountain was that she had married "some feller from Big Turkey Track, and
+gone off on the railroad."
+
+"Them Tuels is mighty po' hands to remember names," Iley said. "But all
+ye got to do is to look around and take notice of anybody that's gone
+from Big Turkey Track here lately. Ye can fix it to suit yo'se'f. But I
+reckon Huldy has made a good match, and I'm satisfied."
+
+Judith looked upon the floor in silence. In silence she left the cabin
+and took her way to her own home. And that night, while the cedar tree
+talked to her in the voice of love--Creed's voice--she fought with
+dragons and slew them, and was slain by them.
+
+When Blatchley Turrentine had asserted this thing to her at Garyville,
+she found somewhere--after her first gust of unreasoning resentment was
+past--strength to disbelieve it utterly. But now it came again in more
+plausible guise. It gained likeliness from mere repetition. And hardest
+of all to bear, she was totally unsupported in her trust. She knew Creed,
+knew his love for her; yet to cling to it was to fly in the face of
+probabilities, and of everything and everybody about her. The lover who
+is silent, absent from her who loves him, at such a time, runs tremendous
+risks.
+
+It was the set or turn of the year's tide; sunsets were full, rich,
+yellow, and a great round, golden moon swung in the evening sky above the
+purple hills. A soft, purring monotone of little tree crickets in the
+night forest replaced the shriller insect chorus of midsummer. Garden
+patches, about through their summer yield, were a tangle of bubble-tinted
+morning glories, the open woods misty with wild asters, bell flowers
+trembling from the crevices of rocks; and along fence-row and watercourse
+turkey-pea, brook sunflower, queen of the meadow, and joepye-weed made
+gay the land.
+
+Such farm work as remained was only garnering--fodder-pulling, pea-hay
+and millet hay to gather; with a little sowing of wheat, rye, or turf
+oats.
+
+In late midsummer and early fall revivalists, preachers, and exhorters go
+through the Cumberlands holding protracted meetings in the little
+isolated churches. At this time of year the men as well as the women are
+most at liberty. To a people who live scattered through a remote and
+inaccessible region, who have few and scanty public gatherings and
+diversions, this season of religious activity offers the one emotional
+outlet which their conception of dignity permits them, and it is
+proportionately precious in their eyes. In addition to the women and the
+girls and boys, who usually make up the rank and file of religious
+gatherings elsewhere, here at this favoured season old fellows, heads of
+families and life-long pillars of the Church, give up their entire time
+to the meetings. The family is put into the waggon with a basket of
+dinner, and they make a day of it. Services hold as late as twelve and
+one o'clock, and after them this contained, stoic folk will go home
+through the woods, carrying pine torches, singing, shouting, laughing,
+sobbing.
+
+Hiram Bohannon came into the two Turkey Tracks this year and held
+services at Brush Arbour church. He was very much in earnest, Brother
+Bohannon, a practical man with a rough native eloquence that spoke loud
+to his hearers.
+
+Every afternoon the wild, sweet hymns rang out over the little cup-like
+valley in which Brush Arbour church stood. The month was extremely warm,
+and they used the outside brush arbour from which the schoolhouse-church
+received its name.
+
+Judith went day and night in a feverish attempt to get away from herself
+and her sorrows. Even the fact that Elihu Drane was very much to the fore
+in these gatherings could not deter her. Sitting in the open there, her
+hands clasped upon her knee, her sombre eyes on the ground, or
+interrogating the distance with an unseeing stare, she would let hymn and
+sermon, prayer and the weeping and shouting which always close night
+meeting, go past her ears well-nigh unheard. Before those darkened,
+bereaved eyes, turn where they would, Love's ever-renewed idyl of rustic
+courtship was enacting, since Big Meetin' was the time and occasion of
+all the year for Corydon to encounter Phyllis, to stroll or sit beneath
+the trees with her, possibly to "carry her home."
+
+Andy and Jeff began taking the Lusk girls to meeting, and within a week's
+time two very pale young men--the twins always acted in concert--stumbled
+up the earthen aisle between the puncheon seats to join the group at the
+mourners' bench and ask for the prayers of the congregation. Brother
+Bohannon knew what quarry he had netted, and he hurried down at once,
+half in doubt that this was another scheme of these young daredevils to
+make game of his meeting. But both boys were on their knees, and the
+tears with which they began confessing to him past sins, the penitence of
+their shaking voices, proclaimed the genuineness of their conversion.
+
+Cliantha and Pendrilla left behind--they had been sober church members
+since they were twelve years old--fluttered to Judith and demanded her
+instant attention to the miracle.
+
+"Oh, Judith, ain't it jest too good to be true?" panted little Cliantha.
+"Jeff never did lack anything of bein' the best man that ever walked this
+earth except to jine the church--an' now look at him!"
+
+"And Andy, too," put in Pendrilla jealously. "I do believe Andy is a
+prayin' the loudest--I'm shore he is."
+
+Judith roused herself. "I'm mighty glad--for the both of ye," she said
+kindly.
+
+And then she looked at their tremulous, happy faces, at the kneeling boys
+up among the press of figures about the pulpit, and burst into a storm of
+weeping. Where was her lover? Where was Creed? Dead--or he had forgotten
+her.
+
+"Are you under conviction of sin, sister?" inquired one of the helpers.
+
+Judith let it pass at that, and flung herself on her knees beside the
+bench to wait until the last hymn and the dismissal.
+
+Brother Bohannon was an extremely practical Christian; his creed applied
+to every day in the year and to the most commonplace acts. He adjured his
+converts not only to quit their meanness, but to go and acknowledge past
+errors, to repair such evil as they could, and if possible to seek
+forgiveness from man, certain that God's forgiveness would follow. Such
+counsel as this brought the twins to their father's cabin early on the
+morning after their conversion at Brush Arbour church.
+
+"Pap," began Andy standing before his parent with an odd suggestion of
+the small boy caught in mischief, "me and Jeff are aimin' to join the
+church."
+
+"That's right, son," said the old man rising and clapping a hearty hand
+on each young shoulder. "I'm mighty proud to hear it. Hit's a good way
+for fellers like you to start out in this world."
+
+"Well, befo' we do so," Jeff took up the burden, "the preacher says we
+ort to confess our sins and git forgiveness from them we have done wrong
+by. Creed Bonbright ain't here. Mebbe he's never goin' to be back any
+mo'. We talked it over and 'lowed we'd better come tell you, pap."
+
+At Creed Bonbright's name a pathetic change went over old Jephthah's
+pleased countenance. He had received the opening words with satisfaction,
+not untinctured by the mild, patronising indulgence we show to children.
+But when Bonbright was mentioned he sat back in his chair, nervously
+knocking the ash from his pipe, anxiously staring at the boys.
+
+"I'm mighty proud," he repeated, "to hear what you say." He spoke gravely
+and with dignity; but a note of uncontrollable eagerness stole into his
+voice, as he added in a lower tone, "What mought you-all have to tell me
+about Creed Bonbright?"
+
+"Pap, we done you a meanness in that business," hastened Jeff. "We had no
+call to lie to you like we done, and send the feller word in yo' name."
+
+"Wade, he was mad about his gal," agreed Andy thoughtfully, "but what
+possessed me and Jeff I'll never tell ye. Spy or no spy, we done that man
+wrong."
+
+Jephthah looked expectantly and in silence from one young face to the
+other.
+
+"Blatch let on to you hit was the still; but of course we knowed hit was
+Jude that ailed him. He got Taylor Stribling to toll Creed to Foeman's
+Bluff that night," Jeff supplied. "Blatch picked the quarrel, and drawed
+a knife when they was wrastlin', and when Bonbright pushed Blatch away
+from him, he fell over the cliff. That's God's truth about the business,
+pappy, ef I ever spoke it. Me an' Andy an' Wade was all into it."
+
+The boyish countenance was pale, and Jeff drew a nervous hand across his
+brow as he concluded. There followed a lengthened silence. Old Jephthah
+sat regarding his own brown right hand as it lay upon his knee.
+
+"Ye tolled him thar," he said finally. "Ye tolled him thar. Then Creed
+Bonbright wasn't no spy." He lifted his head. "I never could make it
+figure up right for that feller to be a spy. Curious he was, and he had
+some idees that I couldn't agree with; but a spy----"
+
+He broke off suddenly, and one saw how strong had been the bond between
+him and the young justice, how greatly he cared that the memory of the
+man even should be cleared.
+
+The boys looked at each other, and with a gulp Jeff began again:
+
+"I reckon you knowed well enough we stood in with Blatch when he hid out
+and let folks believe the killin' had been did. We knowed you seen
+through it all; but when ye git started in a business like that, one
+thing leads on to another, and befo' you're done with it, ye do a plenty
+that you'd ruther not."
+
+"Well, hit's over and cain't be he'ped, but you've done what's right at
+last," Jephthah assured them. "The church is a mighty good thing for
+young fellers like you. A good wife'll do a sight to he'p along."
+
+He looked at them kindly. He had never liked his boys half so well.
+
+"I'm mighty proud of the both of ye," he concluded heartily. "Ef Creed
+Bonbright ever does come back in the mountains, we'll show him that the
+Turrentines can be better friends than foes to a man."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI
+
+The Baptising
+
+
+October had led forth her train across the Cumberlands. One night the
+forest was fairly green, but early risers next morning found that in the
+darkness while they slept the hickories had been touched to gold, the
+oaks smitten with a promise of the glowing mahogany-red which was to be
+theirs. Sourwood and sumach blazed; the woodbine flung its banner of
+blood, chestnuts were yellow where the nuts dropped through them from
+loosened burs. The varying dark greens of balsam and fir, pine and cedar,
+heightened by contrast the glow of colour, while the dim blue sky above
+set its note of tender distance and forgetfulness. On a thousand mountain
+peaks smoked and smouldered, flared and flamed the altar fires of
+autumn.
+
+After that each day saw a deepening of the glory in the hills. It was
+like a noble overture a multitudinous chorus made visible. The marvel of
+it was that one sense should be so clamorously challenged while the other
+was not addressed. The ear hearkened ever amid that grand symphony of
+colour for some mighty harmony of sound. But even the piping song-birds
+were gone, and the cry of a hawk wheeling high in the blue, the voice of
+a woman calling her cow, these sounded loud in the autumnal hush.
+
+The streams were shrunken to pools whose clear jade reaches reflected the
+blazing banners above them, and offered mimic seas for the sailing of
+painted argosies when the wind shook the leaves down. There was a fruity
+odour of persimmon and wild grape forever in the air. The salmon-pink
+globes stood defined against the blue on leafless twigs, while the frost
+sweetened them to sugary jelly, and the black wild grape by the
+water-courses yielded an odour that was only less material than the
+flavour of its juices. Every angle of the rail fences became a parterre
+with golden-rod, cat-brier, and the red-and-yellow pied leaves of
+blackberries, while a fringe of purple and white asters thrust fragile
+fingers through the rails below, or the stout iron-weed pushed its
+purple-red blooms into view at the head of tall, lance-like stems.
+
+Judith walking in the woods one day found a great nest of Indian pipe.
+She bent listlessly to pick the waxen mystic blossoms, thinking to
+herself that they were like some beautiful dead thing; and then she came
+upon a delicate flush on the side of their clear, translucent pearl, and
+wondered if it were an omen.
+
+It was a gorgeous October Sabbath when the boys were baptised. Baptisms
+always took place from Brush Arbour in a sizable pool of Lost Creek which
+flows through one corner of the little valley that holds the church
+building. The sward which ran down to its clear mirror was yet green, but
+the maples and sourwoods above it were coloured splendidly. Among their
+clamant red and yellow laurel and rhododendron showed glossy green, and
+added to the gay tapestry. The painted leaves let go their hold on twig
+or bough and dropped whispering into the water, like garlands flung to
+dress the coming rite.
+
+Morning meeting was over. The women-folks who had come far spread dinner
+on the grass near the church, joining together occasionally, the children
+wandering about in solemn delight with a piece of corn pone in hand,
+whispering among the graves in the tiny God's acre, spelling out the
+words upon some wooden head-board, or the rarer stone.
+
+The Big Spring was the customary gathering place of the young people
+before church, and during intermissions, about its clear basin, on the
+slopes above the great rock from under which it issued, might be seen a
+number of couples, the boys in Sunday best of jeans or store-bought
+clothing, the girls fluttering in cheap lawns or calicoes, and wearing
+generally hats instead of the more becoming sunbonnet. Judith had been
+used to lead her following here, and the number of her swains would have
+been a scandal in any one else: but there was a native dignity about
+Judith Barrier that kept even rural gossip at bay. This morning, however,
+when Elder Drane gave her the customary invitation to walk down there for
+a drink, she refused, and all during the first service the widower had
+sat tall and reproachful on the men's side and reminded her of past
+follies. She was aware of his accusing eyes even when she did not look in
+his direction, and uncomfortably aware too that others saw what she saw.
+
+Throughout the pleasant picnic meal, shared with its group of neighbours,
+the sight of Andy and Jeff with Cliantha and Pendrilla aggravated a dull
+pain which dragged always in her heart, and when dinner was over and they
+had packed the basket once more, and set it in the back of the waggon,
+she left them, to wander by herself on the farther side of Lost Creek,
+sitting down finally in the shade of a great sourwood, and looking
+moodily at the water. All afternoon she sat there wrapt in her own
+emotions, forgetful of time and place. The congregation straggled back
+into the little log church, and the second service was begun. The
+preacher's voice came floating out to her softened by distance, and with
+it the sound of singing; as the meeting drew to its close an occasional
+more vociferous "Amen!" or "Glory!" or "Praise God!" made itself heard.
+The sun was beginning to slant well from the west when she got suddenly
+to her feet with the startled realisation that afternoon preaching was
+over, the people were pouring from the church door, streaming across the
+green toward the baptising pool. They were in the middle of a hymn.
+
+    "Oh, wanderer return--return,"
+
+came their musical tones across the water. The grey-haired old preacher
+was in the lead, his black coat blowing about him, the congregation
+spreading out fan-wise as they followed after, Andy and Jeff arm in arm,
+the half-dozen others who were to be baptised walking with them.
+
+Her fretted, pining spirit had no appreciation left for the appeal of the
+picture. She gazed, and looked away, and groaned. "Oh, wanderer return,"
+they sang--almost her heart could not bear the words.
+
+She sighed. Ought she to cross the foot-log and be with them when the
+boys were dipped? But while she hesitated the singers struck up a
+different hymn, a louder, more militant strain. Brother Bohannon was at
+the water; he was wading in; he was up to his knees now--up to his
+waist.
+
+"Send 'em in, Brother Drane," she heard him call. "This is about deep
+enough. That's right--give me the young men first. When the others see
+them dipped they'll have no fear."
+
+Elihu Drane took Andy's arm, and another helper laid hold of Jeff.
+
+"Sing--sing brethren and sisters," admonished the preacher. "Make a
+joyful noise unto the Lord. This is the time for Hallelujahs. Ef ye don't
+sing now, when will ye ever?"
+
+Andy spoke low in the elder's ear, whereupon he was released, and turned
+to his brother; hand-in-hand the two stepped into the water alone. Judith
+saw the pale, boyish faces, strangely refined by the exaltation of spirit
+which was upon them, as the twins waded out toward the preacher. Bohannon
+called to Jeff, shook hands with him, shouted, "Praise God, brother.
+Glory! Glory! Now--make yo'se'f right stiff. Let me have ye. Don't be
+scared. I won't drop ye. I've baptised a many before you was born, son."
+His right hand was lifted dripping above the dark head. "I baptise ye,
+Thomas Jefferson Turrentine, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and
+the Holy Ghost, Amen."
+
+"Amen--Amen!" came the deep chorus from the bank, the high, plaintive
+women's voices undertoned by the masculine bass.
+
+The black coat sleeve went around the white-clad shoulders, the preacher
+dropped his new convert gently backward into the shining water, dipped
+him, and Jeff who was not an excellent swimmer for nothing, came up
+quiet, smiling, and stood aside to wait for his brother.
+
+"Sing--sing!" cried the preacher. "Here goes another soul on its way to
+glory," and he reached forth to take Andy. A moment later he sent him,
+drenched, but washed clean of his sins, so far as mountain belief goes,
+after his twin. The hallelujahs burst forth to greet the boys: joyful
+shouts, amens, and some sobbing when, hand-in-hand--even as they had gone
+in--they came up out of the water.
+
+"Mighty pretty to look at, ain't it?" said a voice at Judith's shoulder.
+
+She turned to find Blatch Turrentine standing behind her.
+
+"I reckon Andy and Jeff is goin' to be regular little prayin' Sammies
+from this out," jeered the newcomer.
+
+"Granny Lusk has given her consent for them and the gals to be wedded,"
+remarked Judith softly. To her--and perhaps to Cliantha and Pendrilla
+also--the main importance of the twins' conversion was in this
+permission, which had been withheld so long as they were wild and had a
+bad name.
+
+"I heared of another weddin' that might interest ye," Blatch insinuated.
+"Want to come and walk a piece over by the Big Spring, Judy?"
+
+Judith turned uncertainly. The boys had passed on up to the sheds to get
+on dry clothing. It was nearly time for her to be going back to the
+waggon. Bohannon was dipping Doss Provine's sister Luna. A group of
+trembling, tearful candidates, mostly young girls, were being heartened
+and encouraged for the ordeal by the helpers on the bank.
+
+"Tell me here--cain't ye?" she said listlessly.
+
+"I heared from a feller that got it from another feller," Blatch began
+smilingly, "that Huldy Spiller an' Creed Bonbright was wedded and gone to
+Texas. I reckon hit's true, becaze the man that told me was aimin' to buy
+the Bonbright farm."
+
+Judith did not cry out. She hoped her colour did not change very much,
+for Blatch's eyes were on her face. After a while she managed to say in a
+fairly steady voice,
+
+"Does Wade know? Have ye sent any word to him?"
+
+"No," drawled Blatch. "Unc' Jep aimed to break off with me, and he left
+you the only one o' the family that dared speak with me. Mebbe you would
+like to write an' tell Wade?"
+
+"I don't know," sighed Judith hopelessly. "What's the use?"
+
+"Farewell," said Blatch, using a common mountain form of adieu. "I reckon
+Unc' Jep won't want to see me standin' around talkin' to ye. You tell
+Wade," significantly. "The sooner he gets Huldy out of his head the
+better for him. No use cryin' over spilt milk. They's as good fish in the
+sea as ever come out of it."
+
+He looked long at her downcast face.
+
+"Jude, the man that told me that about Bonbright," he said, speaking
+apparently on sudden impulse, "'lowed that the feller had left you--give
+ye the mitten. You're a fool ef ye let that be said, when his betters is
+wantin' ye."
+
+Without another word, without a glance, he turned and slouched swiftly
+away down the path behind the fringe of bushes by the creek side.
+
+The baptising was over. Judith, crossing the stream, saw her uncle's
+waggon, Beck and Pete already hitched to it, being loaded with Jim Cal
+and his tribe. Andy and Jeff were horseback with the Lusk girls. She
+hurried forward to join them and make ready for departure when, to her
+dismay, she encountered Drane at the foot of the slope coming toward
+her.
+
+"Wasn't that thar Blatchley Turrentine?" inquired the elder.
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"I didn't see him in the church," Drane pursued.
+
+"I reckon he wasn't there," assented Judith lifelessly, making as though
+to pass on.
+
+"He jest came here to have speech with you, did he?" inquired the man,
+nervously, brushing his sandy whiskers with unquiet fingers.
+
+"I reckon he did," acknowledged Judith without coquetry, without
+interest.
+
+"Jude!" burst out the widower, "I promised you I never would again ax you
+to wed; but I'm obliged to know ef you're studyin' about takin' that
+feller."
+
+"No," said Judith, resenting nothing, "I never did aim to wed Blatch
+Turrentine, and I never will."
+
+The elder stood directly in her path, blocking the way and staring down
+at her miserably for a long minute.
+
+"That's what you always used to tell me," he remarked finally with a
+heavy sigh. "Back in them days when you let me hope that I'd see you
+settin' by my fireside with my children on your knees, you always talked
+thataway about Blatch--I reckon you talked thataway of me to him."
+
+Judith's pale cheek slowly crimsoned. She looked upon the ground. "I'm
+mighty sorry," she said slowly.
+
+Elihu Drane's faded eyes lighted with fresh fires. He caught the hand
+that hung by her side.
+
+"Oh, Jude--do you mean it?" he cried. "Do you care? You don't know how
+the chaps all love ye and want ye. That old woman I've got doin' for 'em
+ain't fittin' to raise 'em. Everybody tells me I've got to marry and give
+'em a mother, but I cain't seem to find nobody but you. If you feel
+thataway--if you'll----"
+
+Judith drew her hand away with finality, but her eyes were full of
+pitying kindness. She knew now what she had done to this man. By the
+revealing lamp of her own suffering she read his. Back in the old days
+she had counted him only one more triumph in her maiden progress.
+
+"No," she said gravely, "I ain't studyin' about marryin' anybody. I'm
+mighty sorry that I done thataway. I'm sorry, and ashamed; but I have to
+say no again, Elder Drane. There ain't never goin' to be no other
+answer."
+
+"Hit's that feller Bonbright," declared the elder sternly as he stood
+aside to let her pass. "Good Lord, why ain't the man got sense enough to
+come back and claim his own!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+Ebb-Tide
+
+
+Life closed in on Judith after that with an iron hand. She missed sorely
+the children's demands upon her, their play and prattle and movement
+about the place. Huldah was gone. Wade was gone. She could get no news of
+Creed. The things to love and hate and be jealous of seemed to have
+dropped out of her existence, so that the heart recoiled upon itself, the
+spirit wrestled blindly in darkness with an angel which was but its own
+self in other guise.
+
+Day by day she turned from side to side for an exit from the fiery path
+she trod, and cried out to Heaven that she could not bear it--she could
+not stand it--there must be some way other than this!
+
+The Lusk girls and the Turrentine twins were to have a double wedding.
+The preparations for this event were torture to Judith. Everybody, it
+seemed, could be happy but her own poor self. Even the fact that Jeff and
+Andy were changed, kinder to her, more considerate, better men in every
+way, had its own sting. If this could have been so before, the wreck of
+her world need not have come about.
+
+Blatch kept rigorously to his own side of the Gulch, yet once in a while
+Judith met him on the highroad; and then, while he approached her with
+the carefullest efforts toward pleasing, he showed the effects of
+anxiety, the hard life, and the fact that he had begun to drink
+heavily--a thing he had never done before.
+
+Spring would terminate his lease of the Turrentine farm, and then he must
+seek other quarters for his illicit traffic. His situation was doubled in
+danger by the fact that it could not be disguised how his uncle had
+turned upon him. Now that one did not, supposably, incur the displeasure
+of the Turrentines by giving information concerning Blatch and his still,
+the enterprise was a much safer one, and he trembled in hourly terror of
+its being undertaken by some needy soul. This terror gave a certain
+ferocity to his manner. Also the man who had come in with him to take Jim
+Cal's place in the partnership was a more undesirable associate even than
+Buck Shalliday.
+
+Judith watched all these things with an idle lack of interest that was
+strangely foreign to her vivid human temperament. As time passed and she
+could hear nothing from Creed Bonbright, nor of him beyond what Blatch
+had told her, and the connection she made between it and Iley's report of
+Huldah's marriage, the inaction of her woman's lot was almost more than
+she could endure. Of an evening after her milking was over she would
+stand at the draw-bars under the wide, blue, twilight sky, and stare with
+her great, black, passionate eyes into the autumn dusk, and her whole
+being went forth with such an intensity of longing that it seemed some
+part of it must find Creed, wherever he was, and speak for her to him.
+
+After Iley's announcement in September Judith never approached her nor
+talked to her again, though the shrew was growing strangely mild and
+disciplined since Jim Cal had broken with Blatch Turrentine and was
+become a partner in his father's affairs--a husband who is out of the
+good books of other people is a scold-maker with the type of woman Jim
+Cal had married. To go near Pendrilla and Cliantha was to be overwhelmed
+instantly with the joyous details of their wedding preparations. Judith
+flinched from bringing her troubles before such happy eyes. She had but
+Aunt Nancy.
+
+It was bitter hard times at the little cabin on The Edge. Doss Provine
+had begun actively looking for a "second," and his courting operations
+sorely interfered with the making of the small crop. Nancy took the field
+behind the plough; but her efforts came late and availed little. There
+was scarcely food for their mouths; she was continually harassed by
+anxiety concerning Pony, who had got to running with a bad crowd in
+Hepzibah. And finally the thing happened which had not been since Big
+Turkey Track was a mountain and Nancy Card was born in that small cabin.
+At her wit's end, she took Little Buck and Breezy and went away to visit
+a married daughter whose husband worked in a machine-shop in a valley
+settlement, leaving Doss Provine to stay with his kin for the time. There
+was plenty at her daughter's table, and a warm welcome awaiting her and
+the children; besides, the man of the house had promised to find a job
+for her spoiled boy, and give him the masculine oversight and discipline
+he needed. At Hepzibah she gathered up that rather astonished young man,
+exerting for once the real authority that was in her, and with him set
+out on this formidable journey.
+
+Just once old Jephthah went past that closed door. Just once he looked on
+the little front yard spilling over its rived palings with autumn
+blossoms. And he came home so out of joint with life, in so altogether
+impossible a mood, that it was fairly unsafe to mention as innocent a
+matter as the time of day to him. Up to now perhaps he had not known what
+a very large place in his life those almost daily quarrels with his old
+sweetheart filled. Now the restlessness which had come with the trouble
+over Creed Bonbright was renewed; he wandered about aimlessly, with a
+good word for nothing and nobody, and opined darkly that his liver was
+out of order.
+
+"Aunt Nancy told me one time that she would almost be willin' to wed you
+to get a chance to give you a good course of spring medicine for that
+thar liver," remarked Judith casually. And then she looked up with a wan
+little smile, to find an expression in her uncle's eyes that set her
+wondering.
+
+Oh, dear Heaven--was it like that? Would she grieve for Creed all her
+life long, till she was an old, old woman? She declared it should not be
+so. Love would never be within her reach--within the reach of her utmost
+efforts--and escape her, leave her an empty husk to be blown by the wind
+of years to the dust pile of death. One day in this mood she broke down
+and talked to the Lusk girls.
+
+"He said he'd shore come back," she concluded hopelessly. "Well, anyhow,
+he named things that would be done when he come back. I call that a
+promise. I keep thinking he'll come back."
+
+Pendrilla sat, her great china-blue eyes fixed on Judith's tense, pale,
+working face, and the big tears of pure emotional enjoyment began to slip
+down her pink cheeks. In the glow of Judith's splendid, fiery nature, the
+two pale little sisters warmed themselves like timid children at a chance
+hearth. As the full, vibrant voice faltered into silence, Cliantha went
+forward and took her favourite position on her knees beside Judith, her
+arms raised and slipped around the taller girl's waist.
+
+"Oh," she began, with a sort of frightened assurance. "Ef my lover had
+gone from me thataway, and I didn't know whar he was at, an' couldn't git
+no news to him nor from him, I know mighty well and good what _I'd_ do."
+
+"What?" whispered Judith, young lioness that she was, reduced to taking
+counsel from this mouse, "what would you do, Clianthy?"
+
+"I'd make me a dumb supper and call him," asserted the Lusk girl with
+tremulous resolution.
+
+"A dumb supper!" echoed Judith, and then again, on a different key, "a
+dumb supper. I never studied about such as that."
+
+She brooded a moment on the thought, and the girls said nothing, watching
+her breathlessly.
+
+"Do you reckon hit'd do me any good?" she questioned then,
+half-heartedly. "Why, dumb suppers always seemed to me jest happy
+foolishness for light-hearted gals that had sweethearts."
+
+"Oh, no!" disclaimed Pendrilla, joining her sister on the floor at
+Judith's feet. "They ain't nothin' like foolishness about a shore-enough
+dumb supper. Why, Judith, Granny Peavey, our maw's mother, told us oncet
+about a dumb supper that her and two other gals made when she was but
+sixteen year old, and her sweetheart away from her in Virginny, and she
+didn't know whar he was at, an' they brought her tales agin him."
+
+"Well?" prompted Judith feverishly. "Did it do any good? Did she find out
+anything?"
+
+"Her and two others went to a desarted house at midnight--you know that's
+the way, Jude."
+
+Judith nodded impatiently.
+
+"They tuck 'em each some bread an' salt, an' a candle to put the pins in
+and name. They done everything backwards--ye have to do everything
+backwards at a dumb supper. I don't know what happened when the candle
+burned down to the other girls' pins--I forget somehow--but when the pin
+Granny had stuck in the candle an' named for her lover was melted out and
+fell, the do' opened and in he walked and set down beside her. They
+wasn't a word said betwixt 'em. He tasted her salt, an' he et her bread;
+and then he was gone like a flash! And at that very same identical time
+that thar young man was a-crossin' the mountains of Virginny. It drawed
+him--don't you see, Judith?--it drawed him to Granny. He came back to
+her, shore enough, three months after, and they was wedded. He was our
+grandpap, Adoniram Peavey--and every word of that's true."
+
+Judith sank lower in her splint-bottomed chair, looking fixedly above the
+flaxen heads at her knees, out through the open door, across the chip
+pile, and away to the bannered splendours of the autumn slopes.
+
+Cliantha laid her head in Judith's lap and began to whimper.
+
+"They's awful things chanced at them thar dumb suppers," she shivered. "I
+hearn tell of one gal that never had no true-love come, but jest a big
+black coffin hopped in at the do' and bumped around to her place and
+stopped 'side of her. My law, I believe I'd die ef sech as that should
+chance whar I was at!"
+
+Judith's introverted gaze dropped to the girl's face.
+
+"I reckon that gal died," she suggested musingly, "I don't know as I'd
+care much ef the coffin come for me. Unless--he--was to come, I'd ruther
+it would be the coffin. Pendrilly," with a sudden upflash of interest,
+"what is it that comes? Is it the man hisself--or a ghost?"
+
+"'T ain't a ghost--a shore-enough ha'nt," argued Pendrilla soberly,
+sitting back on her heels, "not unless 'n the man's dead, hit couldn't
+be. Hit wasn't no ha'nt of Grandpap Peavey--and yet hit wasn't grandpap
+hisself. I reckon it was a sort of seemin'--jest like a vision in the
+Bible. Don't you, Jude?"
+
+"I 'low," put in Cliantha doubtfully, "that if the right feller is close
+by when he's called by a dumb supper, he comes hisself. But ef he's away
+off somewhars that he cain't git to the place, then this here seemin'
+comes. An' ef he's dead and gone--why you'll see his ha'nt."
+
+"They's jest three of us," whispered Pendrilla. "Three is the right
+number--but I know in my soul I'd be scared till I wouldn't be no manner
+of use to anybody."
+
+"Hit's comin' close to Hollow Eve," suggested Cliantha. "That's the time
+to hold a dumb supper ef one ever should be held. Hit'll work then, ef it
+wouldn't on no other night of the year."
+
+"It has to be held in a desarted house," Pendrilla reiterated the
+condition. "Ef you was to hold a dumb supper, Jude, we could go to the
+old Bonbright house itse'f--ef we had any way to git in."
+
+"I've got the key," said Judith scarcely above her breath. "Creed left it
+with me away last April, to get things for the--for the play-party."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII
+
+The Dumb Supper
+
+
+It was the thirty-first of October, All Souls' eve, that mystic point of
+contact between the worlds when quick and dead are fabled to walk the
+ways of earth together, to meet eye to eye, and hold converse. A web of
+mountain legend clings dimly about this season.
+
+The spirit of it--weird, elfin--was abroad, the air was full of it as,
+alone out in the gusty darkness of the autumn night, at eleven o'clock,
+Judith walked swiftly toward the Lusk place. Wrapped in a little packet
+she carried bread and salt, and a length of candle. She went across
+fields, and thus cut down the distance till it was possible to walk it in
+fifteen minutes.
+
+As she approached the house, Speaker, a barely grown hound-pup, came
+rollicking out to meet her, leaping about her shoulder-high, frisking
+back toward the porch and waiting for her, all the while barking
+joyously.
+
+"My Lord!" said Pendrilla's sleepy small voice when Judith tapped on
+their window in the wing of the building where the girls roomed. "Ef that
+thar fool hound-pup ain't loose! I hope he don't wake up Grandpap. Cain't
+you make him hush, Judith?"
+
+Judith stooped and caressed the dog for a moment, quieting him. The girls
+presently appeared in the doorway fully dressed and, as it seemed, with
+their packets made, in addition to which Cliantha carried an old lantern
+unlighted in her hand.
+
+"I'll light it as soon as we get out in the road," she announced
+whisperingly.
+
+When they would have secured the dog that he might not follow them, they
+found that he, wise for his age, had disappeared.
+
+"I bet he's run down the road apiece; he'll be a-hidin' in the bushes
+waitin' for us," Cliantha opined pessimistically. But there was nothing
+to be done about it, and they set out, to be intercepted in just such
+manner as she foretold.
+
+"I vow, I ain't so mighty sorry Speaker's along of us," Pendrilla said
+after they had vainly browbeaten, threatened, and stoned the hound to
+drive him back through the gate. "He's a mighty heap of company and
+protection out thisaway in the night."
+
+"Girls," said Judith, suddenly halting them all in the little byroad
+which they were travelling, "don't you think we'd better cut across here?
+Hit'll be a lot nearer."
+
+"Grandpap's jest ploughed that thar field to put in his winter wheat,"
+objected Pendrilla. "Hit'll make mighty bad walkin'."
+
+"But we'll get there quicker," urged Judith feverishly, and that closed
+the argument. Between them the Lusk girls had succeeded in lighting the
+old lantern; by its illumination the party climbed the rail fence, and
+struggled for some distance across the loose hillocks of ploughed
+ground.
+
+"Hit wouldn't make such awful walkin' if it had been drug," Cliantha
+murmured. In the mountains they hitch a horse to a log or a large piece
+of brush and, dragging this over the ploughed ground, make shift to
+smooth it without a harrow.
+
+They had hobbled about one third of the toilsome way when there came a
+rush of galloping hoofs, the girls had barely time to crouch and cry out,
+Speaker barked loud, and suddenly half a dozen young calves ran almost
+into them.
+
+"Oh landy!" cried Pendrilla. "Ef them thar calves ain't broke the fence
+again! Grandpap will be so mad--and we don't darst to tell him that we
+know of it."
+
+"Come on," urged Judith. "We've got to get over there."
+
+But it was found when they would have moved forward that they could not
+shake off their unwelcome escort. The calves had been tended occasionally
+in the dusk by a man with a lantern, and they hailed this one as a beacon
+of hope. Finally even Judith, desperately impatient to be gone, agreed
+that they would have to turn back and put the meddlesome creatures into
+their pasture and lay up the fence before they could make any progress.
+
+"Hit'll save time," she commented briefly, as though time were the only
+thing worth considering now.
+
+At last, one after the other, they climbed the fence at the side of the
+Bonbright place. The air was soft, heavy with coming rain. Up through the
+weed-grown yard they went, greeted and beckoned by the odours of Mary
+Bonbright's garden, thyme and southernwood, herbs by the path-side,
+clumps of brave chrysanthemums, a wandering spray or two of late-blooming
+honeysuckle. Judith trembled and locked her teeth together in anguish as
+she remembered that other night in the odorous dusk when she and Creed
+had stood under these trees and sought in the darkness for the bush of
+sweet-scented shrub.
+
+The empty house bulked big and black before them in the gloom. She took
+the key from her pocket and opened the front door, Pendrilla and Cliantha
+clinging to her in an ecstasy of delicious terror. She stepped into the
+front room, struck a match, and lighted her candle. It was half-past
+eleven by the small nickel alarm-clock which she carried. Its busy,
+bustling, modern tick roused strange, incongruous echoes in the old
+house, and reproved their errand.
+
+Speaker made himself at home, coming in promptly, seeking out the corner
+he preferred, and turning around dog-fashion before he lay down and
+composed himself to half-waking slumbers.
+
+"I reckon in here will be the best place," murmured Cliantha, seeking a
+candlestick from the mantel for their light. "We could set around this
+table."
+
+"It's more better ef we-all set on the flo'," reminded Pendrilla
+doubtfully. "Don't ye ricollect? all the dumb suppers we ever hearn tell
+of was held thataway. Set on the flo' and put yo' bread and salt on the
+flo' in front of you."
+
+"Mebbe that's becaze they was held in desarted houses, and most generally
+desarted houses don't have no tables nor chairs in 'em," Cliantha
+speculated.
+
+From the moment the lantern revealed the room to them, Judith had stood
+drawn back against the wall curiously rigid, her hand at her lip, her
+over-bright eyes going swiftly from one remembered object to another.
+This fleeting gaze fixed itself at last on the inner door.
+
+"I'll go in the other room a minute for--for something," she whispered
+finally. "You gals set here. I'll be right back. I've got two candles."
+
+She lighted the second candle, left the girls arranging the dumb supper,
+and stole, as though some one had called her, into that room which she
+had made ready for Creed's occupancy on the night of the play-party. It
+had reverted to its former estate of dust and neglect. She looked about
+her with blank, desolate eyes which finally found upon the bed a withered
+brown something that held her gaze as she crept toward it--the wreath of
+red roses!
+
+There it was, the pitiful little lure she had put forward to Love, the
+garland she had set in place to show Creed how fine a housewife she was,
+how grandly she would keep his home for him. The brave red roses, the
+bold laughing red roses, their crimson challenge was shrivelled to
+darkened shreds, each golden heart was a pinch of black dust; only the
+thorny stems remained to show what queen of blossoms had been there.
+
+She knelt beside the bed, and when the Lusk girls, frightened at her long
+absence, crept timidly in to look for her, they found her strangling
+passionate sobs in its white covering.
+
+"It's most twelve o'clock, Jude," whimpered Cliantha.
+
+"Hit's come on to rain," supplied Pendrilla piteously, and a gusty
+spatter on the small-paned window confirmed her words, as the three girls
+went back into the room where the candle stood in the middle of the floor
+with the three portions of bread and salt about it.
+
+The pale little sisters glanced at each other, and then at Judith,
+wistfully, timorously, almost more in terror of her than of their
+anomalous situation, this new, unknown Judith who scarce answered when
+she was spoken to, who continually failed them, who looked so strangely
+about her and wept so much.
+
+"Pendrilly an' me has done put our pins in close to the bottom," Cliantha
+explained deprecatingly. "Hit wouldn't do any good to have Andy an' Jeff
+come trompin' in here--though I shore would love to see either or both of
+'em this minute," she concluded forlornly, as they set the door ajar and
+the long slanting lines of rain began to drive obliquely in at the
+opening.
+
+"Push the candle back whar the draught won't git a fair chance at it,"
+quavered Pendrilla. "We're obliged to have the do' open, or what comes
+cain't git in. An' we mustn't ne'er a one of us say a word from now on,
+or hit'll break the charm."
+
+Judith moved the candle and bent to thrust her pin in, close to the top
+where the melting wax might soon free it, concentrating all her soul in a
+passionate cry that Creed should come to her or send her some sign. Then
+she crouched on the floor next to Pendrilla and nearest to the door, and
+the three waited with pale faces.
+
+The wavering light of the candle, shaken by gusts which brought puffs of
+mist in with them, projected huge, grotesque shadows of the three heads,
+and set them dancing upon the walls. The hound-pup raised his head,
+cocked his ears dubiously, and whined under his breath.
+
+"What's that?" gasped Cliantha. "Didn't you-all hear somethin'?"
+
+Judith was staring at the candle flame and made no reply. Her big dark
+eyes had the look of one self-hypnotised.
+
+"Oh, Lordy! Ye ortn't to talk at a dumb supper--but I thort I hearn
+somebody walkin' out thar in the rain!" chattered Pendrilla.
+
+The old house creaked and groaned in the rising autumn storm, as old
+houses do. The rain drummed on the roof like fingers tapping. The wind
+stripped dry leaves from the bough, or scooped them up out of the hollows
+where they lay, and carried them across the window, or drove them along
+the porch, in a gliding, whispering flight that was infinitely eerie.
+
+In their terror the girls looked to Judith. They saw that she was not
+with them. Her gaze was on the pin in the candle. Back over her heart
+swept the sweetness of her first meeting with Creed. She could see him
+stand talking to her, the lifted face, the blue eyes--should she ever see
+them again?
+
+Then suddenly the flame twisted and bent, the tallow melted swiftly on
+one side, and Judith's pin fell to the floor.
+
+"Hit's a-comin'!" hissed Cliantha frantically.
+
+"Oh, Lord! I wish 't we hadn't--" Pendrilla moaned.
+
+The dog uttered a protesting sound between a growl and a yelp. He raised
+on his forelegs, and the hair of his head and neck bristled.
+
+Outside, a heavy stumbling step came up the walk. It halted at the
+half-open door. That door was flung back, and in the square of dripping
+darkness stood Creed Bonbright, his face death white, his eyes wide and
+fixed, the rain gemming his uncovered yellow hair.
+
+A moment he stood so, and the three stared at him. Then with a swish of
+leaves in the wind and a spatter of rain in their faces, the candle blew
+out. The girls screamed and sprang up. The hound backed into his corner
+and barked furiously. Whatever it was, it had crossed the threshold and
+was in the room with them.
+
+"Jude--Jude!" shrieked Cliantha. "Run! Come on, Pendrilly!"
+
+Judith felt a wavering wet hand fumbling toward her in the darkness. It
+clasped hers; the arm went around her; she raised her face, and the cold
+lips of the visitant met her warm tremulous ones.
+
+For an instant she had no thought but that Creed had returned from the
+dead to claim her--and she was willing to go. Then she was aware of a
+swift rush, as the fleeing girls went past them, and the patter of the
+hound's feet following. Slowly the newcomer's weight sagged against her;
+he crumpled and went to the floor, dragging her down in his fall.
+
+"Girls! Clianthy! Pendrilly!" she cried as she crouched there, clinging
+to the prostrate form. "Don't leave me--it's Creed himself. You got to
+he'p me!"
+
+[Illustration: "The door was flung back and in the darkness stood
+Creed Bonbright."]
+
+But the girls were gone like frightened hares. As she got to her feet in
+the doorway she could hear the sound of their flying footsteps down the
+lane. All was dead still in the room behind her, yet only an ear as fine
+as hers could have distinguished those light, receding footfalls that
+finally melted into the far multitudinous whisper and rustle of the
+storm.
+
+She turned back in the dark and knelt down beside him, passing a light,
+tender hand over his face and chest. He breathed. He was a living man.
+
+"Creed," she whispered loud and desperately. There was no movement or
+response.
+
+"Creed," raising her voice. "O my God! Creed, darlin' cain't you hear me?
+It's me. It's Jude--poor Jude that loves you so--cain't you answer her?"
+
+There came no reply. She lifted the cold hand, and when she let go of it,
+it fell. She leaped to her feet in sudden fear that he might die while
+she delayed here. With trembling fingers she struck a match and lit her
+candle. Her eye fell on the two pins the girls had thrust in it and named
+for Andy and Jeff. With a swift motion she plucked them out and threw
+them on the floor. She looked from the prostrate figure to the bed in the
+corner. No--she couldn't lift him to lay him there; but she ran and
+brought pillows and covers, raising his head upon the one, lapping him
+softly in the other.
+
+When all was done that she could do, there was the instant need to hurry
+home for help. She hated terribly to leave him alone in the dark, yet a
+lighted candle with a man so ill was a risk that she dared not run--he
+might move about and set the house on fire. When she closed the darkened
+room with its stark figure lying under the white covers, her heart sank
+and sank. She must turn the key upon him. There was no good in
+hesitating. Only her strong will, her high courage, sustained her as she
+locked the door, and turning ran, with feet that love and terror winged,
+toward her own home. The rain drenched her; the darkness seemed a thing
+palpable; she slipped and fell, got to her feet and ran on. Jephthah
+Turrentine, asleep in his own cabin, heard the sound of beating palms
+against his door, and a voice outside in the dark and the rain that cried
+upon him.
+
+"Uncle Jep! Uncle Jep! For God's sake get up quick and help me. Creed
+Bonbright's come home to his house, and I think he's dead or dyin' over
+there."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV
+
+A Case of Walking Typhoid
+
+
+"Uh--_huh_!" said the old man as he straightened up after a long
+examination of Creed. "I thort so. He's got a case o' walkin' typhoid,
+an' looks like he's been on his feet with it till hit's plumb wore him
+out."
+
+He stood staring down at the prostrate figure, which had neither sound
+nor movement, the fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to stir the
+chest.
+
+"Walkin' typhoid," he repeated. "I've met up with some several in my
+lifetime. Cur'ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he's been
+puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit's ended
+up in this here spell of fever."
+
+"Will he die, Uncle Jep?" whispered Judith, crouching beside him, her
+dark eyes roving desperately from the still form to her uncle's
+countenance. "What must we do for him?"
+
+"N-no--I reckon he has a chance," hesitated Jephthah. Then, glancing at
+her white, miserable face, "an' ef he has, hit's to git him away from
+here an' into bed right. Lord, I wish 't the boys had been home to he'p
+us out. Well, we'll have to do the best we can."
+
+As he spoke he put the word into action, getting a length of home-made
+carpet to put in the bottom of the waggon before he should lay in the
+feather-bed upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked, despite the look
+of acute anxiety, the old man's eye was brighter, his step was freer, his
+head was borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since the trouble
+came.
+
+Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed with her help to lift
+the unconscious man into the waggon and place him, his head in Judith's
+lap, for the journey home.
+
+"You mind now, Judy," he admonished, almost sternly, "ef he comes to
+hisse'f you speak to him mighty quiet and pleasant-like. Don't you set to
+cryin'--don't you make no fuss. 'Tain't every gal I'd trust thisaway.
+Nothin' worse for a sick man than to get him excited." He took the lines
+and drove with infinite care and caution, walking beside the horse.
+
+But his warning was unnecessary; Creed never roused from the lethargy in
+which his senses were locked. They got him safely home, the old man
+undressed him and laid him comfortably in that big show-bed in the front
+room that was given to any guest of honour.
+
+Morning was breaking when Judith, coming into the kitchen, found Andy and
+Jeff sitting by the fire, and Dilsey Rust in charge.
+
+"Yo' uncle sont fer me," the old woman said. "He 'lowed he needed yo'
+he'p takin' keer o' Bonbright."
+
+Judith sat with Creed while the others had breakfast. When her uncle went
+out, closing the door softly behind him, leaving her alone with her
+recovered treasure, she went and knelt down by the bed, and looked at its
+silent occupant with a bursting heart.
+
+Here was Creed, Creed for whom she had longed and prayed. He had come
+back to her. She stared at the wasted face, the transparent temples where
+the blue veins showed through, the black circles beneath the lashes of
+the closed eyes. No, no, this was not Creed, this dying man who mocked
+her longing with a semblance of her lover's return!
+
+There was a sound at the door. Andy and Jeff came awkwardly in, and while
+they all stood looking, Creed's eyes opened suddenly upon them. Andy put
+out a hand swiftly.
+
+"I'm mighty sorry for--for all that chanced," he said huskily.
+
+"So 'm I," Jeff instantly seconded him.
+
+Creed looked at them both with a little puzzled drawing of the brows;
+then the ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, and his hand that
+lay on the covers moved weakly toward theirs.
+
+"It's all right," he said, scarcely above a whisper--the first words he
+had uttered. "I told--Aunt Nancy--you were good--boys--" he faltered to a
+hesitating close, his eyelids drooped over the tired eyes; but they
+flashed open once more with a smile that included Judith and her uncle
+standing back of the two.
+
+"You're all--mighty--good--to me," said Creed Bonbright. And again he
+sank into that lethargic sleep.
+
+As the day advanced came the visitors that are the torment of a sick-room
+in the country. It would scarcely have been thought that a bare land like
+that could produce so many. Finally Judith went to her uncle and begged
+that Creed be no longer made a show of, and that old Dilsey set out food
+in the other room and entertain those who came, without promising that
+they should see the sick man.
+
+"Uh--huh," agreed Jephthah, understandingly, "I reckon yo' about right,
+Jude. Creed's obliged to lay there like a baby an' sleep ef he's to have
+any chance for his life. I don't want to fall out with the neighbours,
+but we'll see if we cain't make out with less visitin'."
+
+But this prohibition was not supposed to apply to Iley Turrentine, a
+member of the family. About eight o'clock that morning, having then for
+the first time heard of the arrival at the cabin, she came hurrying
+across the slope with the baby on her hip. Long abstinence had made keen
+that temper of hers, and here was a situation where virtue itself cried
+to arms. She was eager to give Creed Bonbright a piece of her mind.
+
+"You cain't go in unless'n you'll promise to be plumb quiet--not to open
+yo' mouth," Judith told her sharply. "Uncle Jep ain't here right now--but
+that's what he said."
+
+"Don't Bonbright know folks? Cain't a body talk to him? Is he plumb outen
+his head?" demanded Iley, somewhat taken aback.
+
+"He knew some of us a while ago," admitted Judith, "but mostly he doesn't
+notice nothing--jest stares right in front of him, and Uncle Jep said we
+mustn't let him be talked to nor werried."
+
+The big red-headed woman, considerably lowered in note, stepped inside
+the door of the sick-room, hushing the child in her arms. A moment she
+stood staring at the bed and its single occupant, at the pale face on the
+pillow, then she burst suddenly into tempestuous sobs and fled.
+
+Judith followed her out.
+
+"What's the matter, Iley? You never set much store by Creed
+Bonbright--what you cryin' about?" she asked.
+
+"Hit's--Huldy," choked the sister. "I reckon you thort I talked mighty
+big about the business the last time you an' me had speech consarnin'
+hit; but the facts air that I don't know a thing about whar she's at, nor
+how she's doin'. Judy, ef yo' a-goin' to take keer o' the man, cain't ye
+please ax him for me when did he see Huldy last, an'--an' is they
+wedded?"
+
+Judith assented. She knew what her uncle would think of such an inquiry
+being put to the sick man, yet her own heart so fiercely demanded
+knowledge on this point that she promised Iley she would ask the question
+as soon as she dared.
+
+The week that followed was a strange one to active Judith Barrier, used
+to out-door life under the sky for such a large part of her days. Now
+those same days were bounded by the four walls of a sick-room, the sole
+matter of importance in them whether the invalid took his gruel well,
+whether he had seemed better, whether her uncle spoke encouragingly of
+the eventful outcome of this illness. Old Jephthah himself nursed Creed,
+and Judith was but a helper; yet, such was her torture of uncertainty, of
+anxiety, that she often left to go to her own room and get some sleep,
+only to return and beg that she might be allowed to sit outside the
+threshold for the rest of the night and be ready if she were needed.
+
+"Ain't no use wearin' yourself out thataway," her uncle used to say
+kindly. "That won't do Creed no good, nor you neither. I wish to the Lord
+I had Nancy here to he'p me!"
+
+For in this day of real need he dropped all banter about Nancy's value in
+sick-room practice, and longed openly for her assistance. Creed had been
+in the house nearly a week and was showing marked improvement, when
+Judith got a message from Blatch Turrentine--Would she be at the
+draw-bars 'long about sundown? He had something to tell her.
+
+She paid no attention to the request, but it put her in mind to do
+finally what she had long contemplated--write to her cousin Wade. It was
+but a short scrawl, stating that Creed Bonbright was sick at their house,
+and not able to tell them anything concerning Huldah, and that Iley and
+the others were troubled. Would Wade please ask information in Hepzibah,
+and write to his affectionate cousin.
+
+Every day Iley made a practice of coming up and sitting dejectedly in the
+kitchen till Judith entered the room, when she would draw her
+mysteriously to one side and say:
+
+"Have ye axed him yet? What did he tell ye? I'm plumb wo' out and
+heart-broke' about it, Jude."
+
+Though Judith realised fully just how much of this display proceeded from
+a desire on Iley's part for notice, yet her own passionate, rebellious
+heart seconded the idle woman, and allowed the continual harping on that
+string to finally drive her to the set determination that, as soon as
+Creed could talk to her at all, she would ask him about Huldah.
+
+Had she lacked resolution, the patient himself would have supplied and
+hardened it. About this time he developed a singular form of low delirium
+in which he would lie with closed eyes, murmuring--murmuring--murmuring
+to himself in a hurried, excited whisper. And always the burden of his
+distress was:
+
+"I must get to her. Where is she? It's a long ways. Oh, I've got to get
+to her--there's nobody else."
+
+Kneeling by his bed, her burning gaze upon his shut eyes and moving lips,
+Judith racked her soul with questioning. Often she heard her own name in
+those fevered whisperings; once he said with sudden determination, "I'm
+going home." But she listened in vain for mention of Huldah.
+
+And what might that mean? All that she hoped? Or all that she dreaded?
+Oh, she could not bear this; she must know; she must--must--must ask
+him.
+
+The Evil One, having provided the counsel, was not slow in following it
+up with the necessary opportunity. Judith was sitting with Creed alone,
+on a Wednesday night--he had come to them the preceding Tuesday. Her
+uncle being worn out had planned to sleep till midnight, thus dividing
+the watch with her. About eleven o'clock Creed opened his eyes and asked
+in what seemed to her a fairly natural tone for a drink. She brought it
+to him, and when he had drank he began speaking very softly.
+
+"I'm glad I came back to the mountains," he said in a weak, whispering
+voice. "I promised you I'd come, and I did come, Judith."
+
+"Yes," answered Judith, putting down the glass and seating herself at the
+bedside, taking his hand and stroking it softly, studying his face with
+intent, questioning eyes. "You know where you are now, don't you,
+Creed?"
+
+He smiled at her.
+
+"I'm in the front room at your house where we-all danced the night of the
+play-party," he said. "I loved you that night, Judith--only I hadn't
+quite found out about it."
+
+The statement was made with the simplicity of a child--or of a sick man.
+It went over Judith with a sudden, sweet shock. Then her jealous heart
+must know that it was really all hers. Nerve racked as only a creature of
+the open can be after weeks of confinement in a sick-room, torn with the
+possessive passion of her earth-born temperament, she stood up suddenly
+and asked him in a voice of pain that sounded harsh and menacing,
+
+"Creed, whar's Huldy?"
+
+"I don't know," returned Creed tremulously. The blue eyes in their great
+hollows came up to her face in a frightened gaze. Instantly they lost
+their clearness; they clouded and filmed with that look of confusion
+which had been in them from the first.
+
+"You're married to her--ain't you?" choked Judith, horrified at what she
+had done, loathing herself for it, yet pushed on to do more.
+
+"Yes," whispered Creed miserably. "Sit down by me again, Judith. Don't be
+mad. What are you mad about? I forget--there was awful trouble, and
+somebody was shot--oh, how they all hate me!"
+
+The fluttering moment of normal conditions was gone. The baffled,
+confused eyes closed; the thin hands began to fumble piteously about the
+covers; the pale lips resumed their rapid motion, while from between them
+flowed the old, swift stream of broken whispers.
+
+Judith had quenched the first feeble flame of intelligence that flickered
+up toward her. She remained a moment staring down at her handiwork, then
+covered her face, and burst out crying. An ungentle grasp descended upon
+her shoulder. Her uncle, standing tall and angry behind her, thrust her
+from the room.
+
+"Thar now!" he said with carefully repressed violence, lest his tones
+should disturb the sick man. "You've raised up a pretty interruption with
+my patient. I 'lowed I could trust you, Jude. What in the world you
+fussin' with Creed about? For God's sake, did you see him? You've
+nigh-about killed him, I reckon. Didn't I tell you not to name anything
+to him to werry him?"
+
+"He says he's married Huldy," said Judith in a strangled voice.
+
+"Say! He'd say anything--like he is now," retorted her uncle,
+exasperated. "An' he'd shore say anything on earth that was put in his
+mouth. I don't care if he's married forty Huldy's; what I want is for him
+to get well. Lord, I do wish I had Nancy here, and not one of these fool
+young gals with their courtin' business and their gettin' jealous and
+having to have a rippit with a sick man that don't know what he's talkin'
+about," he went on savagely.
+
+But high-spirited Judith paid no attention to the cutting arraignment.
+
+"Do you think that's true--oh, Uncle Jep, do you reckon he didn't mean
+it?" was all she said.
+
+"I don't see as it makes any differ," retorted her uncle, testily.
+"Marryin' Huldy Spiller ain't no hangin' matter--but hit'll cost that boy
+his life ef you fuss with him and git him excited and all worked up."
+
+Judith turned and felt her way blindly up the steep little stair to her
+own room. That night she prayed, not in a formulated fashion, but to some
+vague, over-brooding goodness that she hoped would save her from cruelty
+to him she loved.
+
+The next morning Creed was plainly set back in his progress toward sound
+rationality, though there seemed little physical change. He recognised no
+one, and was much as he had been on those first days. While this
+condition of affairs held, and it lasted nearly a week, there was no need
+for Jephthah to repeat his caution. But one morning when Judith went in
+to relieve her uncle, Creed smiled at her again with eyes that knew.
+
+As soon as they were alone together, he asked her to come and sit by him,
+and told her with tolerable clearness how he had followed Blatch
+Turrentine onto the train at Garyville, how he had fainted there, and
+only recovered consciousness when they were halfway to the next station.
+
+"I was too bad off for them to leave me anywhere, and they carried me
+plumb to Atlanta. I was in the hospital there a long while. Looks like I
+might have written to you--but I thought the best I could do was to let
+you alone--I'd made you trouble enough," he ended with a wistful,
+half-hopeful glance at her face.
+
+Judith, taught by bitter experience, tried to meet this with the gentle,
+reassuring cheerfulness of the nurse. It was all right. He mustn't talk
+too much. He was here now. They didn't need any letter. But strive as she
+might she could not keep out of her voice a certain alien tone; and
+afterward the bitter thought dogged her that he had told her nothing
+definite. She knew nothing, after all, about his relations with Huldah;
+the girl might even, as Blatch declared, have been on the train, and gone
+to Atlanta with him, and he have held back this information.
+
+Perhaps, considering her temperament, Judith did as well as could have
+been expected in the three days that followed--days in which Creed seemed
+to make fair physical gain, but to grow worse and worse mentally. Never
+once did she put into words the query that ate into her very soul, quite
+innocent of the fact that it spoke in every tone of her voice, in every
+movement of her head or hand, and kept the ailing mind to which she
+ministered at tremble with the strain to answer.
+
+On the fourth day, fretted past endurance by the situation, Judith
+permitted herself some oblique hints and suggestions, on the heels of
+which she left to prepare his breakfast. Returning to the sick-room with
+the bowl of broth, she met the strange, unexpected, unsolicited reply to
+all these withheld demands. Creed greeted her with a half-terrified
+smile.
+
+"Did you meet her goin' out?" he asked.
+
+"Did I meet who, Creed?" inquired Judith, setting the bowl down on a
+splint-bottomed chair, spreading a clean towel across the quilts, and
+preparing for his breakfast. "Has there been somebody in here to see you
+a'ready?"
+
+"It was only Huldah," deprecated Creed. "You said--you asked--and she
+just slipped in a minute after you went out."
+
+Judith straightened up with so sudden a movement that the chair rocked
+and the contents of the bowl slopped dangerously.
+
+"Which way did she go?" came the sharp challenge.
+
+"Out that door," indicating with an air of childlike alarm the front way
+which led directly into the yard.
+
+Judith ran and flung it open. Nobody was in sight. Heedless of the sharp
+wintry air that blew in upon the patient, she stood searching the way
+over toward Jim Cal's cabin.
+
+"I don't see her," she called across her shoulder. "Mebbe she's in the
+house yet."
+
+She closed the door reluctantly and came back to the bedside.
+
+"No," said Creed plaintively, lifting a doubtful hand to his confused
+head, "she ain't here. She allowed you-all were mad at her, and I reckon
+she'll keep out of sight."
+
+"But she had to come to see you--her wedded husband," accused Judith
+sternly.
+
+He nodded mutely with a motion of assent. He seemed to hope that the
+admission would please Judith. The broth stood untouched, cooling on the
+chair.
+
+"Is she stayin' down at Jim Cal's?" came Judith's next question.
+
+"She never named it to me where she was stayin'," returned Creed wearily.
+As before, Judith's ill-concealed anger and hostility was as a sword of
+destruction to him; yet now he had more strength to endure with. "She
+just come--and now she's gone." He closed his eyes, and leaned his head
+back among his pillows. The white face looked so sunken that Judith's
+heart misgave her.
+
+"Won't you eat your breakfast now, Mr. Bonbright?" she said stiffly.
+
+"I don't want any breakfast, thank you. I can't eat," returned Creed very
+low.
+
+Judith pressed her lips hard together to refrain from mentioning Huldah
+again. She knew that she had injured Creed, yet for the life of her she
+could not get out one word of kindness. Finally she took her mending and
+sat down within sight of the bed, deceiving herself into the belief that
+he slept.
+
+The next day an almost identical scene pushed Judith's strained nerves to
+the verge of hysteria. In the afternoon when the old man came to relieve
+her he returned almost immediately from the sick-room, called her
+downstairs once more, and complained of Creed's progress.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked. "Look like somethin' has went wrong here
+right lately. Ever sence you got that fool notion in yo' head that Creed
+and Huldy was man and wife, he's been goin' down in his mind about as
+fast as his stren'th come up. The best thing you can do is to put it out
+of yo' head."
+
+"Well, they _air_ wedded," returned Judith passionately. "They ain't no
+use to fergit it, 'caze she's done been here--she's down at Jim Cal's
+right now; and when we-all are out of the room he says she slips in to
+visit him."
+
+The girl stood trembling; her rounded cheeks that used to blush with such
+glowing crimson were white; she was a figure to move any one who loved
+her to pity; but the old man regarded her with strong contempt.
+
+"Good Lord--is _that_ what's ailin' ye?" he burst out. "You might at
+least have had the sense you was born with, and asked somebody is Huldy
+here. You know in reason it shows that Creed's out of his head--when he
+tells you a tale like that. The Lord knows there's no fool in the world
+like a jealous woman. Do ye want to kill the boy?--or run him crazy?"
+
+Judith struggled with her tears.
+
+"Uncle Jep," she finally choked out without actually sobbing. "I won't
+say another word--now that I know. I ain't got nothin' agin' Creed
+Bonbright, nor his wife--why should I have?"
+
+Some ruth came into the scornful glance those old black eyes bent on
+her.
+
+"You're a good gal, Jude," Jephthah said softly, "ef ye air somethin'
+unusual of a fool in this business. But I reckon I got to take this boy
+out o' yo' hands someway. I'm obliged to leave Creed with ye for one
+short while--an' agin' my grain it goes to do it--an' go fetch him a
+nurse that won't take these tantrums. But mind, gal, it's Creed's reason
+I'm leavin' with you; mebbe his life--but sartain shore his reason. I
+won't be gone to exceed two days. Ye can hold out that long, cain't ye?"
+
+"I'll do the best I can, Uncle Jep," said Judith with unexpected
+mildness. "An' ef Huldy 's here----"
+
+"My Lord!" broke in Jephthah. "Why don't ye go to Iley an' set yo' mind
+at rest about Huldy?"
+
+"Hit is at rest," returned Judith darkly. "When Creed come here, Iley was
+at me every day to ask him whar was Huldy; but I take notice that sence
+that day he named Huldy visitin' him Iley ain't been a-nigh the place."
+
+The old man heaved a heavy sigh.
+
+"Well, ye say ye'll do yo' best? Hit's apt to be a good best, Jude. In
+two days, ef I live, I'll be back here, an' I'll bring he'p."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV
+
+A Perilous Passage
+
+
+It was a strange thing to Judith to be left alone in the house, in charge
+of it and the sick man. Old Dilsey did the cooking and all the domestic
+labour. Had Wade been at home, and the patient any other than Creed
+Bonbright, she would have had a capable assistant at the nursing. Andy
+and Jeff tried to be as kind as they could. But they were an untamed,
+untrained pair, helpless and hapless at such matters, and their
+approaching wedding kept them often over at the Lusk place. From Iley
+Judith held savagely aloof.
+
+It was on the second morning of her uncle's absence that Dilsey Rust
+brought again that message from Blatch, and Judith caught at it. She had
+done her best; she had refrained from any questions; but the night before
+Creed told her without asking that Huldah had been in to see him twice
+again. As her patient's physical strength notably increased, his appeal
+to her tender forbearance of course lessened, and the raw insult of the
+situation began to come home to her.
+
+She put a shawl over her head and ran swiftly down through the chill
+November weather to the draw-bars, where in the big road outside
+Turrentine slouched against a post waiting for her. The man spoke over
+his shoulder.
+
+"Howdy, Jude--you did come at last."
+
+"Ef yo' goin' to say anything to me, you'll have to be mighty quick,
+Blatch," she notified him, shivering. "I got to get right back."
+
+"They's somebody new--and yet not so new--a-visitin' in the Turkey Tracks
+that you'd like to know of," he prompted coolly. "Ain't that so?"
+
+"Huldy," she gasped, her dark eyes fixed upon his grey ones.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I 'lowed you'd take an intrust in that thar business, an' I thort as a
+friend you ort to be told of it," he added virtuously.
+
+"Where's she at?" demanded Judith.
+
+"Over at my house," announced Turrentine easily, with a backward jerk of
+his head.
+
+"At _yo'_ house!" echoed Judith; "at _yo'_ house! Why, hit ain't
+decent."
+
+"Huh," laughed Blatch. "I don't know about decent. She was out thar
+takin' the rain; she had nobody to roof her; an' I bid her in, 'caze I'm
+in somewhat the same fix myse'f."
+
+"No one to roof her," repeated Judith. "What's henderin' her from comin'
+over this side the Gulch?"
+
+"Well, seein' the way she's done Wade I reckon she 'lows she'd better
+keep away from his pap's house. She's at the outs with Iley--Jim Cal's
+lady sont her word she needn't never show her face thar agin. She gives
+it out to everybody that'll listen at her talk that she's skeered o' you
+'count o' Bonbright."
+
+Judith studied his face with half-incredulous eyes.
+
+"How long has she been there?" she interrogated keenly.
+
+Turrentine seemed to take time for reflection.
+
+"Lemme see," he ruminated, "she come a Wednesday night. Hit was rainin',
+ef you remember, an' I hearn something outside, and it scairt me up some,
+fer fear it was revenuers. When I found hit was Huldy, I let her in, an
+she's been thar ever sence."
+
+Wednesday night! It was Thursday morning that Creed had first announced
+the visit of his wife. Oh, it must be true! Judith trembled all through
+her vigorous young body with a fury of despair. As always, Blatchley had
+found the few and simple words to bid her worser angel forth. She even
+felt a kind of hateful relish for the quarrel. They had tricked her. They
+had made a fool of her. She had suffered so much. She longed to be
+avenged.
+
+"Judy," murmured Blatch softly, bending toward her but not laying a hand
+upon her, "you white as a piece o' paper, an' shakin' from head to foot.
+That's from stayin' shet up in the house yonder nussin' that feller
+Bonbright night an' day like a hirelin'. W'y, he never did care nothin'
+for ye only becaze ye was useful to him. Ye stood betwixt him an' danger;
+ye he'ped him out when he needed it wust. An' he had it in mind to fool
+ye from the first. Now him and Huldy Spiller has done it. Don't you let
+'em. You show 'em what you air. I've got a hoss out thar, and Selim's
+down in the stable. I'll put yo' saddle on him. Git yo' skirt, honey.
+Let's you and me ride over to Squire Gaylord's and be wedded. Then we'll
+have the laugh on these here smart folks that tries to fool people."
+
+He leaned toward her, all the power of the man concentrated in his gaze.
+Perhaps he had never wanted anything in his twenty-seven years as he now
+wanted Judith Barrier and her farm and the rehabilitation that a union
+with her would give him. Once this girl's husband, he could curtly refuse
+to rent to Jephthah Turrentine, who had, he knew, no lease. He could call
+into question the old man's stewardship, and even up the short, bitter
+score between them. He could reverse that scene when he was sent packing
+and told to keep his foot off the place.
+
+"Judy," he breathed, deeply moved by all this, "don't ye remember when we
+was--befo' ever this feller come--Why, in them days I used to think shore
+we'd be wedded."
+
+Judith rested a hand on the bars and, lips apart, stared back into the
+eager eyes of the man who addressed her. Blatchley had always had some
+charm for the girl. Power he did not lack; and his lawlessness, his
+license, which might have daunted a feebler woman, liberated something
+correspondingly brave and audacious in her. He had been the first to pay
+court to her, and a girl does not easily forget that.
+
+For a moment the balance swung even. Then it bore down to Blatch's side.
+She would go. Yes, she would. Creed might have Huldah. The girl might be
+his wife, or his widow. She, Judith Barrier, would show them--she would
+show them. Her parted lips began to shape to a reckless yes. The word
+waited in her mind behind those lips all formed. Her swift imagination
+pictured to her herself riding away beside Blatch leaving the sick man
+who had been cause of so many humiliations to her to die or get well.
+Blatch, watching narrowly, read the coming consent in her face. His hand
+stole forward toward the draw-bars.
+
+Her salvation was in a very small and commonplace thing. The picture of
+herself riding beside Blatch Turrentine brought back to her, with an
+awakening shock, the recollection of herself and Creed riding side by
+side, her arm across his shoulder, his drooping head against it. How
+purely happy she had been then--how innocent--how blest! What were these
+fires of torment that raged in her now? No, no! That might be lost to
+her; but even so, she could not decline from its dear memory to a mating
+like this. Without a word she turned and ran back to the house, never
+looking over her shoulder in response to the one or two cautious calls
+that Blatch sent after her.
+
+Judith's day was mercifully full of work. When Creed did not require her,
+Dilsey demanded help and direction, and one or two errands from outside
+kept her mind from sinking in upon itself. It was night-fall, Andy was
+lending her his awkward aid in the sick-room, when Jeff came in and
+beckoned the two of them out mysteriously.
+
+"How's Bonbright this evenin', Jude? Do you reckon I could have speech
+with him?" he asked in a troubled tone.
+
+Judith shook her head. Her own near approach to absolute failure in her
+charge that morning made her the more punctilious now.
+
+"No." She spoke positively. "Uncle Jep said he wasn't to be werried about
+anything."
+
+"Why, he's settin' up some, ain't he?" said the boy in surprise. "I thort
+he looked right peart."
+
+"Yes," agreed Judith dejectedly, "he's gettin' his strength all right; he
+does look well. But you ax him questions, or name anything to him to
+trouble him, an' it throws him right back. Uncle Jep says hit's more his
+mind than his body now. What is it ye want from Creed? Cain't I tend to
+it?"
+
+"I don't reckon a gal like you could he'p any," Jeff said doubtfully. His
+eye wandered toward his twin. "I reckon this is men's business. I've got
+word that Huldy Spiller--or some say Huldy Bonbright--is over at Blatch's
+cabin, and he's got her shut up."
+
+Judith's heart gave a great leap as of terror; the thing was out at
+last--people knew it. Then that heavily beating heart sank sickeningly;
+what difference to her, though all the world knew it? Yet she held to her
+trust.
+
+"Oh, shore not, Jeff. You cain't _nigh_ talk to him about nothin' like
+that," she maintained. "Uncle Jep made me promise that nothin' should be
+named to him to excite him."
+
+"Well, then," pursued Jeff, "pappy not bein' here, nor Wade, and Jim Cal
+over at Spiller's, an' the gal not havin' no men folks in reach, me an'
+Andy has got to look after this thing. Fact is, Blatch sent word that ef
+we wanted her we could come over and git her."
+
+"I don't know as we do want her--I don't know as we do," put in Andy.
+"And we both promised pappy that we wouldn't set foot on the land whilst
+Blatch had it rented."
+
+"Then ag'in," debated Jeff--"Oh, no, buddy, we cain't leave the gal thar.
+We're plumb obliged to find out if she wants to come away, anyhow."
+
+Andy turned to his cousin.
+
+"What do you say, Jude? Ort we to go?"
+
+Judith locked her hands hard together and held down her head, fighting
+out her battle. She longed to say no. She longed to shout out that Huldah
+Spiller might take care of herself, since she had been so unwomanly as to
+run after men and bring all this trouble on them. What she did say, at
+the end of a lengthened struggle, was:
+
+"Yes, I think both of you ort to go. Can it be did quiet? You got to
+think of her good name."
+
+Jeff nodded.
+
+"Well, how air we goin' to be sure that gal's over there?" inquired Andy,
+still half reluctant.
+
+"Oh, she's there," returned Judith heavily; and when the boys regarded
+her with startled looks, "I ain't seen her, but she's been on the
+mountain since Thursday. She's been slippin' over to visit--her--Creed
+named it to me then."
+
+"Well that does settle it," Andy concluded. "Reckon Blatch has shut her
+up for pure meanness. When was we to go? Was there any time sot?"
+
+"To-night," Jeff informed them. "Any time after ten o'clock'll do--that
+was the word I got."
+
+"Well, that'll be all right," agreed Andy; "I can fix Creed up for the
+night, and ef we git Huldy away in the dark nobody need know of the
+business--not even Bonbright."
+
+A slow flush rose in Judith's pale cheeks. But she offered no comment on
+this aspect of the case. She only said:
+
+"Just do what you think best, and don't name it to me again, please."
+Then, as both boys looked wonderingly at her, she added haltingly, "I've
+got enough to werry over--with a sick man here on my hands, an' Uncle Jep
+gone."
+
+She went to her room. When at midnight she slipped down as of custom to
+see how all fared in the sick-room, she found the patient sleeping
+quietly, and Andy ready for the trip across the Gulch. The boys were
+going unarmed; they felt no fear of treachery on Blatch's part--it could
+profit him nothing to injure either of them in so public a way, and
+indeed he had never shown them any ill-will.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI
+
+His Own Trap
+
+
+"I reckon that'll about do for you, my pretty young men," remarked
+Blatchley Turrentine as he put the last knot in the line with which he
+was securing Andy to a splint-bottomed chair.
+
+His concluding words were the refrain of a familiar old ballad, and he
+continued to hum this as he straightened up and set his hands on his
+hips, regarding the twins through wickedly narrowed eyes. He was flushed
+with drink and inclined, as always at such times, to swagger with a sort
+of savage playfulness.
+
+"Scalf, you ain't got yo' feller half tied," he broke out, jerking the
+cord around Jeff. "Why, Lord A'mighty! I could pull myse'f a-loose from
+that mess o' rope inside o' five minutes," and he set to work to make his
+cousin secure.
+
+"Do yo' own dirty work," growled Scalf. "Yo' the only one that's a-goin'
+to profit by it."
+
+It was after midnight. When the two boys had approached Blatch's cabin as
+agreed, they had been set upon from behind, pinioned, and taken to the
+cave where the still was. Here they now sat bound and helpless.
+
+"What do you aim to make out of it, Blatch?" asked Jeff, offering the
+first remark that had come from either of them since their capture.
+
+"Is--uh--" Andy glanced at Scalf, and strove to keep Huldah's name out of
+it--"is what we come for here yet?"
+
+Blatch burst into a great horse laugh and slapped his thigh.
+
+"What you come after," he repeated enjoyingly. "Lord--Lord! What you come
+after! You was easy got. I counted on Jude to set you on, and I see I
+never counted none too much."
+
+"What do you aim to make out of it?" persisted Andy.
+
+The light from the fire built at the back of the cave, whose smoke went
+up a cleft and entered the chimney of the cabin far above, illuminated
+the dark interior flickeringly. Blatch went to a jug on a shelf, noisily
+poured a drink into a tin cup, swallowed it, and then addressed himself
+to his cousins.
+
+"Yo' pappy ordered me off his land. My lease is up next month. I got to
+git out of here anyhow, and I aimed to raise a stir befo' I went. This
+here town podner what I got after you-all quit me," glancing negligently
+at Scalf, "has many a little frill to his plans, and he knows Dan Haley,
+the marshal, right well. Sometimes I misdoubt that he come up on Turkey
+Track to git in with me and git the reward that I'm told Haley has out
+for the feller that can ketch me stillin'."
+
+He wheeled and looked fully at Scalf with these words, and the town man
+made haste to turn his back, warming his hands at the blaze. Blatch
+laughed deep in his throat.
+
+"Scalf's on the make," he asserted with grim humour. "He needed somebody
+to give up to Dan Haley, and as I hain't got no likin' for learnin' to
+peg shoes in the penitentiary, I 'lowed mebbe the trade would suit
+you-all boys, an' I sont over for ye."
+
+The twins writhed in their chairs as much as their tight bandings would
+permit. How simple they had been to trust the mercy of a desperate man.
+And they knew Blatch Turrentine. In days past, they had been on the
+inside, pupils and assistants in such work as this. They stole sheepish
+looks at each other. But the message he had sent them was yet to be
+explained. If Huldah was not with him, how had he known she was on the
+mountain at all?
+
+"What made you send the word you did?" burst out Andy wrathfully.
+
+Blatch had moved over by the fire.
+
+"Oh, I hearn through old Dilsey Rust--that I've had a-listenin' at
+key-holes and spyin' through chinks--about Bonbright's talk concernin'
+Huldy, and I thort----"
+
+At these words ancient Gideon Rust, posted as sentinel outside the cave's
+entrance, keeping himself warily from view of the prisoners, craned
+forward and stared with fallen jaw, reckless of observation. Humble
+tenants, pensioners of Judith and the Turrentines, with these words
+Blatch had wantonly stripped the poor roof from above their grey heads,
+and turned them out defenceless, to the anger of that strong family. Come
+what would, he must protest.
+
+"Now Blatch," he whined, "you ort not to go a-namin' names like you do.
+You said that Dilsey nor me, nary one, needn't be known in this
+business."
+
+In his excitement he came fully into the light.
+
+"I hope you-all boys understand that I didn't aim to do ye a meanness.
+Yo' pap--I--I hope he won't hold this agin' us. The Turrentines has been
+mighty good friends to Dilsey--and here's Blatch lettin' on to 'em like
+she was a spy."
+
+"Well, what else is she?" asked Blatch with an oath. "What else are any
+of ye? The last one of ye would sell yo' own fathers and mothers. Don't I
+know ye? A man's only chance is to get ye scared of him, or give ye
+somebody else to tell tales on--and that's what I've done."
+
+He turned his attention once more to Andy and Jeff, and left the old man
+staring aghast, plucking at his beard.
+
+"I've bought me a good team, an' I'm goin' to move my plunder out of
+here," he told them. "I've done picked me a fine place over yon," jerking
+his head vaguely in the direction of the Far Cove. "Every stick and
+ravellin' that belongs to me I'll take, exceptin' the run of whiskey that
+I'll leave in the still here for to make the marshal shore he's got the
+right thing. You might expect him any time to-morrow. Old Gid here will
+lead him in, or Scalf, and the testimony they stand ready to give means
+penitentiary to you two."
+
+"I reckon you-all won't deny that you have made many a run of blockaded
+whiskey right here in this cave," put in Scalf, nervously.
+
+"That's so--that's so, boys, I've seed ye many a time," whimpered Gideon
+Rust, almost beside himself with terror. "I hope ye won't hold it ag'in
+us that we he'ped to have ye took instead of Blatch here. Blatch is a
+hard man to deal with--he's been too much fer me--and hit wouldn't do you
+all no manner of good ef he was took along with ye. I don't see that yo'
+any worse off ef he goes free."
+
+The twins looked at each other and forebore to reply. Blatch moved over
+to Scalf, and after some muttered parley with the town partner strode
+away into the dark. Scalf himself waited only long enough to be sure that
+Blatch had left, then slipped away, posting the old man down the path as
+lookout.
+
+Alone in the cave, it was long before either boy spoke. Then came a rush
+of angry comment and bitter reflection which interrogated the situation
+from all sides, tending always to the conclusion that it was mighty hard,
+when a man had given up his evil courses, when he had just joined the
+church and was about to get married, to have the whole ugly score to pay.
+They sat cramped and miserable in their splint-bottomed chairs and the
+hours wore away till dawn in this dismal converse. Pappy was right--he
+was mighty right. If they ever got out of this--But there, Blatch wasn't
+apt to make a failure.
+
+It was broad daylight when at last Blatch Turrentine brought his team up
+and as close to the cave's mouth as he dared. It was loaded already with
+a considerable amount of furniture and clothing from the cabin, and he
+climbed down the steep approach to take from the cave the jugged whiskey,
+and the keg or two which was aging there. His eyes were reddened; but the
+dark flush which had been on his face had now given place to a curious
+pallor. There was a new element in his mood, a different note in his
+bearing, a suggestion of furtive hurry and anxiety.
+
+He was not afraid of the marshal. Haley could not be on the mountain
+before noon. But he had left that behind in the little log stable from
+which his team came that cried haste to his going.
+
+Gord Bosang from whom he was to buy the horses was a man somewhat of
+Blatch's own ilk. Cavalierly called out of bed after midnight and offered
+only a partial cash payment--all that Blatch had been able to raise--he
+had angrily refused to let the team be taken off the place. Turrentine's
+situation was desperate. He must have the horses. In the quarrel that
+followed, he struck to clear this obstacle from his path; but whether he
+had left a dead man lying back there on the hay--whether it was a
+possible charge of murder he was now fleeing from--he had not stopped to
+find out. He had got back to his cabin with all haste, pitched his ready
+belongings into the wagon, and now he came down to the still to get the
+last, and see that all there was working out right.
+
+As his foot reached the opening he uttered a loud exclamation, then
+leaped into the cave. Both chairs were empty, the ropes lying cut beside
+them. He sprang back to the rude doorway and gave the usual signal--the
+screech-owl's cry. It was inappropriate at this time, yet he could not
+risk less, and he sent it forth again and again.
+
+Getting no answer he ventured cautiously to call Gideon Rust's name, and
+when this failed he looked about him and came to a decision. The boys
+were gone. The fat was in the fire. Yet--he returned to it--the marshal
+could not be there before noon. He had time to remove the whiskey if he
+worked hard enough. He glanced at the still. The worm and appurtenances
+were of value. He had saved money for nearly two years to buy the new
+copper-work. He wondered if he might empty and take it also.
+
+For half an hour he toiled desperately, carrying filled jugs up the steep
+and hiding them carefully in his loaded wagon. The kegs he could not move
+alone, and set to work jugging the fluid from them. Sweat poured down his
+face, to which, though he drank repeatedly from the tin cup, no flush
+returned. His teeth were set continually on his under lip. His breath
+came heavily as he lifted and stooped. In the midst of his labours a
+slight noise at the cave entrance brought him to his feet, staring in
+terror. The sight of trembling Gideon Rust in the opening reassured him.
+
+"Come in here, you old davil, and help me jug this whiskey," he cried
+out. "Whar's Scalf? How come you an' him to let them boys git away? What
+do you reckon I'm a-goin' to do to you for it?"
+
+"Why, is them fellers gone?" quavered the old man, craning his neck to
+look gingerly in. "I never seen nothin' movin' up here, but--they was a
+gal or so come norratin' past on the path; I 'lowed when I seed calicker
+that it mought be Huldy, you named her so free."
+
+"Well, shut yo' fool mouth and get yo'se'f to work," ordered Blatch.
+"I've got to be out o' this."
+
+He turned his back on old Gid and forgot him.
+
+"Ef I thort I had time I'd take my still with me," he ruminated, going
+close to it and laying a fond touch upon the copper-work. "I'm a mind to
+try it."
+
+"Hands up, Turrentine!" came a short sharp order from outside. Blatch
+whirled like a flash, and looked past Gideon Rust in the doorway. Over
+the old man's shaking shoulders, he saw the levelled rifles of the
+marshal and his posse.
+
+"Thar," whispered ancient Gideon fairly weeping, as they closed in on
+Turrentine and snapped the handcuffs on his wrists, "now mebbe ye won't
+name a pore old woman's name so free, ef you _have_ bought her to yo'
+will, and set her to spy on them that's been good friends to her."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII
+
+Love's Guerdon
+
+
+When Judith left Andy in charge of her patient and mounted the ladderlike
+stair to her own small room under the eaves, she felt no disposition to
+sleep. She did not undress, but sat down by the window and stared out
+into the black November night. Despite everything, there had come a sort
+of peace over her tumult, a stilling that was not mere weariness. She was
+like a woman who has just been saved from a shipwreck, snatched away from
+the imminent jaws of doom--chastened, and wondering a little. Intensely
+thankful for what she had escaped, she sat there in the dark, cold little
+room, Judith Barrier, safe from the sin of a godless union, from the life
+that would have been hers as Blatchley Turrentine's wife.
+
+In the light of her danger, familiar things took on a new face, strange,
+yet dear and welcome. She turned and gazed with childish eyes up at the
+decent beams of her rooftree, glad that they still sheltered her a maid,
+glad that the arms of her home were about her.
+
+With remorseless honesty she went back over her years. Always in the past
+months of suffering she had blamed this or that extraneous circumstance
+with her undoing; now she saw and recognised and acknowledged that
+nothing and nobody had brought disaster upon her but herself. It was not
+because Blatchley Turrentine was a bad, lawless man, not because the boys
+were reckless fellows, led and influenced by him, that all this trouble
+had come. If she, Judith Barrier, had dealt fairly and humbly by her
+world, she might have had the lover of her choice in peace as other girls
+had--even as Cliantha and Pendrilla had. But no, such enterprises as
+contented these, such stir as they made among their kind, would not do
+her. She must seek to cast her spells upon every eligible man within her
+reach. She must try her hand at subjugating those who were difficult,
+pride herself on the skill with which she retained half a dozen in
+anxious doubt as to her ultimate intentions concerning them.
+
+Her forehead drooped to the window pane and her cheeks burned as she
+recollected times and seasons and scenes that belonged to the years when
+Blatch was building up his firm belief that she loved him, and would
+sometime marry him. It had been a spirited, dangerous game to her then,
+nothing more.
+
+Her passionate, possessive nature was winning to higher ground, leaving,
+with pain and travail of spirit, the plane on which her twenty years had
+been lived. The past months of thwarting, failure, and heart-hunger had
+prepared for this movement, to-night it was almost consciously making.
+She was coming to the place where, if she might not have love, she could
+at least be worthy of it. The little clock which had measured her vigils
+that night of the dumb supper slanted toward twelve. She got to her feet
+with a long sigh. She did not know yet what she meant to do or to forbear
+doing; but she was aware, with relief, of a radical change within her, a
+something awakened there which could consider the right of Creed--even of
+Huldah; which could submit to failure, to rejection--and be kind. Slowly
+she gathered up her belongings and took her way downstairs.
+
+When the door of the sick-room closed behind the boys, she went and knelt
+down beside the bed and looked fixedly at the sleeper. With the birth of
+this new spiritual impulse the things Blatch Turrentine had said of Creed
+and Creed's intentions dropped away from her as fall the dead leaves from
+the bough of that most tenacious of oak trees which holds its withered
+foliage till the swelling buds of a new spring push it off. He was a good
+man. She felt that to the innnermost core of her heart. She loved him.
+She believed she would always love him. As for his being married to
+Huldah, she would not inquire how that came about, how it could have
+happened while she felt him to be promised to herself. There was--there
+must be--a right way for even that to befall. She must love him and
+forgive him, for only so could she face her life, only so could she patch
+a little peace with herself and still the gnawing agony in her breast.
+Long she knelt thus.
+
+Who that knows even a little the wonders of the subjective mind, who that
+has tested the marvellous communication between the mood of nurse and
+patient, will doubt that the sick man, lying passive, receptive, got now
+Judith's message of peace and relaxation. The girl herself, powerful,
+dominating young creature, had been fought to a spiritual standstill. She
+was at last forced to her knees, and the atmosphere which her passionate
+struggles had long disturbed grew serene about her. Even a wavering note
+of something more joyous than mere peace, a courage, a strength that
+promised happiness must have radiated from her to him. For Creed's eyes
+opened and looked full into hers with a wholly rational expression which
+had long been absent from their clear depths.
+
+"Judith--honey," he whispered, and fumbled vaguely for her hand upon the
+coverlet.
+
+"Yes, Creed--what is it? What do you want?" she asked tremulously, taking
+the thin fingers in her warm clasp.
+
+"Nothing--so long as I've got you," he returned contentedly. "Can't I sit
+up--and won't you sit down here by me and talk awhile?"
+
+Gently smiling, Judith helped him to sit up, and piled the pillows back
+of his head and shoulders, noting almost with surprise how well he
+looked, how clear and direct was his gaze.
+
+"I've been sick a long time, haven't I?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," the girl replied, drawing up a chair and seating herself. "Hit's
+more'n six weeks that Uncle Jep an' me has been takin' care of you."
+
+He lifted her hand and stroked it softly.
+
+"A body gets mighty tired of a sick fellow," he said wistfully.
+
+Judith's eyes filled at the pitiful little plea, but she could not offer
+endearments to Huldah's husband.
+
+"I ain't tired of you," she returned in a low, choked voice. "I most
+wisht I was. Creed----"
+
+She slipped from her chair dropping on her knees beside him.
+
+"Creed, I want to tell you now while I can do it that the boys is gone to
+get Huldy. She can take care of you after this--but I'll help. I ain't
+mad about it. I was aimin' to tell you that the next time she come in you
+should bid her stay. God knows I want ye to be happy--whether it's me or
+another."
+
+Bewilderment grew in the blue eyes regarding her so fixedly.
+
+"Huldah?" he repeated. And then again in a lower, musing tone, "Huldah."
+
+"Yes--yo' wife, Huldy Spiller," Judith urged mildly. "Don't you mind
+namin' it to me the first time she slipped in to visit you?"
+
+An abashed look succeeded the expression of bewilderment. A faint, fine
+flush crept on the thin, white cheek.
+
+"I--I do," Creed whispered, with a foolish little smile beginning to
+curve his lips; "but there wasn't a word of truth in it--dear. I've never
+seen the girl since she left Aunt Nancy's that Saturday morning."
+
+"What made you say it then?" breathed Judith wonderingly.
+
+"I--I don't know," faltered the sick man. "It seemed like you was mad
+about something; and then it seemed like Huldah was here; and then--I
+don't know Judith--didn't I say a heap of other foolishness?"
+
+The simple query reproved his nurse more than a set arraignment would
+have done. He had indeed babbled, in his semi-delirium, plenty of "other
+foolishness," this was the only point upon which she had been credulous.
+
+"Oh Creed--honey!" she cried, burying her face in the covers of his bed,
+"I'm so 'shamed. I've got such a mean, bad disposition. Nobody couldn't
+ever love me if they knew me right well."
+
+She felt a gentle, caressing touch on her bowed head.
+
+"Jude, darling," Creed's voice came to her, and for the first time it
+sounded really like his voice, "I loved you from the moment I set eyes on
+you. I didn't sense it for a spell, but I come to see that you were the
+one woman in the world for me. There never was a man done what went more
+against the grain than I the night I parted from you down at the railroad
+station and let you go back when you would have come with me--so
+generous--so loving--"
+
+He broke off with a choking sigh, and Judith raised her head in a sort of
+consternation. Were these the exciting topics that her Uncle Jep would
+have banished from the sick-room? she wondered. But no, Creed had never
+looked so nearly a well man as now. He raised himself from the pillows.
+
+"Don't!" she called sharply, as she sprang up and slipped a capable arm
+under his shoulders, laying his head on her breast. "You ort not to do
+thataway," she reproached him. "When you want anything I'll git it."
+
+"I don't want a thing, but this," whispered Creed, looking up into her
+eyes. "Nothing, only----"
+
+Judith read the mute prayer aright, and tears of exquisite feeling
+blinded her. As she looked at him, there was loosed upon her soul the
+whole tide of passionate tenderness which had gathered there since first
+she saw him standing, eager, fearless, selfless, on the Court House steps
+at Hepzibah. The yellow head lay on her arm now; those blue eyes which,
+in many bitter hours since that time, had seemed as unattainable to her
+love as the sky itself, were raised to her own, they were pleading for
+her kiss. She bent her face; the full red lips met Creed's. The weary
+longing was satisfied; the bitterness was washed away.
+
+They remained quietly thus, Creed drinking in new life from her nearness,
+from her dearness. When she would have lifted her head, his thin hand
+went up and was laid over the rounded cheek, bringing the sweet mouth
+back to his own.
+
+"I'll need a heap of loving, Judith," he whispered,--"a heap. I've been
+such a lone fellow all my days. You'll have to be everything and
+everybody to me."
+
+[Illustration: "They had forgotten all the world save themselves
+and their love."]
+
+Judith's lavish nature, so long choked back upon itself, trembled to its
+very core with rapture at the bidding. It seemed to her that all of
+Heaven she had ever craved was to do and be everything that Creed
+Bonbright needed. She answered with an inarticulate murmur of tenderness,
+a sound inexpressibly wooing and moving. All that she had felt, all that
+she meant for the future, surged strong within her--was fain for
+utterance. But Judith was not fluent; she must content herself with doing
+and being--Creed could speak for her now. She cherished the fair hair
+with loving touch, nestling the thin cheek against her soft, warm one.
+
+The beautiful storm-rocked craft of Judith's passion was safe at last in
+Love's own harbour; the skies were fair above it, and only Love's tender
+airs breathed about its weary sails.
+
+"We'll be wedded in the spring," Creed's lips murmured against her own.
+"I'll carry home a bride to the old place. Oh, we'll be happy, Judith."
+
+All through the latter part of the night, while the two lovers were
+drawing out of the ways of doubt and pain and misunderstanding, into so
+full and sweet a communion, the November breeze had been rising; toward
+dawn it moved quite steadily. And with its impulse moved the cedar tree,
+a long, smooth swaying, that set free that tender, baritone legato to
+which Judith's ears had harkened away last March, when she came home from
+Hepzibah after first seeing Creed Bonbright. It was the voice which had
+talked to her throughout the spring, the early summer, through autumn's
+desolate days, when the waiting in ignorance of his whereabouts and of
+his welfare seemed almost more than she could bear; it was the voice
+which had called upon her so tragically, so insistently, the night of the
+raid on Nancy Card's cabin. But Creed himself was here now; Creed's own
+lips spoke close to her ear. The cedar tree had its song to itself once
+more; she no longer needed its music. Its sound was unheard by her, as
+the flame of a candle is unseen in the strong light of the sun.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII
+
+A Prophecy
+
+
+Over the shoulder of Yellow Old Bald up came the sun, bannered and
+glorious; the distant ranges glowed in his splendours; the sere fields
+about the place were all gilded. The small-paned eastern window of the
+sick-room let in a flood of morning light. Gone was the bird choir that
+used to welcome his earliest rays, swept south by the great tide of
+migration. Those that remained, snowbird, cardinal, and downy
+woodpecker--the "checkerbacker" of the mountaineer,--harboured all night
+and much of the day in the barn loft and in Judith's cedar tree. Their
+twittering sounded cheerily about the eaves.
+
+Back and forth in the puncheon-floored kitchen trudged old Dilsey Rust's
+heavy-shod foot, carrying her upon the appointed tasks of the day.
+
+In the quiet sick-room, where the low, alternating voices had subsided
+into an exchange of murmured words, suddenly Creed dropped his head back
+to stare at his companion with startled eyes.
+
+"Judith!" he exclaimed. "Where are the boys?"
+
+He glanced at the window, then about the room.
+
+"It's broad day. That word Blatch sent was a decoy; Huldah Spiller isn't
+on the mountain. Somebody must go over there."
+
+Judith rose swiftly to her feet.
+
+"My Lord, Creed! I forgot all about 'em," she said contritely. "Ye don't
+reckon Blatch would harm the boys? And yet yo' right--it does look bad. I
+don't know what to do, honey. They ain't a man on the place till Uncle
+Jep comes. But maybe he'll be along in about an hour."
+
+She hurried to the window and stared over toward the Gulch; and at the
+moment a group of people topped the steep, rising into view one after the
+other out of the ravine, and coming on toward the house.
+
+"Here they are now," she said with relief in her tones. "Thar's
+Andy--Jeff, Pendrilly--why, whatever--The Lusk girls is with 'em! They's
+another--Creed, they _have_ got Huldy! And that last feller--no, 'tain't
+Blatch--of all things--it's Wade! They're comin' straight to this door.
+Shall I let them in?"
+
+"Yes," said Creed's steady voice. "Let them right in."
+
+She ran swiftly to slip an extra pillow under her patient's shoulders,
+straighten the covers of the bed, and put all in company trim. Her eye
+brightened when she saw him sitting so erect and alert almost like his
+old self. Somebody rattled the latch.
+
+"Come in, folks," Creed called, speaking out with a roundness and
+decision that it did her heart good to hear.
+
+They all pushed into the room, the men shouldering back a little,
+glancing anxiously at the sick man, the Lusk girls timid, but Huldah
+leading the van.
+
+"How's Creed?" cried the irrepressible one, bounding into the room and
+looking about her. "Wade got yo' letter, Cousin Judy, an' I says to him
+that right now was the time for us to make a visit home. Wade's got him a
+good place on the railroad, and I like livin' in the settlement; but
+bridal towers is all the go down thar, and we 'lowed we'd take one."
+
+Every inch of her raiment bespoke the bride, and it did not take Creed
+many moments to understand the situation, put out a thin white hand and,
+smiling, offer his congratulations. Wade received them with some
+low-toned, hesitating words of apology.
+
+"Law, Cousin Creed's ready to let bygones be bygones, Wade, honey!" his
+wife admonished him.
+
+"_Cousin_ Creed?" echoed the obtuse Jeff.
+
+Wade's wife whirled to put a ready arm around Judith's waist. "Why, you
+an' him is a-goin' to be wedded, ain't you Judy? I always knowed, and I
+always said to everybody that I named it to, that you was cut out and
+made for each other. We heared tell from everybody in the Turkey Tracks
+that you an' Creed was goin' to be wedded as soon as he got well--then I
+reckon he'll be my cousin, won't he?"
+
+Creed looked past the whispering girls to where Andy and Jeff stood. As
+the boys moved toward the bed.
+
+"Did you find Blatch?" he asked, with a man's directness. "How did
+you-all make out?"
+
+Andy opened his lips to answer, when there was a clatter of hoofs
+outside. As they all turned to the window, Jephthah Turrentine's big
+voice, with a new tone in it, called out to somebody.
+
+"Hold on thar, honey--lemme lift ye down."
+
+"Ain't Uncle Jep goin' to be proud when he sees how well you air?"
+Judith, stooping, whispered to Creed. "He went off to get somebody to
+he'p nurse you, because he said I done you more harm than good."
+
+"Your Uncle Jep don't know everything," returned Creed softly.
+
+No mountaineer ever knocks on a door, but Jephthah Turrentine made
+considerable racket with the latch before he entered the room.
+
+"Oh--you air awake," he said cautiously, then, looking about at the
+others, "an' got company so airly in the mornin'." He glanced from the
+newcomers to his patient. "You look fine--fine!" he asserted with high
+satisfaction; then turning over his shoulder, "Come right along in,
+honey--Creed'll be proud to see ye."
+
+He paused on the threshold, reaching back a hand and entered, pulling
+after him Nancy Card--who was Nancy Card no longer. A wild-rose pink was
+in her withered cheeks under the frank grey eyes. She smiled as Judith
+had never imagined she could smile. But even then the young people
+scarcely fathomed the situation.
+
+"Creed," cried the old man, "I've brung ye the best doctor and nurse
+there is on the mountings. Nancy she run off and left us, and I had to go
+after her, and I 'lowed I'd make sartain that she'd never run away from
+me again, so I've jest--we jest----"
+
+"Ye ain't married!" cried Judith, sudden light coming in on her.
+
+"We air that," announced old Jephthah radiantly.
+
+"Well, Jude, I jest had to take him," apologised Nancy. "Here was him
+with the rheumatics every spring, an' bound and determined that he'd lay
+out in the bushes deer-huntin' like he done when he was twenty, and me
+knowin' in reason that a good course of dandelion and boneset, with my
+liniment well rubbed in, would fix him up--why, I jest _had_ to take
+him."
+
+She looked about her for support, and she got it from an unexpected
+quarter.
+
+"Well, I think you done jest right," piped up Huldah, who had been a
+silent spectator as long as she could endure it, "I'm mighty glad I've
+got a new mother-in-law, 'caze I know Pap Turrentine's apt to be well
+taken keer of in his old days."
+
+His old days! Nancy looked indignantly from the red-haired girl to her
+bridegroom who, in her eyes, was evidently still a sprightly youth.
+
+"Huh!" she remarked enigmatically. Then with a sudden change; "Yit whilst
+we are a-namin' sech, honey, won't you jest run out to my saddle and
+bring me the spotted caliker poke off'n hit--hit's got my bundle of yarbs
+in it. I'll put on a drawin' of boneset for you befo' I set down."
+
+"All right, Nancy--but I reckon I'll have to clear these folks out of
+this sick-room fust," responded old Jephthah genially. "We're apt to have
+too much goin' on for Creed."
+
+But as they were marshalled to leave, the noise of a new arrival in the
+kitchen brought the curious Huldah to the door and she threw it wide to
+admit Iley, into whose arms she promptly precipitated herself with
+voluble explanations, which covered her career from the time she left Jim
+Cal's cabin till that moment.
+
+"You an' Wade are wedded? Why couldn't you let a body know?" inquired
+Iley wrathfully, grasping her by the shoulder, holding her off for
+somewhat hostile inspection.
+
+"That's what I say," echoed Jim Cal's voice from the doorway where he
+harboured, a trifle out of sight. "Ef you-all gals would be a little mo'
+open an' above-bo'd about yo' courtin' business hit would save lots of
+folks plenty of trouble. Here's Iley got some sort o' notion that Huldy
+was over at Blatch's, an' she put out an' run me home so fast that I
+ain't ketched my breath till yit."
+
+"Over at Blatch's?" old Jephthah looked angrily about him, and Judith
+made haste to explain the whole matter, detailing everything that had led
+up to the trouble.
+
+"We-all talked it over, Uncle Jep, and as you wasn't here we made out to
+do the best we could, and the boys went."
+
+"After me!" crowed Huldah. "An' thar I was on the train 'long o' Wade
+comin' to Garyville that blessed minute."
+
+"Well, Blatch had us hog-tied an' waitin' for the marshal to come an'
+cyart us down and send us to the penitentiary," Jeff set forth the case.
+"But you know how Blatch is, always devilin' folks; he made old Gid Rust
+mad, an' when Clianthy an' Pendrilly met the old man out on the road soon
+this mornin', he told 'em to take a knife and come up to the cave an'
+they could keep what they found."
+
+"I never was so scairt in my life," Cliantha asseverated. Her china-blue
+eyes had not yet resumed their normal size or contour, and the assertion
+was easily believed.
+
+"Nor me neither," agreed Pendrilla. "I says to him, says I, 'Now you, Gid
+Rust, do you 'low we're crazy? We're a-lookin' for old Boss and Spot, an'
+we ain't a-goin' up yon nary step.' An' he says to us, says he, 'Gals,
+you never mind about no cows,' he says. 'Hit'll shore be the worse for
+Andy and Jeff Turrentine ef you don't git yo'selves up thar an' git up
+thar quick.' An' with that he gives us his knife out of his pocket, 'caze
+we didn't have none, and we run the whole blessed way, and cut the boys
+a-loose."
+
+"I was that mad when I seen 'em tied up thataway," chimed in Cliantha,
+"that I wouldn't a 'cared the rappin' o' my finger ef old Blatch
+Turrentine hisself had been thar. I'd 'a' stood right up to him an' told
+him what I thort o' him an' his works." There are conditions, it is said,
+in which even the timid hare becomes militant, and doves will peck at the
+intruder.
+
+"Well, I reckon I got to get you folks out of here now for sartain," said
+Jephthah as she made an end. "Nancy, honey, is the yarbs you wanted for
+Creed in with them you're a-goin' to use on me?"
+
+The little old woman felt of Creed's fingers, she laid a capable hand
+upon his brow. Then she flashed one of her quick, youthful smiles at her
+husband.
+
+"You named it to me about Jude and Creed being at the outs," she said
+frankly; "but I see they've made up their troubles. The boy don't need no
+medicine."
+
+Jephthah stared at his transformed patient, and admitted that it was so.
+
+"Well he does need some peace and quiet," the head of the house
+maintained as he ushered his clan into the adjoining room.
+
+"Uncle Jephthah," called Creed's quiet voice, with the ring of the old
+enthusiasm in it, as his host was leaving the room. "Do you remember
+telling me that the trouble with my work on the mountain was, I was one
+man alone? Do you remember saying that if I was a member of a big
+family--a great big tribe--that I'd get along all right and accomplish
+what I set out for?"
+
+"I say sech a lot of foolishness, son, I cain't ricollect it all. Likely
+I did say that. Hit mought have some truth in it."
+
+"Well," said Creed, carrying the hand he held to his lips, "I reckon I'll
+be a member of a big tribe now; maybe I can take up the work yet, and do
+some good."
+
+The old man looked at him. Here was the son of his heart--of his mind and
+nature--the congenial spirit; the welcome companion, interested like
+himself in abstractions, willing to stake all on an idea. Days of good
+comradeship stretched before these two. He reached down a brown right
+hand, and Creed's thin white one went out to meet it in a quick, nervous
+clasp.
+
+"Son," spoke out Jephthah in that deep, sonorous voice of his, "Creed,
+boy, what you set out to do was a work for a man's lifetime; but God made
+you for jest what you aimed then to do and be. Yo' mighty young yet, but
+you air formed for a leader of men. To the last day of its life an oak
+will be an oak and a willer a willer; and yo' head won't be grey when you
+find yo' work and find yo'self a-doin' it right."
+
+"Pap Turrentine!" called Huldah from the kitchen, "Maw wants ye out
+here."
+
+The door swung wide; it showed a vision of Nancy Turrentine, flushed,
+bustling, capable, the crinkled grey hair pushed back above those bright
+eyes of hers with a prideful hand, entering upon the administration of
+her new realm. Oh, it had not been easy for one of her spirit to be a
+poor little widow, living out on the Edge, with nobody but slack Doss
+Provine to do for her, hardly dishes enough to set the table, often not
+much to put in them, eking out a scanty living by weaving baskets of
+white-oak splits. When Judith rode up to the cabin on the Edge that
+evening of late March, it was the hardest time of the year; now was the
+mountaineer's season of cheer and abundance--his richest month. Outside,
+nuts were gathering, hunting was good, and she had for her provider of
+wild meat the mightiest hunter in the Turkey Tracks. Jephthah
+Turrentine's home was ample and well plenished. There was good store of
+root crops laid up for winter. Judith had neglected such matters to tend
+on Creed, but Nancy was already putting in hand the cutting and drying of
+pumpkins, the threshing out of beans. Here were milk vessels a-plenty to
+scald and sun--and filling for them afterward. Oh, enough to do
+with!--the will to do had always been Nancy's--and for yokefellow in the
+home, one who would carry his share and pull true--a real man--the only
+one there had ever been for Nancy.
+
+"Pap," called Huldah's insistent voice again.
+
+"All right--I'm a-comin'," declared Jephthah, then, with the door in his
+hand, turned back, meaning to finish what had been in his mind to say to
+Creed.
+
+Jephthah Turrentine was himself that day a bridegroom, wedded to the one
+love of his life; he appreciated to the full that which had come to
+Creed. He had thought to say to the boy that now was the opening of great
+things, to remind him that one must first live man's natural life, must
+prove himself as son, brother, husband, father, and neighbour, before he
+will be accepted or efficient in the larger calling. He would have said
+that life must teach the man before the man could teach his fellows.
+
+But the words of homely wisdom in which he would have clothed this truth
+remained unspoken. He glanced back and saw the dark head bent close above
+the yellow one, as Judith performed some little service for Creed. The
+girl's rich brown beauty glowed and bloomed before the steady, blue fire
+of her lover's eyes. She set down her tumbler and knelt beside him. Their
+lips were murmuring, they had forgotten all the world save themselves and
+their love. Jephthah looked at the rapt young faces; these two were on
+the mount of transfiguration; the light ineffable was all about them.
+
+"Lord, what's the use of a old fool like me sayin' I, ay, yes or no to
+sech a pair as that?" he whispered as he went out softly and closed the
+door.
+
+
+
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