, honey, I ain't goin' to take you away. I want ye to stay right
where ye air. Be a good girl now and do whatever Jack Hale tells ye and
tell that boy with all that hair to come over and see me." June grew
almost tearful with gratitude, for never had he called her "honey"
before that she could remember, and never had he talked so much to her,
nor with so much kindness.

"Air ye comin' over soon?"

"Mighty soon, dad."

"Well, take keer o' yourself."

"I will, dad," she said, and tenderly she watched his great figure
slouch out of sight.

An hour after dark, as old Judd sat on the porch of the cabin in
Lonesome Cove, young Dave Tolliver rode up to the gate on a strange
horse. He was in a surly mood.

"He lemme go at the head of the valley and give me this hoss to git
here," the boy grudgingly explained. "I'm goin' over to git mine
termorrer."

"Seems like you'd better keep away from that Gap," said the old man
dryly, and Dave reddened angrily.

"Yes, and fust thing you know he'll be over hyeh atter YOU." The old man
turned on him sternly.

"Jack Hale knows that liquer was mine. He knows I've got a still over
hyeh as well as you do--an' he's never axed a question nor peeped an
eye. I reckon he would come if he thought he oughter--but I'm on this
side of the state-line. If I was on his side, mebbe I'd stop."

Young Dave stared, for things were surely coming to a pretty pass in
Lonesome Cove.

"An' I reckon," the old man went on, "hit 'ud be better grace in you to
stop sayin' things agin' him; fer if it hadn't been fer him, you'd be
laid out by them Falins by this time."

It was true, and Dave, silenced, was forced into another channel.

"I wonder," he said presently, "how them Falins always know when I go
over thar."

"I've been studyin' about that myself," said Devil Judd. Inside, the old
step-mother had heard Dave's query.

"I seed the Red Fox this afternoon," she quavered at the door.

"Whut was he doin' over hyeh?" asked Dave.

"Nothin'," she said, "jus' a-sneakin' aroun' the way he's al'ays
a-doin'. Seemed like he was mighty pertickuler to find out when you was
comin' back."

Both men started slightly.

"We're all Tollivers now all right," said the Hon. Samuel Budd
that night while he sat with Hale on the porch overlooking the
mill-pond--and then he groaned a little.

"Them Falins have got kinsfolks to burn on the Virginia side and they'd
fight me tooth and toenail for this a hundred years