t horse!"

Without a word the old man slouched ahead to where the big black horse
was restlessly waiting in the bushes.

"Climb up," said Hale. "We won't 'ride and tie' back to town--but I'll
take turns with you on the horse."

The Red Fox was making ready to leave the mountains, for he had been
falsely informed that Rufe was to be brought back to the county seat
next day, and he was searching again for the sole bit of evidence that
was out against him. And when Rufe was spirited back to jail and was on
his way to his cell, an old freckled hand was thrust between the bars of
an iron door to greet him and a voice called him by name. Rufe stopped
in amazement; then he burst out laughing; he struck then at the pallid
face through the bars with his manacles and cursed the old man bitterly;
then he laughed again horribly. The two slept in adjoining cells of the
same cage that night--the one waiting for the scaffold and the other
waiting for the trial that was to send him there. And away over the blue
mountains a little old woman in black sat on the porch of her cabin
as she had sat patiently many and many a long day. It was time, she
thought, that the Red Fox was coming home.

XXVIII

And so while Bad Rufe Tolliver was waiting for death, the trial of the
Red Fox went on, and when he was not swinging in a hammock, reading his
Bible, telling his visions to his guards and singing hymns, he was in
the Court House giving shrewd answers to questions, or none at all, with
the benevolent half of his mask turned to the jury and the wolfish snarl
of the other half showing only now and then to some hostile witness for
whom his hate was stronger than his fear for his own life. And in jail
Bad Rufe worried his enemy with the malicious humour of Satan. Now he
would say:

"Oh, there ain't nothin' betwixt old Red and me, nothin' at all--'cept
this iron wall," and he would drum a vicious tattoo on the thin wall
with the heel of his boot. Or when he heard the creak of the Red Fox's
hammock as he droned his Bible aloud, he would say to his guard outside:

"Course I don't read the Bible an' preach the word, nor talk with
sperits, but thar's worse men than me in the world--old Red in thar' for
instance"; and then he would cackle like a fiend and the Red Fox would
writhe in torment and beg to be sent to another cell. And always he
would daily ask the Red Fox about his trial and ask him questions in the
night, and his devilish inst