rd her and with hesitating, trembling fingers she reached for it.

Bob Berkley was on the death-watch that night, and as he passed Rufe's
cell a wiry hand shot through the grating of his door, and as the boy
sprang away the condemned man's fingers tipped the butt of the big
pistol that dangled on the lad's hip.

"Not this time," said Bob with a cool little laugh, and Rufe laughed,
too.

"I was only foolin'," he said, "I ain't goin' to hang. You hear that,
Red? I ain't goin' to hang--but you are, Red--sure. Nobody'd risk his
little finger for your old carcass, 'cept maybe that little old woman o'
yours who you've treated like a hound--but my folks ain't goin' to see
me hang."

Rufe spoke with some reason. That night the Tollivers climbed the
mountain, and before daybreak were waiting in the woods a mile on the
north side of the town. And the Falins climbed, too, farther along the
mountains, and at the same hour were waiting in the woods a mile to the
south.

Back in Lonesome Cove June Tolliver sat alone--her soul shaken and
terror-stricken to the depths--and the misery that matched hers was in
the heart of Hale as he paced to and fro at the county seat, on guard
and forging out his plans for that day under the morning stars.

XXIX

Day broke on the old Court House with its black port-holes, on the
graystone jail, and on a tall topless wooden box to one side, from
which projected a cross-beam of green oak. From the centre of this beam
dangled a rope that swung gently to and fro when the wind moved.
And with the day a flock of little birds lighted on the bars of the
condemned man's cell window, chirping through them, and when the jailer
brought breakfast he found Bad Rufe cowering in the corner of his cell
and wet with the sweat of fear.

"Them damn birds ag'in," he growled sullenly.

"Don't lose yo' nerve, Rufe," said the jailer, and the old laugh of
defiance came, but from lips that were dry.

"Not much," he answered grimly, but the jailer noticed that while he
ate, his eyes kept turning again and again to the bars; and the turnkey
went away shaking his head. Rufe had told the jailer, his one friend
through whom he had kept in constant communication with the Tollivers,
how on the night after the shooting of Mockaby, when he lay down to
sleep high on the mountain side and under some rhododendron bushes, a
flock of little birds flew in on him like a gust of rain and perched
over and around him, twitter