but in Kentucky they were variable and conflicting, and their
voices were many.

He felt the difference as soon as he reached the hills of his native
state. People were cooler here and they were more prone to look at
the two sides of a question. The air, too, was unlike that of South
Carolina. There was a sharper tang to it. It whipped his blood as it
blew down from the slopes and crests.

It was afternoon when he reached the little station of Winton and left
the train, a tall, sturdy boy, the superior of many a man in size,
strength and agility. His saddle bags over his arm, he went at once
to the liveryman with whom he had left his horse on his journey to
Charleston, and asked for another, his best, for the return ride to
Pendleton. The liveryman stared at him a moment or two and then burst
into an exclamation of surprise.

"Why, it's Harry Kenton!" he said. "Harry, you've changed a lot in so
short a time! You were at the bombardment of Fort Sumter, they tell me!
It's made a mighty stir in these parts! There were never before such
times in old Kentucky! Yes, Harry, I'll give you the best horse I've
got, there ain't one more powerful in the state, but pushin' as hard as
you will you can't reach Pendleton before dark, an' you look out."

"Look out for what?"

"Bill Skelly an' his gang. Them mountaineers are up. They say they're
goin' to beat the rich men of the lowlands an' keep Kentucky in the
Union, but between you an' me, Harry, it's the hate they feel for
them that think harder an' work harder an' make more than themselves.
Bill Skelly is the worst man in the mountains an' he has gathered about
him a big gang of toughs. They're carin' mighty little about the Union
or the freedom of the slaves, but they expect to make a lot out of this
for themselves. Now I tell you again, Harry, to look out as you go
through the dark to Pendleton. The country is mighty troubled."

"I will," replied Harry, with vivid recollection of his ride from
Pendleton to Winton. "I am armed, Mr. Collins, and I have seen war.
I served in one of the batteries that reduced Fort Sumter."

He did not say the last as a boast, but merely as an assurance to the
liveryman, who he saw was anxious on his account.

"If you've got pistols, just you think once before you shoot," said
Collins. "Things are shorely mighty troubled in these parts an' they're
goin' to be worse."

"Have you heard anything of my father? Is he at Pendleto