were visible, isolated in the white heat of the pitiless
day. Above the city hung a smudge, a thumbprint of oily black smoke,
carrying the suggestion of an intolerable concentration, a focal point of
the fiery discomfort. In the foreground a buzzard wheeled, inevitable,
depressing.

With a sharp flourish of his whip Gordon urged the stage into the cold
humidity of the gorge. Stenton and the plain were lost as it passed
between close, dripping rocks, rank verdure, masses of gigantic,
paleolithic fern.

IV

The dank, green smell hung in their nostrils after they had left the
ravine for a fertile tableland. They trotted through a village strung
along the road, a village of deeply-scrolled eaves under the thick foliage
of maples, of an incredible number of churches--"Reformed," "Established,"
qualified Methodist, uncompromising Baptist. They were all built of wood,
and in varying states of repair that bore mute witness to the persuasive
eloquence of their several pastors.

Beyond, the way rose once more, sunny and dusty and monotonous. The priest
was absorbed, muttering unintelligibly over a small, flexible volume. The
conversation between Lettice Hollidew and Buckley fell into increasing
periods of silence. The stranger lit a fresh cigar, the smoke from which
hung out back in such clouds that the power of the stage might well have
been mistaken for steam.

The road grew steeper still, and, fastening the reins about the whipstock,
Gordon swung out over the wheel and walked. He was a spare man, sinewy and
upright, and past the golden age of youth. He lounged over the road in a
careless manner that concealed his agile strength, his tireless endurance.
This indolent carriage and his seemingly slight build had, on more than
one occasion, been disastrously misleading to importunate or beery
strangers. He could, and did, fight whenever chance offered, with a cold
passion, a destructive abandon, that had won him, throughout the turbulent
confines of Greenstream, a flattering measure of peace.

In this manner his father, just such another, had fought before him, and
his grandfather before that. Nothing further back was known in
Greenstream, It was well known that the first George Gordon Makimmon--the
Mac had been speedily debauched by the slurring, local speech--had made
his way to Virginia from Scotland, upon the final collapse of a Lost
Cause. The instinct of the highlander had led him deep into the rugged
ranges,