hiting and to hobble the horses out and feed
them. And shrill, voluminous women came forth to get food for the men
and to wave hands and skillets wildly over the story of Cynthe
Cardinal.

The mention of the girl's name brought things back to Jeffrey Whiting.
Till now he had hardly given a thought to the girl who, by a terrible
sacrifice of the man she loved, had saved him. He owed that girl a
great deal. And the thought brought to his mind another girl. He
struck himself viciously across the eyes as though he would crush the
memory, and went out to tramp among the ashes till the dawn. His body
had no need of rest, for the exercise he had taken to-day had merely
served to throw off the lethargy of the jail; and sleep was beyond
him.

At the first light he roused the hill men and told them what the night
had told him. Unless they struck one desperate, destroying blow at the
railroad, it would come up mile by mile and farm by farm and take from
them the little that was left to them. They had been fools that they
had not struck in the beginning when they had first found that they
were being played falsely. If they had begun to fight in the early
summer their homes would not have been burned and they would not be
now facing the cold and hunger of an unsheltered, unprovided winter.

Why had they not struck? Because they were afraid? No. They had not
struck because their fathers had taught them a fear and respect of the
law. They had depended upon law. And here was law for them: the hills
in ashes, their families scattered and going hungry!

If no man would go with him, he would ride alone down to the end of
the rails and sell his life singly to drive back the work as far as he
could, to rouse the hill people to fight for themselves and their
own.

If ten men would come with him they could drive back the workmen for
days, days in which the hill people would come rallying back into the
hills to them. The people were giving up in despair because nothing
was being done. Show them that even ten men were ready to fight for
them and their rights and they would come trooping back, eager to
fight and to hold their homes. There was yet wealth in the hills. If
the railroad was willing to fight and to defy law and right to get it,
were there not men in the hills who would fight for it because it was
their own?

If fifty men would come with him they could destroy the railroad clear
down below the line of the hills and put the wor