d the muzzle of one pistol to Peters's head, and with the
other he covered one of the two henchmen in the recess of the little
rock house. The other sprang up from a barrel where he sat wiping his
mouth with the back of his hand; but Jerry, suddenly realizing the
situation, put out a dexterous foot, and the horse-thief fell full
length upon the floor, his pistol discharging as he went down. In the
clamor of the echoes, and the smoke and the flare, Persimmon Sneed
disappeared, hearing as he went a wild protest, and a nimbleness of
argument second hardly to his own, as Nick Peters cried out that he
was robbed, his hard earnings were wrested from him, the money was
his, paid him as a price, and Con Hite had let Mr. Persimmon Sneed run
off with it, allowing him nothing for his trouble.

"It war his money," Con Hite averred, when they had grown calmer, and
Jake Glenn had returned from a reconnoissance with the news that
Hite's father had lent the fleeing Persimmon a horse, and he was by
this time five miles away in the Cove. "_He_ could have paid you for
yer trouble in ketchin' him ef he had wanted ter."

"It war _not_ his money," protested Peters, with tears in his eyes.
"It war sent ter me willingly, fur a valid consideration, an' ye let
him hev the money, an' his wife hev got the valid consideration--an'
hyar I be lef' with the bag ter hold!"

It may be that Peters had absorbed some of the craft of argument by
mere propinquity to Persimmon Sneed, or that Con Hite's conscience was
unduly tender, for he long entertained a moral doubt touching his
course in this transaction,--whether he had a right to pay the ransom
money which Nick Peters had extorted from Persimmon Sneed's wife to
Persimmon Sneed himself, thereby defrauding Nick Peters of the fruit
of his labor. Perhaps this untoward state of dubitation came about
from Narcissa's scornful comment.

"Ye mought hev known that old man Persimmon Sneed would have made off
with the money," she said, remembering his reproving glare at her. "I
wouldn't hev trested him with a handful o' cornfield peas."

"But I expected him ter make off with it," protested the amazed Con;
"that's why I gin it ter him."

"Then ye air jes' ez bad ez he is," she retorted coldly.

And thus it was he examined his conscience.

Persimmon Sneed had no doubts whatever as to the ownership of the
money in his pocket, when one fine morning he walked into his own
door, as dictatorial, as set in his own