n the end they rode away and I
sorrowfully recognized their conviction that they had been running down
a false clue.

It was cold and quite dark when Dawson removed the ropes from my feet
and ordered me to walk back to the house.

That night I slept the sleep of exhaustion, and it was not until my
breakfast arrived the next morning that I awoke.

My captor should have left me in my loft that day and should himself
have remained below where he could watch for possible intrusion. But he
was overcome with a desire to talk and this impulse led to a strategic
error. He wanted to point out (now that he felt certain that I could not
be present when Marcus called his witnesses) how near I had been all
along to the town. He described to me in elaborate detail how, were I at
that moment free, I could walk in twenty-five or thirty minutes to the
court-house door and proceeded to give me satirical and exact
directions. He felt that he had achieved a Machiavellian victory, and it
pleased him to watch me squirm with a sense of frustrated possibilities.

He even explained that while the clan was gathering he, himself, must
remain away, not only because he was taxed with guarding me, but also
because he was, as he facetiously insisted, "in Virginny and too fur
away to git home."

"An' it's a damn shame, too," he confided, "because hit shore looks like
there might be fun in town to-day. All them Marcus people is gatherin'
there an' most of us fellers'll be on hand. Ef somebody gits filled up
with licker thar's mighty ap' ter be a frolic. Thet co'te room hain't
agoin' ter be no healthy place nohow." I shuddered. I was thinking that
the woman who had come on horseback across the hills to join her
husband, would probably be with him in that court-room--if he, himself,
were now able to ride.

After awhile Dawson took me up stairs, and just before he closed the
door, I pleaded that my handcuffs be removed, since one wrist was badly
galled and lacerated. For a time he steadfastly refused, but in the end
agreed to loosen the bracelet from the injured hand, and leave it
dangling to the other. All morning I had been complaining of illness,
and had seemed hardly able to move about. Indeed, my bruises were so
apparent that I was no longer a formidable antagonist. My listlessness,
in part at least, deceived him, and after the anxiety of yesterday, when
his enemies were so close on his trail, he found himself in a state of
reaction and buoyan