from under lowered, bushy
brows.

"Kin you make her hush?" he inquired of Wade.

"I ain't got no interest in makin' her hush nor makin' her holler,"
returned Wade contemptuously. Dishonoured before his clan, his male
dignity sadly shorn, his woman shrieking out the wrongs and excellences
of another man--and that man a young and well-favoured enemy--his
bitterness may be forgiven.

"Fetch the lantern," ordered Jephthah briefly. "We-all have got to git
over thar and see to this business."

"Well, I'll hush--but I'm goin' along," volleyed Huldah.

"Le's us go too, Jude," pleaded Cliantha Lusk in a trembling whisper.
"I'm scared to be left here in the house with the men all gone. He might
take a notion to come and raid the place and kill us. They do thataway in
feud times. My gran' mammy----"

"Do hush!" choked Judith. But she hurried out in the wake of the
departing men, Cliantha clinging to one arm, Pendrilla to the other.

They left the doors open, the candles flaring, and nobody to guard but
the toothless old hound who slept and snored on the chip pile.

The journey to Foeman's Bluff, following the flicker of the lantern in
Wade's hand, with the voices of the men coming back to her, hoarse,
fragmentary, ejaculatory, reciting Creed's offences asseverating that
they had expected nothing else, was like a nightmare to Judith. When
Cliantha screamed and clung to her and said she thought she saw Creed
Bonbright in the bushes by the path-side, Judith shook her off angrily,
but let the clamouring little thing creep back and make her peace.

"I forgot about you and Blatch--Oh, po' Judy!" moaned Cliantha. "Ef hit
was me goin' to s'arch for the murdered body of my true love I don't know
as I could put foot befo' foot!"

"The trail's mighty narrow here--I'll go in front," said Judith. She
freed herself, and thereafter walked alone with bent head.

As they descended into the hollow Andy began to hoo-ee; and finally he
was answered from the neighbourhood of the bluff. Up this they climbed,
since on this side they were cut off from the region below it by an
impassable gulley. Halting on the top and looking down, they could see a
lantern moving about and catch faint sound of the men's voices.

"Who's down thar?" Jephthah's big rolling bass sent out the call. There
was an ominous hesitation before Jeff's perturbed tones replied,

"Hit's me, pap, me an' Buck Shalliday an' Taylor Stribling."

Andy found a tall tree at the