look at her
uncle, and a great trembling shook her limbs, so that she laid hold of a
little sapling by which she stood, and closed her eyes.

"Well," said the old man on a falling note, and his voice sounded
hollowly from the cleft, "well, I reckon this does settle it--whether
Blatch is hurt or no. How many of ye was a-workin' in the still
to-night?"

"I was," quavered Jim Cal; "me and Taylor Stribling and Buck Shalliday.
Blatch had left a run o' whiskey that had to be worked off, and when he
didn't come I turned in to 'tend to it--why, Pap?"

"Ef Bonbright wanted to find out about the still he shore made it, that's
all," answered Jephthah. "Ye can see right into it from whar he went. Ef
you-all boys wants to stay out o' the penitentiary I reckon Creed
Bonbright's got to leave the Turkey Tracks mighty sudden," and he swung
himself heavily to the level of the cliff.

"That's what I say," whispered Jim Cal, pasty pale and quivering. "We've
got it to do."

Old Jephthah looked darkly upon his sons.

"Well, settle it amongst ye, how an' when. I'll neither meddle nor make
in this business. I don't know how all o' this come about, nor what
you-all an' Blatch Turrentine air up to. You've made an outsider o' me,
an' an outsider I'll stay. Ef ye won't tell me the truth, don't tell me
no lies. Come on, gals."

He strode into the homeward trail, the four girls falling in behind his
tall figure. Judith was sick with misery and uncertainty; the Lusk girls
looked back timidly at Andy and Jeff; even Huldah was mute.

Chapter XI

The Warning

Five o'clock Friday morning found Creed, pale, hollow-eyed, a strip of
Nancy's home-made sticking plaster over the cut on brow and cheek, but
otherwise composed and as usual, at the pine table in his little shack,
working over the references which applied to the case he was to try that
morning. But an hour later brought old Keziah Provine to the door to
borrow the threading of a needle with white thread.

"I hearn they had an interruption," she began, pushing in past Nancy and
the two children, "but thar--you kin hear anything these days and times.
They most gen'ally does find trouble at these here play-parties, that's
why I'm sot agin 'em."

Poor old soul, it was not on account of her rheumatic legs, her toothless
jaws, nor her half-blind eyes that she objected to play-parties, of
course.

"I got no use for 'em," she pursued truthfully, "specially when they're
started up