as she saw the returning pair she began to repeat again
the details of her information--how she had glimpsed the hidden man
through the bushes, how she knew in reason he could be none other than
Blatch. Nancy exchanged a glance of intelligence with Creed.

"Ye see!" she murmured, aside. "Ef she _ain't_ a decoy they've sont, she
don't know nothin' for sartin."

"I'm scared of all the Turrentines," Huldah declared. "They're awful
folks. From the old man down to Jude, they scare me. I reckon Jude's had
a big hand in this," she went on excitedly. "Her and Blatch is goin' to
wed shortly, and she'd be shore to know any meanness he was into. I'll be
glad to git shet of sech. When you're ready to be a-steppin' Creed, I
am."

She looked up at the young fellow with a sort of unwilling worship.

"I don't aim to go with you, Huldah," he said gently. "You love Wade
Turrentine, and Wade loves you; you was to be wedded this fall. I don't
aim for any affairs of mine to part you two."

The girl hung her head, painfully flushed, her eyes full of tears.

"I don't care nothin' about Wade," she choked. "Him and me has----"

"I reckon you've quarrelled" said Creed, sympathetically. "That needn't
come to anything. I'm going over and talk to Jephthah Turrentine
to-morrow morning, and I want you to come with me!"

"No," said Huldah getting to her feet and looking strangely at him. "The
rain's about done now; the moon'll be comin' up in half a hour--I'm
a-goin' on down to Hepzibah, like I said I was. Ef Wade Turrentine wants
me, he knows whar to come for me. Ef he thinks of me as he said he did
the last time we had speech together--w'y, I never want to put eyes on
his face again. Oh--Creed, I wish't you'd come with me!"

"But it was me you quarrelled about," remonstrated Bonbright with that
sudden clear vision which ultra-spiritual natures often show, and that
startling forthrightness of speech which amazes and daunts the
mountaineer. "I'm the last man you ought to leave the mountain with,
Huldah, if you want to make up with Wade."

"How--how did you know?" whispered the girl, staring at him. "Well,
anyhow, I ain't never a-goin' back thar."

She could not be prevailed on to go to bed with Aunt Nancy, when Doss
Provine and the children were asleep, and Creed had gone to his quarters
in the little office building, but sat by the fire all night staring into
the embers, occasionally stirring them or putting on a stick of wood. At
the ea