that commanded the big road for some
distance. A little later Jephthah Turrentine sat in the open
threshing-floor porch of the main house smoking, Judith within was busy
looking over and washing a mess of Indian lettuce and sissles in a
piggin, when Creed rode into the yard.

The ancient hound thumped twice with a languid tail on the floor; Judith,
back in her kitchen, stayed her hand, and stared out at the newcomer with
parted lips which the blood forsook; Jephthah's inscrutable black eyes
rose to Creed's face and rested there; nothing but that aspect, pale,
desolate, ravaged, the strip of plaster running from brow to cheek,
marked the difference between this visit and any other.

Yet the old house seemed to crouch close, to regard him askance from
under lowering eyes, as though through all its timbers ran the message
that the enemy was here.

"Good morning," he hailed.

"Howdy. 'Light--'light and come in," Jephthah adjured him, without
rising, "I'm proud to see ye."

His own countenance was worn and haggard with sleeplessness and anxiety,
but with the mountaineer's dignified reticence he passively ignored the
fact, assuming a detached manner of mild jocularity.

Creed, under inspection from six pairs of eyes, though there was only one
individual visible to him, got from his mule, tethered the animal, and
came and seated himself on the porch edge.

"Aunt Nancy didn't want me to come over this morning," he began with that
directness which always amazed his Turkey Track neighbours and put them
all astray as to the man, his real meaning and intentions.

"Well, now--didn't she?" inquired the other innocently. "Hit was a fine
mornin' for a ride, too, and I 'low ye' had yo' reasons for comin' in
this direction--not but what we're proud to see ye on business or on
pleasure."

"Are any of the boys about?" asked Creed, suddenly looking up.

"I don't know adzackly whar the boys is at," compromised Jephthah,
soothing his conscience with the fiction that one might be lying in one
bed and another in some place to him unknown. "Was there any particular
one you wanted to see?"

"I was looking for Wade," said Creed briefly, and a silent shock went
through one of the men kneeling on the bed inside the log wall, peering
through a chink at the visitor.

Judith could bear the strain no longer. Torn by diverse emotions, she
snatched up a bucket, ran out of the back door and down to the spring.
Returning with it, and her com