wered. Of the three who faced him not one--lacking the
leader who had skulked away at Jephthah's approach--could have explained
just why he was there. And none of them would betray the man who had led
them there and left them to answer as best they might for their actions
to the head of the tribe.

"Uh-huh, I thort so," nodded the old man bitterly, as they yet stood
mute. "Ain't got a word to say for yo'selves. No, and they ain't a word
to be said. Yo' sons in my house. I was thar--I was standin' with ye
about this business. Why couldn't this be named to me? What call had ye
to sneak around me--to make a fool o' me, an' shame me?"

He waited. Receiving no response, he concluded as he got to the mule's
back,

"You do me thisaway once mo'--jest once mo'--and hit will be a plenty."

With that he gave Pete the rein, and the mule's receding heels flung dust
in the dismayed countenances he left behind him.

Chapter XV

Council of War

The Turrentine clan was gathering for consultation, Judith knew that. It
was Sunday, and much of this unwonted activity passed as the ordinary
Sabbath day coming and going. But there was a steady tendency of tall,
soft-stepping, slow-spoken, keen-eyed males toward old Jephthah's
quarters, and Judith had got dinner for the two long-limbed, black-avised
Turrentine brothers, Hawk and Chantry, from over in Rainy Gap; and old
Turrentine Broyles, a man of Jephthah's age, had ridden in from Broyles's
Mill that morning.

With the natural freedom of movement that Sunday offers, information from
the Card neighbourhood came in easily. Inevitably Judith learned all the
details of last night's raid; and everybody on the place knew that Creed
Bonbright was alive, and that he was not even seriously wounded. He had
been observed through the open door of Nancy's cabin moving about the
rooms inside. Arley Kittridge declared that he had seen Bonbright, in the
grey of early morning, his head bound up and his left arm in a sling,
cross from Nancy's house to his office and back again, alone.

Sunday brought the Jim Cals home, too. Iley, humiliated and savage,
bearing in her breast galling secret recollections of Pap Spiller's
animadversions on her management of Huldah, raged all day with the
toothache, and a pariah dog might have pitied the lot of the fat man.

All day, as Judith cooked, and washed her dishes, and entertained her
visitors, the events of last night's raid were present with her. When