aused, then added significantly, "One way or
another--but afore thet's undertook, I 'lows ter git rid of his
protectors."

"Thet's a mighty perilous thing ter try, Kinnard," demurred the
lieutenant in a voice fraught with anxiety. "Ye kain't bring hit ter
pass without ye opens up ther war afresh--an' _this_ time they'd hev
Bear Cat ter lead 'em."

But Towers smiled easily.

"I've got a plan, Tom. They won't even suspicion I knows anything about
events. I'm goin' ter foller Mr. Henderson's counsel an' do things ther
_new_ way, 'stid of ther old."

CHAPTER VIII

Henderson found Brother Fulkerson a preacher who, more by service and
example and comforting the disconsolate than by pulpit oratory, held a
strong influence upon his people, and commanded their deep devotion.

His quiet ministry had indeed been heard of beyond the hills and even
in the black days of feudal hatred, dead lines had been wiped out for
him so that he came and went freely among both factions, and no man
doubted him.

Kindly, grave and steadfast, Henderson found him to be, and possessed
of a natively shrewd brain, as well. Blossom was usually at the
Fulkerson house when Jerry called, but she fitted silently in the
background and her eyes regarded him with that shy gravity, in which he
found an insurmountable barrier to better acquaintance.

One morning as he passed the Fulkerson abode he found the girl alone by
the gate--and paused there.

The season's first tenderness of greenery along the slopes had ripened
now to the sunburned and freckled warmth of midsummer, but the day was
young enough for lingering drops of the heavy dew to remain on the
petals of the morning-glories and the weed stalks along the roadside.
Between the waxen delicacy and rich variety of the morning-glory petals
and the bloom of the girl, Jerry fell musingly to tracing analogies.

The morning-glory is among the most plebeian of flowering things,
boasting no nobility except a charm too fragile to endure long its
coarse companionship with smart-weed and mullen, so that each day it
comes confidently into being only to shrink shortly into disappointed
death.

Blossom, too, would in the course of nature and environment, have a
brief bloom and a swift fading--but just now her beauty was only
enhanced by the pathos of its doom.

"Blossom," he smilingly suggested, "I'd like to be friends with you,
just as I am with Turner. I'm not really an evil spirit you know, yet