in before daylight one morning for the
journey to town, riding his old mare, with his daughter on a pillion
behind him. With them started Lone Stacy, Bear Cat and Henderson,
though since these three must travel with only two mules, the younger
men followed the ancient custom of "riding and tying"--alternating in
the saddle and on foot.

The air held the heady bouquet of autumn now with the flavor of cider
presses and of ripened fox-grapes for the delight of the nostril and
the dreamy softness of hazy horizons for the eye.

Oak and poplar flaunted their carnival color along the hillsides.
Maples threw out scarlet and orange banners against the sedate tone of
the pines and cedars. Among the falling acorns of the woods, mast-fed
razor-backs were fattening against the day of slaughter, when for a
little while the scantily supplied cabin-dwellers would be abundantly
provisioned with pork and cider.

Bear Cat's eyes dwelt steadfastly on Blossom, and Jerry Henderson's
turned toward her oftener than he meant them to. There was, in the air,
a pervasive holiday spirit.

Roads usually so bare of travel were full now, full with a rude
procession of wayfarers; men trudging along with trailing families at
their heels; calico-clad women riding sideways on bony steeds,
sometimes bizarre in fanciful efforts at finery; tow-headed children
with wide-staring eyes.

Then at last they were in Marlin Town, rubbing shoulders with all the
narrow mountain world. There was Kinnard Towers riding among his
rifle-armed henchmen. He sat stiff in his saddle, baronially pleased as
men pointed him out,--and Jerry thought it a safe wager that Kinnard
had not come as a convert to the mourners' bench.

Towers nodded affably and shouted his salutation in passing.

But among all the strange types foregathered here with a tone of the
medieval about them and over them, none were more fantastic than the
two preachers who were to conduct the revival. Brother Fulkerson and
his party encountered this pair as they passed the Court-house. Both
were tall, cadaverous and preternaturally solemn of visage. Both wore
rusty Prince Albert coats faded to a threadbare green. One had a collar
and no necktie; the other a necktie and no collar. Between the frayed
bottoms of shrunken trousers and the battered tops of crude brogans
each showed a dusty and unstockinged shank.

"Who are these preachers we're going to hear?" inquired Jerry
Henderson, and Brother Fulkerson