shook his head dubiously.

"I heer tell thet they're some new sect," was the guarded reply. "I
don't hold with them none, myself."

"They are sensational exhorters, I take it," hazarded Jerry, and again
the preacher from across the mountain tempered his criticism with
charity:

"Folks say so. I don't aim ter jedge 'em though--leastways not till
I've sat under th'ar discourse first."

But Bear Cat was restrained by no such inhibition and his voice was
openly scornful.

"They're ther sort of preachers thet keeps folks benighted. All they
teaches is superstition an' ign'rance."

"Son," suggested Lone Stacy with a grave consideration, "I wouldn't
hardly condemn 'em unheard, ef I was you. They claims ter be preachers
of God's word, an' thar's room, a-plenty, fer all sorts an' sects."

But the younger man's eyes glowed with that tawny fire of militant
rebellion, which was awakening in him against all the shackling
influences of mental lethargy.

"They don't believe in book larnin'," went on Bear Cat contemptuously,
"because they says thar hain't no Holy Ghost in hit. They harangues so
long es thar wind holds out, an' all they keers about is how many takes
a big through at meetin'."

Jerry smiled at the characterization. He had seen men and women "take
big throughs," that hysterical--and often ephemeral declaration of
conversion which measures its over-wrought zeal by the vehemence of
outcry and bodily contortion with which the convert comes through to
the mourners' bench.

Later in the day Henderson and Bear Cat, returning from the livery
stable, were walking single-file along the narrow plank that served as
a sidewalk, when they encountered a young man, blood-shot of eye and
malevolent of expression. Either Bear Cat Stacy who was in advance or
the newcomer must step down into the mud and surrender the
right-of-way. If pedestrians so situated are friends, each will be
prompt of courtesy. If they are enemies, ethics require that the weaker
will must yield and the stronger hold to its rights.

Now Henderson perceived that the two were confronting each other
rigidly. Over Turner's shoulder he could see the bleary eyes of the
other smolder with a wrath that he knew meant blood-lust as Bear Cat
waved his hand in an imperious gesture which commanded as plainly as
words, "Give me the road!"

It was a brief and tense situation, but it was being publicly observed
and he who surrendered would be branded in street-corner