at the edge of the town, Henderson
and Bear Cat strolled back together toward the shack tavern where Jerry
had his quarters. The younger man's eyes were brooding, and suddenly he
broke out in vehement insurgency:

"I reckon I was a fool down thar by ther river--but I couldn't hold my
peace deespite all my effort. Hyar's a land dry-rottin' away in
ign'rance--an' no man raisin' his voice fer its real betterment." His
tone dropped and became gentle with an undernote of pain. "I looked at
Blossom, standin' thar, with a right ter ther best thar is--an' I could
foresee ther misery an' tribulation of all this makin' her old in a few
years. I jest had ter speak out."

Henderson only nodded. He, too, had been thinking of Blossom, and he
realized that wherever he went, when he left the hills, there was going
to be an emptiness in his life. He was not going to be able to forget
her. The shield which he had always held before his heart had failed to
protect him against the dancing eyes of a girl who could not even speak
correct English--the tilted chin of a girl who would not flee from a
mob.

"Turner," he said, drawing himself together with an effort, "come over
to the hotel with me. I'm going down to Louisville for a few days, and
I want you to help me make out a list of books for Blossom and
yourself."

Turner's eyes lighted. One man at least sought to be, in so far as he
could, a torch-bearer.

As they sat talking of titles and authors the boy's face softened and
glowed with imagination. Off through the window the peaks bulked
loftily against the sunset's ash-of-rose. Both men looked toward the
west and a silence fell between them, then they heard hurried footsteps
and, without knocking, Jud White the town marshal, flung open the door.

"Bear Cat," he announced briefly, "yore paw bade me fotch ye ter him
direct. The revenue hes got him in ther jail-house, charged with
blockadin'."

CHAPTER XI

Under the impact of these tidings Turner Stacy came to his feet with a
sudden transformation of bearing. The poetic abstraction which had, a
moment ago, been a facial mirror for the sunset mysticism, vanished to
be harshly usurped by a spirit of sinister wrath.

For several seconds he did not speak, but stood statuesquely taut and
strained, the line of his lips straight and unbending over the angle of
a set jaw.

The yellow glow of the sinking sun seemed to light him as he stood by
the window into a ruddy kinship wit