f face, whose elbow
cradled a repeating rifle.

"I reckon ye be Jerry Henderson, hain't ye?" inquired a suave and
amicable voice, and with a nod Jerry replied, "Yes--and you are Joe
Stacy?"

The man, slight but wiry and quick of movement, shook his head. "No--my
name's John Blackwell. Joe, he couldn't hardly git hyar hisself, so he
sent me in his stid but I reckon me an' ther boys kin put ye over ther
route, without _dee_fault."

As if in corroboration of this assurance Jerry saw shadowy shapes
materializing out of the empty darkness and as he mounted the extra
horse provided for him he counted the armed figures swinging easily
into their saddles. There were eight of them. His personal escort was
larger than that with which Towers himself traveled abroad.

But when the cortege swung at length into an unfamiliar turning Jerry
was startled and demanded sharply: "Why are we leaving the high road?
This isn't the way to Lone Stacy's house."

The man who had met him bowed with a reassuring calmness.

"No, but Joe 'lowed hit would be safer an' handier, too, fer ye ter
spend ther night at his house on Skinflint. Hit's nigher an' all these
men air neighbors of his'n. Ter-morrow you kin fare on ter Little
Slippery by daylight."

With an acquiescent nod, Henderson relapsed into silence and they rode
in the starlight without sound save the thud of cuppy hooves on muddy
byways, the straining creak of stirrup straps and a clinking of
bit-rings.

Finally the cavalcade halted at a crossing where the shadows lay in
sooty patches and its leader detached himself to engage in low-voiced
converse with someone who seemed to have been suddenly created out of
the pitchy thickness of the roadside.

Soon Blackwell rode back and, with entire seriousness, made a startling
suggestion.

"Right down thar, in thet valley, Mr. Henderson--whar ye kin see a
leetle speck of light--sets Kinnard Towers' Quarterhouse. Would hit
pleasure ye ter stop off thar an' enjoy a small dram? Hit's a
right-chillin' night."

The railroad's agent had never visited that place of whose ill repute
he had heard such bizarre tales, but in all this high, wild country, he
thought, there was no other spot of which it so well behooved his party
to ride wide. John Blackwell was lighting his pipe just then and by the
flare of the match Henderson studied the face for a glint of jesting,
but the eyes were humorless and entirely sober.

"I think we'd better give the Qu