"When does this here co't set?" demanded Uncle Sammy.

"Hit don't do much else since he's took with the lumbago," answered
Balaam somewhat obscurely.

"How are the squire, Charley?" asked Yancy with grave concern.

"Only just tolerable, Bob."

"What did he tell you to do?" and Yancy knit his brows.

"Seems like he wanted me to find out what you'd do. He recommended I
shouldn't use no violence."

"I wouldn't recommend you did, either," assented Yancy, but without
heat.

"I'd get shut of this here law business, Bob," advised Uncle Sammy.

"Suppose I come to the Cross Roads this evening?"

"That's agreeable," said the deputy, who presently departed in company
with Carrington.

Some hours later the male population of Scratch Hill, with a gravity
befitting the occasion, prepared itself to descend on the Cross Roads
and give its support to Mr. Yancy in his hour of need. To this end those
respectable householders armed themselves, with the idea that it might
perhaps be necessary to correct some miscarriage of justice. They were
shy enough and timid enough, these remote dwellers in the pine woods,
but, like all wild things, when they felt they were cornered they were
prone to fight; and in this instance it was clearly iniquitous that Bob
Yancy's right to smack Dave Blount should be questioned. That denied
what was left of human liberty. But beyond this was a matter of even
greater importance: they felt that Yancy's possession of the boy was
somehow involved.

Yancy had declared himself simply but specifically on this point. Law
or no law, he would kill whoever attempted to take the boy from him, and
Scratch Hill believing to a man that in so doing he would be well within
his rights, was prepared to join in the fray. Even Uncle Sammy, who
had not been off the Hill in years, announced that no consideration
of fatigue would keep him away from the scene of action and possible
danger, and Yancy loaned him his mule and cart for the occasion. When
the patriarch was helped to his seat in the ancient vehicle he called
loudly for his rifle.

"Why, pap, what do you want with a weapon?" asked his son indulgently.
"If there air shootin' I may take a hand in it. Now you-all give me a
fair hour's start with this mule critter of Bob's, and if nothin' busts
I'll be at the squire's as soon as the best of you."

Uncle Sammy was given the time allowance he asked and then Scratch Hill
wended its way down the path to the branch a