ers, and he felt sure they connected him with the revenue raid
that was about to be made, and of which they had received information.
He appreciated to the fullest extent the fact that the situation called
for the display of all the courage and coolness and nerve he could
command; but, in the midst of it all, he longed for an opportunity to
show Sis Poteet the difference between a real man and a feebleminded,
jocular rascal like Tip Watson.

His spirits rose as he stepped from the low piazza into the darkness
and made his way to where he heard the rattle of stirrups and spurs.
Some one hailed him--

"Hello, Cap!"

"Ah-yi!" he responded. "It's here we go, gals, to the wedding."

"I knowed we could count on 'im," said the voice of Tip Watson.

"Yes," said Sid Parmalee, "I knowed it so well that I fotch a extry
hoss."

"Where are we going?" Woodward asked.

"Well," said Parmalee, "the boys laid off for to have some fun, an'
it's done got so these times that when a feller wants fun he's got to
git furder up the mounting."

If the words were evasive, the tone was far more so, but Woodward paid
little attention to either. He had the air of a man accustomed to being
called up in the early hours of the morning to go forth on mysterious
expeditions.

A bright fire was blazing in Poteet's kitchen, and the light, streaming
through the wide doorway, illuminated the tops of the trees on the edge
of the clearing. Upon this background the shadows of the women, black
and vast--Titanic indeed,--were projected as they passed to and fro.
From within there came a sound as of the escape of steam from some huge
engine; but the men waiting on the outside knew that the frying-pan was
doing its perfect work.

The meat sizzled and fried; the shadows in the tops of the trees kept
up what seemed to be a perpetual promenade, and the men outside waited
patiently and silently. This silence oppressed Woodward. He knew that
but for his presence the mountaineers would be consulting together and
cracking their dry jokes. In spite of the fact that he recognised in
the curious impassiveness of these people the fundamental qualities of
courage and endurance, he resented it as a barrier which he had never
been able to break down. He would have preferred violence of some sort.
He could meet rage with rage, and give blow for blow, but how was he to
deal with the reserve by which he was surrounded? He was not physically
helpless, by any means, but