days she and Chad had spent on the river bank long ago, and perhaps it
was the sudden thought that, with the little they had to eat in the
house and that little the same three times a day, week in and week out,
Mother Turner, who had been ailing, would like to have some fish;
perhaps it was the primitive hunting instinct that, on such a day, sets
a country boy's fingers itching for a squirrel rifle or a cane
fishing-pole, but she sprang from her seat, leaving old Jack to doze on
the porch, and, in half an hour, was crouched down behind a boulder
below the river bend, dropping a wriggling worm into a dark, still
pool. As she sat there, contented and luckless, the sun grew so warm
that she got drowsy and dozed--how long she did not know--but she awoke
with a start and with a frightened sense that someone was near her,
though she could hear no sound. But she lay still--her heart beating
high--and so sure that her instinct was true that she was not even
surprised when she heard a voice in the thicket above--a low voice, but
one she knew perfectly well:

"I tell you he's a-comin' up the river now. He's a-goin' to stay with
ole Ham Blake ter-night over the mountain an' he'll be a-comin' through
Hurricane Gap 'bout daylight termorrer or next day, shore. He's got a
lot o' men, but we can layway 'em in the Gap an' git away all right."
It was Tad Dillon speaking--Daws Dillon, his brother, answered:

"I don't want to kill anybody but that damned Chad--Captain Chad
BUFORD, he calls hisself."

"Well, we can git him all right. I heerd that they was a-lookin' fer us
an' was goin' to ketch us if they could."

"I wish I knowed that was so," said Daws with an oath. "Nary a one of
'em would git away alive if I just knowed it was so. But we'll git
CAPTAIN Chad Buford, shore as hell! You go tell the boys to guard the
Gap ter-night. They mought come through afore day." And then the noise
of their footsteps fainted out of hearing and Melissa rose and sped
back to the house.

From behind a clump of bushes above where she had sat, rose the
gigantic figure of Rebel Jerry Dillon. He looked after the flying girl
with a grim smile and then dropped his great bulk down on the bed of
moss where he had been listening to the plan of his enemies and
kinsmen. Jerry had made many expeditions over from Virginia lately and
each time he had gone back with a new notch on the murderous knife that
he carried in his belt. He had but two personal enemies al