the more I wanted ye. Hit shames me, but hit's true as
preachin'. An' hit's true yit--even arter seein' yer bare futprint
tracks thar on the Branch, alongside them of a man with shoes--the
damned revenuer what got us. Ye showed 'im the place, Plutiny
Siddon--cuss ye, fer a spy!... An' I craves ye jest the same.... An'
I'll have ye--right soon!"

At this saying, terror mounted high in the girl. The thing she so
dreaded was come to pass. She forgot, for a few moments, the threats
against her lover. Despair crushed her in the realization of
discovery. Her treachery was known to the man she feared. The peril
she had voluntarily risked was fallen upon her. She was helpless, at
the mercy of the criminal she had betrayed--and she knew that there
was no mercy in him. She shrank physically, as under a blow, and sat
huddled a little, in a sudden weakness of body under the soul's
torment. Yet she listened with desperate intentness, as Hodges went on
speaking. She cast one timid glance toward him, then dropped her gaze,
revolted at the grotesque grimaces writhen by the man's emotions.

"Harkin to me, Miss Plutiny!" he pleaded, huskily. "Harkin to me! I
knows what I'm a-doin' of. They hain't nothin' ye kin do to stop me.
Kase why? Wall, if ye love yer gran'pap, ye'll hold yer tongue 'bout
all my talk. Yep! He's done pledged his land to keep me an' Ben out o'
the jail-house till cote. If ye tells 'im I'm a-misusin' o' ye, he'd
cancel the bond, an' try to deliver me up. I knows all thet. But he
wouldn't cancel no bond, an' no more he wouldn't do any deliverin' o'
me up. Kase why? Kase he'd jest nacherly die fust. Thet's why. The
land'd be good fer the bond jest the same till Fall. Thet'd give me
an' Ben a heap o' time to git ready to light out o' this-hyar kentry.
They hain't nary pusson a-goin' to bother us none. They knows hit's
healthier a-mindin' their own business. I been dodgin' revenuers
fifteen year, an' I'll dodge ag'in, an' take my savin's along, too.
An' they's quite some savin's, Plutiny."

Hodges paused, as if to give greater impressiveness to the conclusion
of his harangue. His voice as he continued held a note of savage
finality.

"So, ye understand, Plutiny, I hain't afeared none arter what I done
told ye'll happen, if so be ye talk. I knows ye love yer gran'pap, an'
hain't a hankerin' fer 'im to be murdered. Now, I'm gwine to leave ye
till t'-morrer, to git kind o' used to the idee as how ye're gwine to
leave th