le Dick. The veteran had learned from his bride
concerning the disfavor in which Zeke was held, and the reason for it.
It seemed to him the part of wisdom, in this crisis, to feign
ignorance, and he blandly suggested, on the return of the two from the
fallen poplar, that they should ride to Joines' store in the evening,
there, over the telephone, to dispatch a telegram to Zeke in New York.
It was the psychological moment for success. There was not even a
flicker of resentment aroused. Uncle Dick remembered that the Quaker
school-teacher spy had been saved by Zeke from Dan Hodges. In his new
mood, that fact was enough to overcome all rancor against the lad.
Moreover, he realized the tragedy of Plutina's fate to her lover, and
he was moved to compassion. He accepted the veteran's suggestion
without a word of remonstrance.

It was Seth Jones, too, who broke down the old man's last prejudice by
persuading him to summon Marshal Stone. Uncle Dick yielded with an odd
mingling of emotions--shame and relief: shame over such trafficking
with the "revenuers," whom he had consistently fought and despised
through three generations; relief that he had gained the strong arm of
the law to his side. He had been greatly heartened when Stone answered
over the wire that he would set out with a posse at midnight for the
Siddon cabin, so that, after a conference there, the active work of
searching could be begun promptly at dawn.

Thus, it came about that, for the first time in history, Uncle Dick
Siddon welcomed the sound of hoofbeats pounding up the trail through
the darkness. Where, aforetime, he would have leaped to wind a blast
of warning to the moonshiners above against the coming of the
"revenuers," the old man now hastened to the cabin door, and flung it
wide, and went forth on the porch to give grateful greeting.

When a council had been held, three parties set forth. Seth Jones was
the guide for one, which went to the northeast, through the Bull Head
Mountain region, whither, in all likelihood, the outlaw would make his
way, if he meant to escape out of the country. The marshal, with one
companion, skirted Stone Mountain. Uncle Dick led two of the posse to
the yellow poplar where the struggle had occurred, after which they
would follow the general direction of the tracks. The marshal expected
to make a circuit of the mountain rapidly enough to effect a junction
with Uncle Dick's party by noon, at the Woodruff Gate. The veteran an