round yer neck, an' the knot a-ticklin' yer ear--yer left ear. I
'member specially. An' a-knowin' the noose is a-goin' to tighten, an'
cut off yer breath--fer always. An' a-standin' on thet-thar trap, an'
a-knowin' hit's goin' to drap--a-knowin' the bottom's a-goin' to drap
right out o'--everythin'! I don't never want my neck bruk no sech
way's thet. Hit hain't right."

Plutina, staring wide-eyed, saw to her stupefaction that tears
trickled from the eyes of the maudlin man; she heard him whimpering.
Once more, he poured himself a drink. He mumbled unintelligibly for a
little. Then, of a sudden, his voice rose in a last flare of energy,
before he rolled on the boughs in sodden slumber.

"Damn the law in this-hyar state! Hit hain't right, nohow. Jest 'cause
a feller loves a gal--to hang 'im! I hain't afeared o' nothin' else,
s'fur's I knows, but I'd hate fer to have my neck bruk like his'n was.
I hain't a-takin' no chancet o' thet. I'll wait till I'm over the
line. But hit's hell to crave a woman!"

Raucous snores told the girl that the man slept, that again she had
passed through the ordeal in safety. And now, at last, she knew the
cause of her escape thus far. The mystery that had baffled her was a
mystery no longer. Out of the creature's own mouth had come the
explanation. Driven on by gusty passion as he was, a yet stronger
emotion triumphed over lust. Of imagination he had little, but he had
seen a man hanged. His memory of that death had been her salvation,
for such is the punishment meted to the violator of a woman in North
Carolina. In Dan Hodges, that master emotion, lust, had met a
mightier--fear. Because he was a coward, he had not ventured even the
least caress, lest passion seize him and make him mad--forgetful of
how that other man died so horribly. She had been spared because
between him and her a scaffold loomed.

CHAPTER XXI

The full-throated baying of a hound. Men, far in the valleys below
Stone Mountain, looked up, and listened, wondering. But those on the
mountain heard and understood: Dan Hodges was being run to earth.

The clew offered by the wet place on the cliff had sufficed for the
three men who accompanied the stag-hound. They had marked the spot
carefully in memory by its distance from a certain stunted pine
growing above it and a rift in the precipice to one side. Then they
had ascended a furlong to the north, where the ascent was gradual and
broken. When they had made sure tha