to yell
and attract his or her attention. Only an occasional word could he
understand, but once a girl's voice very distinctly cried: "Dale, run
for it! Out the back way, and I'll help you!--They're almost at the
lane!"

A feeling of pleasure swept through the listener as he realized that she
was warning the mountaineer--that there was yet a chance! "They," must
have meant the sheriff and his darky boy attendant, for it was just
about time they should have covered the distance to Arden. But this
momentary triumph was succeeded by a heavy, sickening dread as he
realized that she must now know the truth; that the horrible
disappointment he would have spared her must have fallen--must now be
crushing her--since, otherwise, she would not be there warning. Yet, as
he leaned forward trying to catch more and not hearing it, he thought
how willingly he would change places with the murderer for just those
expressions of pleading from her lips!

"Excuse me, Mr. McElroy," Miss Gregget was saying, rather coolly because
of his impertinence in mussing her hair, "there are other calls--I'd
better take the board!"

He turned then and went down the stairs. He was stunned, but he was
smiling as he stepped out on the street which would bring him in contact
with men he knew. Crossing diagonally the shaded green where gray haired
"boys" pitched horse shoes at a peg--the "cou'thouse squar," bounded by
the town's four streets--he deliberately sat upon the whittled steps of
that old building, at about the moment Jess was ringing the Colonel's
front door bell.

Dale had stood as still as marble, except to moisten his lips which were
becoming very dry. He had been willing enough to accept Brent's plan of
refuge, before a blood equation developed, but now things were
different. His honour, as a man of the mountains knows and sustains his
honour, would permit him but one course.

"Brent ain't to be relied on, when it comes to this business," he said,
at last.

"Now, look-ee-heah," the sheriff bristled again, "I don't let no man
make Brent out a liar; I don't kyeer who he is!"

"I ain't makin' Brent out a liar, Jess; but you don't know how this
thing is! The night after I killed Tusk, Brent came in my room an' said
he's goin' to take the blame. He said he was doin' it for the fun of the
thing; but I knew better'n that from somethin' I heard one time. I knew
he was doin' it for Miss Jane. I reckon I was so blame thankful I didn't
think of