had never heard before. "Forgive
your enemies as He had forgiven his," that was his plea. Marcums and
Braytons began to press in from the darkness on each side, forgetting
each other as the rest of the people forgot them. And when the story
was quite done, Raines stood a full minute without a word. No one was
prepared for what followed. Abruptly his voice rose sternly--"Thou
shalt not kill"; and then Satan took shape under the torch. The man was
transformed, swaying half crouched before them. The long black hair fell
across the white scar, and picture after picture leaped from his tongue
with such vividness that a low wail started through the audience, and
women sobbed in their bonnets. It was penalty for bloodshed--not in this
world: penalty eternal in the next; and one slight figure under the dips
staggered suddenly aside into the darkness.

It was Isom; and no soul possessed of devils was ever more torn than
his, when he splashed through Troubled Fork and rode away that night.
Half a mile on he tried to keep his eyes on his horse's neck, anywhere
except on one high gray rock to which they were raised against his
will--the peak under which he had killed young Jasper. There it was
staring into the moon, but watching him as he fled through the woods,
shuddering at shadows, dodging branches that caught at him as he passed,
and on in a run, until he drew rein and slipped from his saddle at the
friendly old mill. There was no terror for him there. There every bush
was a friend; every beech trunk a sentinel on guard for him in shining
armor.

It was the old struggle that he was starting through that night--the old
fight of humanity from savage to Christian; and the lad fought it until,
with the birth of his wavering soul, the premonitions of the first dawn
came on. The patches of moonlight shifted, paling. The beech columns
mottled slowly with gray and brown. A ruddy streak was cleaving the east
like a slow sword of fire. The chill air began to pulse and the mists to
stir. Moisture had gathered on the boy's sleeve. His horse was stamping
uneasily, and the lad rose stiffly, his face gray but calm, and started
home. At old Gabe's gate he turned in his saddle to look where, under
the last sinking star, was once the home of his old enemies. Farther
down, under the crest, was old Steve Brayton, alive, and at that moment
perhaps asleep.

"Forgive your enemies;" that was the rider's plea. Forgive old Steve,
who had mocked him,