ning
admiration, and Victor McCalloway only nodded as he repeated,

"Yes, I've heard of him."

Then as the traveller gathered up his reins to start onward, a tall
young man came, with the swing of an elastic stride, around the next
turn and, nodding to the boy, halted at the mule's head. He was an
upstanding fellow, of commanding height, and the tapering staunchness of
a timber wedge. He carried a rifle upon his shoulder and his
clear-chiselled face bore the pleasant recommendation of straight-gazing
candour. His clothing was rough, yet escaped the seeming of roughness,
because it sat upon his splendid body and limbs as if a part of
them--like a hawk's plumage. But it was the eyes under a broad forehead
that were most notable. They were unusually fine and frank; dark and
full of an almost gentle meditativeness. Here was a native, thought the
man on the mule, whose gaze, unlike that of many of his fellows, was
neither sinister nor furtive. Here was one who seemed to have escaped
the baleful heritage of grudge-bearing.

Then McCalloway's thought was interrupted by the voice of the boy
declaring eagerly: "This hyar furriner 'lows ter ride over ter Cyrus
Spradlin's dwellin' house. We've jest been talkin' erbout ye--an' he's
already done heered of ye, Asa!"

The tall man on foot stiffened, at the announcement, into something like
hostile rigidity, and the velvet softness of eye which, a moment ago, a
woman might have envied, flashed into the hard agate of suspicion.

He stood measuring the stranger for an uncompromising matter of moments
before he spoke, and when words came they were couched in a steely
evenness of tone. "So ye've heerd of me--hev ye?"

He paused a moment after that, his face remaining mask-like, then he
went on:

"I reckon whatever ye heered tell of me war either right favourable or
right scandalous--dependin' on whether ye hed speech with my friends--or
my enemies. I've got a lavish of both sorts."

McCalloway also stiffened at the note of challenge.

"I never talked to any one about you," he rejoined crisply. "I read your
name in newspapers--as did many others, I dare say."

"Yes. I reckon ye read in them papers thet I kilt Old Man Carr. Wa'al,
thet war es true es text. I kilt him whilst he was aimin' ter lay-way
me. He'd done a'ready kilt my daddy an' I was ridin' inter Marlin Town
ter buy buryin' clothes--when we met up in ther highway. Thet's ther
whole hist'ry of hit."

"Mr. Gregory," th