k me ter be disloyal ter my own kith an' kin, would ye?"

"No--but I would ask you to have a higher loyalty."

Boone stood trembling like an ague victim. It was no light matter for
him to give so binding a pledge.

"No Gregory ner no Wellver hain't nuver died on ther gallows tree yit,"
he faltered. "Thar's two things I'd done swore ter do. One of 'em was
ter git Saul. I reckon, though, thet could wait."

"What is the other thing?"

"Thet afore they hangs him--some fashion or other--I've got ter git a
gun in thar ter Asa ... so he kin kill hisself. Hit hain't fitten thet
he should die by a rope like a common feller!"

The emotion-laden voice became almost shrill. "Even ther Carrs an'
Blairs don't _hang_. They come nigh ter hangin' one oncet, but a kinsman
saved him."

"How?" inquired McCalloway, and the boy responded gravely:

"He lay up on ther hillside an' shot his uncle ter death as they was
takin' him from the jail-house ter ther gallows."

Truly, reflected the soldier, he was modelling with grim and stiff clay,
but he only said:

"Promise me that, as to Saul, you will wait--until you are twenty-one."

Boone did not reply for five full minutes, but at the end of that time
he nodded his head. "I kain't deny ye nothin', atter what ye've done fer
me," he assented briefly.

Then McCalloway read from the paper his scrap of encouragement. The
Court of Appeals had granted the Secretary of State a rehearing.

"But thet hain't Asa," objected the boy. "I don't keer nothin' erbout
thet feller."

McCalloway smiled.

"It's a similar case, tried by the same court, and involving the same
principles. It indicates that Asa will have a new trial, too."

"Ef he comes cl'ar," announced Boone, with the suddenly rocketing
spirits of boyhood, "I reckon Asa kin handle his own affairs."

McCalloway had set himself to preparing Boone within a year from that
fall for entrance into the state university. There was but a faint
background of prior attainment against which to paint many things, but
there was an avidly acquisitive pupil, a tireless teacher, and an
intensive plan of education.

Gregory was still in the Louisville jail--where, indeed, a half dozen
other years were yet to find him. The Secretary of State had come
through his second trial with a second conviction, and had once more
been granted a rehearing.

Saul Fulton, the star witness in Asa's trial, had disappeared, and
report had it that he had gone to South