countin' with me."

For a moment Happy did not speak. It seemed to her that the raising of
such an issue was the one thing which she lacked present strength to
face; but after a little she replied, with a resolution no less
iron-strong because the voice was gentle:

"Unless ye wants ter break my heart fer all time--ye must give me your
pledge to--keep hands off."

After a moment she added, almost in a whisper:

"He's asked me--and I've refused to marry him."

"You--refused him?" The voice was incredulous. "Why, gal, everybody
knows ye've always thought he was a piece of the moon."

"I still think so," she made gallant response. "But I wants ye to--jest
trust me--an' not ask any more questions."

The father sat there stiffly gazing off to the far ridges, and his eyes
were those of a man grief-stricken. Once or twice his raggedly bearded
lips stirred in inarticulate movements, but finally he rose and laid a
hand on her shoulder.

"Little gal," he said in a broken voice, "I reckon I've got ter suffer
ye ter decide fer yoreself--hit's yore business most of all--but I don't
never want him ter speak ter me ergin."

So Boone went out upon the hustings with none of the eager zest of his
anticipations. That district was so solidly one-sided in political
complexion that the November elections were nothing more than
formalities, and the real conflict came to issue in the August
primaries.

But with Boone's announcement as candidate for circuit clerk, old
animosities that had lain long dormant stirred into restive mutterings.
The personnel of the "high court" had been to a considerable extent
dominated by the power of the Carrs and Blairs.

Now with the news that Boone Wellver, a young and "wishful" member of
the Gregory house, meant to seek a place under the teetering clock tower
of the court house, anxieties began to simmer. Into his candidacy the
Carrs read an effort to enhance Gregory power--and they rose in
resistance. Jim Blair, a cousin of Tom Carr, threw down his gauntlet of
challenge and announced himself as a contestant, so that the race began
to assume the old-time cleavage of the feud.

On muleback and on foot, Boone followed up many a narrowing creek bed to
sources where dwelt the "branch-water folk." Here, in animal-like want
and squalor, the crudest of all the uncouth race lived and begot
offspring and died. Here where vacuous-eyed children of an inbred strain
stared out from the doors of crumbling and