t it hid
somewhar."

"If I had a million I wouldn't give you a cent."

"Mout change yo' tune befo' this thing is over with."

"Yes," said Jasper, "I mout whistle a dead march."

"Not over me," Peters replied.

"Yes, over you."

"You're a liar."

Starbuck slapped him in the face, and springing back, Lije cocked the
pistol and raised it to shoot.

"Hold on a minute--just one minute," said Starbuck, and with the pistol
leveled, Peters stood looking at him.

"Yes, I'll give you one minute, Starbuck, an' that is all. If you move
I'll kill you."

"If I do move, you scoundrel, it will be to kill you. Why, you po'
fool--"

"Starbuck, any fool can be game--I thought I know'd all about you, but I
never know'd befo' that you was so cool."

"Cool," Jasper repeated, "I ain't half as cool as you air keerless. I
could kill you with that axe an' you couldn't help yo'se'f. That pistol
won't shoot. Look! When you cocked it the cap fell off."

CHAPTER XVIII.

DOWN THE ROAD.

With his old pistol useless in his hand the ruffian walked away, shaking
his head and muttering that a time was coming soon. "And with help from
off yander," Jasper heard him shout from the road. "I have cut down the
tree whar that bullet lodged and burnt it with a slow fire, and the fire
that's to burn another tree, a scrub oak, may be slow but it is a
comin'. Do you hear me over thar?"

"A man has to be mighty deaf not to hear a wolf howl," Jasper replied,
and took his way back to the mill where Laz and Margaret were waiting
for him.

"Was it Peters you saw goin' into the yard?" Margaret inquired, and the
old fellow answered: "Looked mighty like him--fur a time I thought it
was, but my eyes ain't as good as they was."

In the meantime Jim was fighting his way through the briars and over the
rough ground of the short cut from the little county town. And when he
reached the road he saw Mrs. Mayfield coming to meet him. "The preacher
wasn't at home," he said, as he came near to her, "but I left word for
him and he will be here soon. Do the folks know anything about it yet?"

"I told your uncle, but he seemed already to know." She gave a tender
account of the scene in the yard, of Tom and Lou, and he said that like
his uncle he had already known. "Fate got out of the wagon when you
drove up to the gate, ma'm--honey," he said; "and I am thankful to the
Lord that in no wise was it cruel onesidedness. I couldn't tell that Tom
loved Lou, b