t and future.
Shadows and sunlight are abstract things until you see them side by
side--filtered through my branches. Winds are silent until they find
voice through my leaves.... My staunch column gives you your standard of
uprightness ... beneath me red men and white have fought and whispered
of love ... as my bud has come to leaf and in turn fallen so generation
has followed generation. For the present I bear the word of
steadfastness and courage. For the future, I bear the promise of hope."

Dorothy's lissome beauty took on a touch of something supernatural from
the magic of moonlight and soft shadow and the man slipped his arm about
her, while they looked off across the tempered nocturne of the hills and
heard the lullaby of the night breeze in the branches overhead.

"I war thinkin', Cal," said the girl in a hushed voice, "of what would
of happened ter me ef ye hedn't come. I'd be ther lonesomest body in
ther mountings of Kaintuck--but, thank God, ye _did_ come."

* * * * *

An agency for disturbing the precarious balance of peace was at work,
and the mainspring of its operation was the intriguing mind of Bas
Rowlett.

Bas had had nothing to gain and everything to lose by weakening the
pacific power of old Caleb, whose granddaughter he sought to wed, but
with a successful rival, whom he must kill or be killed by, usurping the
authority to which he had himself expected to succeed, his interests
were reversed. If he could not rule, he could wreck, and the promiscuous
succession of tragedies that would follow in the wake of such an
avalanche had no terrors to give Bas pause. Many volunteers would arise
to strike down his enemy and leave him safe on the outskirts of the
conflict. He could stand apart unctuously crying out for peace and
washing his hands after the fashion of Pontius Pilate.

Manifestly the provocation must seem to come from the Harper-Thornton
faction in order that their Doane-Rowlett adversaries might righteously
take the path of reprisal.

The device upon which the intriguer decided was one requiring such
delicate handling in both strategy and marksmanship that he dared not
trust it to either young Pete Doane or the faithful Sim Squires.

Indeed, he could trust no one but himself, and so one evening he lay in
the laurel back of the house where dwelt his universally respected
kinsman, old Jim Rowlett.

Bas had no intention of harming the old man who sat placidly