ibly hurt.

I think Woodford lacked the inspiration and something of the swift
judgment of my brother, but he stopped at nothing, and was misled by no
illusions. Woodford and my brother never joined their forces. Ward did
not trust him, and Woodford trusted no man on the face of the earth.
There is an old saying that "the father's rival is the son's enemy"; and
we hated Woodford with the healthy, illimitable hatred of a child.

I was young, and the arrogance of pride was very great as I pulled up by
the tall cart. I had Cynthia red-handed, and wanted to gloat over the
stammer and the crimson flush of the traitor. I assumed the attitude of
the very terrible. Sharp and jarring and without premonition are the
surprises of youth. This straight young woman turned, for a moment her
grey eyes rested on the False Prophet and me, then a smile travelled
from her red mouth out through the land of dimples, and she laughed like
a blackbird.

"Of all the funny little boys! Dear me!" And she laughed again.

I know that the bracing influence of a holy cause has been tremendously
overrated, for under the laugh I felt myself pass into a status of
universal shrinking until I feared that I might entirely disappear,
leaving a wonder about the empty saddle. And the blush and the
stammer,--will men be pleased never to write in books any more, how
these things are marks of the guilty? For here was Cynthia, as composed
as the October afternoon, and here was I stammering and red.

"Quiller!" she pealed, "what a little savage! Do look!" And she put her
grey glove on her companion's arm.

Woodford clapped his hand on his knee, and broke out into a jeering
chuckle. "Why!" he said, "it's little Quiller. I thought it must be some
bold, bad robber."

The jeer of the enemy helped me a little, but not enough. The reply went
in a stammer. "You are all out of breath," said Cynthia; "a hill is no
place to run. The horse might have fallen."

I gathered my jarred wits and answered. "Our horses don't fall." It was
the justification of the horse first. Woodford stroked his clean-cut
jaw, tanned like leather. "Your brother," he said, "tumbled out of the
saddle some days ago. It is said his horse fell."

My courage flared. "Do you know how the Black Abbot came to fall?" I
answered.

"An awkward rider, little Quiller," he said. "Is it a good guess?"

"You know all about it," I began, breaking out in my childish anger.
"You know how that furrow as lon