He paused and sat staring absently across the river, but his eyes were taking in everything, and, as he turned his grave glance on his auditors, he was keenly studying their faces.

"What plan did you have to propose?" inquired Henry Falkins.

"It's this way," came the prompt reply. "There are just two men in this country that can talk to a Spooner an' a Falkins alike an' be hearkened to by both. You are the two men. But there are a few Spooners that won't even listen to you--and they are the meanest of the lot. It's the meanest men that make the most trouble--and these are the men that will listen to me. If we three are in town Sat.u.r.day--"

"If you are in town Sat.u.r.day, mingling with the Spooners and inflaming the Falkinses, the entire state militia couldn't maintain order," broke out old McAllister with vehement heat.

"Now, wait a minute!" And not for one minute, but ten, the returned exile talked. As they listened, the father and son saw unfold a plan of unexampled boldness and danger, particularly of danger to its proposer, but as it outlined and developed itself they began to see also a dawn of hope. The very effrontery of the thing might carry it through peril to success.

"I won't equivocate," responded the head of the Falkins family with blunt directness. "If you are honest, you deserve to be treated frankly, and, if you are not honest, there is no use in flattering you. It's not my way to flatter men. You have always been a plausible talker, and you have cloaked many criminal acts under that plausibility. On the other hand, I can't see anything which you could gain in this matter by deceit. On its face it looks fair enough--and if you come through alive, it may bring peace to the county."

Again the Spooner leader nodded gravely.

"That's worth taking a chance for, ain't it?" he inquired.

"Have you talked to any of your people?" demanded the old man as he agitatedly paced his verandah.

"No--I haven't seen a soul except those in my own house--and you. I didn't want it known yet that I was in the county. But in the next two nights I'm goin' to have speech with a half-dozen Spooners, an' they'll be a half-dozen of the strongest men."

McAllister Falkins considered for a time, and put a pertinent question.

"Can you and your half-dozen hold the Spooner crowd in check? Sat.u.r.day will be the fourth of July. There will be heavy drinking in Jackson. Can you answer for your rank and file?"

For just an instant, the grave face of the dark-haired giant lost its impa.s.sivity and something like a snort of contempt escaped his lips.

"When you drive sheep," he demanded curtly, "do you consult the fool beasts? Give me the sheep-men an' the sheep-dogs, an' I'll pretty nigh tell you where the sheep are going to."

The visitor rose and stood looking from the eyes of one to those of the other.

"We will both be in Jackson on Sat.u.r.day," said McAllister Falkins.

"Me, too," said the giant. "But I'll be there unbeknownst until the minute comes for me to show myself."

The Deacon had taken up his hat and reached the top step of the porch.

There he turned and, looking at the younger man, suggested:

"I was goin' to advise that you didn't go, Henry. Your father can do what's got to be done."

"Why?" demanded the son sharply. "You arrange that my father shall take his life into his hands in an effort to quiet a frenzied mob, and then suggest that I let him go alone? Why?"

The visitor seemed to sympathize with the sentiment.

"That's right," he conceded. "After all, you've got to go. I don't think Mr. Falkins is runnin' much risk. I don't think there's a man in these parts that would harm him or let him be harmed. But it's a little different with you. Little Newt Spooner has been pardoned out of the penitentiary. I guess you knew that?"

"So I heard. What has that to do with me?"

"Well, he's a mean little devil, that boy is, an' he's holdin' it up against you that your testimony busted his alibi."

"Now, Spooner," Old Mack spoke quietly but with an ominous force, "you have just said you could herd your sheep. If you can't handle the youngest and blackest of them, we might as well abandon the bigger experiment. If through this boy any harm comes to my son, I give you the fairest warning that for once I shall take the law in my own hands--and kill you."

Henry Falkins laughed.

"Father," he said, "there's no occasion to excite yourself. I'm not troubled about Newt."

But there was no spark of resentment in the Deacon's face. His eyes lost none of their thoughtful gentleness. He held out his hand and spoke deliberately:

"If Newt hurts Henry, Mr. Falkins, you can hold me accountable. If either of you men were hurt by one of my family, my life wouldn't be worth two bits. I reckon you know that, and you know that I know it.

I'll see to little Newt, but it wouldn't hardly have been honest not to tell Henry that the boy is nursin' a grudge." He turned and went down to the stile and turned his mule back for the twenty miles that lay between the house of McAllister Falkins and the section of Troublesome where the Spooners held dominion.

The Deacon had much to think of. He had come back from the West because he was homesick; because as the warden had told Newt: "Every mountain man that goes away drifts back to the mountains. G.o.d knows why they do it, but they do." As long as Jake Falerin influenced his tribe from Winchester Black Pete's return would be impossible. As long as the Honorable Cale Floyd lived, his influence would reach back and bear fruit in the mountains. For those reasons the Deacon had staged the shooting in Winchester. Now, with the brain and counsel of Jake Falerin stilled, he saw, in a great peace movement, a chance to beguile the lesser leaders of his foes. Having satisfied his private designs, it was nothing to him that others with equally strong grievances must pocket them and sit silent under the truce he meant to make. For a time he intended that this truce should be honestly kept, but later--

The Deacon was thinking several moves ahead. Yet he, who could dictate to a fierce faction, stood in fear of little Newt. He had stopped him once, and had promised the boy his future a.s.sistance. Newt wanted one of the only two men in the country who must not be killed; whose a.s.sa.s.sination would bring down the wrath of the state and flood the county with soldiers, and make even a timid judiciary more afraid to shield than to punish. Yet, how to stop this boy puzzled Black Pete to such an extent that, as he rode, his brow was deeply corrugated.

Inwardly he cursed bitterly the ladies who had sympathized and the Governor who had pardoned. It would have been much better to let the troublesome prisoner rot in the penitentiary.

The Deacon was not riding the county roads back to Troublesome. He was taking a shorter and steeper trail, which led over the mountains. Travel by this way was slow and arduous, but it was an isolated way and offered a better route for a man who wished to ride unseen.

At a point where the narrow trail doubled sharply around the shoulder of a hill-top and where the soft earth deadened the hoofbeats of his horse, he came unexpectedly on a walking figure. The mounted man had come around the angle so unwarnedly that he seemed to rise from nowhere. The walking figure had made an instinctive dive for the cover of the roadside brush and tangle, and then, with a realization that it was too late to escape detection, had halted and stood with his bare feet planted in the soft mud of the road and his face slowly blackening. The man on foot was Newt Spooner. He was once more dressed in mountain jeans and b.u.t.ternut, and at his side his swinging right hand clutched a repeating rifle.

The Deacon drew his horse to a standstill with an amicable nod.

"Howdy, Newt?" he greeted. The boy made no response, and shifted his weight from foot to foot, while his eyes kindled with growing fury.

About a little roadside puddle fluttered a small flock of white and lemon b.u.t.terflies, disturbed by human invasion, and on a branch overhead a squirrel ran out and stopped cautiously.

"There's a squirrel, Newt," suggested the Deacon casually. "I reckon you're squirrel-huntin', ain't you?"

But the boy did not answer, and the Deacon knew why. He was thirteen miles from home, and was stalking bigger game than squirrels.

CHAPTER XI

For a little s.p.a.ce the two men looked at each other, the Deacon to outward seeming with the casual interest of a chance meeting, and the boy with a lowering truculence which augured trouble.

The little mud-b.u.t.terflies alighted again at the edge of the puddle, and the squirrel whisked himself away.

Back on the hillsides the white elder blossoms and pink-hearted laurel cups nodded in the sleepy languor of a summer afternoon. In the overhead blue a buzzard drifted on tilting wings.

"You're right far off your beat, ain't you, son?" suggested Black Pete at length.

The sullen visage did not alter or brighten.

"I hain't none too fur off," was the surly response. "I reckon I knows what I'm a-doin'."

The Deacon nodded. He had been thankful for the momentary silence which had afforded him an interval for fast and very necessary thinking, and he had made use of the opportunity. Straight as a crow flies, Newt Spooner was making his way across crest and cove and gulch to the house of the man he had "marked down." He had been home three weeks now, and his lungs had drunk in the splendid mountain air and the elixir had begun to heal the soreness of his chest. The pallor had left his face and the native brown had come again to his skin. Newt Spooner was tough-fibered, and his recovery, as any eye could see, would now be speedy and complete. Also, he had practised with his rifle until he no longer doubted his ability to handle it, and he was going on this tuneful and gracious day at the end of June to carry out his unalterable purpose. All this the Deacon read from his eyes and from the circ.u.mstances of the meeting. The Deacon had gone to the Falkins house unarmed, as his pose of peace-advocate required, and the boy standing in the road before him had shifted the rifle with a rather marked emphasis of gesture, so that now it was cradled on his elbow, and his right hand was almost caressingly toying with the lock. This time he could command the situation, and his face said that he meant to do it.

"I reckon I know what you are aimin' to do, son," suggested the older man as he swung one leg over the pommel, and sat sidewise, looking down.