The boy's eyes flashed.

"Hit hain't whut I'm _aimin'_ ter do," he declared. "Hit's whut I'm dead sh.o.r.e _a-goin'_ ter do."

"It comes to the same thing," agreed Pete imperturbably. "When a feller like you an' me has got his mind made up to a thing, there ain't much difference between aimin' an' doin'."

Suddenly it occurred to the boy that the presence of the Deacon over here was in itself worthy of explanation.

"Whut air ye a-doin' hyar?" he snapped out.

"I've just been over to Old Mack's house," replied the other frankly, and he saw the boy's att.i.tude stiffen from head to foot at the name. His shoulders grew rigid and his eyes snapped. The rifle came half-way up, and the rifle-bearer came a step forward.

"Ye didn't carry no warnin' over thar, did ye?" The question was a snarling whisper.

Black Pete laughed. It was a thing so rare for him to laugh that the boy was surprised, but at once he grew thoughtfully, even sadly grave again.

"Son," he reproached, "when we told you down in Winchester what we aimed to do, an' you turned us down, did I act like I was afraid of your warnin' anybody? Moreover, didn't I promise you that I'd help you in this business?"

"I don't need no holpin'," declared the boy vehemently; "all I asts is ter be let alone."

"All right." The Deacon swung his dangling foot back to the stirrup. "I was just goin' to name it to you that Henry Falkins ain't there. If you're set on walkin' these three miles more for nothin' and then walkin' 'em back again, go right ahead. There'll be half-a-dozen Falkinses to see you and spread the news that you've been skulkin' round the place. You'll give the whole business away without findin' your man.

If that's the way you want to play your game, go ahead."

The boy gazed at his informant with disappointed eyes, and the Deacon gazed back steadily.

"Air ye plumb sh.o.r.e thet he hain't thar? He was thar day before yestiddy. I knows thet fer sh.o.r.e." The boy spoke eagerly, but the more wily schemer shook his head with positiveness.

"He left this mornin' for Winchester. Seems he's got a girl in Winchester. Ef you're inclined, you can get up behind me, an' I'll give you a lift as far as I go."

Newt believed this story, but it only fired his wrath, and his voice was sour, as he put his next question:

"Whut in h.e.l.l wus you a-doin' over thar at McAllister Falkins' house?"

It was naturally no part of the Deacon's program to tell that. His mind was even now working rapidly in the effort to devise some permanent means of curbing Newt's sinister activities. The present device of falsification was merely a play for time and would serve a very transitory purpose.

"Oh," he said casually, "I don't mind tellin' you, but I wouldn't like it to get round much, son. I was pullin' the wool over their eyes, an'

tryin' to help out those boys that shot Jake Falerin."

But, if Black Pete Spooner could have looked far enough into the future, he would have allowed his lawless cousin to go his way and satisfy his vengeance, and would have taken his own chance on escape.

The two rode on together, up steep ascents and down into fragrant gorges where the waters whispered and the dampness of fern and moss lay between dripping bowlders. They went through densely tangled trails where the incense of the elder and catalpa was heavy to the nostrils, and climbed over steep and precipitous heights, and to neither came a throb of enthusiasm for the profligate beauty of the vistas.

"Clem's gal" had gone back to school some time ago, and it was only on vacations and Sat.u.r.days that she returned to the cabin on Troublesome.

But this afternoon, when Newt trudged in from his futile expedition across the hills, he saw her crossing the yard in the gathering twilight, and this time the boy did not growl in his throat like a quarrelsome dog at the sight of her. He would not admit to himself that he liked her, but he disliked her less than the others. She was too much like a "furriner" to please him, and too quiet. There was no element in his creed of intolerance, which could understand her gentleness. It was sheer weakness, yet in that very weakness was an appeal to something in himself, which he did not seek to a.n.a.lyze. At all events, "Clem's gal"

in a way interested him. She was young and lithe and strong; stronger than the women whom she permitted to badger her with incessant shrewishness. Also, she must be "smarter" than they, for she had been away to school. This fondness for "larnin'" in itself indicated a reprehensible spirit of acceptance for the "stuck-up" ideas of the outer world. But for that she had some excuse. Her shiftless father, for whom the boy entertained a deep contempt, had humored his daughter's ambitions so that she might in the end secure her teacher's certificate and contribute to his support. It was not an unselfish motive, but the girl, eager for education, had not questioned motives.

When Lucinda Merton had taken Newt in her buggy on the outskirts of Winchester, a vague sense of sunshine had struck through the fog of his friendlessness, and he had, for the first time, a conception of feminine graciousness. In his brief talks with Minerva the same incomprehensible thing occurred. Some unaccountable glow of sympathy awoke in him, and he felt that he need not be on the defensive, alert for treachery and enmity.

When she went away, a sort of dull loneliness settled over him, and when she came back, an unacknowledged pleasure stole into his heart.

After the supper things were put away Newt went sulkily out of the cabin and took himself to the quiet of the creek-bank, some distance away.

There was no moon, and in the starlight the mountains loomed very dark and somber against the steely night sky. The trees were unstirring and no wind moved even in their uppermost fronds. The boy sat hunched at the top of the bank with his face in his two hands and his elbows on his knees. At last, he reached into his pocket for his pipe and a few crumbs of tobacco. In the spurt of the match, his features were for an instant lighted, and Minerva, who also had slipped out of the crowded cabin for the peace of the open air and the stars, saw in the momentary illumination that it was a face very black and brooding and unhappy.

She, too, was unhappy. She was thinking how at this hour back there in the school, the little family of teachers and such pupils as had not had to come away would be sitting on the latticed porch, looking off over the campus. Later on, in the comfortable library, the man who guided the inst.i.tution with a sure and sympathetic wisdom would be reading to them under the shaded lamp, giving them wonderful glimpses of another world through the windows of books. Reflecting on these things, the girl had strayed farther away from the house than she had expected, and had come upon Newt, brooding in solitary wretchedness over the day's failure.

"Newt," she said shyly, when she came up to him, "ye looks like as ef somethin' was a-botherin' ye. Is anything wrong?"

The boy turned his head slowly, then shook it in silence.

"Nothin' to tell a gal," he answered.

In the darkness he was a black silhouette except that as he drew deep puffs the pipe-bowl reddened and gave momentary outline to his tight jaws and scowling mouth.

They sat together without talk for a time. Once a small owl flapped to a branch overhead and sent its mournful quaver out across the night. After awhile the boy groped around for a stick, and, rising with a sudden angry oath, hurled it viciously at the bird.

"d.a.m.n thet owl," he complained. "Hit worrits me."

"Newt--" the girl's voice was softly reproachful--"why did you drive it away? It wasn't hurtin' anything."

"Hit warn't a-fotchin' joy ter n.o.body," he sullenly rejoined. "I hain't a-feelin' in no fit humor ter be pestered."

Once more she inquired:

"Is anything the matter?"

He rose, and his voice broke out pa.s.sionately.

"Every man's hand is sot ergin me--but hit hain't no use. I 'lows ter accomplish my task, ef I has ter go through h.e.l.l on hossback ter do hit!"

She did not know, or vaguely suspect, that the thing he "'lowed" to do was to kill the man whom she had set high on the pedestal of her hero-worship; that his avowal was the avowal of the vendetta's l.u.s.t for blood. She saw only his isolation and need of friendliness. She did not know that in letting himself out in even that small measure of confidence, he was paying tribute to her increasing importance in his life. She knew only that her sympathy was stirred and that an affection such as she might have felt for some unlovely dog, starving for affection, made her want to befriend him.

"My hand ain't against you," she a.s.sured him, and, as the pipe glowed with a long, half-fierce inhalation, she saw his eyes on her face with a dumb, half-worshiping expression, for which his lips found no utterance.

But all the man said was:

"I'm obleeged ter ye," and after that they sat for an hour in silences rarely broken with a disconnected conversation. It was the conversation of two very lonely people groping for companionship, but one was very shy and the other was fettered with a taciturnity too strong to break, so the groping brought little more than an incoherent sympathy.

Neither of them heard the footfalls of a horse on the sandy road above them, and neither of them knew that Black Pete Spooner went into the cabin and spent a half-hour there. His coming was at once a surprise and an event, for the people in that house had not heard that he had reappeared in the hills, and they knew that where he went trouble went with him.

"Where's little Newt?" he inquired, peering about the dark corners of the room.

"He's done went out somewhars," replied his mother. "When did ye git hyar, Pete? I heered tell that ye had gone off to some place the other side of the world."

"Didn't Newt tell you I was back?"

"Newt don't never tell us nothin'," complained Clem.

The Deacon nodded. Then he drew Clem aside.