"Do you know what little Newt aims to do?" he accusingly demanded.

Clem shook his head, and his bearded face mirrored anxiety.

"I done told ye he don't never tell us nothin'."

"Well, he's aimin' to kill Henry Falkins, an' if he does it, there's goin' ter be merry h.e.l.l to pay in these mountains. You've got to keep an eye on him."

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed the step-father in genuine fright and perplexity.

"What kin I do? He don't pay no mind to me--none whatsoever. Thet boy's a rattle-snake in human form."

The Deacon looked the other contemptuously up and down.

"No, he ain't," was the prompt retort. "A rattle-snake gives warnin', Newt don't. I'm havin' him watched pretty close. I don't want him hurt, but he mustn't kill Henry. Don't tell him I've been here, but if he starts over towards the Falkins place, send word to Jim Spooner's cabin.

Jim will go up to the ridge an' blow his fox horn, an' they'll pa.s.s it along. Try to keep him home from Jackson Sat.u.r.day, but if he does go, send word to Jim when he's started, and we'll take care of him when he gets there." The Deacon turned and disappeared through the door. He had several other houses to visit, and he had selected the night because in its darkness he could give his movements a highly beneficial secrecy.

But, on the following day, Newt met an acquaintance on a hill-trail, who stopped him for conversation and planted seeds of suspicion in his mind.

He spoke of a rumor traveling from cabin to cabin to the effect that the Deacon had returned to the hills to act as a pacificator, instead of a leader of war.

Newt said nothing and contented himself with listening, but deep in his suspicious nature uneasy doubts began to stir. A peace might be welcomed by his people, but to him it threatened the paralyzing of his trigger-finger. Possibly the wily Deacon had lied to him and turned him back for some deeper reason than merely to save him the remainder of a profitless journey.

So Newton Spooner, as soon as he had the opportunity, began strolling from cabin to cabin along the way toward the Falkins house once more. He heard, but did not know the significance of the fox horns that carried clearly from ridge to ridge, and when he had reached the wayside store of Sam Hoover, standing on a sandy stretch in the crotch of two creeks, he inst.i.tuted active inquiries.

CHAPTER XII

Sam Hoover he thought he could trust. Sam, at least, had come to him when they were taking him to prison, and had denounced the lethargy with which his kinsmen were standing idle while he went into bondage.

The store was a frame shack, presenting at its front a barrel-littered porch and a hitching-rack. Beyond one of the creek branches stood a dilapidated "meeting house" in a flat, gravel-strewn area. Sam Hoover himself sat at his door; a slouching giant in store clothes, coatless and open of vest, collarless and soiled of linen. His movements were ponderous, and his eyes were sunk in pouched sockets.

As Newt slouched up to the porch in the forenoon, the waves of heat were playing over the earth, and the mountains were torpid with mid-day stillness. This was a point about half-way between the two clan centers, and the man who trafficked here presented to each faction in turn the guise of friendship and to each played the tale-bearer under his smug semblance of neutrality.

But the place was a point from which branched the road that Henry Falkins must travel to Jackson, and the store-keeper would know when he had last pa.s.sed that way.

Now, it happened that, though the Deacon had invented on the spur of the moment his news of Henry Falkins' departure, he had come much nearer the truth than he himself guessed. Almost a week intervened before Sat.u.r.day and it had occurred to the young man, although he would have laughed had someone else made the suggestion, that the Fourth of July held some element of danger for himself. That being the case, he was possessed of a desire to see the girl in Winchester in the meantime. It might be a last chance. He had no intent of confiding in her anything that might alarm her, but he thought that with her words of love fresh in his memory he could undertake Sat.u.r.day's work armed and accoutered with a higher confidence. So, almost on the heels of the Deacon, when he had left the Falkins house, Henry had ridden, bound for Jackson and Winchester. Had Newt Spooner gone home on foot and by the county road instead of with the Deacon and by sequestered trails, the two men must have met near Hoover's store--and Henry Falkins would not have gone on to Winchester.

Sam Hoover greeted the boy with a, "Howdy, Newt?" and the boy sat on the floor of the porch with a silent nod, and leaned his shoulders against a post. At last, he questioned casually:

"Hev ye seed anything of Henry Falkins here-abouts of late?"

"He rid by hyar this week," the store-keeper responded. "Hit war either the day afore yistiddy or the day afore thet, I disremember which, but he stopped to water his horse, and pa.s.sed the time o' day with me. He 'lowed he war a-travelin' ter Winchester."

"Air ye plumb sh.o.r.e he hain't rid back?"

"He 'lowed he'd be back Satiddy--an' I hain't seen him pa.s.s by, so I reckon he warn't a-lyin'."

Newt sat watching a flock of geese that waddled down the gravel to the creek, and Hoover forbore to question him. After a s.p.a.ce the boy rose, stretched his arms and legs, and succinctly announced, "Reckon I'll be a-startin' home." He did not know that men apportioned to that task by the Deacon watched and reported his going and coming, even to the words of the brief conversation at the wayside store. Sam Hoover, however, gave his information impartially, and the Deacon was duly informed.

Henry Falkins was riding along the gleaming white ribbon of turnpike near Winchester.

Over this land was brooding one of those days of rare charm that sometimes come to the bluegra.s.s about the first of July. While the summer was yet young and while the gold-headed wheat was falling into rich shocks behind the binder blade, there had drifted into the heat a vagrant breath of Indian summer. The distances lay softened by a mistiness that clung like a haze of dreams. Into the air stole an insinuating freshness, which set the blood to a keener pulsing, and over the breast of the undulating soil hung an impalpable, but unescapable, mantle of romance.

The slim girl who sat her dancing saddle-mare with the easy grace of a daughter of generations of hors.e.m.e.n, felt it and glanced sidewise at the somewhat grave-faced young man by her side. He, too, felt it and drank in long drafts of the incensed air. He was as well mounted as herself, but his horsemanship lacked her instinctive freedom of poise. Henry Falkins, though much of his life had been spent in the saddle, had been reared to the ways of a country where men must ride rough and tortuous roads and rarely ride well. The horse of race-track and show-ring and hunting field were as alien there as the other bluegra.s.s luxuries of wainscoted halls and silent servants and groaning tables and silver-surmounted sideboards.

Even now, athrill with the joy of the moment, Henry Falkins felt at the back of his mind an oppressive sense of the humorless and brooding hills, and the humorless and brooding men who peopled them.

They were turning between stone gate-posts into a driveway that led through shaded woodlands where thorough-bred dams grazed in sleek aristocracy with leggy colts capering at their sides. Beyond was the brick house, toned by its generations to an ancient richness, with its harping pine and cedar trees about it, and at the left its garden, giving a border of bright flower mosaic.

They had not been talking much. They were both happy enough to be silent together, but as they turned into the home place Lucinda raised sparkling eyes. He was riding close, and, as his horse swerved suddenly to the side of her own mount, she leaned impulsively toward him and let her gauntleted hand drop for a moment to his bridle arm, as she whispered happily:

"My bluegra.s.s is yours, and your mountains are mine--and all the life of Kentucky is ours!"

At the broad verandah where a negro appeared to take their horses, Colonel Cameron looked up from his paper and smiled his welcome. The entire house seemed to smile a welcome. Late roses still clung along the walls where their earlier brethren were fallen to pods. The girl sat in a deep porch-chair and the setting sun gilded the landscape and rested on her delicate coloring and features as she smiled on the two men whom she loved: the old man of the pa.s.sing order of chivalry and elegance, and the young man of slowly awakening hills. And when night came the man and the girl sat alone in the shadow of an oak. Soon he must be back in the troubled highlands, but to-night was his, with its stars overhead; its sense of security and delight; its whispered talk; and, drifting from the negro cabins, the mellow cadence of songs and the tinkle of banjos. When the girl fell silent and he spoke only by the telegraphy of his hand-clasp on her slender fingers, there came to his ears the words of an old song, forgotten save by these children and grandchildren of slaves:

"Way down yander in de big bayou-- Whar de Yankee gunboats lay, Ole Ma.s.sa's tuck his hat an' coat-- An' I spec's he's runned away."

Yet, Henry Falkins was conscious of missing something that should go with the night, for there was no calling of whippoorwills from the overhead thickets of timber and no dark shadow-walls of mountains closing in about him.

Early on the morning of Sat.u.r.day, the Fourth of July, Newt Spooner left the door of the cabin on Troublesome, and went across to the stable, carrying his rifle. Under his coat was strapped Clem's revolver, and again his pockets were "strutty with ca'tridges." He vouchsafed no explanation, and Clem, though heavy-hearted with anxiety, asked no questions and attempted no dissuasion. He merely stood looking on stupidly, as the boy led out and saddled the one nag in the stable, and swung the beast's head toward Jackson, riding away in the morning mists.

Over these roads, climbing, dropping, crossing water-courses sometimes by a dozen fords to the mile, he did not hurry. He would not reach Jackson by the north road until about ten o'clock, and then he would drift quietly and unostentatiously about for a while, watching the gathering of the two clans. There might be general trouble or there might not; but until noon quiet would prevail. The Deacon had certain plans and would be in command. The boy was learning the lesson of craft.

He meant to see the Deacon and a.s.sure him that he had given up his plan of private revenge. He would even volunteer for such service to the clan as Black Pete should suggest. Having so disarmed suspicion, he could have a free hand, and, when his chance came, could employ it. Once avenged, he was ready to answer for his treachery.

The usually deserted roads were no longer empty. From every trail men were riding townward. The rumor had gone broadcast that to-day would be eventful, and from both sides of the line the clans were gathering. Many of them arrived early, and instinctively Spooners grouped themselves on one side of the street and Falkinses on the other. Rifles were much in evidence, but with this exception there was as yet no sign of trouble.

As Newt had ridden out of the stable-lot, Minerva had come to the door of the cabin. On the Fourth of July there were no cla.s.ses at the college, and the girl was back. She saw her father gaze after the departing horseman and then turn with a sagging jaw and an expression of genuine alarm in his eyes. She heard him shout a summons to his younger step-son, and a premonition of danger arose in her heart.

She ran over to the stable, and caught Clem Rawlins by the arm.

"What is it, pappy?" she demanded.

He turned a frightened face toward her, and licked his bearded lips. For a moment he was silent, then he blurted out with no preface or preparation:

"Newty's done sot out fer Jackson ter git Henry Falkins."

With a gasp which she struggled vainly to suppress, the girl reeled back and stood leaning for support against the rough timbers of the stable.

For a moment she could not understand, and when she found words she asked in a dazed voice:

"To get Henry Falkins--why?"

Over the hills the mists were slowly lifting. The upper peaks still trailed over their heights, veil-like streamers of gray mists which blotted out all outlines; but below them pale and iridescent patches of color glowed with indescribable delicacy and beauty. The miracle of awakening morning in the mountains was fulfilling itself. There before her the girl saw the crude barn and heard the grunting of razor-backs and the voices of the geese as they waddled down toward the water. She saw her father brushing his arm across his face, and shouting at intervals for his younger step-son. Once more she repeated: