al over in Lonesome Cove."

"Yes."

"Young Dave Tolliver thinks you found somethin' else thar, too,"
chuckled the Red Fox.

"I did," said Hale coolly, and the old man chuckled again.

"She's a purty leetle gal--shore."

"Who is?" asked Hale, looking calmly at his questioner, and the Red Fox
lapsed into baffled silence.

The moon was brilliant and the night was still. Suddenly the Red Fox
cocked his ear like a hound, and without a word slipped swiftly within
the cabin. A moment later Hale heard the galloping of a horse and from
out the dark woods loped a horseman with a Winchester across his saddle
bow. He pulled in at the gate, but before he could shout "Hello" the Red
Fox had stepped from the porch into the moonlight and was going to
meet him. Hale had never seen a more easy, graceful, daring figure on
horseback, and in the bright light he could make out the reckless face
of the man who had been the first to flash his pistol in town that
day--Bad Rufe Tolliver. For ten minutes the two talked in whispers--Rufe
bent forward with one elbow on the withers of his horse but lifting his
eyes every now and then to the stranger seated in the porch--and then
the horseman turned with an oath and galloped into the darkness whence
he came, while the Red Fox slouched back to the porch and dropped
silently into his seat.

"Who was that?" asked Hale.

"Bad Rufe Tolliver."

"I've heard of him."

"Most everybody in these mountains has. He's the feller that's always
causin' trouble. Him and Joe Falin agreed to go West last fall to end
the war. Joe was killed out thar, and now Rufe claims Joe don't count
now an' he's got the right to come back. Soon's he comes back, things
git frolicksome agin. He swore he wouldn't go back unless another Falin
goes too. Wirt Falin agreed, and that's how they made peace to-day. Now
Rufe says he won't go at all--truce or no truce. My wife in thar is
a Tolliver, but both sides comes to me and I keeps peace with both of
'em."

No doubt he did, Hale thought, keep peace or mischief with or against
anybody with that face of his. That was a common type of the bad man,
that horseman who had galloped away from the gate--but this old man with
his dual face, who preached the Word on Sundays and on other days was a
walking arsenal; who dreamed dreams and had visions and slipped through
the hills in his mysterious moccasins on errands of mercy or chasing men
from vanity, personal enmity or for fun, and s