if I have to take down that old gun from the kitchen wall to
keep you away from here till Isom comes home, I'll take it down. You can
come to the gate tonight if you want to, but if you do----"

Joe looked him straight in the eyes. Morgan's face lost its color. He
turned as if to see that his horse was still standing, and stood that
way a little while.

"I guess I'll drive on off, Joe," said Morgan with a sigh, as if he had
reached the conclusion after a long consideration.

"All right," said Joe.

"No hard feelin's left behind me?" facing Joe again with his old,
self-assured smile. He offered his hand, but Joe did not take it.

"As long as you never come back," said Joe.

Morgan walked to the fence, his head bent, thoughtfully. Joe followed,
as if to satisfy himself that the wily agent was not going to work some
subterfuge, having small faith in his promise to leave, much less in the
probability that he would stay away.

Joe stood at the fence, looking after Morgan, long after the dust of his
wheels had settled again to the road. At last he went back to the place
where he had dropped his scythe, and cut a swath straight through to the
tree where Ollie's bonnet had hung. And there he mowed the trampled
clover, and obliterated her footprints with his own.

The weight of his discovery was like some dead thing on his breast. He
felt that Ollie had fallen from the high heaven of his regard, never to
mount to her place again. But Isom did not know of this bitter thing,
this shameful shadow at his door. As far as it rested with him to hold
the secret in his heart, poison though it was to him, Isom should never
know.

CHAPTER VI

BLOOD

Joe had debated the matter fully in his mind before going in to supper.
Since he had sent her tempter away, there was no necessity of taking
Ollie to task, thus laying bare his knowledge of her guilty secret. He
believed that her conscience would prove its own flagellant in the days
to come, when she had time to reflect and repent, away from the
debauching influence of the man who had led her astray. His blame was
all for Morgan, who had taken advantage of her loneliness and
discontent.

Joe now recalled, and understood, her reaching out to him for sympathy;
he saw clearly that she had demanded something beyond the capacity of
his unseasoned heart to give. Isom was to blame for that condition of
her mind, first and most severely of all. If Isom had been kind to her,
and