ed nine or ten, and
an ill-advised tongue might precipitate an immediate attack on the
dismounted, unarmed group awaiting his return at the verge of the
bluff. A genuine thrill of terror shook him as he realized that at any
moment he might be followed by men as ill prepared as he to cope with
the horse-thief's gang.

"I see ye rid," said Nick Peters, observing his acquaintance's spurs.
"Yer frien's rid, too, I s'pose?"

Persimmon Sneed, desirous of seeming unsuspicious, merely nodded. He
seemed as suspicious, in fact, as watchful, as stanch, as ready to
spring, as a leopard in a cage. His thin lips were set, his alert
eyes keen, his unshaven, stubbly jaws rigid, his whole body at a high
tension. The man of quicker perceptions was first to drop the
transparent feint, but only to assume another.

"Now, Mr. Sneed," he said, with an air of reproach and upbraiding, "do
ye mean ter tell me ez ye hev kem up hyar with the sheriff or dep'ty
ter nose me out; me, who hev got no home,--folks burned my house ter
the yearth, namin' _me_ 'horse-thief' an' sech,--nor frien's, nor
means, nor havin's, plumb run ter groun' like a fox or sech?"

"Ef ye did"--said a gigantic ruffian who had come up, backed by a
shadow twice his size, and stood assisting at the colloquy, looking
over the shoulder of his wiry little chief. He left the sentence
unfinished, a significant gesture toward the handle of the pistol in
his belt rendering the omission of slight moment.

"Some o' them boys war wondering ef that fire out'n the water would
burn," observed a fat, greasy, broad-faced lout, with a foolish,
brutal grin. "It mought make out ter singe this stranger's hair an'
hide, ef we war ter gin him a duckin' thar."

"Air ye a-huntin' of me, too, Mr. Sneed,--ye that war 'quainted with
me in the old times on Tomahawk Creek?" Peters reiterated his demand
in a plaintive, melodramatic tone, which titillated his fancy,
somehow, and, like virtue, was its own exceeding great reward; for
both he and Persimmon Sneed knew right well that their acquaintance
amounted only to a mere facial recognition when they had chanced to
pass on the country road or the village street, years before.
Nevertheless, under the pressure of the inherent persuasiveness of the
suggested retribution, Persimmon Sneed made haste to aver that his
errand in the mountains was in no sense at the sheriff's instance. And
so radical and indubitable were his protestations that Nick Peters was