the drouth so bad. We've had a power of rain over the mountains."

"Not long since, I had a letter from a kinsman of mine in Louisiana, and
he spoke of you. He said that up and down the rivers you were known,
that the villages made it a holiday when you came to one, and that in
the forest your name was like Robin Hood's."

"Robin Hood? Who's he?" demanded Adam; then, "Oh, you mean the man in
the poetry book. I reckon he never saw the Mississippi in flood, and his
forest would have laid on the palm of your hand. Yes, I'm known out
there." He gave his mellow laugh. "A letter of introduction from Adam
Gaudylock is a pretty good letter, whether it's to the captain of an
ark, or a Creek sachem, or a Natchitoches settler, or a soldier at Fort
Stoddert. Let me help you in, ma'am."

He handed her to her seat with the sure lightness and the woodsman's
grace which was part of his charm, then gave her order to Gabriel. The
coach turned and went back through the Main Street, and so on, in the
yellow afternoon, to the Three-Notched Road. As she passed again the
green door, Mrs. Selden looked out, but the door was fast and the
shutters closed behind the blush roses. "He must have gone home early,"
she said to herself, and all the way along the Three-Notched Road she
thought of Lewis Rand and his career.

Rand had not gone home, but was walking down the street towards the
Eagle and the post-office. Presently the stage would be in, and he
carried a letter the posting of which he did not care to entrust to
another. He walked lightly and firmly, in the glow before sunset, and as
he approached the post-office steps he met, full face, coming from the
other end of the town, Colonel Richard and Major Edward Churchill and
Fairfax Cary. They were afoot, having left their horses at the Swan
while they waited for the incoming stage. The post-office had a high
white porch, and on this were gathered a number of planters and
townsfolk, while others lounged below on the trodden grass beneath three
warped mulberries. All these, suspending conversation, watched the
encounter.

Rand lifted his hat, and Fairfax Cary answered the salute with cold
punctilio, but the two Churchills, the one with a red, the other with a
stony countenance, ignored their nephew-in-law. The four reached
together the post-office steps, a somewhat long and wide flight, but not
broad enough to accommodate a blood feud. Rand made no attempt at
speech, conciliatory or otherwi