ly, then, getting no response,
more and more imperatively, at length opening and walking in, with a
questioning, "Uncle Jep?"

There was no answer, no sound or movement. With hasty fingers she raked
together the brands of the fire; they flickered up and showed her an
untenanted room. The bed was untouched, the old man's hat and coat were
gone. The pegs above the door where Old Sister always rested were empty.

Instantly there flashed upon Judith the intuition that her uncle,
heartsick and ill-affected toward the quarrel, had silently withdrawn
until it should have been settled one way or another. Well, she must work
alone.

Chapter XVI

A Message

When Judith stole noiselessly into the house and up to her room, she
could hear the boys preparing for bed in their own quarters, with
unwonted jesting and laughter, and even some occasional stamping about
which suggested horse-play; and her lip curled angrily as she recalled
Blatch's jug of corn whiskey.

She lay thinking, thinking; and at length there evolved itself in her
mind a plan for getting Creed safely out of the mountains by way of an
ancient Cherokee trail that ran down the gulch through a distant corner
of the old Turrentine place. By this route they would reach the railroad
town of Garyville, quite around the flank of Big Turkey Track from
Hepzibah. She could do that. She knew every step of the way. The trail
was a disused, forgotten route of travel, long fenced across in several
places, and scoured out of existence at certain points by mountain
streams; but she had known every foot of it in years past; she could
travel it the darkest night; and Selim was her own horse; she need ask
nobody.

When she got so far, came the pressing question of how to send word to
Creed. She must see and warn him before the men put their plan into
practice. But she was well aware that she herself was under fairly close
espionage, and that her first move in the direction of Nancy Card's cabin
would bring the vague suspicions of her household to a certainty. Where
to find a messenger? How to so word a message that Creed would answer it?
These were the questions that drove sleep from her pillow till almost
morning.

She rose and faced the dawn with haggard eyes. Unless she could do
something this was the last day of Creed's life. In a tremor of
apprehension she got through her morning duties, cooking and serving a
breakfast to the three boys, who made no comment on th