to his lacerated spirit.

"I couldn't go to-night--dear----" he faltered, abashed that the first
word he uttered to her must be a denial. "You're mighty sweet and good to
offer to take me--I don't know what I have ever done that you should risk
this for me--but I'm to have a chance to talk to your Uncle Jephthah at
moonrise to-night, and I can't turn my back on that. He's a fair-minded
man and I'll make this thing right yet."

Judith shuddered. "Don't you never believe it," she urged in a panting
whisper. "Uncle Jep hadn't a thing on earth to do with that word goin' to
you. He's left home. I can't find him nowhars, or I'd have went straight
to him and begged him to help me out when I found what the boys was
aimin' to do. Hit was Blatch planned it all. I tell ye Creed, Blatch
Turrentine is alive--you never killed him when you flung him over the
bluff--and while he lives you can't stay here. He's bound to kill ye."

"Have you seen Blatch, yourself, Judith?" Creed asked quickly.

"Oh, laws, no. He's a layin' out in the woods somewheres, aimin' to make
Uncle Jep believe you killed him. But I heard him plain enough--I heard
him and the boys fix it all up--hid out from Uncle Jep down in the
grain-room. There's to be seven of 'em a-waitin' down by the big hollow,
and when they git you betwixt them an' the sky at moonrise they're all
promised to shoot at once, so that nary man dast to go back on the others
when you're killed."

Wounded, appalled, the young fellow drew back from her and clung to the
saddle of the old mule, with a boyish desire to hide his face against the
arm which he threw over it.

"How they hate me!" he breathed at last. "Oh, I've failed--I've failed. I
meant so well by them all--and I've got nothing but their hate. But I
won't run. I never ran from anything yet. I'll stay here and take what
comes."

Perhaps in his extremity the despair of this speech was but an
unconscious reaching out for Judith's expressed affection, the warmth and
consolation of her love. If this were so, the movement brought him what
he craved. In terror she laid hold upon him, holding to his unwounded
arm, pressing her cheek upon his shoulder, making her protest in swift
passionate sentences.

"What good will it do for you to get yourself killed--tell me that? Every
one of them men will be murderers, when you've stayed and seen it
through. Lord, what differ is it whether sech critters as them love you
or hate you? 'Pears to me