t I got after you-all quit me," glancing negligently
at Scalf, "has many a little frill to his plans, and he knows Dan Haley,
the marshal, right well. Sometimes I misdoubt that he come up on Turkey
Track to git in with me and git the reward that I'm told Haley has out
for the feller that can ketch me stillin'."

He wheeled and looked fully at Scalf with these words, and the town man
made haste to turn his back, warming his hands at the blaze. Blatch
laughed deep in his throat.

"Scalf's on the make," he asserted with grim humour. "He needed somebody
to give up to Dan Haley, and as I hain't got no likin' for learnin' to
peg shoes in the penitentiary, I 'lowed mebbe the trade would suit
you-all boys, an' I sont over for ye."

The twins writhed in their chairs as much as their tight bandings would
permit. How simple they had been to trust the mercy of a desperate man.
And they knew Blatch Turrentine. In days past, they had been on the
inside, pupils and assistants in such work as this. They stole sheepish
looks at each other. But the message he had sent them was yet to be
explained. If Huldah was not with him, how had he known she was on the
mountain at all?

"What made you send the word you did?" burst out Andy wrathfully.

Blatch had moved over by the fire.

"Oh, I hearn through old Dilsey Rust--that I've had a-listenin' at
key-holes and spyin' through chinks--about Bonbright's talk concernin'
Huldy, and I thort----"

At these words ancient Gideon Rust, posted as sentinel outside the cave's
entrance, keeping himself warily from view of the prisoners, craned
forward and stared with fallen jaw, reckless of observation. Humble
tenants, pensioners of Judith and the Turrentines, with these words
Blatch had wantonly stripped the poor roof from above their grey heads,
and turned them out defenceless, to the anger of that strong family. Come
what would, he must protest.

"Now Blatch," he whined, "you ort not to go a-namin' names like you do.
You said that Dilsey nor me, nary one, needn't be known in this
business."

In his excitement he came fully into the light.

"I hope you-all boys understand that I didn't aim to do ye a meanness.
Yo' pap--I--I hope he won't hold this agin' us. The Turrentines has been
mighty good friends to Dilsey--and here's Blatch lettin' on to 'em like
she was a spy."

"Well, what else is she?" asked Blatch with an oath. "What else are any
of ye? The last one of ye would sell yo' own fathers