se wrath was not to be
advisedly stirred.

He had found it possible to become wealthy in a land where such
achievement involves battening on poverty. Cruel--suave;
predatory--charitable, he had taken life by his own hand and that of
the hireling, but also he had, in famine-times, succored the poor.

He had, in short, awed local courts and intimidated juries of the
vicinage until he seemed beyond the law, and until office-holders wore
his collar.

Kinnard Towers was floridly blond of coloring, mild of eye and urbanely
soft-spoken of voice.

Once, almost two decades ago, while the feud was still eruptive, it had
seemed advisable to him to have Lone Stacy done to death, and to that
end he had bargained with Black Tom Carmichael.

Black Tom had been provided with a double-barreled gun, loaded with
buckshot, and placed in a thicket which, at the appointed hour, the
intended victim must pass. But it had chanced that fate intervened. On
that day Lone Stacy had carried in his arms his baby son, Turner Stacy,
and, seeing the child, Black Tom had faltered.

Later in the seclusion of a room over the Quarterhouse, the employer
had wrathfully taken his churl to task.

"Wa'al, why didn't ye git him?" was the truculent interrogation. "He
passed by close enough fer ye ter hit him with a rock."

"He was totin' his baby," apologized the designated assassin
shamefacedly, yet with a sullen obstinacy, "I was only hired ter kill a
growed-up man. Ef ye'd a-give me a rifle-gun like I asked ye 'stid of a
scatter-gun I could've got him through his damned head an' not harmed
ther child none. Thet's why I held my hand."

Kinnard Towers had scornfully questioned: "What makes ye so tormentin'
mincy erbout ther kid? Don't ye know full well thet when he grows up
we'll have ter git _him_, too? Howsoever next time I'll give ye a
rifle-gun."

Like all unlettered folk the mountaineer is deeply superstitious and
prone to believe in portents and wonders. Often, though he can never be
brought to confess it he gives credence to tales of sorcery and
witchcraft.

Turner Stacy was from his birth a "survigrous" child, and he was born
on the day of the eclipse. As he came into the world the sun was
darkened. Immediately after that a sudden tempest broke which tore the
forests to tatters, awoke quiet brooks to swirling torrents, unroofed
houses and took its toll of human life. Even in after years when men
spoke of the "big storm" they always alluded