-Stacy--you don't--under--stand."

Bear Cat brought his face close; a face with belligerently out-thrust
chin and fiercely narrowed eyes. Henderson must consent before Blossom
returned to divine with her quick intuition that her dying lover balked
in the shadow of death.

"Don't explain nothin' ter me. Save yore breath ter say 'I will.'
Thet's all ye hev need ter utter now--an' hits need enough."

In his overwrought singleness of purpose Turner forgot that this man
was beyond any force of threat or coercion. As he spoke so
dictatorially he believed himself, too, to be facing death with equal
certainty, though more slowly, and what he had sworn to do must first
be done.

Yet there was such an inescapable compulsion in the ernest fixity of
his pale face and burning eyes that the outstretched figure felt its
own declining will merged and conquered.

"Hit's ther only decent thing thet's left fer ye ter do," went on the
strained but inflexible voice. "Ye took her heart fer yore own--an'
broke hit. Ye've got ter let her have yore name an' ther consolation of
believin' thet ye came ter her ... honest, fightin' back black death
hitself!"

Sometimes between sleep and waking come fugitive thoughts that seem
crystal-clear, but that elude definite memory. Such a process enacted
itself in the mind of the dying man. Doubt and complications were
dissolved into simplicity--and acquiescence.

Faintly he nodded his head and even tried to hold out his hand to be
shaken. Perhaps Bear Cat was too excited to recognize that proffer of
amenity. Possibly his own bitterness was yet too black for
forgiveness--at all events he turned away without response to seek out
Joel Fulkerson, who had disappeared.

"Ye've got ter hasten, Brother Fulkerson," he hurriedly urged. "Jerry
Henderson's done come back ter give his name ter Blossom afore he dies
an' death hain't far off."

The old evangelist was bending over a medicine chest. It was a thing
which a visiting surgeon had once given him and in the use of which he
had developed an inborn skill that had before now saved lives and
ameliorated suffering. He straightened up dubiously and faced the
younger man.

"Turney," he said grimly, "ef they don't wed, folks hyarabouts'll
always look askance at my little gal with a suspicion thet I'm
confi_dent_ is as false as hell hitself--but God made ther state of
matrimony holy--an' I'm his servant--onlessen they both enters inter
hit free-minded hit wo