as few women had ever had--she would no
longer be recreant. No wonder that Turner's mother looked at her with
tightly pressed lips and hostile eyes. She would go over there and do
what she could to make amends and alleviate the loneliness of a house
emptied of its men; a house over which hung the unlifting veil of
terror, which saw in the approach of every passer-by a possible herald
of tragedy.

* * * * *

Uncle Israel Calvert sat alone by the small red-hot stove of his
way-side store late in the afternoon. He was half dozing in his
hickory-withed chair, and it was improbable that any customer would
arouse him. A wild day of bellowing wind was spending itself in gusty
puffs and the promise of blizzard, while a tarnished sun sank into
lurid banks of cloud-threat.

Uncle Israel's pipe had gone out, though it still hung precariously
between his clean-shaven jaws and his white poll fell drowsily forward
from time to time. He listened between cat-naps to the voice of the
storm and mumbled to himself. "I reckon nobody won't come in
ter-night--leastways nobody thet hain't hurtin' powerful bad fer some
plumb needcessity."

Then he fell again to dozing.

The rush of wind through a door suddenly opened, and closed, roused
him, and seeing the figure of a man on the threshold, Uncle Israel came
to his feet with a springy quickness of amazement.

"Bear Cat!" he exclaimed. "Hell's blazes, man, whar did ye drap from?"
But at the same moment he went discreetly to the window and, since the
shutters hinged from outside, hastily hung two empty jute sacks across
the smeared panes.

"Uncle Israel," Bear Cat spoke with the brevity of one in haste, as he
tossed a wet rubber poncho and black hat to the counter, "hev ye got
any black cloth on them shelves?"

The storekeeper went ploddingly around the counter and began inspecting
his wares, rubbing his chin as he peered through the dim lamp-light.

"Wa'al now," he pondered, "let's see. I've got jest what ye mout call a
scant remainder of this hyar black domestic. I don't keep no great
quantity because thar hain't no severe call fer hit--save fer them
women-folks thet affects mournin'. Ther Widder Henderson bought most of
what I had a few days back."

Bear Cat Stacy flinched a little, but the old man had his face to his
shelves and did not see that.

"Ye'd better lay in a stock then," said Turner curtly. "Henceforth
thar's liable ter be _mo