est, he thought, to
punish bloody violence with other bloody violence--and in his mind a
more effective plan was incubating.

All that he would tell the grim men who met in conclave that night,
ready to don their masks and fare forth, was that this was, above all
others, an occasion for biding their time. "But I pledges ye faithful,"
he declared in a voice that shook with solemn feeling, "ye won't hev
need ter grow wearied with waitin'...."

No Towers watchmen came in these days to Turner's house. They contented
themselves with keeping a vindictive vigil along the creeks and
tributaries where they were numerically stronger. Each day Turner came
to watch over Blossom with the quiet fidelity of a great dog. There was
little enough that he could do, but he came and looked at her with
hungry eyes out of a hungry heart, speaking no word of his own love,
but listening as she talked of her father. He sought in a hundred small
ways to divert her thoughts from the grim thing that had twice scarred
her life and taken the light out of her eyes. As he trudged back to his
house, where he had again taken up his residence, after these visits,
he walked with a set jaw and registered oaths of reprisal to take a
form new to the hills.

As the days passed it was reported that on the motion of the
commonwealth, alleging bias and prejudice, Judge Renshaw had vacated
the bench, and that the governor had named a pro-tem. successor from
another district--and called a special term of court, to sit at Marlin
Town.

Kinnard Towers heard that news with a smile of derision. "Let 'em bring
on thar jedges an' soldiers," he said complacently. "Ther law still
fo'ces 'em ter put native names in ther jury wheel an' I reckon no
grand jury thet dwells hyar-abouts won't hardly indict me ner no petty
jury convict me."

So it was something of a shock to his confidence when he heard that he,
Black Tom Carmichael and Sam Carlyle had been indicted for conspiracy
to commit murder. Even that he regarded as merely an annoyance, for as
one of the grand jurors had hastened to assure him: "Hit war jest a
sort of a formality, Kinnard. We knowed ther little jury would cl'ar
you-all an' hit looked more legal-like ter let hit come up fer trial."

But the bringing of those indictments was really a tribute to the
dawning power of Kinnard's enemies. The thing was intended as a
compromise by which the grand jury should satisfy the Stacys and the
petit jury should moll