which she handed him without a word of explanation, and with
shaking fingers he opened and read it.

"Dear Turney," she said, and her round chirography had run wild as
weeds with the disturbed mood of that composition, "I can't bear it
here any longer. I'm going away--for always. Jerry left a little money
and the lawyers have paid it to me. It's not much, but it's enough.
These mountains are beautiful--but they are full of misery--and
memories that haunt me day and night. You have been more than good to
me and I'll always pray for you. I don't know yet where I'll go. With
love, Blossom."

Turner sagged into a chair by the hearth-stone and the paper dropped
from his inert fingers. His face became very drawn and he silently
licked lips which burned with a dry feverishness.

* * * * *

The special session of court convened in Marlin Town with a quiet that
lacked any tang of genuine interest. These fiascos had come before and
passed without result. Since Bear Cat Stacy had permitted it to be
understood that he would hold aloof, no strength would challenge the
sway of Kinnard Towers, save a "fotched on" judge and a few white-faced
lawyers who wore stiff collars. They had not even brought tin soldiers
this time nor dignified the occasion with a Gatling gun.

Towers himself remained comfortably at the Quarterhouse, and if he had
about him a small army of men its protection of rifle-muzzles pointed
toward Little Slippery rather than Marlin Town. A posse would come, of
course, since even his own courts must follow the forms and pretenses
of the statutes made and provided, but their coming, too, would be a
formality.

Outside a late winter storm had turned into a blizzard and though he
did not often spend his evenings at the bar, Kinnard was to-night
leaning with his elbow on its high counter. His blond face was suave
and his manner full of friendliness, because men who were anxious to
display their solicitude were coming in to denounce the farce of the
trial inagurated by "furriners" and to proclaim their sympathy. It was
all incense to his undiminished dominance, thought Towers, and it
pleased him to meet such amenities with graciousness.

"Any time now--any time at all," he laughed, "them turrible deputy
sheriffs air liable ter come bustin' through thet door, and drag me off
ter ther jail-house." As he uttered this pleasantry, the assembled
cohorts shouted their laughter. It was