they come ter the Ford--I seed OUR man."

"Seed Kunnel Bill Pennington?" The great gray eyes were blazing now.

"Yes." Fortner's speech was the spiritless drawl of the mountains,
and it had now become so languid that it seemed doubtful if after the
enunciation of each word whether vitality enough remained to evolve a
successor. "Yes," he repeated with a yawn, as he stuck the ball of
yarn upon the needles and gave the whole a toss which landed it in the
wall-basket, "an' I GOT him, tew."

"O, just God! Air ye shore?"

"Jess ez shore ez in the last great day thar'll be some 'un settin' in
judgement atween him an' me. I wanted him ter be jess ez shore about
me. I came out in plain sight, and drawed his attention. He knowed me
at fust glimpse, an' pulled his revolver. I kivered his heart with the
sights an' tetcht the trigger. I'm sorry now thet I didn't shoot him
thru the belly, so thet he'd been a week a-dyin' an' every minnit he'd
remembered what he wuz killed fur. But I wuz so afeered that I would not
kill him ef I hit him some place else'n the heart--thet's a wayall pizen
varmints hev--thet I didn't da'r resk hit. I wuz detarmined ter git him,
too, ef I had ter foller him clean ter Cumberland Gap."

"Ye done God's vengeance," said Aunt Debby sternly. "An' yit hit wuz very
soon ter expect hit." She clasped her hands upon her forehead and rocked
back and forth, gazing fixedly into the mass of incandescent coals.

"Hit's gwine to cla'r up ter-morrow," said Fortner, returning from
an inspection of the sky at the door. "Le's potter off ter bed," he
continued rousing up Harry. They removed their outer garments and
crawled into one of the comfortable beds in the room.

Later in the night a sharp pain in one of Harry's over-strained legs
awoke him out of his deep slumber, for a few minutes. Aunt Debby was
still seated before the fire in her chair, rocking back and forth, and
singing softly:

"Thy saints in all this glorious war,
Shall conquer ere they die.
They see the triumph from afar--
By faith they bring hit nigh.
Sure I must suffer ef I would reign;
Increase my courage, Lord.
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain."

He went to sleep again with the sweet strains ringing in his ears, as
if in some way a part of the marvelous happenings of that most eventful
day.

Chapter XII. Aunt Debby Brill.

Beneath the dark waves where the dead go down,