st. Zack ain't home
now. He's--" A curious, furtive look went over her round face. "Zack has
got a job on hand, ploughing for--ploughing for a neighbour, but he'll
be home to-night."

They went in and sat down. A kettle of wild greens was cooking over the
fire, and everything was spotlessly clean. Mandy had said truly that
there wasn't a thing on the farm she didn't love to do, and the gift of
housewifery ran in the family. Johnnie had barely explained who she was,
and made such effort as she could to enlist Mandy's sister, when Zack
came tramping home, and showed, she thought, some uneasiness at finding
them there. The wife ran out and met him before he reached the cabin,
and they stood talking together a long time, the lines of both figures
somehow expressing dismay; yet when they came in there was a fair
welcome in the man's demeanour. At the supper table, whose scanty fare
was well cooked, Uncle Pros and Johnnie had to tell again, and yet
again, the story of that miraculous healing which both husband and wife
could see was genuine.

Through it all, both Pros and Johnnie attempted to lead the talk around
to some information which might be of use to them. Nothing was more
natural than that they should speak of Gray Stoddard's disappearance,
since Watauga, Cottonville, and the mountains above were full of the
topic; yet husband and wife sheered from it in a sort of terror.

"Them that makes or meddles in such gits theirselves into trouble,
that's what I say," Zack told the visitors, stroking a chin whose
contours expressed the resolution and aggressiveness of a rabbit. "I
ain't never seen this here Mr. Man as far as I know. I don't never want
to see him. I ain't got no call to mix myself up in such, and I 'low
I'll sleep easier and live longer if I don't do it."

"That's right," quavered Roxy. "Burkhalter's boy, he had to go to mixin'
in when the Culps and the Venables was feudin'; and look what chanced.
Nary one o' them families lost a man; but Burkhalter's boy got hisself
killed up. Yes, that's what happened to him. Dead. I went to
the funeral."

"True as Scriptur'," confirmed Zack--"reach an' take off, Pros. Johnnie,
eat hearty--true as you-all set here. I he'ped make the coffin an' dig
the grave."

After a time there came a sort of ruth to Johnnie for the poor
creatures, furtive, stealing glances at each other, and answering her
inquiries or Uncle Pros's with dry, evasive platitudes. She knew there
was no m