n an arm-chair, sat a thin little woman with great
dark eyes, holding a sick child in her lap. The sash was up, and both
were carefully wrapped in a big shawl that was drawn over the two
of them.

"Sis' Johnnie is comin' back; she sure is comin' back soon," Laurella
was crooning to her baby. "And we ain't goin' to work in no cotton mill,
an' we ain't goin' to live in this ol' house any more. Next thing we're
a-goin' away with Sis' Johnnie and have a fi-ine house, where Pap Himes
can't come about to be cross to Deanie."

High up on Unaka Mountain, where a cluttered mass of rock reared itself
to front the noonday sun, an old man's figure, prone, the hands clutched
full of leaf-mould, the gray face down amid the fern, Gideon Himes would
never offer denial to those plans, nor seek to follow to that
fine house.

The next moment an automobile flashed into sight coming down the long
lower slope from the Gap, the horn blowing continuously, horsemen,
pedestrians, buggies and wagons fleeing to the roadside bushes as it
roared past in its cloud of dust.

"Look, honey, look--yon's Sis' Johnnie now!" cried Laurella. "She's
a-runnin' Mr. Stoddard's car. An' thar's Unc' Pros ... Is--my Lord! Is
that Mr. Stoddard hisself, with blood all over him?"

Lydia and Conroy, hurrying down the street, drew up on the fringes of
the little crowd that had gathered and was augmenting every moment, and
Johnnie's face was turned to Stoddard in piteous questioning. His eyes
were open now. He raised himself a bit on her uncle's arm, and declared
in a fairly audible voice:

"I'm all right. I'm not hurt."

"Somebody git me a glass of water," called Uncle Pros.

Mavity Bence ran out with one, but when she got close enough to see
plainly the shackled figure Passmore supported, she thrust the glass
into Mandy Meacham's hand and flung her apron over her head.

"Good Lord!" she moaned. "I reckon they've killed him. They done one of
my brothers that-a-way in feud times, and throwed him over a bluff. Oh,
my Lord; Why will men be so mean?"

Pros had taken the glass from Mandy and held it to Gray's lips. Then he
dashed part of the remaining water on Stoddard's handkerchief and with
Mandy's help, got the blood cleared away.

From every shanty, women and children came hastening--men hurried up
from every direction.

"Look at her--look at Johnnie!" cried Beulah Catlett. "Pony! Milo!"
turning back into the house, where the boys lay sleeping. "Come out h