ring that had started again ceased again,
and all left quickly and quietly--all but the teacher, Pleasant, and the
two boys, for Polly too was moving away. King turned to go after her.

"Wait a moment, King," said Miss Mary, and Polly cried fiercely: "He can
stay till doomsday fer all o' me. I hain't goin' with ary one uv 'em."
And she flirted away.

"I am not going to talk to you two boys until to-morrow," said Miss Mary
firmly, "and then I'm going to put a stop to all this. I want both of you
to be here when school closes. I want you too, Pleasant, and I want you to
bring Lum Chapman."

Pleasant Trouble was as bewildered as the two shamefaced boys--did she
mean to have him hold a gun on the two boys while Lum, the blacksmith,
whaled them?

"Me?--Lum?--why, whut----"

"Never mind--wait till to-morrow. Will you all be here?"

"Yes'm," said all.

"Go with them up the river, Pleasant. Don't let them quarrel, and see
that each one goes up his own creek."

The two boys moved away like yoked oxen. At the bottom step Pleasant
turned to look back. Very rigid and straight the little teacher stood
under the lantern, and the pallor and distress of her face had given
way to a look of stern determination.

"Whew!" he breathed, and he turned a half-circle on his crutch into
the dark.

III

Miss Mary Holden was a daughter of the Old Dominion, on the other side
of the Cumberland Range, and she came, of course, from fighting stock.
She had gone North to school and had come home horrified by--to put
it mildly--the Southern tendency to an occasional homicide. There had
been a great change, to be sure, within her young lifetime. Except under
circumstances that were peculiarly aggravating, gentlemen no longer
peppered each other on sight. The duel was quite gone. Indeed, the
last one at the old university was in her father's time, and had been,
he told her, a fake. A Texan had challenged another student, and the
seconds had loaded the pistols with blank cartridges. After firing
three times at his enemy the Texan threw his weapon down, swore that
he could hit a quarter every time at that distance, pulled forth two
guns of his own and demanded that they be used; and they had a terrible
time appeasing the Westerner, who, failing in humor, challenged then
and there every member of his enemy's fraternity and every member of
his own. Thereafter it became the custom there and at other institutions
of learning in the State to se