han to keep the
children far enough from the fire, and his paralytic grandmother close
enough to it.

This old woman was of benevolent intentions, although she had a stick
with which she usually made her wants known by pointing, and in her
convulsive clutch the stick often whirled around and around like the
sails of a windmill, so that if Barney chanced to come within the circle
it described, he got as hard knocks from her feeble arm as he could have
had in a tussle with big Nick Gregory.

He was used to dodging it, and so were the smaller children. Without any
fear of it they were all sitting on the hearth at the old woman's
feet,--Ben and Melissa popping corn in the ashes, and Tom and Andy
watching Barney's deft fingers as he made a cornstalk fiddle for them.

Suddenly Barney glanced up and saw his grandmother's stick whirling over
his head. Her eyes were fastened eagerly upon the window, and her lips
trembled as she strove to speak.

"What d'ye want, granny?" he asked.

Then at last it came out, quick and sharp, and in a convulsive
gasp,--"Who air all that gang o'folks a-comin' yander down the road?"

Barney jumped up, threw down the fiddle, and ran to the door with the
children at his heels. There was a quiver of curiosity among them, for
it was a strange thing that a "gang o'folks" should be coming down this
lonely mountain road.

They went outside of the log cabin and stood among the red sumach bushes
that clustered about the door, while the old woman tottered after them
to the threshold, and peered at the crowd from under her shaking hand as
she shaded her eyes from the sunlight.

Presently a wagon came up with eight or ten men walking behind it, or
riding in it in the midst of a quantity of miscellaneous articles of
which Barney took no particular notice. As he went forward, smiling in
a frank, fearless way, he recognized a familiar face among the crowd. It
was Nick Gregory's, and Barney's smile broadened into a grin of pleasure
and welcome.

Then it was that Nick's conscience began to wake up, and to lay hold
upon him.

As the sheriff looked at Barney he hesitated. He balanced himself
heavily on the wheel, instead of leaping quickly down as he might have
done easily enough, for he was a spare man and light on his feet. Nick
overheard him speak in a low voice to the constable, who stood just
below.

"_That_ ain't the fellow, is it, Jim?"

"That's him, percisely," responded Jim Dow.

"He don't _