ring note. It
was as if the creature knew its master's grief, and wished to tell its
sympathy. There was a curious help to the young man's courage in the
eager, caressing thrusts of the cold nose against his palm. And he had
need of every help, even the least, for, in this period of inactivity,
the spirit within him was near to fainting. Because he knew fully the
depraved nature of Hodges, he could not blind himself to the frightful
peril of Plutina in the outlaw's power. The girl's plight was one to
inspire horror in any decent breast; to the lover, worshiping her as
something ineffably holy, the possibility of her pollution by the
brute who had stolen her away was a thing too monstrous for belief,
yet not to be denied. He strove to drive the hideous thought from his
mind, but, ever, it crept again into his consciousness. The sickness
of his soul found its only relief in bursts of fury against the cause
of this wickedness. His manhood asserted itself in a primitive lust to
torture and to destroy.

There were intervals of softer emotion, when he lived again the sweet
raptures of hours alone with Plutina in the mountain solitude. But the
moods of retrospection were short, perforce. They weakened him too
greatly. The very heart seemed to flow from him like water, as
memories crowded. The contrast of the present was too hideous for
endurance. Again, the ghastly despair--the black rage, the whining of
the dog, and the thrust of the cold muzzle to distract for a moment.
Then, once more, the agonizing round.

The grinding of brakes, as the train drew to a standstill at North
Wilkesboro', came as a poignant relief to the three travelers. Even
the dogs seemed to relax from strain, and a covert hostility, which
had marked their first meeting, vanished while they sniffed at each
other in inquisitive, friendly fashion.

The automobile was in waiting. Zeke jumped in beside the driver. The
bull-terrier was held firmly between his legs. Sutton, Brant and the
hound established themselves in the tonneau. Within a minute after
the stopping of the train, the car was rolling rapidly over the
highway toward Joines' mill. The chauffeur made the best speed
possible under Zeke's urging, and the run was short.

Beyond the mill, the trail branching off the main road was rough and
narrow, traversed only by horsemen and the clumsy vehicles of the
mountaineers. No automobile had ever passed over it, and the party had
planned to secure mounts