ut
them thet seeks my life. This may be what ye says hit is or hit may be a
trap--but ye're a kinsman of mine, an' I've got a license ter believe
ye--oncet. Ef ye're lyin' ter me, ye're mighty apt ter hev ter pay fer
hit."

"Ef I'm lyin' ter ye, Asa," came the prompt response, "I'm ready ter pay
fer hit."

Gregory drew on his coarse socks and heavy shoes. "Alright," he acceded
curtly, "I'm a'goin' along with ye now, an' I reckon we'd better
hasten."

"Don't go, Asa," pleaded Araminta. "Don't take no sich chanst." But as
her husband looked into her eyes she slowly nodded her head. "Ye're
right," she said falteringly. "I was jest skeered because I'm so
worrited. Of course ye've _got_ ter go. Hit's fer yore country."

When the door had closed the woman dropped limply into a chair. Her
pupils were distended and her fingers twisted in aimless gropings. After
a while she looked about a little wildly for Boone Wellver. It was
something to have his companionship during the hours of suspense--but
the boy's chair, too, was empty. His rifle was missing from its corner.

She know now what had happened. Boone had slipped uninvited and secretly
out into the night. He had said nothing, but he meant to follow the pair
unseen, and if he found his hero threatened, there would be one armed
follower at his back.

From the crib in one corner rose an uneasy whimper and Araminta went to
soothe her baby at her breast.

CHAPTER IV

When Boone surreptitiously slipped out of the house he had plunged
recklessly into the thorn-tangle for a shorter cut than the two men
would take: a road of precipitous peril but of moments saved.

If the possibility which Saul had admitted came to fruition and the guns
started popping, the peril lay not in the course of subsequent minutes
but at the pregnant instant when Asa Gregory's face was first seen in
the door. It would be in that breathing-space that the issue would find
settlement, and it would hang, hair-balanced, on the self-restraint of
two men whose hard-held hatred might break bounds and overwhelm them as
each thought of the father slain by violence. It would be a parlous
moment when their eyes, full of stored-up and long-curbed rancour, first
engaged and their hostile palms were required to meet and clasp.

Young as he was, Boone understood these matters. He knew how the resolve
which each had undertaken might collapse into swift destruction as the
hot tides rushed into their templ