Saul Fulton, to whom intrigue was as the breath of life, had again
undertaken to earn the Iscariot wage, and he worked as covertly as if he
had lain hidden in the laurel thickets.

The result of his efforts was that in one county, not his own, a handful
of desperadoes listened greedily to his teachings, and in his own a
single man--or boy--of whom it was said that he "was pizen mean an' held
a grudge ergin all creation."

Save for that, he gained no disciples, and if, when the registration day
came, only one quarter of the men of military age went to enroll
themselves, it was because already, through the channels of recruiting
offices, the other three-fourths had flowed into the khaki-brown
reservoirs of the army. It is history now how the "feud counties"
responded; how in two of them not a single man claimed exemption; how in
one only two souls waited for the draft.

But Marlin County had her shameful exception in young "Dog" Burtree, who
lived alone in a log shack at the head of Pigeonroost Creek.

One Saturday night young Dog drank white whiskey at a blind tiger, and
it was reported of him that, in the Holly Hill barber shop, he "made
the brag thet he hedn't registered, an' didn't aim ter register." Those
who were present reported his manifesto with admirable promptness to the
local draft board, and the scandal winged its way along the creek-beds.

Dog may have been drunk beyond remembrance that evening, for when
neighbours with faces set in lines of patriarchal sternness rode to his
door demanding the truth, he turned putty pale and swore that he had
been libelled, and would make his detractors eat their calumnies.

It was on the next Saturday night and in the same barber shop, with much
the same group of loiterers present, that the ensuing act was staged.

The shabby little place, lighted by lamps with tin reflectors, was full
of pipe smoke and talk that evening, when some one, looking up from a
tilted chair, saw a figure in the door.

A startled silence fell and lasted, though not for long--because the
eyes of the face that looked in were blood-shot and the lips twisted to
an ugly snarl.

Except for its malevolence of expression it was not a repulsive face,
though its lower jaw was overly prominent. Its eyes were amber spots
beneath heavy brows, and under the back-thrust, felt hat a heavy mass of
chestnut hair bushed in curls about the temples. The lips were brightly
red like a girl's, but over the who