d by Starbuck,
thrown upon his back, tied hand and foot, and hanged to a tree; and it
was only the timely arrival of officers of the law that saved him for
the deliberations of the established gallows. But with all his quickness
to act he was sometimes made slow by a touch of sentiment, and thus it
was that he permitted Peters to bully him. Between the two families
there had ever existed bad blood, and some of it had been spilled. In
the neighborhood it was a standing prediction that Jasper would one day
cut the throat of the blustering Lije, and the old fellow, especially as
time began to whiten his hair, constantly mused to himself: "I don't
want 'em to throw it up to my girl that she is the daughter of a
butcher, but if the time must come--" Here he always broke off,
summoning his humor with the whistle of a droll tune. "Thar may be some
way to weather it out," he now mused as he sat upon the stone, "I have
been in many a close place and I always weathered it out."

Suddenly he looked up, attracted by the bleating of a lamb; and up
higher among the crags he went, found the little thing caught between
two rocks, almost starved. "You don't belong to me," he said, taking the
lamb in his arms, "but yo' life belongs to you an' in the sight o' the
Lord mebby it amounts to as much as mine." He took the lamb down to the
house, gave it milk, and then took it back upon the hill-side, and,
putting it on the ground, said: "Thar, I reckon you'd better run along
home. Yo' mammy mout be distressed about you."

Upon returning to the house he found that his visitors had come back
from the post-office. Jim was gazing at Mrs. Mayfield, Tom was shyly
striving to dispel Lou's shyness, Mrs. Mayfield was talking romance.

"Oh, I could not have believed that such a place existed," she said to
Starbuck. "I was warned not to come here, that the people were ungentle
and that the report of the gun was oftener heard than the strains of the
song; but I find that your life here is almost uneventful music."

"I don't know what sort of music that is, ma'm, but if you say so, I'd
be willin' to bet on it. Wouldn't you, Jim?"

"I don't bet, Uncle Jasper,--but--but if she wanted me to I would."

"Of course you would, or any other preacher, if he's a man."

Mrs. Mayfield was looking at Jim and he sat illumined beneath her gaze.
"Your compliments are all so new and strange to me," she said. "And in
them I can find no flattery."

"Ma'm, I have neve