rld of dramatic sincerity.

"What--what's troubling you, Kate? I don't seem to get your meaning."

It was the woman's turn to express surprise.

"Why, you know what they're going to do here, practically on Monday
night. You've heard? Why, the whole village is talking of it. It's the
tree. The old pine. They're going to cut it down." Then she laughed
mirthlessly. "They'll use it as a ridge pole for the new church. That
wicked old, cursed pine."

"Wicked--cursed? I don't understand," Fyles said perplexed. "I heard
about the felling of it all right--but, the other I don't understand."

Kate set the lamp down on one of the benches.

"Listen. I'll tell you," she cried. "Then maybe you'll understand my
feelings--since making my wager with you. Oh, the old story wouldn't
matter so much to me, only--only for that wager. Listen."

Then she hurriedly told him the outline of the curse upon the tree,
and further added an analysis of the situation in conjunction with the
matter which stood between themselves. At the finish she pointed her
argument.

"Need I say any more? Need I tell you that no logic or reason of any
kind can put the conviction out of my mind that here, and now, we are
to be faced with some dreadful tragedy as the price we must pay for
the--the felling of that tree? I can't help it--I know calamity will
befall us."

Fyles shook his head. The woman's obvious convictions left him quite
untouched. Had it been any other who spoke of it he would have derided
the whole idea. But since it was Kate's distress, Kate's belief in the
old legend, he refrained.

"The only calamity that can affect you, Kate, is a calamity for young
Bryant," he said seriously. "And yet you refuse to believe him
concerned with the affairs of--Monday night. Surely you can have no
misgivings on that score?"

Kate shook her head.

"Then what do you fear?" Fyles went on patiently.

Quite slowly the woman raised her big eyes to her companion's face.
For some moments they steadily looked into his. Then slowly into her
gaze there crept an inscrutable expression that was not wholly without
a shadow of a smile.

"It is your reason against my--superstition," she said slowly. "On
Monday night you will capture, or fail to capture, the gang you are
after. Maybe it will be within an hour of the cutting down of that
tree. Disaster will occur. Blood will flow. Death! Any, or all of
these things. For whom? I cannot--will not--wait to see. I shall