oots.... I toted him back ter Harper's dwellin' house, an' he's layin'
thar now an' nobody don't know yit whether he'll live or die. Thet's all
I've got ther power ter tell ye."

"Hed this man Maggard ever been over hyar afore? Did he know ther
Harpers when he come?"

Hump Doane still shot out his questions in an inquisitorial manner but
Bas met its peremptory edginess with urbanity, though his face was
haggard with a night of sleeplessness and fatigue.

"He lowed ter me that his folks hed lived over hyar once a long time
back.... Thet's all I knows."

Hump Doane wheeled on the old man, whose life had stretched almost to
the century span, and shouted:

"Gran'sire, did ye ever know any Maggards dwellin' over hyar? Thar
hain't been none amongst us in my day ner time."

"Maggards ... Maggards?... let me study," quavered the frosty-headed
veteran in his palsied falsetto. "I kin remember when ther boys went off
ter ther war of Twelve ... I kin remember thet.... Thar war Doanes an'
Rowletts an' Thorntons...."

"I hain't askin' ye erbout no Doanes ner Thorntons. I'm askin' ye war
thar any Maggards?"

For a long time the human repository of ancient history pondered,
fumbling through the past.

"Let's see--this hyar's ther y'ar one thousand and nine hundred....
Thar's some things I disremembers. Maggards ... Maggards?... I don't
remember no Maggards.... No, siree! I don't remember none."

The cripple turned impatiently away, and Bas Rowlett speculatively
inquired:

"Does ye reckon mebby he war a-fleein' from some enemy over in
Virginny--an' thet ther feller followed atter him an' got him?"

"Seems like we'd hev heered of ther other stranger from some source or
other," mused Hump. "Hit hain't none of my business nohow--onless--" the
man's voice leaped and cracked with a belligerent violence--"onless
hit's some of Old Burrell Thornton's feisty kin, done come back ter tek
up his wickedness an' plaguery whar he left off at."

Bas Rowlett sat down on an empty box and his shoulders sagged wearily.

"Hit's Old Burrell's house he come ter," he admitted. "But yit he told
me he'd done tuck hit fer a debt. I hain't knowed him long, but him an'
me hed got ter be good friends an' ther feller thet shot him come nigh
gettin' me, too. Es fer me I'd confidence ther feller ter be all right."

"Ef he dies," commented the deformed cynic, grimly, "I'll confidence
him, too--an' ef he lives, I'll be plum willin' ter see him prove
hi