. Then at once the
man recovered himself, and turned away, and the girl breathed easy
again.

"I'm beholden ter ye fer many things," she said, softly.

Suddenly and with no reason that she could explain, his recent words,
"I'd do most anything fer ye," set her thoughts swirling into a new
channel ... thoughts of things men do, without reward, for the women
they love.

This man, she told herself in her ignorance of the truth, had sacrificed
himself without complaint. She knew of only one greater sacrifice, and
of that she could never think without a cloud of dread shutting off the
sunlight of her happiness.

Even Bas would hardly have done what her husband had done for his
sister: assumed a guilt of murder which made of himself an exile and a
refugee whom the future always threatened.

Then somehow, as Bas sat silent, she saw again that hunger in his eyes,
a hunger so wolf-like that it was difficult to harmonize it with his
record of generous self-effacement; a hunger so avidly rapacious that a
dim and unacknowledged uneasiness stirred in her heart.

But at that moment they heard a shout from the front, and Peanuts Causey
came hurriedly around the corner of the house. His great neck and fat
face were fiery red with heat and excitement, and he panted as he gave
them his news.

"Old Jim Rowlett's done been shot at from ther bresh!" he told them. "He
escaped death, but men says ther war's like ter bust, loose ergin
because of hit."

"My God!" exclaimed Bas Rowlett in a tone of shocked incredulity; "old
Jim hain't got no enemies. A man would hev need ter be a fiend ter harm
him! I've got ter git over thar straightway."

Yet the crater did not at once burst into molten up-blazing. For a while
yet it smouldered--held from eruption by the sober counsel of the man
who had been fired on and who had seemingly escaped death by a miracle.

Adherents of the two factions still spoke as they met on the road, but
when they separated each turned his head to watch the other out of sight
and neither trusted an unprotected back to the good faith of any
possible adversary.

To the house of Aaron Capper, unobtrusively prompted by Sim Squires,
went certain of the Harper kin who knew not where else to turn--ignoring
Parish Thornton as a young pretender for whom they had little more
liking than for the enemy himself.

The elderly clansman received them and heard their talk, much of which
was wild and foolish. All disclaimed, and