ed,
soberly, "but we kain't handily refuse ter see what our own eyes shows
us. Ef ther Harpers hed any survigrous leader thet hed come out strong
fer peace, I'd still sanction givin' him a chanst, but who hev they got?
I talked solemn with this new man, Parish Thornton, an' I didn't git no
satisfaction outen hem."

From the door Bas Rowlett raised an even voice of hypocrisy:

"I knows ther new man better then any of ye, I reckon ... an' I believes
him when he says he wants a quiet life ... but I don't skeercely deem
ther Harpers hev any notion of heedin' him."

"Men," old Jim, who felt his power slipping from him, and who was too
old to seize it back with the vigour of twenty years ago, rose again and
in his attitude was the pathos of decayed influence and bitter failure
at life's end.

"Men," he implored, "I beseeches ye ter hearken ter me one time more. A
man thet's got ter be kilt kin always be kilt, but one thet's dead
kain't be fotched back ter life. Hold off this bloodshed fer a spell
yit.... Suffer me ter counsel with two or three Harpers an' Thorntons
afore ye goes too fur!"

So long had this man's voice held a wizardry of influence that even now,
though the spirit of reconciliation had faint life in that meeting, a
silence of respect and veneration followed on his words, and while it
endured he gazed beseechingly around the group to meet eyes that were
all obdurately grim and adverse.

It was Hump Doane who broke the pause.

"Save fer a miracle of luck, Jim, ye'd be a dead man now--an' whilst we
tarries fer ye ter parley, you an' me an' others besides us air like ter
die. Over-hastiness is a sorry fault--but dilitariness is oftentimes
sorrier."

* * * * *

Back in the house that had grown around the nucleus of a revolutionary
cabin sat the woman who had been for such a short time a wife--and who
might so soon be a widow.

She had risen from her knees at last after agonized praying, but even
through her prayers came horrible and persistent pictures of what might
be happening to the man who had smiled as he rode away.

The insupportable dread chilled and tortured her that the brief
happiness of her marriage had been only a scrap and sample, which would
leave all the rest of life and widowhood bleaker for its memory and
loss.

Dorothy sat by the window with a face ghost-pallid and fingers that
wound in and out of spasmodic clutchings.

She closed her eyes in an effo