" He paused, and the hand that closed over hers
was firm and resolute for all the tenderness of its pressure.

"Hit's warfare now ter ther hilt of ther knife, honey, but hit's ther
warfare of them that strives fer decency an' law erginst them thet
murders in ther night-time. An' yit ther riders has good men amongst
'em, too--men thet's jest sorely misguided. I reckon ye don't know thet,
either, but Bas Rowlett's ther one body thet brought 'em ter life an'
eggs 'em on. When he dies ther riders'll fall apart like a string of
beads thet's been cut in two. Terday I aims ter cut ther thread."

The woman stood trembling with the fervour of outraged indignation as he
told her all he knew, but when he finished she nodded her head, in a
finale of exhortation, toward the bedroom. Possibly she was not unlike
the lawyer whose duty is to argue for legal observances even though his
heart cries out mutinously for a hotter course.

"Air hit wuth while--orphanin' him--an' widderin' me fer--Ken?"

"Hit's wuth while his growin' up ter know thet he wasn't fathered by no
craven, ner yit borne by a woman thet faltered," answered Parish
Thornton; then he set Hump Doane's rifle in the corner and took out his
own with the particularity of a man who, for a vital task, dares trust
no tool save that with which he is most familiar.

When he had gone Dorothy sat down in her chair again. She remembered
that other time when her mind had reeled under anxieties almost too
poignant for endurance. Now she was nursing a baby, and she must hold
herself in hand. Her eyes wandered about the place, seeking something
upon which her mind might seize for support, and at length she rose and
ran up the boxed-in stairway to the attic.

When she came back again to the bedroom she carried the journal that had
been so mysteriously lost and recovered, and then she drew a chair to
the window and opened the document where she had left off in her
reading. But often she laid the book absent-mindedly in her lap to
listen with an ear turned toward the bed, and often, too, she looked out
into the spreading softness of golden-green laced through by dove-gray
and sepia-brown branches on which played baffling reflexes of soft and
mossy colours.

* * * * *

Parish Thornton did not approach the house of his enemy from the front.
He came upon it from behind and held to the shelter of the laurel as
long as that was possible, but he found a padlo