ar, an' when ye told me ye war
befriendin' me I war fool enough ter b'lieve ye. Don't ye recollict how
we turned and looked down, an' ye p'inted out thet big tree--in front of
ther house?"

The intriguer ground his teeth, but from the victor's privilege of
verbose taunting he had no redress. After all, it would be a transient
victory. Parish might "rub it in" now, but in a few hours he would be
dangling at a rope's end.

"Ye showed hit ter me standin' thar high an' widespread in ther
moonlight, an' I seems ter recall thet ye 'lowed ye'd cut hit down ef ye
hed yore way. Ye hain't hed yore way, though, Bas, despite Satan's
unflaggin' aid. Ther old tree still stands thar a-castin' hits shade
over a place thet's come ter be my home--a place ye've done vainly
sought ter defile."

Still Rowlett did not speak. There was a grim vestige of comfort left in
the thought that when the moon shone again Parish Thornton would have
less reason to love that tree.

"Ye don't seem no master degree talkative terday, Bas," suggested the
man with the pistol, which was no longer held levelled but
swinging--though ready to leap upward. Then almost musingly he added,
"An' thet's a kinderly pity, too, seein' ye hain't nuver goin' ter hev
no other chanst."

"Why don't ye shoot an' git done?" barked Rowlett with a leer of
desperation. "Pull yore trigger an' be damned ter ye--we'll meet in hell
afore long anyhow."

When Thornton spoke again the naked and honest wrath that had smouldered
for a year like a banked fire at last leaped into untrammelled blazing.

"I don't strike down even a man like _you_ outen sheer hate an'
vengeance," he declared, with an electrical vibrance of pitch. "Hit's a
bigger thing then thet an' ye've got ter know in full what ye dies for
afore I kills ye--ye hain't deluded me as fur es ye thinks ye have--I
knows ye betrayed me in Virginny; I knows ye shot at old Jim an'
fathered ther infamies of ther riders; I knows ye sought ter fo'ce
yoreself on Dorothy; but I didn't git thet knowledge from _her_. She
kep' her bargain with ye."

"A man right often thinks he knows things when he jest suspicions 'em,"
Bas reminded him, with a forced and factitious calm summoned for his
final interview, but the other waved aside the subterfuge.

"Right often--yes--but not always, an' this hain't one of them
delusions. I knows ther full sum an' substance of yore infamies, an' yit
I've done held my hand. Mebby ye thought my wrath war