demanded, fiercely; "don't ye know
thet whilst ye lets him live yere jest handlin' an' playin' with a
rattlesnake?"

"He hain't got long ter live," came the coldly confident response, "but
afore he dies, he wants ter crave yore pardon, Dorothy, an' he wants ter
do hit kneelin' down."

Bas Rowlett shot a sidelong glance at the clock. Time was soul and
essence of the matter now and minutes were the letters that spelled life
and death. He listened tensely, too, and fancied that he heard a
whippoorwill.

There were many whippoorwills calling out there in the woods but he
thought this was a double call and that between its whistlings a man
might have counted five. Of that, however, he could not be sure.

"I hain't got no choice, Dorothy," whined the man, whose craven soul was
suffering acutely as he fenced for delay--delay at any cost. "Even ef I
hed, though, I'd crave yore pardon of my own free will--but afore I does
hit, thar's jest a few words I'd love ter say."

Dorothy Thornton stood just inside the door. Pity, mercy, and tenderness
were qualities as inherent in her as perfume in a wild flower, but there
was something else in her as well--as there is death in some perfumes.
If he had been actually a poisonous reptile instead of a snake soul in
the body of a man Bas Rowlett could have been to her, just then, no less
human.

"Yes," she said, slowly, as a memory stirred the confession of her
emotions, "thar's one thing I'd like ter say, too--but hit hain't in no
words of my own--hit's somethin' thet was said a long spell back."

From the mantel shelf she produced the old journal, and opened its
yellowed pages.

"I've been settin' hyar," said Dorothy Thornton, in a strained quietness
of voice, "readin' this old book mighty nigh all day--I _hed_ ter read
hit--" her voice broke there, then went steadily on again--"or else go
mad, whilst I was waitin'--waitin' ter know whether Ken hed kilt ye or
_you'd_ kilt _him_." Again she paused for a moment and turned her eyes
to her husband. "This book sheds light on a heap of things thet we all
needs ter know erbout--hit tells how his foreparent sought ter kill ther
tree thet our ancestors planted--an' hit's kinderly like an indictment
in ther high co'te."

While Dorothy Thornton accused the blood sprung from the renegade and
his Indian squaw out of those ancient pages the men listened.

To the husband it was incitement and revelation. The tree out there
standing warder in