word of thanks or good-by.

"Howdye!" said Hale, taking in the group with his glance, but leaving his eyes on young Dave. The rest nodded, but the boy was too surprised for speech, and the spirit of deviltry took the girl when she saw her brother's face, and at the gate she turned:

"Much obleeged," she said. "Tell June I'm a-comin' over to see her next Sunday."

"I will," said Hale, and he rode on. To his surprise, when he had gone a hundred yards, he heard the boy spurring after him and he looked around inquiringly as young Dave drew alongside; but the boy said nothing and Hale, amused, kept still, wondering when the lad would open speech. At the mouth of another little creek the boy stopped his horse as though he was to turn up that way. "You've come back agin," he said, searching Hale's face with his black eyes.

"Yes," said Hale, "I've come back again."

"You goin' over to Lonesome Cove?"

"Yes."

The boy hesitated, and a sudden change of mind was plain to Hale in his face. "I wish you'd tell Uncle Judd about the trouble in town to-day," he said, still looking fixedly at Hale.

"Certainly."

"Did you tell the Red Fox that day you seed him when you was goin' over to the Gap last fall that you seed me at Uncle Judd's?"

"No," said Hale. "But how did you know that I saw the Red Fox that day?" The boy laughed unpleasantly.

"So long," he said. "See you agin some day." The way was steep and the sun was down and darkness gathering before Hale reached the top of the mountain--so he hallooed at the yard fence of the Red Fox, who peered cautiously out of the door and asked his name before he came to the gate. And there, with a grin on his curious mismatched face, he repeated young Dave's words:

"You've come back agin." And Hale repeated his:

"Yes, I've come back again."

"You goin' over to Lonesome Cove?"

"Yes," said Hale impatiently, "I'm going over to Lonesome Cove. Can I stay here all night?"

"Shore!" said the old man hospitably. "That's a fine hoss you got thar," he added with a chuckle. "Been swappin'?" Hale had to laugh as he climbed down from the bony ear-flopping beast.

"I left my horse in town--he's lame."

"Yes, I seed you thar." Hale could not resist: "Yes, and I seed you." The old man almost turned.

"Whar?" Again the temptation was too great.

"Talking to the Falin who started the row." This time the Red Fox wheeled sharply and his pale-blue eyes filled with suspicion.

"I keeps friends with both sides," he said. "Ain't many folks can do that."

"I reckon not," said Hale calmly, but in the pale eyes he still saw suspicion.

When they entered the cabin, a little old woman in black, dumb and noiseless, was cooking supper. The children of the two, he learned, had scattered, and they lived there alone. On the mantel were two pistols and in one corner was the big Winchester he remembered and behind it was the big brass telescope. On the table was a Bible and a volume of Swedenborg, and among the usual strings of pepper-pods and beans and twisted long green tobacco were drying herbs and roots of all kinds, and about the fireplace were bottles of liquids that had been stewed from them. The little old woman served, and opened her lips not at all. Supper was eaten with no further reference to the doings in town that day, and no word was said about their meeting when Hale first went to Lonesome Cove until they were smoking on the porch.

"I heerd you found some mighty fine coal over in Lonesome Cove."

"Yes."

"Young Dave Tolliver thinks you found somethin' else thar, too," chuckled the Red Fox.

"I did," said Hale coolly, and the old man chuckled again.

"She's a purty leetle gal--shore."

"Who is?" asked Hale, looking calmly at his questioner, and the Red Fox lapsed into baffled silence.

The moon was brilliant and the night was still. Suddenly the Red Fox cocked his ear like a hound, and without a word slipped swiftly within the cabin. A moment later Hale heard the galloping of a horse and from out the dark woods loped a horseman with a Winchester across his saddle bow. He pulled in at the gate, but before he could shout "Hello" the Red Fox had stepped from the porch into the moonlight and was going to meet him. Hale had never seen a more easy, graceful, daring figure on horseback, and in the bright light he could make out the reckless face of the man who had been the first to flash his pistol in town that day--Bad Rufe Tolliver. For ten minutes the two talked in whispers--Rufe bent forward with one elbow on the withers of his horse but lifting his eyes every now and then to the stranger seated in the porch--and then the horseman turned with an oath and galloped into the darkness whence he came, while the Red Fox slouched back to the porch and dropped silently into his seat.

"Who was that?" asked Hale.

"Bad Rufe Tolliver."

"I've heard of him."

"Most everybody in these mountains has. He's the feller that's always causin' trouble. Him and Joe Falin agreed to go West last fall to end the war. Joe was killed out thar, and now Rufe claims Joe don't count now an' he's got the right to come back. Soon's he comes back, things git frolicksome agin. He swore he wouldn't go back unless another Falin goes too. Wirt Falin agreed, and that's how they made peace to-day. Now Rufe says he won't go at all-- truce or no truce. My wife in thar is a Tolliver, but both sides comes to me and I keeps peace with both of 'em."

No doubt he did, Hale thought, keep peace or mischief with or against anybody with that face of his. That was a common type of the bad man, that horseman who had galloped away from the gate-- but this old man with his dual face, who preached the Word on Sundays and on other days was a walking arsenal; who dreamed dreams and had visions and slipped through the hills in his mysterious moccasins on errands of mercy or chasing men from vanity, personal enmity or for fun, and still appeared so sane--he was a type that confounded. No wonder for these reasons and as a tribute to his infernal shrewdness he was known far and wide as the Red Fox of the Mountains. But Hale was too tired for further speculation and presently he yawned.

"Want to lay down?" asked the old man quickly.

"I think I do," said Hale, and they went inside. The little old woman had her face to the wall in a bed in one corner and the Red Fox pointed to a bed in the other:

"Thar's yo' bed." Again Hale's eyes fell on the big Winchester.

"I reckon thar hain't more'n two others like it in all these mountains."

"What's the calibre?"

"Biggest made," was the answer, "a 50 x 75."

"Centre fire?"

"Rim," said the Red Fox.

"Gracious," laughed Hale, "what do you want such a big one for?"

"Man cannot live by bread alone--in these mountains," said the Red Fox grimly.

When Hale lay down he could hear the old man quavering out a hymn or two on the porch outside: and when, worn out with the day, he went to sleep, the Red Fox was reading his Bible by the light of a tallow dip. It is fatefully strange when people, whose lives tragically intersect, look back to their first meetings with one another, and Hale never forgot that night in the cabin of the Red Fox. For had Bad Rufe Tolliver, while he whispered at the gate, known the part the quiet young man silently seated in the porch would play in his life, he would have shot him where he sat: and could the Red Fox have known the part his sleeping guest was to play in his, the old man would have knifed him where he lay.

X

Hale opened his eyes next morning on the little old woman in black, moving ghost-like through the dim interior to the kitchen. A wood-thrush was singing when he stepped out on the porch and its cool notes had the liquid freshness of the morning. Breakfast over, he concluded to leave the yellow mule with the Red Fox to be taken back to the county town, and to walk down the mountain, but before he got away the landlord's son turned up with his own horse, still lame, but well enough to limp along without doing himself harm. So, leading the black horse, Hale started down.

The sun was rising over still seas of white mist and wave after