he called to Gordon to follow. Gordon ran in the grass along the road to
keep those boots out of the dust. Somebody had fired off his pistol for
fun and was making tracks for the river. As they pushed the miscreant
close, he dashed into the river to wade across. It was a very cold
morning, and Gordon prayed that the captain was not going to be such a
fool as to follow the fellow across the river. He should have known
better,

"In with you," said the captain quietly, and the mirror of the shining
boots was dimmed, and the icy water chilled the sergeant to the knees
and made him so mad that he flashed his pistol and told the runaway to
halt, which he did in the middle of the stream. It was Richards, the
tough from "the Pocket," and, as he paid his fine promptly, they had to
let him go. Gordon went back, put on his everyday clothes and got his
billy and his whistle and prepared to see the maid from Lee when his
duty should let him. As a matter of fact, he saw her but once, and then
he was not made happy.

The people had come in rapidly--giants from the Crab Orchard,
mountaineers from through the Gap, and from Cracker's Neck and
Thunderstruck Knob; Valley people from Little Stone-Gap, from the
furnace site and Bum Hollow and Wildcat, and people from Lee, from
Turkey Cove, and from the Pocket--the much-dreaded Pocket--far down in
the river hills.

They came on foot and on horseback, and left their horses in the bushes
and crowded the streets and filled the saloon of one Jack Woods--who had
the cackling laugh of Satan and did not like the Guard, for good
reasons, and whose particular pleasure was to persuade some customer to
stir up a hornet's nest of trouble. From the saloon the crowd moved up