moonlight past the sights of his Winchester, and her face that day
had again loosed within him a flood of feeling that drove the lust
for revenge from his veins. Even now, while he sat in his own
cabin, his thoughts were across the river where Martha, broken at
last, sat at her death vigils. He knew what her daring ride that day
had cost her, with old Jasper dead out there in the woods; and as
she passed him he had grown suddenly humbled, shamed. He grew
heart-sick now as he thought of it all; and the sight of his mother
on her bed in the corner, close to death as she was, filled him with
bitterness. There was no help for him. He was alone now, pitted
against young Jasper alone. On one bed lay his uncle-nigh to death.
There was the grim figure in the corner, the implacable spirit of
hate and revenge. His rifle was against the wall. If there was any
joy for him in old Jasper's death, it was that his hand had not
caused it, and yet-God help him!-there was the other cross, the
other oath.

XII

THE star and the crescent were swinging above Wolf's Head, and
in the dark hour that breaks into dawn a cavalcade of Lewallens
forded the Cumberland, and galloped along the Stetson shore. At
the head rode young Jasper, and Crump the spy.

Swift changes had followed the court-house fight. In spite of the
death of Rufe Stetson from his wound, and several other Stetsons
from ambush, the Lewallens had lost ground. Old Jasper's store
had fallen into the hands of creditors -" furriners "-for debts, and it
was said his homestead must follow. In a private war a leader
must be more than leader. He must feed and often clothe his