"How are you, Charley?" asked Yancy, as they shook hands.

"Only just tolerable, Bob. You've been warranted--Dave Blount
swore hit on to you." He displayed a sheet of paper covered with
much writing and decorated with a large seal. Yancy viewed this
formidable document with respect, but did not offer to take it.

"Read it," he said mildly. Balaam scratched his head.

"I don't know that hit's my duty to do that, Bob. Hit's my duty
to serve it on to you. But I can tell you what's into hit,
leavin' out the law--which don't matter nohow."

At this juncture Uncle Sammy's bent form emerged from the path
that led off through the woods in the direction of the Bellamy
cabin. With the patriarch was a stranger. Now the presence of a
stranger on Scratch Hill was an occurrence of such extraordinary
rarity that the warrant instantly became a matter of secondary
importance.

"Howdy, Charley. Here, Bob Yancy, you shake hands with Bruce
Carrington," commanded Uncle Sammy. At the name both Yancy and
Balaam manifested a quickened interest. They saw a man in the
early twenties, clean-limbed and broad-shouldered, with a
handsome face and shapely head. "Yes, sir, hit's a grandson of
Tom Carrington that used to own the grist-mill down at the Forks.
Yo're some sort of wild-hog kin to him, Bob--yo' mother was a
cousin to old Tom. Her family was powerful upset at her marrying
a Yancy. They say Tom cussed himself into a 'pleptic fit when