pleasure—for at times she could be pagan as of old—and when at last the little point slipped through, she felt no pity for the locust; rather, was she tempted to stroke the victor as it crawled from the suddenly relaxed grip of its stiffening foe, laved its wings, polished its legs, and rose into the air.

Weak with the consciousness of her peril, this mental by-play urged her to the necessity of speed; and, like the stinger, her mind began an hysterical thrusting for a more subtle method of defense.

"Tusk, I'm sorry I stood you up before the class," she tried, in speaking kindly, to hide her loathing. "But now you must go home at once, or I shall never be able to let you come to school again!"

He laughed outright.

"Won't never let me come, no moh! Well, now jest heah that! Why, sissy, you'd ortent git so mad! Kiss me like a nice gal, an' let's make up!"

"You beast," she cried, her fear suddenly bursting into an irresistible rage. "You beast," she cried again, striking him in the face with all her strength. "You'll be killed for this!"

For an instant he was stunned by the surprise of her attack, but then, blind with fury, his gorilla-like arms shot out and caught her just as she was turning to dash toward the door.

During this scene the newcomer had made several determinations to enter, yet each was checked by a consciousness that he did not belong to this country where he had been told strange customs prevailed. He was not at all sure but that an interference would be seriously inapt. Once or twice he had been on the verge of stealing back into the thicket for his rifle, yet the schoolhouse drama held him too firmly chained for this. Adopting now a middle course, he went up the four steps and entered with an innocent air of one having just arrived. Blinking with a pretended effort to make out the interior, he mildly asked:

"Is this Miss Jane's school?"

Tusk sprang back with a snarl, while the girl, twisting free and frantically recovering her balance, came toward the new voice with hands outstretched, bumping against the desks as one who had suddenly gone blind. She could not speak, she could scarcely think, and only by the sternest force of will would her knees bear up; but somewhere in front of her stood deliverance, and to this she groped.

"Howdy," the new voice spoke again, as she felt a hand take one of her own and press her toward a seat. "Ye look peak-éd; maybe ye'd better set!"

Her composure was returning in bounds; for this girl, herself born in the mountains, possessed too much innate fortitude to be long dominated by fear.

"Thank you," her voice still trembled. "I—I must have been frightened." Then quickly: "Yes, this is Miss Jane's school, and I am Miss Jane."

A curious sound rattled in the newcomer's throat, and his chin dropped with stupid amazement. For a long moment he stared at her, his pupils dilating and contracting in a strangely fascinating way, and his body beginning slowly to rock from side to side as it had done in the thicket across the road. But just now she was meeting his gaze with a look of excited gladness.

"Yeou! Miss Jane?" he murmured, each syllable vibrating with some deep timbre of admiration and protection. Another moment he stared, then his eyes turned and rested unflinchingly on Tusk. It was a look particularly expressive neither of surprise nor condemnation, hatred nor scorn, yet its very impassivity carried a pulsing sense of danger, as though something terrible were on the verge of happening and the various elements of destruction were being hurriedly assembled. But quietly he turned again to the girl.

"Lucy's outside. Maybe ye'd better let her take ye home!"

"Oh, ask her to come in," she cried, feeling the need of a woman perhaps more than at any time in her life, and now fearful of another sort of tragedy. She was not sure of how much this newcomer had seen, but his look at Tusk was eloquent of one thing: that if these men were left alone the building would receive its first stain of human blood. She wanted to spare her schoolhouse this. It was her boast that no life should go out by violence beneath its roof: for it had long been a recognized custom in wilder regions of this country for men to choose the wayside schools, the scattered churches or crossroads stores as places from which to usher obtrusive neighbors into eternal rest.

"Wall, she can't do that," the newcomer thoughtfully replied, "seein' as how she's my ole mare. But ye mought take her 'n' go home. Me 'n' this feller'll watch yo' school!"

Looking from one to the other, weighing the chances of outwitting Tusk, she lightly suggested:

"My own horse is in the shed. You may help me put on the saddle!"

"All right," he readily answered. "'N' yeou," he turned to Tusk, now watching them with growing malignancy, "wait hyar till I git back: then verily, verily, I say unto ye, we'll cast another devil outen the Lawd's temple!"

She was alert to acquiesce in this. Her instinct said that unless something tentative were left in view, some further part of the drama held out to be played, the simple-minded Tusk would stop their going. His dwarfed intelligence, gauged to one idea, might be satisfied to wait only if waiting promised a climax. And as for the other's returning—this new-found deliverer who was so thoroughly of the mountains, yet whose dialect just now had savored of the "circuit-rider" type—she felt able to cope with that exigency after they were outside. So in her eagerness she had arisen, when Tusk stepped roughly to the door and slammed it.

"Nobody's goin' home to-night," he growled, turning and glaring at them.

His eyes, set unusually deep and close together, flashed murder, and the girl sank weakly back into a seat. For she knew Tusk's strength. She had seen him shoulder a log under which two men were struggling and walk firmly away with it. The very consciousness alone of this power was oppressive. He could crush this other man with a blow.

"A soft answer turneth away wrath," a quiet voice whispered down to her, and continued: "Let the gal out; she wants ter go home!"

"If you're some kind of a preacher," Tusk snarled at him, having also noticed the Biblical character of speech, "git out yohse'f. But the gal stays right heah till I'm ready fer her to go! An', young feller, mebbe she'll be let go home, or mebbe she'll come 'long with me—I ain't decided, but I won't be hindered by no one!" His voice was trembling with increasing passion. "Now's yoh time to git, Mister Preacher, or, by Gawd—" He drew a long, dirty knife from a hidden sheath, and seemed unable to complete the sentence for his excited breathing.

"I hain't a preacher," the other quietly replied to him, "but I've jest been sendin' a message ter the Lawd this very evenin', 'n' I reckon He had me come in heah ter look ye over, bein' as how ye air one of them sorry skunks I'm arter." And without warning he sprang like a panther at the offender's throat.

The shock of his body sent Tusk backwards, tripping him over a desk where both men went down in a heap. Almost before they struck the floor the newcomer cried to her:

"Git the critter 'n' ride, Schoolteacher! Hit's yo' only chance!"

He had no more time to warn, for a series of sounds, sickening, bestial sounds, told of a terrific struggle as feet and bodies and elbows dully crashed against the desks on either side. It was a narrow aisle in which to fight.

Yet she was not made of the stuff that would mount a horse and fly. Her early life, when as a slip of a girl she stood many a night with rifle in hand filling the place of lookout for an outlaw father who trafficked in moonshine whisky, had taught her to be