Hit looks jest like she said, Lem. I 'low she'd jest cry fer gladness, wouldn't she?"

Lem nodded absently and quickly put a question that had been waiting from the instant he heard of Orlick's visit.

"What time ded Orlick cum?"

"He cum short past sun-down," returned Belle-Ann as the two sat down on the bench.

"Ded he parley 'bout long?"

"Jest a short spell. I wouldn't talk t' em much."

Lem stood up. He was long and lank, but broad of shoulder for a boy of eighteen. He had a pleasing, intelligent countenance, with light, steadfast eyes that never looked askance. He removed his wide, soft hat and gazed up to Eagle Crown.

"Ded pap see Orlick?" he asked.

Belle-Ann shook her curls in the negative.

"Belle-Ann, ef yo' takes pertic'lar notice, every time Jutt Orlick cums t' Moon mountain somethin' alers happens—somethin' goes wrong. 'Peers like things starts back'ards."

"I 'low he air a hoodoo," observed Belle-Ann: "but he do look soldierfied, don't he, Lem?" she added, with a subtle regard for Orlick's military aspect and his bombastic airs.

Lem shot a jealous, reproachful look at the girl, turning sharply as she rose, and pointed down to a gap in the scrub timber, which was half lighted by the moon. They caught the fleeting shadow of a horseman mounting the trail to the cabin.

"Hit's Orlick!" Lem announced.

The sound of metallic hoof-strokes came rapid and distinct. When the rider had looped the spur they beheld the front of Orlick's horse coming head on up the moon-path, his hocks now in the air. As always, Orlick had flank-spurred his mount on the last lap, and the animal plunged, panting, to the horse-block, and brought up stiff-legged, with red-rimmed nostrils and distended jaws, fighting a cruel Spanish bit.

Orlick rolled out of the Mexican saddle, laughed shortly, and drawled:

"Howdy, yo'-all?" and smirked as he always did. "I hain't seen yo'-all in a coon's age, Lem," he added cordially, though his evil eyes were upon the girl as he extended his hand in greeting.

Lem Lutts touched the outstretched hand briefly.

Belle-Ann stood aloof with a look of suspicious admiration on her lovely countenance.

"I hain't seen yo'-all 'bout much nuther," answered Lem, with a contemptuous scrutiny of Orlick's brave trappings. Orlick chuckled.

"Yes—I'm gittin' over th' country a little nowadays. But, say, Lem, I cum up to tell ye thar's a stranger down at th' cypress cut what wants to come up. He's down yonder now a waitin'. He's got some business with the cap'n."

Belle-Ann shrank away, shuddering.

"I rec'on hit's Burton, th' ghost-man," she muttered under her breath.

Always since that memorable day when she had knelt beside Maw Lutts' dead body in the yard did the coming of a stranger thrill her with a great fear—a fear that stirred the venom that already tenanted her heart; a vivific thing, spawned at the killing of Maw Lutts. Time had never healed this wound. Time had only nurtured its corrosive, growing poison. Time that came to others of mankind to succor and heal, had never assuaged Belle-Ann's heart-hurt.

Struggle as she would to forget, she only remembered that she had struggled, and the aching grew on. It was a silent, self-contained suffering,—a hatred for the law that sneaked into their home and dealt death. This supernatural hulk, Burton, embodied the law. Burton, this lupine, leering lover of blood—this killer of women.

When Orlick announced that a stranger had business with the old man, the revenuer's ugly visage popped before the girl more vividly than ever. That grim hated shadow of prey darted upon her tensioned senses and made her shiver, sending a-scutter and a-scurry all the innate righteous instincts whose home had been her heart; leaving in its void a well of hate that congealed and turned into a live thing, that squirmed, burrowed, and crawled to and fro in her soul; armed with a hundred claws to goad and agonize and spread a misery through her young life. All this warped the girl's spiritual being and imperiled the beauty of her countenance, for at times it mingled the lettering of its presence with the charms of her face.

Without a word, but with a significant look at Belle-Ann, Lem took the cow-horn suspended over his shoulder by a rawhide, pointed it upward toward the lone figure on the cliff and gave a long, sonorous blast. Instantly the solitary figure on high moved and disappeared from view.

Belle-Ann drew apart, while the two men stood together, Orlick doing the talking, and watched for the old man to come out into the trail.

There came a slight sound behind and, like a shadow, old Cap Lutts stepped forth under the trees and confronted them, his polished rifle gleaming in the moonlight, and a big, spotted hound hugging his heels.

His straight, powerful form rose to giant proportions. His very presence pulsed keen discernment, subtle alertness, an agile, seemingly implacable strength and aggressive tenacity.

He listened in silence as Orlick told his mission and then said quietly:

"Lem, you an' Orlick go down yonder an' lead th' party up heah ef he's alone; if he ain't yo'-all blow the horn. An' yo', Orlick," the old man added, with eyes that bored into Orlick's smirking face, "what air thes I heered about your trapesin' around over yon in Southpaw?"

Orlick shifted his weight to the other foot.

"Yo'-all ain't 'lowin' to fix nothin' on Jutt Orlick—on a Orlick, cap'n?" he cried huskily. "Where's my pap an' four brothers—where's Hank an' Bill an' Tom Orlick, an' Tod an' old Elijah Lutts Orlick?

"Shot to pieces heah on Hellsfork, fightin' the revenuers an' th' McGills! I kin lead yo' to their bones down yonder!" He pointed his trooper's hat trembling in his outstretched hand.

"An' whut air I heah fer t'-night? Yo'-all ain't 'lowin' to fix nothin' on the onlyst Orlick left, cap'n?"

Throughout this fervent defense not for one instant did the piercing, chill eyes of old Lutts leave the boy's face.

"Orlick," he began slowly, "I hain't studyin' 'bout the past. Hit's the time a comin'. I jest axed yo', have yo' been over in Southpaw?"

"Naw, I hain't!" declared Orlick, flushing slightly.

"Have yo' snooked with the revenuers below?"

"Not by er damn sight!"

"Leastways," observed the old man as he drew back, "I 'low yo're in bad company, son; but ef yo' ever cross Hellsfork er I know plumb sho' thet yo' snook with th' revenuers below, don't never 'low me t' git eyes on ye', Orlick."

"Don't force th' old man t' lift a hand agin' yo' pint-blank, git out o' th' mountings first. Now, yo' boys go an' fetch th' stranger party up. Ef hit's thet infernal ghost-dog revenuer, don't skeer em off—bring em up, quick! Ef hit's a sheriff, don't hurt his feelin's—bring em up, cose I'm lonesome like."

Orlick fully understood the import of Cap Lutts' parting words, and, casting a covert look toward the cabin where he knew Belle-Ann lingered in the shadows, he swaggered along after Lem, leading his horse. And the while a bold design shaped itself in his perfidious heart as he pretended loyal friendship to the silent boy trudging beside him.

A cloud of dark suspicion hung over the head of Jutt Orlick.

Things had happened in the mountains the past two years which subsequently pointed accusing fingers in his direction. Unless he was present no one ever knew just where Orlick was.

Two years since he had disappeared and come back after nine months, wearing soldier's garb, which he had affected ever since.

He told lurid tales of his conquests and adventures with the Mexican revolutionists. He elaborated on the gilded splendor and the beautiful things that the big cities held.

He recounted deeds of heroism abroad in which he was sole hero and he poured these fabulous tales into Belle-Ann's ears at every opportunity.

At the end of his periodical migrations he always returned with a new horse, and sums of money that