On entering the great room of Cedar House they found the rest of the family in a most unusual state of excitement. The lamps and candles had not been lighted, as it was not yet quite dark, but the firelight was bright, and they could plainly see the anxiety on every face.

Miss Penelope was in her accustomed place, which she could no more get away from than a planet could leave its orbit. But her attention was wandering, as it rarely did, and she was silently casting uneasy glances at the judge and his nephew who sat on the other side of the room, talking to each other in a loud, excited tone. The widow Broadnax, also, was in her usual seat in the chimney-corner, yet looking now and then at the two men; and the mere fact that she thus allowed her gaze to stray for a moment from what her half-sister was doing, indicated the uncommon disturbance of her mind.

Ruth and David hardly knew the judge as he looked and spoke now, for it was he who was speaking as they came in. He had just motioned his nephew to silence with a sternness which was not to be disobeyed. His voice rang with a decision and severity, such as none of the household had ever heard from him, who was commonly so carelessly mild and abstracted.

"No one shall, with my consent, or even my knowledge, go from my house to Duff's Fort on any account whatever."

"Pardon me, sir," began William, stiffly.

He was keeping his self-control with the air of one who does it under great provocation, and who has scant respect for those who lose it; but his face was flushed, and his eyes were angry. The strained coldness of his tone and manner were like oil to the flame of his uncle's wrath. The judge's hand went out in a gesture that had almost the force of a blow.

"Stop!" he shouted. "I refuse even to discuss the matter. It is enough for me to tell you again that no one shall go from under my roof to the place where robbers and cutthroats congregate. It's a disgrace that I haven't been able to break up their den. I have done my best, and I am still doing it, but the reproach of this band's existence, here at my very door, nevertheless rests on me more than on any one else. I am the representative of the law—the law, good God! with the country in the murderous clutches of that lawless gang! Keep away, I tell you! And I will ask Alston what he means by even seeming to give countenance to those scoundrels by going nigh them. Business! What business can he or any other decent man have with the nest of rattlesnakes that we can't drag out from under that bluff?"

"It is a very simple matter, sir, if you would permit me to explain," William said more coldly and deliberately than ever. "Mr. Alston is merely making a trade for a boatload of horses, and simply asked me, as his attorney, to meet him at Duff's Fort to draw up the contract with Mason and Sturtevant."

The judge stared blankly for a moment, so overwhelmed by surprise that he forgot his anger. "Mason and Sturtevant," he repeated. "Do you mean to tell me that a man of half Alston's intelligence doesn't know that those men never have a horse that they haven't stolen?"

William Pressley said nothing more; he suspected that his uncle had been drinking a little more heavily than common. Moreover, it scarcely seemed worth while to argue with blind prejudice, drunk or sober.

"Then if you've got nothing more to say, it's with Alston that I will settle this matter. But all the same, I forbid you to go near Duff's Fort. I have a right to forbid you, as a member of my household. I have a right to forbid any one belonging to my family to do anything that touches my own honor, my good name. And this touches both to the quick."

"Very well, sir. I shall tell Mr. Alston what you say. I must, of course, give some reason for breaking a professional engagement," said William.

"I shall tell him a few things myself," stormed the judge. "It's all very well for him to put on his high-and-mighty tolerant air about the state of things hereabouts, and to keep on saying, soothingly, that everything will come right after a while, as it does in all new countries; but neither he nor any honest man can afford to handle pitch. It sticks to the cleanest hands. See that you keep yours out of it. Nobody belonging to me shall be smirched—and just now, too, when we are going to cleanse the whole country of it at last, thank God! We have only been waiting for a chance to carry out the plan which was arranged while General Jackson was here. Joe Daviess has now found the opportunity, and our campaign has already begun. He is determined to put it in motion before he leaves for Tippecanoe—"

"Then he is really going?" broke in William, quickly, with a marked change of tone and manner.

The judge paid no attention to the question. He seldom noticed what his nephew said, and his thoughts were now solely of the undertaking which absorbed him heart and soul. After thinking deeply in silence for a few moments, he spoke of the plan more fully, even freely, as he was in the habit of speaking in the bosom of his own family. There was no one else present; even the servants were gone out of the room. Moreover, he had been drinking, as his nephew suspected, and the stimulant, together with the excitement, carried him beyond all prudence. He did not even lower his tone.

"Yes, we begin the good work this very night. We've got the chance we have been waiting for—the chance to catch those cutthroats red-handed! We had news yesterday that three men were coming over the Wilderness Road, bringing a large sum of money to buy land. The negotiation has been under way for weeks. We have learned that this fact, and the time when these men are expected to pass through here, are both as well known at Duff's Fort as they are to us. We have also had news of the coming of a large flatboat with a rich cargo, which is due to pass down the river by Duff's Fort some time during to-morrow night. Those hungry demons are said to be ready and waiting for the travellers by land and water—and we are ready and waiting for them! Just let them lift a hand to rob or murder, and we will be on hand, too! The attorney-general has sent a large posse of picked men down the river to come up overland on the further side of the fort. Another posse has gone round by the swamp to guard that quarter, and there is a boat in readiness on the other side of the river, well armed and fully manned. Yes, we've got the scoundrels safe enough this time! We've run them to earth at last. There is only one loophole, and the attorney-general himself is to guard that—the path round Anvil Rock. That is the band's highway. The rock is their rallying-point and we couldn't see at first how we were to watch it without putting the scoundrels on their guard. To send any number of men, even two or three, in that direction, would have been to give the alarm at once—as the moon is about full. After consultation, it was decided that the attorney-general alone should attend to this delicate part of the plan. It was his own suggestion that he should go to Anvil Rock immediately after dark to-morrow night, and wait there in the shadow—watching everything that passes—till his men join him, after beating the bushes and going over the country with a drag-net. It's a dangerous task that he has taken on himself, notwithstanding that the posse guarding the swamp should be in hearing of his voice by the time he reaches Anvil Rock. I told him so; but he said that it must be done by some one man, since more than one would defeat our whole undertaking, and that it was the duty of no one but himself. However, he has ordered all his men—the different posses sent out in various directions—to draw in toward Anvil Rock, so that he will not be there long alone, and not at any time beyond the hearing of his men, should he find it necessary to call for help. Anyway, I couldn't dissuade him from going alone. It was no more than General Jackson had done, he declared, when I protested; and he also thought that being alone made it unlikely that he would be observed. The main object was for him to be near by when his men should need him, and that purpose would be best served by his waiting in the shadow of Anvil Rock. I said what I could, and urged him to let me go with him, but he stuck to it that only one man must go." The judge spoke anxiously, wearily now, all anger forgotten. "And he will be there. He never knew what fear was, in doing his duty; he would walk straight into the devil's den and attack him single-handed, without the quiver of a nerve."

"Allow me to congratulate you, sir," William Pressley said distantly, with an air of polite concession to somewhat foolish enthusiasm. "I think you have perhaps been rather more troubled over certain outbreaks of lawlessness than you need have been. They are to be expected, I suppose, in all new countries, and they gradually disappear before the advance of civilization, as Mr. Alston says. All that is in the natural order of human events. However, since you have been so much disturbed, I am truly pleased that you are so soon to be relieved of all uneasiness from this source. May I ask, sir, if you can tell me the precise date of the attorney-general's departure—for the seat of war, I mean—for Tippecanoe?"

The judge shook his head, hardly hearing the inquiry. The agitation which had shaken him was leaving him greatly spent. The old look of abstraction came back, quickly dulling his gaze, and, sinking down in his chair, he very soon began to nod and doze.

"With your permission, sir," William went on with a touch of sarcasm in his cool, slow voice, "I should like to call upon Mr. Alston to-morrow. You have, I presume, no objection to my going to see him in his own house. It is impossible to drop a matter of business without a word of explanation. And if you have no objection, I will mention to him the matters of which you have just been speaking. No one has a deeper interest in the public welfare, and certainly no one could be more eminently discreet. However, I shall, of course, speak in the strictest confidence."

The judge bent his head, but it was in nodding not in assent, for he had not heard a word that his nephew said. And William saw nothing but the nod with a sidewise glance of aversion at the signs of his uncle's weakness.

It was the boy who heard and saw everything, and remembered and weighed it, with a feeling of alarm that he knew no reason for, and could not explain to himself. It was his instinct to dislike anything that William Pressley said or did, and to distrust everything in which Philip Alston was concerned. He looked round at Ruth to see if she shared his feeling, and saw that she was gazing at William Pressley with troubled eyes.

They had scarcely exchanged a word since their quarrel, although she had made many timid advances toward a reconciliation. It was conscience and not love which had moved her in all that she had done, but this fact was not yet clear to her own mind. She was beginning to see it, but she tried to shut her eyes to the truth, being a loyal soul, and firm in her high regard for the man whom she had promised to marry. There had been no opportunity to tell him what she felt; and she was still more distressed to see that he avoided seeing her alone. It was of this cloud between them that she was thinking now, and it was that which shadowed her face. She had not noted very keenly what was going forward about her. She had shrunk from the judge's excitement and agitation, as she always did from all violence; but the meaning of his words had not impressed her deeply or even clearly. Her gentle nature and her tranquil life were too far from strife, cruelty, and crime for her to grasp the full purport of the story. She had heard William Pressley speak of telling Philip Alston, without giving the matter a thought. It was right in her eyes that he should be told everything. The mention of his name caused her to think that it would be well to tell him of her quarrel with William and of her regret and self-reproach. He was wise and kind, and would know what was right and best to do. Perhaps he might even see some way by which the engagement could be broken without wrong or hurt to William's feelings. A measure of peace came with the hope, and she was presently gazing into the fire, dreaming more than thinking, and feeling assured that the doctor would stop when he went by on the next morning.

The boy saw how absorbed she was, and felt that there was no use in waiting to speak to her, to tell her of the vague alarm which had seized him. And then what was there to tell her or any one? He would only be laughed at for fancying things, as he often had been before, and remembering this, he crept off to his own cabin and went to bed. But he could not go to sleep for a long time, and when he awoke at dawn the formless dread was still dark in his mind, like some fearsome shape behind an impenetrable curtain. And there it stayed all the day through, never quite coming out into the light, but growing steadily larger and darker and more terrible as the long heavy hours wore on. When—at last—the dusk began to creep down the river, he grew so restless in his nameless misery that he wandered into the forest, and there met the doctor riding along the path on the way to his lonely cabin.

Paul's face brightened at the sight of the boy; he had always liked him, and had been drawn to him before knowing of Ruth's existence. Still the thought of her was now foremost in his mind as he looked at David. We are all glad to see those who are near the one whom we love; we are even eager to seek those whom we would otherwise avoid when they are near our beloved from whom we are parted. This eagerness was in Paul Colbert's face as he looked at the boy and asked with some hesitation if he was in haste.

"If you are not," he said, "I should like to have a little talk with you. Let's sit down on that fallen tree."

Dismounting, he led his horse along the path, with the boy following in silence. They sat down side by side on the tree-trunk, the doctor holding his horse by the bridle. There were new lines in his face which did not belong to youth, and which had not been graven by his fierce struggle with the Cold Plague. The boy noticed them and knew that they had not been there when he had last seen the doctor's face. Its look of gloom also had come back. That had lifted at the moment of meeting, but it was too deep to go so suddenly, and it had now returned. He turned to the boy uncertainly, for there had been no clear purpose in his speaking to the lad. He had spoken on an irresistible impulse to learn something of Ruth, blindly clutching at a possible bond between her and himself. It seemed years rather than days since he had heard from her. But in a single glance his trained eyes saw that David was in trouble, and by asking a few adroit questions he brought out all that the boy knew. The doctor sat so still for an instant after hearing what had passed between the judge and William Pressley, that David looked up in surprise to see what was the matter. Paul Colbert was very pale, and his eyes were glancing round, searching the deepening shadows of the forest. He made a gesture, warning the boy to speak lower, and his own voice was scarcely above a whisper.

"What time to-day did Pressley leave Cedar House? Had he come back when
you came away? Tell me again just what he said about telling Philip
Alston. Try to remember every word—a valuable life may hang upon it.
Keep as cool as you can—and be careful, don't be alarmed, but be quick.
Every word now—once more."

The boy repeated everything as accurately as he could. While he was speaking, the doctor, rising to his feet, gathered up the bridle-reins, and hastily bending down, was tightening the girth. When the last item of information had been gathered, he vaulted into the saddle.

"There isn't any time for our talk. I must gallop home for a fresh horse. This one is too tired for the speed we need." He saw the surprise and, the alarm in the boy's gaze, and leaning over, took his trembling hand. "Don't be troubled. You are in no way to blame, whatever happens. You have done the very best thing possible in telling me this. It may not be too late. I shall try. I am going at once to do all that I can to warn or to guard a great man's life. The delay in getting the fresh horse is the worst; but," hastily grasping his hand again, "if I am too late, if I fail and never come back, tell Ruth that I did my best. Tell her that I have done my best ever since I have known. I have kept away from Cedar House—have only seen her far off, feeding the birds. But that was all I could do. I couldn't help thinking of her, I couldn't help what I felt. You will remember—and tell her?"

He looked down in the boy's frightened face with a strange smile, and then touching his horse with the spur, he flashed out of sight among the trees.