They came to the cabin on Trilley Ridge after dark, Jeff and Pete walking side by side and Barr silent behind them. Jeff balanced the pack on his shoulders and was glad he had it there. It was an old friend and had always been a true one. He had been in trouble many times while it was on his shoulders, but he had never stayed in trouble.

As they walked he tried to pinpoint directions, but because of the darkness he could not do so. They had left the road for a path so faint that the casual traveler would not even see it as he passed. There was another path, and still another, and all of it was country that the hill men knew well but that Jeff did not know at all. When they finally reached the cabin, he was sure only that it was north of the road. But it would not have been an unpleasant journey if Pete had not been walking with him.

Found out, Pete had retreated sullenly into himself and Jeff again thought of an animal. But Pete was no ordinary savage thing that might attack because it was hungry or seeking a fight. He planned, and hidden behind his weak blue eyes was a crafty brain. Jeff knew that Pete's only thought revolved around ways to kill him, and it was a cold thing to know.

The men came to the cabin and Barr said, "This is hit."

Jeff spoke over his shoulder. "You sure the place isn't haunted?"

"No ha'nts." Barr seemed perplexed, as though there was something about the mission he no longer understood. "Push the door an' go in."

"Sure," Jeff said agreeably.

He opened the door and felt Pete go tense beside him. Jeff gripped his shotgun with both hands, preparing to bring it crashing down on the man's head. Pete would kill without imperiling himself, if he could, and almost his only chance would occur when they entered the dark cabin. But Barr knew this too.

"Stay here," he ordered his cousin. And to Jeff, "Got a match in your pocket?"

"Yep."

"Go in by yourself an' light hit. Strike hit to the tallow candle that'll be settin' on the table."

Jeff entered, felt the cabin's walls enclose him, and had a strange feeling that Barr Whitney was a complete fool. It would be simple to swing suddenly, cock the shotgun as he swung and, always supposing he had some live ammunition, send a leaden hail back through the door. Then he understood.

Barr was no fool. He had merely gauged Jeff and he knew men. He had known that Pete would turn and shoot if sent in first, but Jeff would not. Besides, Jeff thought wryly, though Pete might be forced to stand in any line of fire that might sweep out the door, Barr would be elsewhere.

Jeff took a match from his pocket, struck it, and looked around the cabin. It was one fairly large room, and at the far end was a natural stone fireplace. There was a table, three chairs, two double bunks built one on top of the other, cooking utensils hanging from wooden pegs driven into the wall, and small windows. The cabin was either a bachelor's home or else it was used only on occasion by some person or persons who had reason to spend time here. Jeff touched his dying match to the fat tallow candle that stood on the table and flicked the burned match onto the floor.

"Come on in," he said cheerfully. "And welcome to our happy home!"

Pete's face was cold, and that was almost the only expression. He strode to a chair, pulled it away from the table and sat down with his rifle across his lap. Jeff stood his shotgun in a corner and turned to face Barr.

"Snug little den," he said pleasantly.

Barr looked puzzled and said nothing. However, the burning determination and the sternness were partly gone from his face. This was a serious business but Jeff was not accepting it seriously. Never flicking his eyes from his captives, Barr pulled a chair very close to the door.

"Here we be," he pronounced, "an' here we stay 'til the sun lightens the topmost twigs on the big pines."

"That's cute," Jeff declared admiringly. "That's really cute!"

Barr glared at him. "What is?"

"Your description. ''Til the sun lightens the topmost twigs on the big pines.' Not exactly poetry, but it has a poetic spirit. Well, if we're going to be here all night, we should do something besides glare at each other."

He slid out of the pack, laid it on the table and stretched. Then he stifled a yawn. He'd had no sleep last night and evidently he'd get none tonight, but more than once he'd had to stay awake as long, and he could do it again.

"If you be weary," Barr indicated the bunks, "you might sleep."

"Thanks," Jeff declined, "but I'm afraid I'd have bad dreams. Besides, this may be my last chance to talk with you. What'll we talk about, Barr?"

Barr broke out suddenly, "I can't plumb ya. Can't plumb ya a'tall!"

Jeff said smoothly, "It's easy. I'm not a complex person. I'll tell you my life story if you want to hear it. Won't cost you a cent."

"I swan!" Barr ejaculated. "I could like ye a lot if'n I didn't—"

"If you didn't think I was a policeman? Sorry I can't change your mind on that subject. But I'm not."

Barr's eyes searched Jeff's. "Why'd the boy say it?"

Jeff shrugged. "If I knew why boys say things, I'd be a lot smarter than I am."

"But ya did tell the boy ya'd find out who kil't Blazer?"

"Yup."

"Yet, now ye got the chanst, you'd pass it by?"

"This is a chance? I don't want to kill anybody. I never promised Dan anything except that we'd find his father's murderer. Afterwards I was going to turn him over to the law."

Barr wrinkled his brows. "But ye be no policeman?"

"I'm not," Jeff said flatly. "Barr, what had you intended to do with me?"

It was Barr's turn to shrug. "Shoot ya."

"And in your opinion, that was right?"

Barr said fiercely, "A body don't stop to think should he tromp on its haid does he find a pizen snake on his h'arthstone!"

Jeff lapsed into silence. His life story he had offered in jest, but he understood Barr's. His ancestors had been among the first to come to America, and they had come because there wasn't room enough for them in Europe. But neither had there been room enough in America's scattered colonies for people so fierce, reckless and proud. They had either left the settlements of their own accord or been driven out. They had wanted above all to live by their own personal inclinations and not by rules which they had little part in making. Always they had sought the wildest and most inaccessible places because only there could they live as they must.

Barr Whitney typified this wild independence, which couldn't possibly endure. Sooner or later even the hill clans must submit to the forward march of civilization and Jeff hoped that the advancing juggernaut would not crush them completely. The spirit they represented always had been and always would be necessary to free people. Probably the older ones would go down fighting; certainly they would never learn that they must bend themselves to others. Perhaps their children, or their children's children, would.

Jeff shrugged. That was to come. This was now, and neither civilization nor anything else had as yet tamed Barr Whitney. Jeff rubbed a hand on his trousers.

"You ail?" Barr asked.

"My hand's twitching."

"The oil of shunk an' the grease of b'ar, mixed two of one to one of the other, an' cooked on a hick'ry fire when the moon's near horn points to water, will drive out ary itch."

Jeff grinned. "Can't wait for the moon's near horn to point to water, and besides I don't want a cure. When my hand twitches, I'm lucky."

Pete moved so swiftly that he seemed in one split second to be sitting on his chair and then, magically, to be standing with his rifle at half raise. But quick as he was, Barr was quicker. His rifle cracked, a lock of hair detached itself from Pete's head to float softly to the floor, and before the sound died Barr had levered another cartridge into the chamber. He spoke as casually as though he had just shot at a squirrel.

"Next'un's goin' through your haid, Pete. Si' down."

Pete sat. Barr grinned. Jeff dared let himself think of the prospect that awaited.

Tomorrow morning, side by side and at exactly the same time, Jeff and Pete would be allowed to leave the cabin. Jeff pulled his stomach in, as though he could already feel Pete's slug ripping through it. Again he pondered escaping, but all he could think of was what he had already considered.

If he ran, one of the waiting Whitneys would shoot him down when he came off the ridge. There was little chance of doing anything tonight; Barr was along to see that he didn't. He couldn't protect himself with paper bullets. Jeff had a wild notion of whirling as they stepped out the door, smashing Pete over the head with the muzzle of his shotgun, and trying to claim him as prisoner. But that was a very wild plan which had almost no chance of success. Pete was far too quick and far too expert a rifleman.

Jeff put such thoughts behind him. No man could do anything well if he tried to do more than one thing at a time, and first things must be first. He shivered.

"How about a fire, Barr?"

"Lay a blaze if'n ye want. Thar's wood in the box."

Jeff laid a fire, lighted it and stood with his back to the fireplace as flames crackled. He looked at a darkened window and had a curious thought that this night would never end. It should, he decided, have passed long ago. But when he looked at his watch, it was only half past nine.

He should be hungry but he wasn't. They'd eaten in Johnny Blazer's cabin, and now he was too nervous to eat. After a very long interval, he looked again at his watch.

It was a quarter to ten.

Jeff glanced at his pack and created mental images of the goods it contained. There were knives, fishing tackle, a half dozen new mouth organs, fiddle strings, gay ribbons, scissors, needles—He had bought only what the hill people wanted, and among all of it he could not think of a single article that would help him now.

Jeff set his jaw. Maybe, if there was something to do, time would not drag so slowly and, besides, he could think better when he was busy. "Play cards?" he invited.

"No." Barr shook his head.

"Oh, come on!"

Barr tipped his head toward Pete, who sat motionless, with his rifle across his lap. Unmoving, he missed nothing and was ready at a split second notice to take advantage of anything that offered.

"Take his rifle away," Jeff urged. "You can still watch him."

"A body has the right to keep his rifle."

"He sure is nursing it." Jeff felt reckless. "How about sitting in, Pete? We don't have to shoot each other before morning."

Pete refused to answer. Jeff pulled his chair to the table and tried to entertain himself with solitaire. But he was too tense and strained to concentrate, and when he found himself adding the four of hearts to the seven of spades, he shoved the cards across the table and let them lay there. Restlessly he threw another chunk of wood on the fire and turned to Barr.

With no noise, and almost without effort, Barr rose. His eyes were alert and his face was intent. He backed, so that while continuing to command the cabin and the two in it, he could control the door, too. There was a rasping scratch on the door and Barr said softly, "See what's thar. See who's a'visitin'."

Jeff opened the door and Pal panted in. His ears were flat and his tail hang-dog as, giving Barr a wide berth and glancing suspiciously at Pete, he went to the far end of the cabin and stood. Not knowing whether or not he was to be punished for leaving Granny's, he looked expectantly at his master. Jeff laughed and twitched his fingers.

"Come here, you old flea cage."

Grinning happily, Pal came at once and Jeff brushed his shaggy head with an affectionate hand. He was less tense and, strangely, his anxiety lessened. The great dog wagged an ecstatic tail while Jeff continued to pat his head.

For a short space, delighted to be near each other once more, neither had paid attention to anything else. Pal licked Jeff's face with a big, sloppy tongue and wagged everything from his muzzle to the tip of his tail. He turned to growl at Barr and Pete, and Barr flicked his rifle.

"I wouldn't leave him try it."

"I won't," Jeff promised.

He slipped two fingers beneath Pal's collar, led him over to the table and sat down. Bending over Pal, as though continuing to caress him, he hoped Barr could not hear his pounding heart, and was glad his eyes were hidden. After a moment, Jeff raised his head.

He looked too casually at the candle that flickered a foot from his hand. Trying to appear disinterested, he gauged Pete's exact distance and Barr's position. He moistened dry lips with his tongue and reviewed his suddenly-formed plan.

Even though he risked a burned hand doing it, he was positive that he could snuff the candle out before Barr could shoot. Then he'd tip the table over and fight his way out. Jeff nibbled his lower lip and looked doubtfully at Pal. Barr was supple as an eel and strong as an ox; Jeff might need help and could he count on Pal?

Barr asked suspiciously, "What ye flustered about?"

Jeff muttered silently at himself. He had a plan. If it was desperate, the situation called for desperate measures. But everything depended on surprise. To give Barr the slightest warning would also give him time to shoot Jeff. It went without saying that he would then be able to shoot Pal, and Jeff hadn't the least doubt that Barr would be happy to do both. He forced a laugh.

"It's just nice to see something around here that's not hell-bent to shoot something else."

Barr remained alert. "Whar'd ye get Blazer's dog?"

"Found him over beyond Cressman," Jeff said truthfully. "Do you keep dogs?"

"Houn's," Barr admitted. "Wouldn't pester myself with a no-account dog such as that."

Jeff cast for a way to lull Barr. "Depends on what you want in a dog, wouldn't you say?"

"Could. What do you want?"

Jeff did his best to look like a man who faces a desperate situation, but who was mightily cheered because his dog saw fit to track him down. If he did everything exactly right, and with split-second precision, his plan had at least an even chance of working.

Escape would not solve everything. Pete would still be unpunished and if the Whitneys should meet him, Jeff, again, they would not bother to take him prisoner. They'd shoot on sight. But he could name Johnny Blazer's killer. That would start things, and maybe he'd be able to finish them.

Regardless of what might happen in the future, this was now. Jeff had to get out of the cabin before he could do anything else, but it was as though Barr could read his mind.

"You're ponderin'," he accused.

"Is that a crime in these hills?"

"If," Barr said deliberately, "you try to make a break, I'll kill ye in your tracks. I have spoke it."

Jeff said irritably, "Don't be a darn fool!"

"Don't you be one, nuther. You're gettin' a chanst."

"Yes," Jeff sighed, "a big chance." He looked again at the candle. "Any of your hounds ever get you out of jail, Barr?"

"Pah! How might a houn' do such?"

"Well, Pal got me out."

"Those words I mistrust."

"He did," Jeff insisted. "It was in Cressman—"

He told of the Cressman jail and of how he was literally thrown out of it because, when he played the mouth organ, Pal howled. He spoke of inquiring the way to Delview as a ruse to throw Pop and Joe Parker from his trail, for he suspected that they had intended to have him rearrested there. Instead of going to Delview, he had come over the hills to Smithville.

Barr chuckled derisively. "Peddlin' teach you sech tall tales?"

"It's true."

"Ha! You toot music an' the dog howls?"

"Let me show you."

Jeff took a mouth organ from his pack, blew a soft note and Pal responded with a moaning wail that trailed out on a soft soprano note.

Barr seemed dumfounded. "Doggone!"

Jeff's eyes strayed to the candle. Barr rose, wrenched it from its drippings and put it down at the far end of the table. He resumed his seat. "I can see best when hit's thar," he announced grimly. "You wa'nt havin' notions 'bout that candle, was you?"

"Why, no, of course not."

Jeff managed to appear innocent, even while he mentally kicked himself. His chance had come and gone. There'd be another chance and Barr seemed more at ease.

"This night I learn't what I knew not. A dog howls to noise."

"This one does."

"Make him do hit ag'in. 'Tis a mighty curious thing."

Jeff blew another note and Pal howled again. Barr's eyes sparkled. An elemental creature himself, he was interested in the elemental and this fascinated him. He must find the answer, but while seeking it he did not forget to keep his eyes on Jeff and Pete.

"Why's he do hit?" he asked.

"I don't know," Jeff admitted. "Can't figure it myself."

"Have him do hit some more."

At the first note, Pal obliged with a banshee wail that subsided, then gathered force and mounted again. The sound filled the cabin and offered the illusion of being not only real, but all reality. It was as though the door burst open of its own accord, and Jeff rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

Ike Wilson stood framed in the doorway.

He was slim, supple, smiling, but behind the smile there was something hard as stone and there was nothing to provoke humor in the cocked, double-barreled shotgun he carried. Half erect in his chair, Barr froze there. Pete's face turned white. Ike grinned happily.

"Hi, peddler!"

"Hi, Ike! Where the blazes did you come from?"

"Broadview Prison. Stopped by Granny's an' she told me you was about. Heerd the dog howl an' calc'lated you'd be nigh." His chuckle was rich and very audible. "I didn't expect a hul nest of you. Good thing I peered in the window glass afore I come in."

Barr snarled, "This ain't your mix!"

"Oh, yes, it is! Yes, it is my mix! Now just hand me that lil' old rifle gun, Barr. Stock foremost."

Fighting against so doing but unable to help himself, Barr relinquished his rifle. Ike threw it through the open door.

"Now, Pete," he coaxed, "I need your'n."

Pete remained rooted. Smiling, but with a deadly something behind the smile, Ike tightened his finger on the shotgun's trigger.

"Don't like to shoot settin' pat'tidges, but I will."

Pete handed his rifle over. Ike tossed it out and slammed the door. Holding the shotgun with one hand, he drew a length of buckskin from his pocket and whipped it straight. He spoke as though he were addressing a petulant child. "Now just put your hands behin't the chair, Barr. This shotgun might go off accidental like, an' it makes quite a hole."

Tight-lipped, Barr did as he was ordered. Expertly Ike laced his hands and then his feet. He approached Jeff apologetically.

"'Feard I'll have to tie you too, peddler."

"But—"

"Now don't gimme no fuss." Ike rubbed the friendly Pal's head. "Jest do like Uncle Ike says."

Jeff thrust his hands behind the chair and permitted himself to be bound. Ike slipped a rawhide thong through Pal's collar and tied him to the chair rung. He stood erect and looked around, his manner that of one who has just done a job and done it well.

Jeff asked, "What's the big idea, Ike?"

Ike chuckled again. "Business! Say, how come these Whitneys had a gun on you?"

"Barr," Jeff inclined his head, "had the idea that I'm a policeman."

"Fer snort's sake!" Ike faced Barr. "Your brain soft? He's a peddler an' a good 'un. I ought to know. I was in jail with him."

"Leave me loose," Barr snarled, "an' I won't hurt ye."

"'Pears to me you won't anyhow."

"Ye'll not git back down the ridge!"

"Now, now," Ike soothed, "jest leave that to Uncle Ike. I got up it, didn't I?"

Ike whirled to face Pete and something inside of Jeff turned cold. He had seen angry men, but suddenly he knew that not even Barr Whitney was as strong in anger as Ike Wilson. It was an inward quality, for outwardly he remained very gentle and he did not raise his voice.

"I come fer Bucky."

Pete muttered sullenly, "Got nothin' to do with Bucky."

"Oh, yes, you have," Ike corrected him. "Yes, you have. Bucky's still in Broadview, but you're goin' to help get him out. Bet that if you strained yourself, you could mind the night we got Wheeler's chickens. You was goin' to stay behin't, you said, an' leave us know should somebody come. But when the police come, you was a long ways behin't. What'd they pay you fer turnin' us in, Pete?"

Sweat glistened on Pete's brow. "I had naught to do with it!"

"You'll never git anywhere, Pete, lyin' in such a way. Are you comin' like a little man, or am I goin' to scatter your spare parts from here to Cressman?"

Pete gasped, "What you goin' to do with me?"

"Jest lay in the hills," Ike soothed. "Leastwise we'll lay thar 'til I can send word to that smart Joe Parker. Goin' to tell him, I am, that I know who stuck up the Cressman bank. Goin' to tell him that, when Bucky comes into the hills, he'll find that man tied to a tree. I reckon Parker'll swap for that."

"If he doesn't," Jeff said suddenly, "you can offer more. Pete killed Johnny Blazer!"

"He did?" Ike's eyes glowed eagerly. "Now I know I got me a swap! Come 'long, Pete."

Herding his captive, he started for the door. Suddenly he stopped and ordered, "Wait thar!"

Pete stood still. Ike glided to Jeff, sliced the bonds that tied his hands, and bent to whisper, "Gimme five minutes, peddler—jest five minutes an' kiss Granny fer me."

"I will," Jeff promised, "and I'll tell her that you'll deliver one to her yourself in a few days."

He waited ten minutes before stooping to untie his feet. He rose, and before freeing Barr he glanced out of one of the small windows.

The first hint of dawn was in the sky and the horizon was endless. He had found binding ties in these hills, but somehow he had found limitless freedom, too.