Judith reached the Top in the grey, disillusioning light of early dawn. The moon, a ghastly wraith, was far down in the west, the east had not yet taken any hint of rose flush, but held that pallid line of greyish white that precedes sunrise.

She clambered across the Gulch, her tired horse stumbling with drooping head over the familiar stones, and rode slowly up to the home place. The huddle of buildings looked gaunt, deserted, inhospitable. There was light here enough to see the life which in daytime made all homelike, but which now, quenched and hidden, left all desolate, forbidding. As sleep takes on the semblance of death, so the sleeping house took on the semblance of desertion. The chickens were still humped on their perches in the trees, the cows had not come up to the milking-pen, their calves lay in a little bunch by the fence fast asleep. To the girl’s heavy heart it seemed a spot utterly forlorn in the chill, sad, ironic half-light of the slow-coming morning.

She rode directly to the barn, unsaddled, and put her horse out. As she was coming back past her uncle’s cabin, she saw the old man himself sitting in the door. He was fully dressed; his hat lay on the doorstone beside him, and against the jamb leaned Old Sister. He looked up at her with a sort of indifferent, troubled gaze.

“So you got back, Jude,” he said quietly.

“Yes, Uncle Jep,” she returned as quietly.

He made no comment on her riding skirt which she held up away from the drenching dew. He asked no questions as to where she had been, or what her errand. She noted that he looked old and worn.

“I’m mighty sorry it happened,” he began abruptly, quite as though he was continuing a conversation which they had intermitted but a few moments, “mighty sorry; but I don’t see no other way. I’ve studied a heap on it. Folks that stirs up trouble, gits trouble. I——”

He broke off and sat brooding.

“I’m glad you ain’t mad at me for the part I’ve tuck in it,” Judith began finally.

“Don’t tell me.” He raised a hasty, protesting hand. “I don’t want to know nothin’ about it. All is, I couldn’t have things according to my ruthers, and they had to go as they must. Hit ain’t what a man means that makes the differ—hit’s what he does that we count. Them that stirs up trouble, finds trouble.”

“I reckon so, Uncle Jep,” said the girl, drooping as she stood.

“They ain’t been a roof between my head and the sky sence I left this house,” the old man’s big voice rumbled on monotonously, hollowly. “I tromped the ridges over to’ds Yeller Old Bald. I left mankind and their works behind me, and I have done a power of thinking; but I can’t make this thing come out no other way.”

He ceased and sat looking down. The girl could fancy his solitary meals where he cooked what he had killed and ate it, to lie down under the sky and sleep. Women are denied this fleeing to the desert to be alone with God and their sorrow. She envied him the privilege. She had no heart to repeat to him Creed’s statements that he was not a spy. That was all past—wiped out by the parting between her and her lover.

“Yes, Uncle Jep,” she uttered low, and with bent head she moved dejectedly on toward the house.

Here all the boys were sleeping noisily after their vigils of the night before. About three o’clock, or a little after, they had come home to find their father turning in at the gate. With their disappointment fresh upon them they broke through his command of silence, and Wade told him how they and Blatch had planned the ambush, how Blatch had been called away, how they had waited in the hollow for Creed, who had promised to “come and talk to them,” how he had never come, but how Arley Kittridge a few minutes ago had ridden up to notify them that Bonbright was gone from Nancy Card’s, and that the mule was gone with him. None of the watchers could say what direction he took, except to give earnest assurances that he had not left by any trail leading down the mountain. “He’s bound to be over here somewhars,” Wade concluded, “and Blatch not havin’ got back from Garyville, they two has met somewhars.”

The old man listened in silence, and when his son had made an end offered neither comment nor reply. He passed over without a word the revelation of the deceit about Blatch’s supposed killing. It was as though, weary and foredone, he dismissed the young fellows to the logic of events—to life itself—for response, explanation, or punishment.

Judith changed her dress, bathed her pale face, and set about preparing breakfast. And that was a strange meal when she had finally put it on the table and bidden them to it. The sons sat in their places like chidden schoolboys, furtively studying their father’s ravaged visage, looking at each other and muttering requests or replies. They were all aware of the ugliness of their several offences. Creed’s strange disappearance, Blatch’s failure to return, the utter collapse of their errand, these had shaken them terribly.

About a third of the way through the meal Jim Cal shuffled in.

“Do you mind givin’ me some breakfast, Jude?” he asked humbly. “Iley an’ the chaps is all sound asleep. I hate to wake ’em, an’ I never was no hand to do for myse’f.”

“Set and welcome,” said Judith, mechanically placing a chair for the one who had been most resolute of all that Creed must die. So it was that they were all seated about the board when Blatch Turrentine, without a word, made his appearance in the door. Without moving his head Jephthah turned those sombre eyes of his upon his nephew, and regarded him steadily. The younger man stopped where he was on the threshold.

“So ye ain’t dead?” inquired his uncle finally.

“I reckon that ain’t news to you, is it?” asked Blatch, making as though to come in and take his place at the table.

For a moment the loyalty of the tribal head, the hospitality of the mountaineer, warred in old Jephthah’s heart with deep, strong resentment against this man. Then he said without rising,

“Yes, hit’s news. But you may take it that hit’s news I ain’t heard. I reckon we’ll just leave it that you air dead. The lease on the ground over thar runs tell next spring. I’ll not rue my bargain, but no son of mine sets his foot on yo’ land and stays my son, and you don’t put yo’ foot in this house again. You give it out that you was dead—stay dead.”

“Oh, I see,” said Blatch. “Yo’ a-blamin’ the whole business on me, air ye? Well, that’s handy. What about them fine fellers that’s settin’ at meat with ye now? I reckon the tale goes that I led ’em into all their meanness.”

Jim Cal dropped his head and stared at the bit of cornbread in his pudgy fingers; Wade glanced up angrily; the twins stirred like young hounds in leash; but Jephthah quieted them all with a look.

“Blatch,” began the head of the house temperately, even sadly, “yo’ my brother’s son. Sam and me was chaps together, and I set a heap of store by him. Sam’s been gone more than ten year, and in that time I’ve aimed to do by you as I would by a son of my own. I felt that hit was something I owed to Sam. But ef I owed hit hit’s been paid out. Yo’ Sam’s son, but also yo’ a Blatchley, and I reckon the Blatchley blood had to show up in ye. My boys is neither better nor worse than others, but when I say that I don’t aim to have you walk with ’em, I say what is my right. What I owed yo’ daddy, and my dead brother, has been paid out—hit’s been paid plumb out.”

Now that it was made plain, Blatch took the dismissal hardily. Perhaps he had been more or less prepared for it, knowing as he would have phrased it that his uncle wanted but half a chance to break with him. He was aware, too, that the secret of his illicit traffic was safe in the old man’s hands, and that indeed Jephthah would strain a point to defend him for the name’s sake if for nothing else.

“All right,” he said, “ef them’s yo’ ruthers, hit suits me. What do you-all boys say?—I reckon Unc’ Jep’ll let ye speak for yo’selves—this one time.”

“I say what pap says,” came promptly from Wade. And, “Jeff an’ me thinks it’s about time pap’s word went with his boys,” put in the younger and more emotional Andy.

“All right, all right,” agreed Blatch in some haste, finding the battle to go thus sweepingly against him. “I wont expect no opinions from you, podner, tell you’ve had time to run home an’ ax Iley what air they. Ye ain’t named Judith, Unc’ Jep,” he went on, glancing to where the girl knelt on the hearthstone dishing up corn pones from the Dutch oven. “Cain’t she come over and visit me when she has a mind?”

“Judith’s her own mistress. She can use her ruthers,” returned Jephthah briefly, “but I misdoubt that you’ll be greatly troubled with her company.”

“Help me git my things out of the cupboard thar, Jude, won’t ye?” asked Blatch civilly enough.

Without reply, without glancing at him, Judith preceded him into the fore-room, opened the doors and sought out his clean clothing, making it into a neat pile on the table.

“You come over and see me sometimes, won’t ye, Judy?” whispered the tall man as he bundled these up. “I won’t tell who I seen you with.”

Judith looked at him with wordless contempt. Her own pain was so great that even anger was swallowed up in it.

“Tell anybody you’re a mind to,” she said listlessly. “I ain’t a-carin’.”

“I may git word of him, Jude,” persisted Blatch as he was departing. “Ef I do would you wish to hear it? Ef you say yes, I’ll send ye notice.”

Again she glanced at him with that negligent disdain. What could he do to her now who had lost all? She was beyond the reach of his love or his malice.