Elizabeth stood still, the lamp shaking in her hand. When at last she had taken the few steps between her and her bureau and had set down the lamp it seemed to her that she had accomplished a great feat.

They commanded her to bring back “the paper.” What paper? Was it the will she had written for the poor old woman? Herbert’s safety should not be jeopardized for that! It lay on the beam in her house. What had they done with Herbert? Had they carried him to some cave or den, or to some dreadful cabin like the one she had visited? Would they torture him, starve him?

Elizabeth quite lost her head. She looked again into the stable to convince herself that Joe was really not there. Then she started into the blackness of the wood road. As she went, she called, and the echo from the higher hill broken by the trees answered her faintly, “Herbert! Herbert!” Or was it a voice mocking her distress?

Before she had gone half a mile, she realized that nothing was to be gained by this procedure. She was not sure that she was still in the road; she had walked into trees, and long shoots of crow’s-foot, which grew only in the deeper woods, reached out and grasped her ankles. If she lost the road, she would have to spend the night in the woods and that would not profit Herbert. She must start back while she was still sure that she could extricate herself.

Once more she seemed to hear voices, and called. If Herbert were near, he would answer. But when she stopped and listened, she heard only the murmuring wind.

Again she grew terror-stricken and started to run. There was no unhappy situation in Herbert’s life from which she had not rescued him, whether it was from the small ills of childhood or the more serious troubles of his later days. She blamed herself now for having expected too much of him. He was still frail and she had required him to take the part of a strong man. For the past few weeks there had been not a coldness, but a silence between them. She should have told him the full extent of the hatred for their grandfather or she should not have left him alone.

Then she started to run. Now the road was comparatively smooth and she knew each turn. He must be at home. This was not the day of brigands! Surely she would find him watching for her, worried because she had not come!

But Herbert was not at home. The old house was grim and silent and empty.

Common sense directed that she should go at once for help. But who would help her on this inhospitable hill? Would people not rather rejoice in her misfortune? Who would venture now, at night, into the neighborhood of the mountaineers of whom every one was afraid by day? She thought of the words of the farmer. “There are things you’d better just let be, like weasels and skunks.”

She remembered all that Colonel Thomas had told her of them, of their certain aim, of their indifference to authority. It would be far better to negotiate with them herself, to go alone and make any concession to bring Herbert back. Then she and Herbert would flee from the home of their ancestors never, never to return.

It was now almost midnight and the distance to dawn was not long. Elizabeth sat all night at the window, listening, and certain that she heard occasionally the sound of a footstep. At the first sign of daylight she would start and go on foot to the old cabin and thence into the mountaineers’ settlement.

Just before daylight she heard a sound and saw a dark form emerge from the woods. She leaned far out the window to see as well as she could. At first she thought it was Herbert, but it proved to be too large an object to be human. When she recognized old Joe, she rushed out and took him by the bridle. He was dull of vision and feeble of step and therefore ill-equipped to make his way alone through thickets and over rocks, but eventually instinct had brought him home, though he had suffered cruelly on the journey. His skin was torn by briars, his knees were bleeding from numerous falls.

Elizabeth caught the bridle. In the dim light she could see that it had been severed apparently by a knife. She talked to him as she fed him and brushed him gently.

“Oh, you poor Joe, you’ve got to start out again! I’m sorry for you, but I’ve got to go as fast as I can!”

In the first gray light she climbed on old Joe’s back. He gave a resentful whinny and then started into the woods in which he had recently had such perilous adventure. Once he snorted as though in alarm, and Elizabeth looked round sharply. But she could see no dangerous object, and Joe could not speak to tell her of a guard asleep under a tree.Little by little the woods grew gray; then the trunks of the trees turned pale gold. The chorus of the birds sounded from the tree-tops and from every thicket. It was the moment in which the cheerful heart is most uplifted.

But Elizabeth grew more anxious. She really expected that she would see Herbert, making his way homeward, but she heard no human sound, saw no human being until she came in sight of the little cabin. The road-makers were not at work, and the last bend of the road seemed like a door which would close behind her. No living soul would know where she was or where Herbert was, except their enemies. She had left no clue in the house, for she had carried with her in her pocket even the notice which she had found upon the floor.

When she came in sight of the cabin she heard Mammy Sheldon crying. Did the poor soul cry all the time, or did her ear warn her of the approach of a step, and did she then begin to sob and moan? She recognized Elizabeth and made a frantic effort to lift herself on her elbow.

“Don’t give it to him! Don’t give it to him!”

Elizabeth went close to the bed.

“What is it he wants?”

“He wants my last testament, so as to tear it up or burn it an’ to have the money to spend for a gun. My money to be buried decent with a preacher an’ the singin’ of psalms. Don’t give it to him! Don’t give it to him!”

Elizabeth could see on the beam above her head the edge of the white paper, still undisturbed.

“Where is my brother?”

Mammy Sheldon looked long at Elizabeth. Into her eyes came a look of crazy cunning.

“They shot him,” said she. “Of course they shot him! It was right outside this door.”

Elizabeth laughed hysterically.

“What nonsense! They did not shoot him! Where is he? I helped you; now you help me.”

The old woman laid her head down on her poor pillow. She began to cry once more about a decent burial. Whether she was trying to deceive, or whether her mind could not hold an idea more than a moment, it was hard to say.

Elizabeth walked to the door and looked out. The tall trees, the glimpses of sky, the brown earth covered with a carpet of pine needles and dead leaves—this was surely no place of execution! Only the loneliness and the dreadful sound were ominous; there was no bird’s song, even in the early morning, loud enough to make itself heard above the wild sobbing.

Elizabeth went back to the bed.

“Where is my brother?” she demanded. “They must have come to the house yesterday and compelled him to come with them.”

The old woman did not answer.

“They want a paper. Is it the paper that I wrote for you?”

The mention of the “testament” caught Mammy Sheldon’s attention.

“Don’t give it to them! They’ll take my money and bury me like a dog. Don’t give it to them; oh, please, oh, please!”

“I shan’t if you tell me what they have done with my brother.”

“They don’t tell me what they do. I’m away off yere from ’em. But they’ll get their pay! Their children’ll treat ’em as they’ve treated me!”

“Where are the people that feed you and take care of you?”

“Buried,” answered Mammy Sheldon. “Dead and buried.”

“They are not dead and buried! Some one brought you food within the last few days.”

But no further answer was to be had from the old woman. She seemed now to be asleep.

Elizabeth stood for a moment considering. Then she reached up and pushed the will a little farther back on the beam. There it could not be seen, but she could direct them where to find it. She would pay the old woman’s funeral expenses if they destroyed the will and if she died penniless. Forty dollars was nothing compared to the precious life which might now be in danger.

Clambering to old Joe’s back, Elizabeth started to go farther into the woods. For herself she had not the least fear. If she could only see Sheldon and find what they wanted of her! Sometimes she bravely determined to hold out against them even if it were only the will which they wanted. The old woman should do with her money what she chose, they should not coerce her! They would get tired and let Herbert go; they would not risk their lives for the sake of forty dollars! If she gave them the will, she would only be doing what all the other inhabitants had been doing for generations, ignoring their crimes for fear of reprisal and giving them a free hand. It was no wonder they had no fear of God or man!

But they had actually carried off her brother! It was difficult to hold to any principle when one remembered that!

As she rode on, looking eagerly from side to side, another suspicion entered her mind. Was it possible that they suspected Old Mammy Sheldon of having revealed some secret of the past, some hidden crime? The farmer had said that they would not stop at murder. The old woman had talked about some one who was shot and buried. Elizabeth shuddered.

Presently she came to a place where the dim road divided, one fork going toward the right, the other bending toward the left. There was nothing which indicated the way to the mountaineers’ settlement, except that the right-hand road seemed to run against an almost perpendicular section of the mountain-side. The lay of the land seemed to indicate that that road did not go far.

Selecting the road to the left, she rode on, not noticing at first the gradual descent. Nor did she hear back of her the sound of hurried footsteps. The man at whose sleeping presence Joe had snorted, paused, panting, at the fork of the road where she had paused. He looked up and down the road into the forest, and even, in a foolish way, up into the air. Then he ran on to the right.

Presently Elizabeth began to be doubtful about her choice, but she decided to ride a little farther. When at last she was about to turn back, she found that she had been riding for a few rods in a little glade and that the road had vanished, either having ended, or having turned imperceptibly in another direction. She gave Joe a free rein, but Joe seemed to have no wisdom about wood roads.

Now she shed a few tears. She was afraid to go upward for fear that she would be more hopelessly lost. If she went directly downward, using the slope of the mountain for her guide, she would be going each moment farther away from Herbert. But that seemed to be the only possible course to follow. Dismounting, she led old Joe, who slipped and slid and frequently whinnied his distress. She would find her way home, and then there should be no further delay in calling Colonel Thomas’s constabulary to her aid. It was criminal to have delayed so long.

Once, when she stopped to let Joe rest, she was confident that she heard, dim and far away, the sound of a gunshot. There was no following shot and she was not sure that she was not mistaken, but the possibilities suggested by the sound horrified her. She rose and took the unwilling Joe by the bridle and went on over stones and rocks. She saw masses of arbutus plants and beautiful carpets of pine leaves with a pattern of trailing crow’s-foot; she passed through stretches of cathedral woods. She saw strange flowers which looked like orchids and high, deep thickets of rhododendron, set with pale blossoms. A month ago she would have exclaimed with delight; now she scarcely observed them, or said to herself while she looked, “We are going away.” Late in the afternoon she saw suddenly a stone fence and a weed-grown field and recognized her own property. Then the old house showed through the trees and she pulled Joe rapidly forward.“Herbert!” she called, “Herbert! Herbert!”

But no Herbert answered.

After stabling old Joe, she hurried to the kitchen. She would get a bite to eat, then she would smooth her hair and change her dress and go directly to the road, there to beg a ride from the first passer-by. Old Joe could not have carried her for a square. Her spirits rose. If there was something one could do the situation was more tolerable.

When she opened the door of her room, she saw that a new scrap of paper lay on the floor. With trembling hand she took it up:

Him in exchang for the paper. It will be wuss for you if you git any one.

She sat down heavily on the edge of her bed. The thought of the constabulary riding to her aid had all the afternoon sustained her. Then she lifted her head.

“I will go,” said she. “They won’t shoot me, that is certain.”

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was untidy and sifted over it were twigs and dust and the pollen of flowers; her face was soiled and scratched, her eyes looked wild. She made as rapid a toilet as she could, and then she started out. It was already almost dark, so long had been her dreary journey. She started to run.

Then she stopped. She might have been uncertain in the afternoon whether or not she had heard the sound of a gunshot, but now there was no mistaking. It seemed to her that the bullet passed immediately before her, that she heard its whistle. It said to her as distinctly as if a voice had spoken, “Stay where you are!”

She went back to the house. Only a fool would have gone on after that sort of warning. But she did not go indoors. She stood on the step and called.

“Come here and talk to me. I’ll listen to what you have to say! Don’t hide like a coward!”

But there was no answer. Perhaps when it was still darker they would come. She sat down in her corner of the step and leaned her head against the wall. She would be here if they came, she would—she would—her head nodded and she was asleep.

When she woke it was in answer to an abrupt summons. She heard simultaneously another shot and a little sharp crack and some object fell from above upon her head. She thought it was a fluttering bird and put up her hand. But the texture of the object was that of cloth. It was the flag which had been shot at! Elizabeth stood with it in her hands. Colonel Thomas had said that the mountaineers had been in sympathy with the enemies of their country. Was this generation traitorous also? Every fiber of her being stiffened with resentment. Yet, alas! John Baring—

Again she stood on the step and called angrily.

“Come and tell me what you want! Don’t hide like a coward!”

But whether the watcher was deaf, or whether he was merely a sentinel without power to act or to answer, he made no response.She carried the flag into the house and lighting the lamp, examined it. In it were half a dozen bullet-holes. Then she ate a hastily prepared breakfast and set out into the woods. Once more daybreak was at hand, and this time she would not miss the road to the settlement.