"Possibly he may come back to me if you tell

him how much I have suffered."

The boy shook his head.

"Give him a chance, Joshua. Tell him that I still love him dearly; tell him that I'll forgive him all if he will come back and prove that I am his wife."

Again the boy shook his head.

"Joshua, before you return you may be an uncle. Have pity, Joshua, on the innocent child. Do not shoot its father. Tell him that the girl he took from her home on the Kentucky knob awaits her husband. Tell him I look for him, my husband."

"Sister, he may get the drop on me. It's risky business and thar ain't no use in tryin' et on, fer a feller mean 'nough to do what he did es too mean to care fer anything."

"Joshua, do not kill him, for the sake of the child."

"Sister, you puts et mighty strong, and I'll give him a show; but et ain't no use ter try et on. I jest begged pap ter do a thing thet's harder fer him than this es fer me, and so I promise you I'll give the rock-hunter a chance. Ef pap preaches

the text I axed and I keep my word to you, things may come out all right yet.'

Mary threw her arms around her brother's neck and impulsively kissed his tanned cheek. The boy gently released her grasp, mounted his horse and turned down the hill. Not until he reached the creek road at its base did he raise his eyes toward the house on the knob.

That night, after the lights were out and the girl had gone to her room Warwick read his chapter and said his prayers and then stole quietly out of the door. Soon after he mounted his horse in the gloom, picked his way down the hill to the creek road and turned toward Stringtown. No light was needed by either man or beast. Every foot of the road was well known to both, for by night and by day it had been travelled time and again. Across the creek, with its rocky bottom; along the creek's bank, where the road often crept next the very edge of the bluff; through thick woodlands, where no glimpse of light appeared, passed the horseman without a break of gait. On and on, until suddenly the road seemed to stand on end, for now it turned abruptly and ascended one of the great knobs that tower above and bound

every branch of both Gunpowder and Big Bone creeks.

Up the hillside, across the highlands, through a little village nestling in a picturesque valley, on toward Stringtown, passed Warwick. Now and then he met a horseman, once a buggy, once a troop of cavalrymen, but he gave no recognition; through the night he passed along the very road his son that morning travelled; but, while the boy had gone through the village of Stringtown and moved thence down the pike toward Covington, the father went no farther than the Stringtown grocery kept by Mr. Cumback, about whose store was wont to cluster the village circle.

1

CHAPTER XX.

THE STRINGTOWN GROCERY AND THE VILLAGE

CIRCLE.

THE village circle in the grocery of Mr. Cumback was fairly complete that evening, a representative body of citizens, as usual, having assembled at early candle-light. The illiterate Corn-Bug, Colonel Luridson, the village clerk, little Sammy Drew, the widow's son, Judge Elford, Professor Drake, and others whom we need not name, were present. The man who attempted to tell the first story arose, and for a moment stood with downcast eyes, as if undecided how to begin.

"Sit down, Sheepshead," said Chinney Bill Smith.

"Who's a sheepshead?"

"Hold your head to the stove while I tell a story that came to mind when I cotch you trying to move your jaws. Warm your head, I say."