The Tempering

d recklessly into the thorn-tangle for a shorter cut than the two

in the door. It would be in that breathing-space that the issue would find settlement, and it would hang, hair-balanced, on the self-restraint of two men whose hard-held hatred might break bounds and overwhelm t

ides rushed into their temples. If their mutual concession of manner was not balanced to exact nicety-if either Tom or Asa seemed to hold back and th

ne had been built years ago, and it had been

d more than a day's journey separated those gaps where wheels could scale and cross. Long ago local and visionary enthusiasts had built a huge warehouse on a towering pinnacle with an incline of track dropping dizzily down from it to the creek far below. Its crazy little cars had been

nd bat. Through its unpatched roof one caught, at night, the peep of stars and its hulking sides

had exalted with ardent hero-worship-and of that kinsman's danger. A rowelling pressure of haste drove him, while snares of trailing

even the steep grade of the foot trail for shorter cut-offs where he pulled himself up semi-perpendic

y which he knew was a bonfire outside the warehouse, and by the brighte

peroration. About the interior blazed pine torches and occasional lanterns with tin reflectors. Even this unaccustomed effort at illumination failed to penetrate the obscurity of the corners or to carry its ragged brightness aloft

nty Judge, sat Basil Prince, the principal speaker of the evening, and

gathering where the fitful glare of torches had not shone upon repeating rifles and coon skin

ht of the centre aisle he thereby proclaimed himself a Carr or a Gregory-taking shrewd thought of clan-mobilization. Then as a low drone of talk went up from the body of the house and a restless shuffling of fe

sly restless and tight-strung, and they've got to be so gripped that they'll forget everything but your words for a spell!" The speaker, in his abstraction, relapsed abruptly out

odded, "I'll try, sir,"

e the Circuit Judge who was to introduce him. That prefatory address was brief, for the inf

name and his record. They gazed steadfastly at him because, though he came now as a friend he had in another day come as a foe, and the weight of his inimical hand had come down to them through the mists of the past as word-of-mouth. In the days of the war between the States, the mountains had thrust their wedge of rock and granite-loyal Unionism through the vitals of Confedera

General Basil Prince had been one of their commanders. Now, a recognized authority on the use of cavalry, a lawyer of distinction, a life-long Democrat, he stood before Republic

n altered mood, and the grimness which spell

the spell-binder for a definite period. He must unflaggingly hold them

ctive, and his voice had rung like a bugle for perhaps three-quarters of an hour when

oard had been broken away in the wall itself. Within he saw figures bending forward and intent-and his brow knit into furrows as he took in at a glance the division of the cla

ess entrance. Up a ladder, for the rungs of which he had to feel blindly, he climbed to a perch on the cross-beams, under the eaves, and still he was as blanketed from view as a bat in

ralled him, he had now no thought, because lying flattened on a great s

s right, and slowly he trained his r

to do for the pres

ter or a gesture to his minions, there would be one thing more, but it invol

s lengthened and multiplied. The timber was hard and the ai

iate the ready adroitness with which General Prince had clipped his oratory short without the seeming of a marred effect. He only knew that the voice s

-an uneasiness which had been temporarily lulled. There was an instant, after

een; becoming two distinct crowds where there had been one, loosely joined. Hands gestured instinctively toward guns laid by, and halte

the stage and stand in momentary irresolution, the muscles of his jaw hardened and into his eyes flashed a defiant gleam. His lids contracted to the narrowness of slits, as though struggling to shut out some sudden and insufferable glare. His chest heaved in a gasp-like

e away, Tom Carr stood struggling with an identical transport of reeling self-control. Like a reflectio

or of the evening a swift, photographic impression of flambeaux giving back the glint of drawn pistols to right and left of the aisle; of the

ht his rifle on the back of Tom Carr-and to draw a shallow breath of nerve-tension and resolu

ves by the feel of emptiness where there should have been the bulge of con

gory relaxed again, throwing out his arms wide

on from his chest, Asa walked steadily down the

Their palms touched and fell swiftly apart as though each had been scorched. Their faces were the stoic faces of

g. His body, for just a moment, shook so that he almost lost his balance on his precarious perch, as the flexed emotions that had keyed him

quieting satisfaction the orator

I move that you instruct your chairman to send a tele

in he held up a message which he had scribbled during that noisy interval. "I move you that you say this to our standard-bearer: 'Here in the hills of Ma

tting quietly back in the shadows with the detachment of a looker-on among strangers, but now as the boy s

ve soldiered a bit myself and I know your record. The committee has

ld stars. A breeze harping softly through the tree-tops carried a touch of frost, but Boone Wellver sat on a rounded h

sty and spaciousness of being. Tonight he had heard General Prince speak and under the fanning of oratory his dream-fires were hotly aglow. As he sat on the rock with the soft minstrelsy of the wind crooning overhead, a score

tor McCalloway's house and there he would remain until tomorrow morning. What marvellous

ighty!" he exclaimed. "I reckon I'll jest kinderly sa'anter over

ht's lodging being turned away. Yet when he arrived and lifted his hand to knock he hesitated for a space, gulping his h

und himself stammering with a tongue tha

leg-weary," he prevaricated. "I 'lowed mebby ye

oke an amused smile, and he stepped aside, wav

nounced, stifling the twinkle of his eyes, and speaking with ceremonial grav

whelming innovation of such courtesy, Boone was even more palpably and painfully abashed. But as vaguely compre

ght often, an' hit pleasures me ter strike hands with ye. Folks says ye used

the wings of a theatre, his breath coming with the palpitation of simmering excitement. Soon the elders seemed to have forgotten him in the heated absorption of their debate.

es between locked fingers

ness as seemed to dissolve the narrow walls into a panoramic breadth of smoking,

et. He seemed to be rapturously floating

ought of sleep. It was as if men who had dwelt long in civilian inertia, were wassailing deep agai

uddled back, almost stifling his breath le

voice broke it with a low-pitched and musing interrogation. "I sometimes wonder whether the chemistry of a great war today would bring forth mighti

red soldier. I have met most of the European commanders of my day, I have campaigned with not a few. Sev

d undeniable genius. Tragedy claimed him before his life rounded to fulfilment. Not the tragedy of the field-which is rather gold than black-but the unholy and-I must believe-the undeserved tragedy of unwarrantable slander. If

tal gazer who sees shadowy and troubling pictures, and even in the hearth-flare the usually high-colour of his Celtic cheeks appeared faded into a s

ight have characterized him had he been confronting a jury box, summing up for the defence, "but he could not brook calumny." The speaker paused to

away voice, "perhaps he felt that his usefulness to his c

the smirching of slander. His detractors would have stood damned by thei

y overpowering evidence which they produce

what you base your opinion? You know all they said o