In the dark porch sat several men. Through the kitchen door he could see his mother getting supper. Inside a dozen rifles leaned against the wall in the firelight, and about their butts was a pile of ammunition. In the doorway stood Rufe Stetson. IX ALL were smoking and silent. Several spoke from the shadows as Rome stepped on the porch, and Rufe Stetson faced him a moment in the doorway, and laughed. “Seem kinder s'prised?” he said, with a searching look. “Wasn't lookin' for me? I reckon I'll s'prise sev'ral ef I hev good-luck.” The subtlety of this sent a chuckle of appreciation through the porch, but Rome passed in without answer. Isom lay on his bed within the circle of light, and his face in the brilliant glow was white, and his eyes shone feverishly. “Rome,” he said, excitedly, “Uncle Rufe's hyeh, 'n' they laywayed him, 'n'----” He paused abruptly. His mother came in, and at her call the mountaineers trooped through the covered porch, and sat down to supper in the kitchen. They ate hastily and in silence, the mother attending their wants, and Rome helping her. The meal finished, they drew their chairs about the fire. Pipes were lighted, and Rufe Stetson rose and closed the door. “Thar's no use harryin' the boy,” he said; “I reckon he'll be too puny to take a hand.” The mother stopped clearing the table, and sat on the rock hearth close to the fire, her withered lips shut tight about a lighted pipe, and her sunken eyes glowing like the coal of fire in its black bowl. Now and then she would stretch her knotted hands nervously into the flames, or knit them about her knees, looking closely at the heavy faces about her, which had lightened a little with expectancy. Rufe Stetson stood before the blaze, his hands clasped behind him, and his huge figure bent in reflection. At intervals he would look with half-shut eyes at Rome, who Sat with troubled face outside the firelight. Across the knees of Steve Marcum, the best marksman in the mountains, lay the barrel of a new Winchester. Old Sam Day, Rufe's father-in-law and counsellor to the Stetsons for a score of years, sat as if asleep on the opposite side of the fireplace from the old mother, with his big square head pressed down between his misshapen shoulders. “The time hev come, Rome.” Rufe spoke between the puffs of his pipe, and Rome's heart quickened, for every eye was upon him. “Thar's goin' to be trouble now. I hear as how young Jasper hev been talkin' purty tall about ye--'lowin' as how ye air afeard O' him.”