Dufour, with a quiet: "Please don't take offence," put a hand on either side of Miss Moyne and lifted her so that she stood in a chair looking very sweetly down over the crowd of people. Few indeed are they who can look beautiful under such circumstances, but Miss Moyne certainly did, especially in the eyes of Crane and Peck as they gazed up at her. Forthwith the tragedy became a farce. "That Kentuckian must romance, I suppose," grumbled R. Hobbs Lucas. "Wonder what he'll tell next." "I don't see how I could be so mistaken," said Peck, after quiet had been somewhat restored, "I would have willingly been sworn to--" He was interrupted by a dozen voices hurling ironical phrases at him. "It is every word truth," exclaimed Crane testily. "Do you suppose I would trifle with so--" "Oh, don't you absolutely know that we suppose just that very thing?" said Lucas. With the return of self-consciousness the company began to scatter, the ladies especially scampering to their rooms with rustling celerity. The men grumbled not a little, as if being deprived of a shocking accident touched them with a sting. "The grotesque idea!" ejaculated Dufour. "Such a practical joke--impractical joke, I might better say, could originate only between a poet and a critic." Everybody went back to bed, feeling more or less injured by Crane and Peck, who shared in their own breasts the common impression that they had made great fools of themselves. If these crest-fallen knights, so lately militant and self-confident, had any cause of quarrel now it was based upon a question as to which should feel the meaner and which should more deeply dread to meet Miss Moyne on the morrow. As for Miss Moyne herself she was indignant although she tried to quiet her aunt, who was ready to shake the dust of Mt. Boab from her feet at once. Next morning, however, when it was discovered that Miss Crabb was missing and that after all something tragic probably had happened, everybody felt relieved. IX Mr. Wesley Tolliver might well have served the turn of romancer or realist, as he stood in the shadow of a cedar-clump with the mysterious stillness of midnight all around him. He was a very real and substantial looking personage, and yet his gun, his pistols, his fantastic mountain garb and the wild setting in which he was framed gave him the appearance of a strong sketch meant to illustrate a story by Craddock. Above him towered the cliff at Eagle's Nest and near by was the mountain "Pocket" in which nestled the little distillery whose lurking-place had long been the elusive dream of utopian revenue officers. In a space of brilliant moonlight, Tolliver's dog, a gaunt, brindle cur, sat in statuesque worthlessness, remembering no doubt the hares he never had caught and the meatless bones he had vainly buried during a long ignoble life.