“And there! Don't stop to look and listen, Warham,” cried his companion; “it's no time for meditation. They're coming! hark!--” and with a single glance behind him--with eyes dilating with the novel apprehensions of receiving a garment, unsolicited, bestowed by the bounty of the county--he drove his spurs into the flanks of his mare, and went ahead like an arrow. Stevens smiled in spite of his vexation. “D--n him!” he muttered as he rode forward, “it's some satisfaction, at least, to scare the soul out of him!” CHAPTER XXXII. THE REVELATION. Having seen his enemy fairly mounted, and under way, as he thought, for Charlemont, Ned Hinkley returned to Ellisland for his own horse. Here he did not suffer himself to linger, though, before he could succeed in taking his departure, he was subjected to a very keen and searching examination by the village publican and politician. Having undergone this scrutiny with tolerable patience, if not to the entire satisfaction of the examiner, he set forward at a free canter, determined that his adversary should not be compelled to wait. It was only while he rode that he began to fancy the possibility of the other having taken a different course; but as, upon reflection, he saw no other plan which he might have adopted--for lynching for suspected offences was not yet a popular practice in and about Charlemont--he contented himself with the reflection that he had done all that could have been done; and if Alfred Stevens failed to keep his appointment, he, at least, was one of the losers. He would necessarily lose the chance of revenging an indignity, not to speak of the equally serious loss of that enjoyment which a manly fight usually gave to Ned Hinkley himself, and which, he accordingly assumed, must be an equal gratification to all other persons. When he arrived at Charlemont, he did not make his arrival known, but, repairing directly to the lake among the hills, he hitched his horse, and prepared, with what patience he could command, to await the coming of the enemy. The reader is already prepared to believe that the worthy rustic waited in vain. It was only with the coming on of night that he began to consider himself outwitted. He scratched his head impatiently, not without bringing away some shreds of the hair, jumped on his horse, and, without making many allowances for the rough and hilly character of the road, went off at a driving pace for the house of Uncle Hinkley. Here he drew up only to ask if Brother Stevens had returned. “No!” “Then, dang it! he never will return. He's a skunk, uncle--as great a skunk as ever was in all Kentucky!” “How! what!--what of Brother Stevens?” demanded the uncle, seconded by John Cross, who had only some two hours arrived at the village, and now appeared at the door. But Ned Hinkley was already off. “He's a skunk!--that's all!”