That cry saved Bruce’s life, but it did not ward off the terrible blow. Bruce straightened his head and tried to leap back, instinctively throwing up an arm as a shield. But the club descended, beating down the arm and striking the head a glancing blow, under which Bruce sank down with a hollow groan. The blow, the groan, the man’s fierce curse as Browning fell, reached the ears of Nell Thornton, stilling the words of the song. She was out of the cabin in a flash. “What hev ye done, Sam Turner?” she demanded, as she hurried around the corner of the cabin, and saw the man standing over the senseless form, with the murderous club still in his hands. “Who hev ye killed, hyar, I’d like ter know?” “Shet yer yawp, Nell Thornton, an’ go back inter the house!” Turner harshly commanded. “Go back inter the house, whar ye belong, stiddy botherin’ with bizness that don’t consarn ye!” “But it do consarn me, ef murder is bein’ done!” she asserted. Then her voice rose in a shriek, as she bent over Browning, and recognized in him the youth who had been so kind to her that afternoon. Browning lay as he had fallen, without movement or sign of life. “Ye’ve killed him, Sam Turner!” she cried, facing the mountaineer, with white face and flashing eyes. “Ye’ve killed him!” “That thar’s what I meant ter do!” Turner declared. “An’ I’ll kill ever’ other revnoo spy that the guv’ment sends down hyar ter ’rest me an’ yer dad!” Nell turned from him, with hot, dry eyes and choking words, and again bent over Browning, even as he had bent over her when she lay in a faint in the wild mountain path. Then she grasped him by the shoulders and tried to lift him. “Help me ter git him inter the cabin!” she wildly commanded. “He ain’t no revnoo, Sam Turner! If he’s dead, you’ll hatter answer fur killin’ a man that never harmed ye. You’ll hatter answer fur it ’fore God, and that’ll be wuss’n the jedge at the co’tehouse down in the valley. Holp me ter git him inter the cabin, I tell ye!” She gave another surging lift at the shoulders, and Bruce groaned. Sam Turner raised the club again. “Put that down!” she shrieked, flying at him with the ferocity of an enraged panther. Turner staggered back under the force of her rush, and she tore the club from his hands and sent it whirling far out into the bushes. “If ye won’t holp me, I’ll drag him in myself,” she declared, again seeking to lift Browning by the shoulders. There was another groan from Browning’s lips, and then Sam Turner, moved by curiosity rather than pity, consented to assist Nell in getting the unfortunate lad into the house. By the light of the kerosene lamp, Turner inspected Bruce’s injuries, while Nell stood by, with clasped hands, in an agony of suspense. She broke the silence. “’Fore God, Sam Turner, I tell ye you hev made a mistake! That man hev never hed nuthin ter do with the revnoo. He belongs up ter the village with them thar summer folks. It’s bloody murder ef ye hev killed him!”