Her cheeks were aflame. An eager expectancy glittered in her wide brown eyes. Her auburn hair flaunted to the breeze as brilliantly as those golden harbingers of the sun. Her bonnet had fallen to the ground, and her milk-piggin was rolling away. The metallic staccato of the hammer was silenced. A vibratory echo trembled for an instant on the air. The group had turned in slow surprise. The blacksmith looked mutely at her. But the idiot was laughing triumphantly, almost sanely, and pointing at the sledge to call her attention to its significant stains. The sheriff had laid the implement carefully aside, that it might be produced in court in case Jubal Tynes should pass beyond the point of affording, for Dr. Patton's satisfaction, a gratifying instance of survival from fracture of the skull, and die in a commonplace fashion which is of no interest to the books or the profession. "'Twarn't 'Vander's deed! It _couldn't_ be!" she declared passionately. For the first time he faltered. There was a pause. He could not speak. "_I_ done it!" cried the idiot, in shrill glee. Then Evander regained his voice. "'Twar me ez done it," he said huskily, turning away to the anvil with a gesture of dull despair. "_I_ done it!" Fainting is not a common demonstration in the mountains. It seemed to the bewildered group as if the girl had suddenly dropped dead. She revived under the water and cinders dashed into her face from the barrel where the steel was tempered. But life returned enfeebled and vapid. That vivid consciousness and intensity of emotion had reached a climax of sensibility, and now she experienced the reaction. It was in a sort of lethargy that she watched their preparations to depart, while she sat upon a rock at the verge of the clearing. As the wagon trundled away down the road, laden with the stolen goods, one of the posse looked back at her with some compassion, and observed to a companion that she seemed to take it considerably to heart, and sagely opined that she and 'Vander "must hev been a-keepin' company tergether some. But then," he argued, "she's a downright good-lookin' gal, ef she do be so red-headed. An' thar air plenty likely boys left in the mountings yit; an' ef thar ain't, she can jes' send down the valley a piece fur me!" and he laughed, and went away quite cheerful, despite his compassion. The horsemen were in frantic impatience to be off, and presently they were speeding in single file along the sandy mountain road. Cynthia sat there until late in the day, wistfully gazing down the long green vista where they had disappeared. She could not believe that Evander had really gone. Something, she felt sure, would happen to bring them back. Once and again she thought she heard the beat of hoofs,--of distant hoofs. It was only the melancholy wind in the melancholy pines.