"What do you say, Jude? Ort we to go?" Judith locked her hands hard together and held down her head, fighting out her battle. She longed to say no. She longed to shout out that Huldah Spiller might take care of herself, since she had been so unwomanly as to run after men and bring all this trouble on them. What she did say, at the end of a lengthened struggle, was: "Yes, I think both of you ort to go. Can it be did quiet? You got to think of her good name." Jeff nodded. "Well, how air we goin' to be sure that gal's over there?" inquired Andy, still half reluctant. "Oh, she's there," returned Judith heavily; and when the boys regarded her with startled looks, "I ain't seen her, but she's been on the mountain since Thursday. She's been slippin' over to visit--her--Creed named it to me then." "Well that does settle it," Andy concluded. "Reckon Blatch has shut her up for pure meanness. When was we to go? Was there any time sot?" "To-night," Jeff informed them. "Any time after ten o'clock'll do--that was the word I got." "Well, that'll be all right," agreed Andy; "I can fix Creed up for the night, and ef we git Huldy away in the dark nobody need know of the business--not even Bonbright." A slow flush rose in Judith's pale cheeks. But she offered no comment on this aspect of the case. She only said: "Just do what you think best, and don't name it to me again, please." Then, as both boys looked wonderingly at her, she added haltingly, "I've got enough to werry over--with a sick man here on my hands, an' Uncle Jep gone." She went to her room. When at midnight she slipped down as of custom to see how all fared in the sick-room, she found the patient sleeping quietly, and Andy ready for the trip across the Gulch. The boys were going unarmed; they felt no fear of treachery on Blatch's part--it could profit him nothing to injure either of them in so public a way, and indeed he had never shown them any ill-will. Chapter XXVI His Own Trap "I reckon that'll about do for you, my pretty young men," remarked Blatchley Turrentine as he put the last knot in the line with which he was securing Andy to a splint-bottomed chair. His concluding words were the refrain of a familiar old ballad, and he continued to hum this as he straightened up and set his hands on his hips, regarding the twins through wickedly narrowed eyes. He was flushed with drink and inclined, as always at such times, to swagger with a sort of savage playfulness. "Scalf, you ain't got yo' feller half tied," he broke out, jerking the cord around Jeff. "Why, Lord A'mighty! I could pull myse'f a-loose from that mess o' rope inside o' five minutes," and he set to work to make his cousin secure. "Do yo' own dirty work," growled Scalf. "Yo' the only one that's a-goin' to profit by it."