"Hark ye!" came Jim Cal's tones tremulously. "Didn't I hear somebody outside? Thar--what was that?" In her excitement and interest Judith had moved nearer with some noise. "I vow, podner," came Blatch's rich, rasping tones. "Ef I didn't know it was you I'd be liable to think they was a shiverin' squinch-owl in here with us. Buck, step out and scout, will ye? Git back as soon as ye can, 'caze we're goin' to have a drink." She heard the rattle of a tin cup against the jug. As she moved carefully down the way toward the spring, Blatch's voice followed her, saying unctuously: "Had to go through hell to get this stuff--spies a-follerin' ye about, an' U.S. marshals a-threatenin' ye with jail--might as well enjoy it." She dipped her bucket in the spring branch, and bore it dripping up the path a short way. If Buck Shalliday met her, she had an errand and an excuse for her presence which might deceive him. When she came within sight of the stables once more she set down her bucket and stood listening long. Something moved outside the logs. They had posted their sentry then. She groaned as she realised that what she had heard was inadequate and insufficient. The knowledge was there to be had for a little daring, a little cunning. Just as she had become almost desperate enough to walk up to the place and make pretence of being one with them, a stamp from the figure outside the corner told her that it was a tethered mule instead of a man. Emboldened she stole nearer, and found a spot where she could crouch by the wall so hidden among some disused implements that she might even have dared to let them emerge from their hiding-place and pass her. Again Blatch was speaking. Blatchley Turrentine had come to his uncle's house, a youth of seventeen--a man, as mountain society reckons things. At that time Andy and Jeff were seven-year-olds, Wade a big boy of thirteen; and even Jim Cal, of the same years but less adventurous in nature, had been so thoroughly dominated by the newcomer that the leadership then established had never been relinquished. And now the artfully introduced whiskey had done its work; these boys were quite other than those who had gone in sober and grave less than half an hour before, their father's admonitions and the counsels of old man Broyles and their Turrentine kindred lying strongly upon them. Judith heard no demur as Blatch detailed their plans. "They's no use to go to Unc' Jep with what I've been a-tellin' ye," the voice of natural authority proclaimed. "I tell ye Polk Sayles says he's seen Bonbright meet Dan Haley about half way down the Side--thar whar Big Rock Creek crosses the corner of the Sayles place--mo' than once sense he's been on the mountain. Now with what that man knows, and with the grudges he's got, you let him live to meet Dan Haley once mo' and even Unc' Jep is liable to the penitentiary--but tell it to Unc' Jep an' he won't believe ye. He's got a sort of likin' for the feller."