After a hasty dinner, we started on again,--I could not be satisfied to tarry. Dark pictures rose before me all the way,--my dear boys drinking, shooting, maybe killing one another--and I urged Mandy on, scarcely feeling the cold wind that blew down from the snowy mountains. It was past three when I reached the Blair home. Behind it rose a great hollow, filled with dark hemlocks. I gazed up into it with a shudder, remembering it was here that Killis's father died. Mrs. Blair met me at the door, and in answer to my inquiries for the boys, said, "They've been in and out all day; now they're up the branch shooting." "Have they been drinking much?" I asked. "A sight!" she answered; then she continued smiling, "but what they've drank won't hurt 'em much, I reckon. When Killis come home a-Wednesday, he called for several jugs of liquor for the boys a-Saturday; and I told him all right, for I don't never deny him nothing. But next day 'peared like he was thoughtful in his mind, and come evening, he said if he had something that weren't pure liquor, but would just sort of cheer the boys, he would give 'em that, to please you. And I recollected there was a barrel of cider left. So this morning, before they come, he drawed off a kag of that, and being as it was pretty hard, poured in a couple of gallon of water, so's they wouldn't get _too_ cheered; and all day they been eating and drinking fit to burst, and then running out to shoot a while, and then filling up ag'in." "Anybody wounded?" I asked. "None so far." Relieved beyond expression, I sank into a chair and gave thanks to God. A little later, Killis ran in the front door. "I never give them boys nary drap but cider," he said; "I done it to please you!" I threw my arms around him; yes, I even wept. "And I watered the cider, too," he continued; "them boys thinks they are drunk, and seeing a right Christmas, but they haint, but it does 'em just as much good!" The other boys followed;--all mine but Nucky, the Salyers and the Atkinses were there, and some neighbor boys--piling up guns and pistols on the beds, and taking another round of pies and cider. Finding they were not at all abashed to see me, I accepted pressing invitations to spend the night, and we had a cheerful evening, with picking and singing, until Philip, who has been visiting a boy friend on Powderhorn, roused all my premonitions again by saying, "I went up Trigger to fetch Trojan; but he couldn't come. He said Todd and Dalt had give it out they would certainly take the fence and grease their boots with Blant's brains before Christmas was over; and him and Rich was a-keeping lookout every minute."