Outside, buried in the shadow of Young Denny's squat, unpainted barn, he still waited doggedly--he waited ages and ages, a lifetime of apprehension. And then he saw them coming toward him, up out of the shadow of the valley into the moonlight that bathed the hill in silver. They paused and stood there--stood and stared out across the valley at Judge Maynard's great box of a house on the hill and that bit of a wedge-shaped acre of ruin that clung like an unsightly burr to the hem of his immaculate pastures. Slender and boy-like in her little blouse and tight, short skirt the girl was half-hidden in the hollow of his shoulder. Once, watching with his head cocked pertly, sparrowlike, on one side, the old man's eyes went to the white-bandaged knuckles of Denny's right hand; once while he waited Old Jerry saw her lift her face--saw the big, shoulder-heavy figure fold her in his arms and bend and touch the glory of her hair with his lips while she clung to him, before she turned and went slowly toward the open kitchen door. Then he started. He shrank farther back into the shadow and edged a noiseless way around the building. But with the tavern lights beckoning to him he waited an introspective moment or two. "Godfrey 'Lisha," he sighed thunderously, "but that takes a load offen my mind!" And he ruminated. "But what's the use of my tryin' to explain now? What's the use--when they ain't nothing to explain! It's all come out all right, ain't it? Well, then, hedn't I jest as well save my breath?" He straightened his thin shoulders and stretched his arms. "It couldn't a-been handled much neater, either," that one-sided conversation went on, "not anyway you look at it. I always did think that the best thing to do in them matters was to kinda let 'em take their own course. And now--now I guess I'll be gittin' along down!" * * * * * Before he opened the door of the Tavern office a scant half hour later, Denny Bolton stopped there on the steps a moment and, his hand on the latch, listened to the thin, falsetto voice that came from within. A slow smile crept up and wrinkled the corners of the boy's eyes after a while when he had caught the drift of those strident words. They had been waiting for him--the regulars. They had been waiting for him longer than Old Jerry knew. In the chair that had been the throne-seat of the town's great man the servant of the Gov'mint sat and faced his loyal circle. He had reached his climax--had hammered it home. Now he was rounding out his conclusion for those who hung, hungry-eyed, upon his eloquence.