"All right. Well," leered Mayfield, "you rickollect 'at time me and yore pap went over to Shelton Laurel and stayed a week at the big shootin'-match, sev'ral year ago? And you rickollect yore pap acted pow'ful strange fo' a long time atter we'd got back? It was the talk o' the whole Singleton tribe. You rickollect, Tot?" "Yes. Shorely," she nodded. "Git the rest of it out o' ye quick." "All right. Well, yore pap he killed a man named Mort Gibson over thar," Cat-Eye Mayfield went on, "and I seed him do it. I was the only witness. I'm the only pusson on earth 'at knows who done it--'ceptin' yore pap. Take me to jail, and I'll shore tell who it was killed Mort Gibson. Then yore pap he'll land in the penitenchy even ef he don't hang!" Tot Singleton saw light in a place that had been mysteriously dark to her for years. "So that," she cried, shaken hard, "is why pap never would make you stop a-pesterin' me to marry you! He was afeard to make you mad, acause he was afeard you'd tell! But," with fine scorn, "he knowed he could trust me never to tie up to sech as you, o' course. Do ye reckon, Cat-Eye Mayfield, they'd take yore word about the killin', and you in jail?" "Tumph! I'd jest tell 'em to ax yore pap about it, and he'd give hisself away. He hain't got over it yit. It's nigh driv' him crazy." It was all too true. Then the young woman's countenance took on an expression that fascinated Mayfield because he couldn't begin to guess what it meant. "You turn yore back to me, quick!" she ordered. The revolver threatened. The firelight gleamed on the deputy's badge she wore. Mayfield lost faith in his last card. He turned his back to Tot, and bent his head dejectedly. She stepped to him, gripped the waistband of his blue denim trousers in her left hand, and shoved him forward. "Move on!" she said, bleakly but desperately, and he moved on. "Try anything I don't like the looks of, and see ef I don't shoot--then you cain't tell on pap. I--I've got the whole United States ahind o' me now." * * * * * They reached the crest of a high and rugged mountain just before daybreak. Tot decided to halt there and wait for the dawn to show her the surrounding country, in order that she might get her bearings again. When the gray light came, she found that the great pile of earth and stone under her feet was the Big Blackfern, the eastern wall of Wolfe's Basin! "Listen, Cat-Eye," she said wearily. "This is what we're a-goin' to do. We're a-goin' straight down the mountainside to the aidge o' the basin; then we're a-goin' to sneak out to the right under cover o' the trees ontel we're to the Gate. Anything about that you don't onderstand?" "Yes," growled her prisoner, "I onderstand ye." "Rickollect, ef you try to run, I'll shoot." [Illustration]