The son did not even appear to be aware that the father had addressed him. There fell a silence that the noise of the nearby hungry flame was scarcely able to dissipate. Now no woman sobbed; no child wept. "Who wins now?" the giant mountaineer repeated. At last Little Buck Wolfe turned his head and looked toward his half-drunken father. A great deal of the suffering left his face, and a pity that was akin to the divine shone from his eyes. The old clan chief went pale in spite of himself. Came at that moment an old voice that seemed to hang in the air, like the smoke of incense---- "'_And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, a-bein' interp'eted, The place o' a skull._' Saint Mark; fifteen, twenty-two." Like a John the Baptist out of the wilderness, Grandpap Singleton, the Prophet, stepped before them. Until this moment, his people had not seen him since the time of the mill's starting. His mind was almost completely broken. His snow-white head was bare, and his lean face was strangely haggard. In one hand he carried a dark, round object that the others did not then recognize for the pitiful, tragic thing it was. He went to a point close beside the young man whom his good old heart had loved so truly and so well. He stretched one of his long, thin arms toward Picketts Dome, which stood out plainly in the fire's light and in bold relief against the red, red heavens. The others looked, and saw on the summit of the peak a great ironwood cross. He had erected it there in the hope that his children and the children of his children might see it when temptation assailed them, and not forget. [Illustration] "Finish it!" he cried to Old Buck Wolfe, and it was a terrible condemnation. "Finish it! Loose the silver cord, and break the golden bowl--break the pitcher at the fountain, and the wheel at the cistern! Take this good man, yore own flesh and blood, up thar and nail him hand and foot. Spit upon him, and give him vinegar and gall to drink when he axes fo' water. Pierce his side, and cast lots fo' his clothin'. Finish it!" The demented patriarch held up the dark, round object he had brought. It was a crudely woven crown of thorns. He pressed it down upon the brow of Little Buck Wolfe, the Arnold Mason that was, who stood as dumb and as motionless as a tree; and if the thorns that sent several tiny drops of blood trickling down the pallid face gave pain, there was not the least sign of it. Save for the Wolfe clan, Cat-Eye Mayfield and Whitney Fair, the multitude groaned at the sight. It was eerie, and it was also somehow holy. Tot Singleton sank to her knees and sobbed aloud. The Wolfe clan, and even Cat-Eye Mayfield, became suddenly sober. Old Buck shuddered. Long forgotten things were gripping his soul and making him ashamed of himself. He dragged a tremulous, grimy hand across his forehead and started slowly, drawn irresistibly, toward the best of his five sons; and his footsteps led him all too near the burning plant.