The sheriff poured his libation, swallowed it, and wiped his long mustache on the back of his hand. Then he said: "U-um! A-ah!" Whereupon Zack poured another and passed it to him. Old Zack did not understand the drift of things in the least, but he did know that this thirty-year-old bourbon of the Colonel's was a tremendously potent mollifier in all times of stress. Jess held the glass fondly up to the light, and was more careful now to brush away his mustache. It evidently dawned on him that the flavor of the first "three fingers" had been neglected through haste. "I don't remember Tyse," he said at length, reaching for one of Zack's store cigars. "When was that?" "Three years before," Dale answered. "Three yeahs befoh Tusk?" "No, three years before Bill." "Wall, I'll be--heah, Zack, give me another snifter!" Jess nervously drank it, handed back the glass and looked at Dale. "In my jedgment, the statters of limintation is clean busted on that case, too. But I'll jest tell you as a friend, that if you go resurrectin' any moh of them man slaughters--I don't care if they're older'n the 'sassination of Garfield--I'll hang you for bein' a plain damn fool." With this he uttered a loud guffaw, but once more grew sober and laid his hand on Dale's shoulder: "Don't you go killin' no moh fellers 'round heah! I do mean that! Leastwise, don't do it while you're stayin' at the Cunnel's. It ain't right to his folks, an' I won't stand for it!" "Then Tusk'd better keep away," the mountaineer grumbled. "Wall, if the Cunnel don't want him 'round, I can mighty easy give him a tip to vamoose--but you let me 'tend to it, understand? Now," he chuckled, "I'd better git back an' unlock Brent from them steps!" So it was that, when he mounted and rode away, his mind was distinctly on Brent and the caressing quality of the Colonel's thirty-year-old bourbon, and not at all concerned with the mission which had taken him to Arden. Dale stood looking after him, but not thinking. He stood in a sort of ferment of happy thrills and deepest sorrow. The bars that had momentarily been put up between him and his pasture of learning, now lay again at his feet. He could pass through at will, any time he desired. But what of Jane? Would she be there to welcome, to help him?--to take his hand again and lead him into the cool places, into the mazy shadows, through vista after vista of appealing outlook? He turned back to the library and, with hesitation, stepped through the low window.