"Yeou! Miss Jane?" he murmured, each syllable vibrating with some deep timbre of admiration and protection. Another moment he stared, then his eyes turned and rested unflinchingly on Tusk. It was a look particularly expressive neither of surprise nor condemnation, hatred nor scorn, yet its very impassivity carried a pulsing sense of danger, as though something terrible were on the verge of happening and the various elements of destruction were being hurriedly assembled. But quietly he turned again to the girl. "Lucy's outside. Maybe ye'd better let her take ye home!" "Oh, ask her to come in," she cried, feeling the need of a woman perhaps more than at any time in her life, and now fearful of another sort of tragedy. She was not sure of how much this newcomer had seen, but his look at Tusk was eloquent of one thing: that if these men were left alone the building would receive its first stain of human blood. She wanted to spare her schoolhouse this. It was her boast that no life should go out by violence beneath its roof: for it had long been a recognized custom in wilder regions of this country for men to choose the wayside schools, the scattered churches or crossroads stores as places from which to usher obtrusive neighbors into eternal rest. "Wall, she can't do that," the newcomer thoughtfully replied, "seein' as how she's my ole mare. But ye mought take her 'n' go home. Me 'n' this feller'll watch yo' school!" Looking from one to the other, weighing the chances of outwitting Tusk, she lightly suggested: "My own horse is in the shed. You may help me put on the saddle!" "All right," he readily answered. "'N' yeou," he turned to Tusk, now watching them with growing malignancy, "wait hyar till I git back: then verily, verily, I say unto ye, we'll cast another devil outen the Lawd's temple!" She was alert to acquiesce in this. Her instinct said that unless something tentative were left in view, some further part of the drama held out to be played, the simple-minded Tusk would stop their going. His dwarfed intelligence, gauged to one idea, might be satisfied to wait only if waiting promised a climax. And as for the other's returning--this new-found deliverer who was so thoroughly of the mountains, yet whose dialect just now had savored of the "circuit-rider" type--she felt able to cope with that exigency after they were outside. So in her eagerness she had arisen, when Tusk stepped roughly to the door and slammed it. "Nobody's goin' home to-night," he growled, turning and glaring at them. His eyes, set unusually deep and close together, flashed murder, and the girl sank weakly back into a seat. For she knew Tusk's strength. She had seen him shoulder a log under which two men were struggling and walk firmly away with it. The very consciousness alone of this power was oppressive. He could crush this other man with a blow.