"'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord," replied the old man sadly. "Well, I acted as His agent that time,"--his eyes were hot with a bright glitter. "I put on their uniform an' went after 'em. I j'ined 'em--the devils! An' they had a nigger sarjent an' ten of their twenty-seven was niggers, wearin' a Yankee uniform. I j'ined 'em--yes,--for wasn't I the agent of the Lord?" He laughed bitterly. "An' didn't He say: 'He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.' One by one they come up missin', till I had killed all but seven. These got panicky--followed by an unknown doom an' they c'udn't see it, for it come like a thief at midnight an' agin like a pesterlence it wasted 'em at noonday. They separated--they tried to fly--they hid--but I followed 'em 'an I got all but one. He fled to California." "It was awful, Jack--awful--God he'p you." "Then a price was put on my head. I was Jack Bracken, the spy and the outlaw. I was not to be captured, but shot and hung. Then I cut down that Yankee an' you all turned agin me. I was hunted and hounded. I shot--they shot. I killed an' they tried to. I was shot down three times. I've got bullets in me now. "After the war I tried to surrender. I wanted to quit and live a decent life. But no, they put a bigger price on my head. I came home like other soldiers an' went to tillin' my farm. They ran me away--they hunted an' hounded me. Civilization turned ag'in me. Society was my foe. I was up ag'in the fust law of Nature. It is the law of the survival--the wild beast that, cowered, fights for his life. Society turned on me--I turned on Society." "But there was one thing that happen'd that put the steel in me wuss than all. All through them times was one star I loved and hoped for. I was to marry her when the war closed. She an' her sister--the pretty one--they lived up yander on the mountain side. The pretty one died. But when I lost faith in Margaret Adams, I lost it in mankind. I'd ruther a seen her dead. It staggered me--killed the soul in me--to think that an angel like her could fall an' be false." "I don't blame you," said the old man. "I've never understood it yet." "I was to marry Margaret. I love her yet," he added simply. "When I found she was false I went out--and--well, you know the rest." He took a turn around the room, picked up one of little Jack's shoes, and cried over it. "So I married his mother--little Jack's mother, a mountain lass that hid me and befriended me. She died when the boy was born. His granny kep' him while I was on my raids--nobody knowed it was my son. His granny died two years ago. This has been our home ever sence, an' not once, sence little Jack has been with me, have I done a wrong deed. Often an' often we've slipt up to hear you preach--what you've said went home to me."