Purvy had been too famous a feudist to pass unsung. Reporters came as far as Hixon, gathered there such news as the Hollmans chose to give them, and went back to write lurid stories and description, from hearsay, of the stockaded seat of tragedy. Nor did they overlook the dramatic coincidence of the return of "Wildcat" Samson South from civilization to savagery. They made no accusation, but they pointed an inference and a moral--as they thought. It was a sermon on the triumph of heredity over the advantages of environment. Adrienne read some of these saffron misrepresentations, and they distressed her. * * * * * Meanwhile, it came insistently to the ears of Captain Callomb that some plan was on foot, the intricacies of which he could not fathom, to manufacture a case against a number of the Souths, quite apart from their actual guilt, or likelihood of guilt. Once more, he would be called upon to go out and drag in men too well fortified to be taken by the posses and deputies of the Hollman civil machinery. At this news, he chafed bitterly, and, still rankling with a sense of shame at the loss of his first prisoner, he formed a plan of his own, which he revealed over his pipe to his First Lieutenant. "There's a nigger in the woodpile, Merriwether," he said. "We are simply being used to do the dirty work up here, and I'm going to do a little probing of my own. I guess I'll turn the company over to you for a day or two." "What idiocy are you contemplating now?" inquired the second in command. "I'm going to ride over on Misery, and hear what the other side has to say. I've usually noticed that one side of any story is pretty good until the other's told." "You mean you are going to go over there where the Souths are intrenched, where every road is guarded?" The Lieutenant spoke wrathfully and with violence. "Don't be an ass, Callomb. You went over there once before, and took a man away--and he's dead. You owe them a life, and they collect their dues. You will be supported by no warrant of arrest, and can't take a sufficient detail to protect you." "No," said Callomb, quietly; "I go on my own responsibility and I go by myself." "And," stormed Merriwether, "you'll never come back." "I think," smiled Callomb, "I'll get back. I owe an old man over there an apology, and I want to see this desperado at first hand." "It's sheer madness. I ought to take you down to this infernal crook of a Judge, and have you committed to a strait-jacket." "If," said Callomb, "you are content to play the cats-paw to a bunch of assassins, I'm not. The mail-rider went out this morning, and he carried a letter to old Spicer South. I told him that I was coming unescorted and unarmed, and that my object was to talk with him. I asked him to give me a safe-conduct, at least until I reached his house, and stated my case. I treated him like an officer and a gentleman, and, unless I'm a poor judge of men, he's going to treat me that way."