The Lieutenant sought vainly to dissuade Callomb, but the next day the Captain rode forth, unaccompanied. Curious stares followed him, and Judge Smithers turned narrowing and unpleasant eyes after him, but at the point where the ridge separated the territory of the Hollmans from that of the Souths, he saw waiting in the road a mounted figure, sitting his horse straight, and clad in the rough habiliments of the mountaineer. As Callomb rode up he saluted, and the mounted figure with perfect gravity and correctness returned that salute as one officer to another. The Captain was surprised. Where had this mountaineer with the steady eyes and the clean-cut jaw learned the niceties of military etiquette? "I am Captain Callomb of F Company," said the officer. "I'm riding over to Spicer South's house. Did you come to meet me?" "To meet and guide you," replied a pleasant voice. "My name is Samson South." The militiaman stared. This man whose countenance was calmly thoughtful scarcely comported with the descriptions he had heard of the "Wildcat of the Mountains"; the man who had come home straight as a storm-petrel at the first note of tempest, and marked his coming with double murder. Callomb had been too busy to read newspapers of late. He had heard only that Samson had "been away." While he wondered, Samson went on: "I'm glad you came. If it had been possible I would have come to you." As he told of the letter he had written the Judge, volunteering to present himself as a witness, the officer's wonder grew. "They said that you had been away," suggested Callomb. "If it's not an impertinent question, what part of the mountains have you been visiting?" Samson laughed. "Not any part of the mountains," he said. "I've been living chiefly in New York--and for a time in Paris." Callomb drew his horse to a dead halt. "In the name of God," he incredulously asked, "what manner of man are you?" "I hope," came the instant reply, "it may be summed up by saying that I'm exactly the opposite of the man you've had described for you back there at Hixon." "I knew it," exclaimed the soldier, "I knew that I was being fed on lies! That's why I came. I wanted to get the straight of it, and I felt that the solution lay over here." They rode the rest of the way in deep conversation. Samson outlined his ambitions for his people. He told, too, of the scene that had been enacted at Purvy's store. Callomb listened with absorption, feeling that the narrative bore axiomatic truth on its face. At last he inquired: "Did you succeed up there--as a painter?" "That's a long road," Samson told him, "but I think I had a fair start. I was getting commissions when I left." "Then, I am to understand"--the officer met the steady gray eyes and put the question like a cross-examiner bullying a witness--"I am to understand that you deliberately put behind you a career to come down here and herd these fence-jumping sheep?"