the catlike focus of his eyes in the night. So, when he had exhausted the possibilities on that side of the house to his full satisfaction, he recognized his mistake, and knew that he had wasted precious time. He should be on the far side, and, taking a long detour which carried him far to the rear of the barns and led him behind the fence line of the paddock lots, he worked his way up again to the front until he reached the edge of the lilac bushes, and could see the summer-house. To that spot he began crawling noiselessly, and, led by a sure instinct, and while still some fifty yards away, his trained eye caught a stealthy shadow also hitching forward at his front. There still lay between him and Newt Spooner the matter of some thirty yards, and, even if he rose to his feet and ran for it, he would overtake the boy so close to the vine-covered retreat that any sound of interference would result in the discovery of both. He did not personally know that the summer-house was occupied, but he argued it from the movements of the other skulker. Newt was so engrossed in his hate that at this particular moment he had eyes and ears only for the front. Between the lilac thicket where Black Pete crouched and the vine shadows where Newt knelt, lay an open space of flooding radiance, but it was directly behind the summer-house, and, unless Newt saw him crossing it, no one was apt to see. The Deacon rose to his feet and ran for it. As Newt thrust the revolver behind him to cock it, Black Pete's hand closed silently around his, and Black Pete's thumb was jammed between the back-drawn hammer and the firing-pin. [Illustration: Black Pete's thumb was jammed between the back-drawn hammer and the firing pin] CHAPTER VII Henry Falkins and Lucinda Merton had not kept close count on the flying moments since they had entered the summer-house. The girl had promised to sit out two consecutive dances with him, since to-morrow morning he must go back to the mountains. So, having only a little while and much to say, he had plunged in, and, though his voice was low, his words came tumultuously. Of course, she knew that he was in love with her, but until to-night it had been a thing which had been given no concrete declaration. Except for a glow of confession in her eyes, she had said nothing of loving him. Yet now, when he wished to claim every moment for himself, she had asked him to tell her about his hills and their people, of whom she and her world knew so little. "I want you to understand the life and conditions there," he told her, "and yet I don't want to talk of that to-night. I would like to paint for you true pictures of my mountains just as they look under this moon, as they will look when to-morrow's sun comes up over the peaks and begins to drive away the lingering mists; of the elder bushes and rhododendron and wild roses that bloom on the tangled slopes; but to-night I want to talk only of you and me."