vast stretches of country beneath, in a still amethystine shadow, lay motionless and waited! And here, alack, was his own old identity, full of perplexed thoughts, and troublous forecasting, and vain regrets. Here, too, as if the sun had brought it with the sight of the familiar world, was the sense of vicinage, close, imperative, not to be evaded, with the events of yesterday, the one coercive factor of to-day. Mrs. Bowles might have wondered to know the direction he took,—not, in fulfillment of her disparaging prophecy, across the line into North Carolina. Straight down the mountain he was going,—straight into Broomsedge Cove. How fast those coursers of the sun did speed, already there, betimes! Albeit so far away as the miles counted, Jepson could see from the great heights of the slopes the red gold flare in the deep gulf of the purple range, where the lucent fresh light struck upon the long-abandoned spaces usurped by the tawny-tinted growths of Broomsedge Cove. His face wore no longer that wide-eyed, uplifted, meditative look it had in the earlier plastic poetic hours. It was introspective, pondering; it bore anew the inscrutable script of experience, of emotion. Once or twice only the cattle called for his attention; with a turn of the mare on the flank of the column, and the loud remonstrant barking of his dog harassing the stragglers, they were once more jogging along the accustomed way. At length, however the foremost of the company came almost to a stand with a suppressed low of surprise, and then, insistently burly, the animals occupied the whole path, leaving a man they had met to stand and wait by the wayside. He held one palm over his eyes, for the sun came directly into his face, and gazed doubtfully at the equestrian figure at the rear of the column. But Jepson had noted him, and the recognition became mutual as he drew rein beneath the great ledge of the rocks where Baintree stood. As he looked up at the horseman, there was so shocked a disappointment on his face that it seemed wonderful that an emotion could be so definitely expressed without words. Jepson waited a moment for him to speak. But Baintree, still silent, gazed at him. “Ye ’lowed up yander ter Bowles’s yestiddy,” said Jepson at last, “ez ye be powerful glad I war arrested, —I ain’t been yit, —an’ ez ye’d like ter see how I’d look in a cage like Dan’l.” Baintree made a feint of denial. “Did Mis’ Bowles ’low I said sech?” he demanded. “Waal, I jes’ tole her the fust thing ez kem ter the tip o’ my tongue. She ’peared so sharp set fur the news.” Jepson looked casually down at him, then away at the far blue horizon. “I’m goin’ ter Brumsaidge now, an’ ef they wanter arrest me they kin an’ welcome; an’ though I ain’t yit got the Lord so ez he sets ez much store by me ez he done by Dan’l, I ain’t no mo’ ’feared o’ nuthin’ ’n him. I be ekal ter answerin’ fur all I done, an’ I be more ’n willin’.”