“That depends on what sort’n account they kin gin o’ tharselves.” He was flattering himself that he had succeeded in so interesting her, and as he looked at her his long and narrow eyes smiled brightly, in the full faith of pleasing her. “Gin an account o’ tharselves?” she murmured ponderingly. She remembered how fragmentary and indefinite had been their explanation of their intrusion at the forge and of the stranger’s presence in the mountains. This, she was sure, would fail to satisfy aught but gratitude that in its fullness was content to abate even curiosity. How should it satisfy antagonistic, suspicious, even cruel men, who had set themselves to spy, to judge, to punish? The rough habits of the region, the lawless justice sometimes meted out by the arbitrary tribunals who claimed the preservation of local morals as within their exclusive jurisdiction, were only too familiar to her. She realized with a quick throb of the heart that these men were in danger. They had involved themselves in mystery; their midnight intrusions at the forge could hardly be easily explained and innocently accounted for, or they would not have been secret. She was aware, too, of that insurmountable inequality which character creates in equal conditions. Had it been Bassett and Jube Donnard who, for secret purposes of their own, had invaded the smith’s forge and cloaked their comings and goings in mystery, it would have been hard to rouse Broomsedge Cove to any sense of wrong that the owner might have sustained, or any threatened security of the public peace and honor. Far less leniently regarded would be the same deeds wrought in the same way by Jake Baintree, who according to public opinion had escaped the gallows by a technicality, and this stranger, a physician, a learned man, lurking in his company, probably seeking to evade the vengeance of the law for some dark deed that she shuddered to more definitely imagine. Doubtless they were in danger. She had strong nerves. There was nothing partisan in her manner as she said, “How do ye know they ever war in the forge a-workin’ an’ sech? Ez ter Jube, I don’t set no store by Jube’s seein’. He kin see ennything he air a mind ter,—or else _say_ he hev seen it. Mought be Satan, sure enough.” “Yes-sum,” acquiesced Clem. “It air somebody ez ain’t used ter the blacksmithin’ business, fur no good smith would hev let that thar leetle bend in my leetle tongs git bruk off that-a-way, an’ then botch it a-mendin’ it. That hurt my feelin’s wuss ’n all,—the way he done the work.” He shook his head, grieved at the artificer’s incapacity. “But sence Jube knowed ez ’twar Jake Baintree at the latch, the boys don’t b’lieve in the devil no mo’,—leastwise not at the forge, ’thout it’s him along o’ Jake. Jake’s ekal ter ennythin’. Ye know he killed Sam’l Keale.” “He never!” Marcella burst forth suddenly. “_Dad_ say he never!” “Yes-sum.” Clem made haste to agree. “Ye know, though, that’s what them fellers up an’ down declar’.”