“It air jes’ ez likely ye told her ez me—_ef she knows_,” he equivocated. “Hyar ye air, a-dilly-dallyin’ in the woods, ’feard ter move hand or foot, doubtin’ ’bout whether she air agin it or no. I ain’t showed ez I set no sech store by sech ez she thinks or don’t think. Ef ennybody told her, it mought jes’ ez well hev been _you-uns_.” Jepson’s reproachful and surprised gaze dealt a poignant wound to Clem’s careless conscience, but it failed to elicit confession. “Ef _she_ won’t tell, the Lord knows _I_ won’t,” he thought, but knowing his uncontrollable tongue, he was glad that Jepson began to speak of himself. “I ain’t one ter falter fur sech ez others say,” protested Jepson, “though I ain’t got the pleasure in this hyar business ez folks in the old time ’peared ter take. Them in the Bible never turned fur the sight o’ blood, an’ they hung folks an’ chopped ’em into minch meat, an’ seemed ter find a savor in sech doin’s ez all my religion can’t gin! I can’t holp feelin’ sorter sorry fur the evil-doer wunst in a while, specially whenst the avenger air hard on his track; fur my heart is weak an’ needs strengthenin’ from above. The men o’ this day air pore, degenerate critters, an’ don’t sense jestice much more ’n Marcelly Strobe. But my hand air nerved by a stronger power ’n I kin command, an’ I dare all the mountings ter show the road whar I tuk the back-track, or tell the day.” He turned, resolutely pushing on toward the forge, and Clem Sanders, greatly cast down and too much troubled to even glance toward the future, kept at his elbow. The ringing clamor of the hammer came to them again as they pressed on, not regular, but with fitful pauses; and by the time that they were at the verge of the woods they heard voices, loudly conversing, casual voices. The tones came from the forge, and alternated with the clink of the hammer. The next moment the little low-browed log shanty was before them, seen through the arching vistas of the laurel and the oak; its slanting roof glistened with moisture; the crag loomed high above, with the sentinel pines on its summit. Beyond the valley the dark mountains, black but for dusky olive-green suggestions, were visible against the horizon; and the moon, a sphere of gleaming pearl, swung high in the violet sky. The long path of light it shed upon the river stretched from bank to bank and seemed to part the dark lustrous waters, and Jepson bethought himself of that miraculous road in the midst of the Red Sea, when Israel trod its ways dry shod, with the waves like a wall on either hand. In front of the forge, a feeble red flare alternated with a fleeting brown flicker as the sigh of the bellows again broke forth. When, suddenly, the two vigilantes stood in the broad, open doorway, a man was at the anvil once more, and its keen, fine vibrations rang out responsive to the shrill tone of the hand-hammer, for he had no striker. He did not move, for all he must have seen their eager eyes fastened upon him.