Under the full moon of a white and flawless night before Christmas, Shem Dugmore's squatty log cabin made a blot on the thin blanket of snow, and inside the one room of the cabin Shem Dugmore sat alone by the daubed-clay hearth, glooming. Hours passed and he hardly moved except to stir the red coals or kick back some ambitious ember of hickory that leaped out upon the uneven floor. Suddenly something heavy fell limply against the locked door, and instantly, all alertness, the shock-headed mountaineer was backed up against the farther wall, out of range of the two windows, with his weapons drawn, silent, ready for what might come. After a minute there was a feeble, faint pecking sound--half knock, half scratch--at the lower part of the door. It might have been a wornout dog or any spent wild creature, but no line of Shem Dugmore's figure relaxed, and under his thick, sandy brows his eyes, in the flickering light, had the greenish shine of an angry cat-animal's. "Whut is it?" he called. "And whut do you want? Speak out peartly!" [Illustration: HE DRAGGED THE RIFLE BY THE BARREL, SO THAT ITS BUTT MADE A CROOKED FURROW IN THE SNOW.--_Page 197._] The answer came through the thick planking thinly, in a sort of gasping whine that ended in a chattering cough; but even after Shem's ear caught the words, and even after he recognized the changed but still familiar cadence of the voice, he abated none of his caution. Carefully he unbolted the door, and, drawing it inch by inch slowly ajar, he reached out, exposing only his hand and arm, and drew bodily inside the shell of a man that was fallen, huddled up, against the log door jamb. He dropped the wooden crossbar back into its sockets before he looked a second time at the intruder, who had crawled across the floor and now lay before the wide mouth of the hearth in a choking spell. Shem Dugmore made no move until the fit was over and the sufferer lay quiet. "How did you git out, Anse?" were the first words he spoke. The consumptive rolled his head weakly from side to side and swallowed desperately. "Pardoned out--in writin'--yistiddy." "You air in purty bad shape," said Shem. "Yes,"--the words came very slowly--"my lungs give out on me--and my eyes. But--but I got here." "You come jist in time," said his cousin; "this time tomorrer and you wouldn't a' never found me here. I'd 'a' been gone." "Gone!--gone whar?" "Well," said Shem slowly, "after you was sent away it seemed like them Tranthams got the upper hand complete. All of our side whut ain't dead--and that's powerful few--is moved off out of the mountings to Winchester, down in the settlemints. I'm 'bout the last, and I'm a-purposin' to slip out tomorrer night while the Tranthams is at their Christmas rackets--they'd layway me too ef----" "But my wife--did she----"