I'm Ben Hopper, and for the past four years I've been owner and publisher of the Summit Press. I'm also editor of this paper, advertising manager, circulation manager, business manager, proof reader, and copy boy. The Press is strictly a one man country paper, but it prints the news, which was why I was out here in the hills. There was news out here. Maybe it was mighty big news, too. * * * * * I was going to ask some more questions but the clatter of an over-worked motor interrupted me and I turned in time to see a car banging up the gravel road toward us. It was a gray Ford coupe and I needed only one glance to recognize it and to know who was driving it. Ellen Briscoe. Uncle Sam sent her out here to try to teach the people on the hill farms how to keep from starving to death. The Relief Lady, the mountaineers called her. She was coming up the hill road like she didn't know there was any such thing as tire rationing. Steam popped out of the radiator as the car reached us. She was out of it almost before it stopped rolling. "Hello, Ben," she said to me. "Ellen, you got no business being here," I protested. She ignored me. She had business wherever she wanted to be, which was anywhere anybody was in trouble. "Sheriff, what's this all about?" she demanded. Hoskins scraped a toe against the rocky ground. "I--I don't know for sure, Miss Ellen," he said. "I heard about it in Summit," she said. "And I came right up here. They told me in Summit that you had organized a posse and gone after Tommy. Sheriff, what has Tommy done?" Those were the words she used. The tone of her voice said more than the words. The sheriff wore out a lot of shoe leather before he answered. "Sim Brock swore out a warrant," he said at last. "I don't have any choice about serving it." "Sim Brock swore out a warrant, did he?" Fire flashed from her eyes. "Don't you know those loafers down at the roadhouse Brock runs are always teasing Tommy?" "I know, Miss Ellen," the sheriff said uncomfortably. "Were they teasing him and did he strike at one of them? Is that why you've got this posse after Tommy?" "No," the sheriff said. "They might have been teasing him before it happened but I don't know that they were. The warrant charged Tommy with blowing up Brock's barn." "Blowing up his barn!" "That was the way Brock swore out the warrant." "And you believed Sim Brock?" Ellen demanded. "Don't you know he's a liar and a no-good scoundrel. Don't you know that nobody can believe anything Brock says?" "Yes," the sheriff slowly said. "But the barn was blown up. I went to look. I didn't put any faith in what Brock said, but the warrant had been sworn out and I had to act. So I went looking for Tommy--" "With a gun in your hand, I suppose?" she said sharply. * * * * * He looked at her then, just glanced up, but his gaze didn't falter. "You know better than that, Miss Ellen," he said.