"Put up those hands!" she commanded, pointing her pistol at him threateningly. "And so you're Hall McIvor! Well, let me tell you, Mr. McIvor, your father killed my brother and he killed my sister's son, too. You're nothing but a murderer and if you make the least move I'm going to shoot you dead. And before I'll let Allifair marry a son of Bland McIvor I'll shoot her down in her tracks!" She towered above them, like a witch in the starlight, and as Allifair broke down and gave way to tears, Hall lifted her gently up. "You don't need that pistol," he said to Miz Zoolah, "because no man that claims to be a gentleman ever raised his hand against a woman. I never have, and I never will." "Yes, there you go again," she burst out vindictively, "I ought to have known it was you. Was there ever a McIvor that didn't have the same twaddle about his 'honor,' and being a gentleman? Well, what kind of honor is it when a grown man like your father shoots down my sister's boy? He was just a child, hardly fourteen years old----" "Yes, but he shot at my father twice. And a boy, Mrs. Scarborough, can pull just as hard on a trigger as a man that's forty years old." "Well, if that isn't a McIvor!" she burst out, laughing spitefully, "but I'll fix you, here and now. You put that fool down and march back to the house--I'll turn you over to Isham." "You know he'll kill me," replied Hall, suddenly stepping away from Allifair, and Zoolah raised her voice. "Yes, and _I'll_ kill you!" she yelled, "you miserable murderer! Go on, now--step off down that path!" He hesitated, for his hot Southern blood was up, and Allifair sprang at her aunt. "Run!" she cried, striking the gun aside, and Hall made a jump into the darkness. The dog, which had been watching him, rushed in and grabbed his leg; but McIvor turned and kicked him off and as Miz Zoolah began to shoot he plunged down the hill and was gone. CHAPTER XV THE CASTLE IN THE AIR When a man flees for safety it is seldom into the unknown, for that is always fearful. Nine times out of ten he heads for some old stamping-ground, and generally he heads for home. Hall McIvor was lost in a country so wild that not even a wagon-track entered it; four trails led in and out and he took the one he knew, the one that went to Tonto. It was night, but he had a horse that knew the way, or at least that could follow a trail; and at the first flush of dawn he spurred down Jump-Off Point and splashed into Turkey Creek. Then he rode without stopping until, at Cold Spring, his horse threw up its head and quit. Hall was back where his troubles had begun.