"You go wash and dress and I'll fry what's left," insisted Aunt Ailsie. Half an hour later, the two started up with their heavy baskets. Cynthy, too, wore a black sunbonnet and print apron; and from their appearance it would have been impossible to say which was mother, which daughter. If anything, Aunt Ailsie looked the younger, Cynthy's face being so lined and drawn from the troubles she had had as Fighting Fult's wife and widow. The first thing they saw, as they toiled up past the deserted tents, was a tall pole, with the great flag which usually hung in the large tent flying before the breeze. It was set beside the flat rock, just at the top of the ascent, which the women had named Pulpit Rock. Beyond, on the level top of the spur, were numbers of seats made by laying saplings across logs; and here elderly folk and mothers with babies were tightly packed, while hundreds wandered about, or sat under the trees, or against the small, latticed grave-houses; for the spur-top was also a burying-ground. The two women, Virginia and Amy, who sat on a puncheon-bench beside the rock, with Uncle Ephraim Kent between them, beckoned for Aunt Ailsie and Cynthy to join them. A phalanx of young people, whom Aunt Ailsie recognized as the singing class, stood beneath the flag, all wearing sashes of red, white, and blue across shoulders and breasts. Fult was in the front line, beside Lethie. Aunt Ailsie leaned forward and said anxiously: "Lot, he's sartain there'll be trouble; he says some of the boys will get liquor, shore, and then--" "I'm not very much afraid," replied Amy. She turned to little John Wes, Cynthy's four-year-old, who was perched on the rock behind her. "Tell Fult to step here," she said. He came forward, looking very handsome, his dark beauty set off by the bright colors of his sash. "Your grandparents fear drinking and trouble here to-day," Amy said. Fult drew himself up. "I have give my word," he said, "not only that there won't be no drinking and trouble on the hill to-day by me and my friends, but that nary drap of liquor shall be fotched up here by nobody. Me and t'other boys have been scouting around all morning, meeting folks as they rid in, and going into saddlebags and coat-pockets, and warning all hands that we aim to have peace on the hill to-day if hit takes cold steel to get hit. And Charlie Lee and two more boys air still spying around for hit, whilst I sing." This astonishing transformation of peace-breakers into peace-compellers laid Aunt Ailsie's fears. A little later, however, when she saw Darcy Kent, Fult's archenemy, come up with the pretty young woman who presided over the cooking-tent, and sit down not twenty feet from Fult, anxiety again awoke. "Hit gives me a spell to see them two so nigh together," she whispered to Cynthy. The latter cast a glance of cold, withering hatred at Darcy. "'Pears like he's trying to get him a fotched-on gal," she sneered.