Isabel listened, inexpressibly charmed. "Do you realize," she inquired, "that that ballad goes way back to the time of the Crusades, and is probably seven or eight hundred years old? Where did you learn it?" "I never heared nothing of hits history," he said, "but hit's what I call a right ballat--hit turns out proper. My granny, she teached hit to me; she used to foller singing the night through on song-ballats." "Oh, will you take me to see her?" asked Isabel. "Sartain." "And your voice is good, too; you'll be a great help to me in the singing classes." Uncle Adam, another man, and the two teams came splashing up behind. "I see you hain't been lonesome," remarked Uncle Adam. "I allowed hit would be a bad time for you, getting acrost, and rid down to see how things was," explained the young man, with dignity. "I axed the singing woman to get up behind and ride in, but she said she felt to wait for you." "Take her on along," said Uncle Adam. "We got to hitch the teams to the hind eend and pull out back'ards, if we do pull out, and hit'll be a couple hours at best, and I take hit she wants to see t'other women. Jump up behind, sis, and go in with him, and tell the women not to get out of heart, that I'm a-coming some time!" The young man rode close alongside, took off his coat and spread it behind him, on the nag's back, and Isabel jumped from the wagon-seat and lit in the proper place. As she firmly grasped the hantle of the saddle, her fingers just grazed a pistol that protruded from her rescuer's pocket. "Far'well till I come," called Uncle Adam, as they started up the creek. "Take keer of her, Fult!" Isabel started violently at the name. Was it possible that the youth sitting before her on the saddle, in all his dashing beauty, was the young feud leader? He had certainly mentioned both Frankfort and Cuba. Thrilled through and through, and consumed with curiosity, she could not endure the suspense a moment longer. "My name's Isabel Gwynne," she said. "What's yours?" "Fult Fallon," he replied, gently touching the nag with his spur. V THE WIDOW-MAN On the Thursday afternoon of the week following the quare women's Fourth-of-July picnic, a hollow-eyed, disheveled-looking man drew up before Uncle Lot Pridemore's gate, fell rather than dismounted from his mule, dropped his bridle over a paling, and stumbled into the yard and up on the porch. Aunt Ailsie appeared from the rear of the house. "Jeems Craddock!" she exclaimed; "I had plumb give you out! But what ails you, Jeems? Here, set down, quick!" She pushed a chair under him, and he slumped down in it on his backbone, long legs stretching across the porch, arms hanging lifelessly at his sides, chin dropped forward on his bosom. Aunt Ailsie ran for a gourd of water. Jeems gulped it feebly. "You look sick to death," she said, anxiously. "Maybe you better have something stronger."