Out into that troublous, tempestuous night a hundred alarmed militant mountaineers rushed down through the jungle shadows, over a score of savage, rugged trails. Onward they hastened, down toward the startling night-cry of the bell which they knew emanated from the new church on Hellsfork. That choking, desperate bell-scream had raked across their senses like the cracking of a hundred rifles. To them its importunities had resolved into the sanguine roar of a fusillade. It had aroused in them an audacious, desperate quickness to kill. They rushed hither, prepared to sprinkle the white-clover with their blood, and die there in the churchyard, or vanquish whatever the menace might be. They pictured an assault on the church by the McGills or the revenuers, and in their fancy saw old Cap Lutts, his great figure in the forefront, spouting soft-nosed bullets from his hot rifle! The ringing of the bell inspired those on-coming loyal mountain hearts with a red-eyed animal fierceness, and lent a lightness to their heavy feet that brought them to the church within the hour. Men and boys, and indeed a few women, with weapons of all sorts, descended on the church, wild and panting with the lust of conflict. When Lem Lutts opened his dazed eyes the place was half filled with frenzied people. Belle-Ann knelt beside him, bathing his wounds and uttering in her soothing, low drawl, little phrases of encouragement and condolence. Buddy's hard little visage protruded out of the lantern light like a ghostly mask done in white marble. Lem finally got to his feet and staggered toward the altar. A dozen lanterns were scattered about the church. The shaggy band stood around gazing at their dead leader. Crazed with rage, they stood and wept, walked aimlessly and cursed, or knelt and prayed. To a man they were for beating the mountains for the revenuers; but Lem held them back. He climbed upon the altar, and little Bud scrambled up beside him, hugging his father's rifle which he had hungrily recovered. With the realization that Lem was now their leader, the Moon mountain men crowded up toward the pulpit, eager for his words. Lem pointed one unsteady hand to the bloody cross at his feet, and the other to the dead form of his father stretched on the first bench. He raised his bruised, torn face upward; then, in a voice that was terrible in its calmness, he said the only prayer he knew, while the grief torn host fixed their eyes upon him and drank in every word: "God Almoughty, plead thou my cose with them thet strive agin we-uns. Lay a han' on yore shiel' an' buckler an' stan' up t' he'p we-uns. Let 'em be confound' an' put t' shame, fo' they hev privily laid thar net t' destroy me withouten a cose--even withouten a cose hev they made a pit fo' my soul. Let th' sudden destruction cum on our'n enemy onawares, an' his net thet he hev laid privily keech hisse'f, thet he mought fall int' his own mischief his ownse'f. Ahmen!"