Buck eyed the visitor keenly for a minute. Someone said they never had heard of him. Buck, who saw that the visitor was in mind to turn back, suggested: "Won't yo' have a cup of coffee, suh? Hit's raw outside to-night, fresh and mean. Give him a chair, boys! I'm friendly with any man who takes a message from a mother to her wandering son." A dozen chairs were snatched out to the stove, and when Parson Rasba had accepted one, Buck stepped into the kitchen. He found Slip, _alias_ Jock Drones, standing with beads of sweat on his forehead. No need to ask the first question; Buck poured out a cup of coffee and said: "What'll I tell him, Slip?" "I cayn't go back, Buck!" Slip whimpered. "Hit's a hanging crime!" "Something may have changed," Buck suggested. "No, suh, I've heard. Hit were my bullet--I've heard. Hit's a trial, an' hit's--hit's hanging!" "Sh-h! Not so loud!" Buck warned. "If it's lawyer money you need?" "I got 'leven hundred, an' a trial lawyer'll cost only a thousand, Buck! Yo's a friend--Lawse! I'd shore like to talk to him. He's no detector, Parson Rasba yain't. Why, he's be'n right into a stillhouse, drunk the moonshine--an' no revenue hearn of hit, the way some feared. My sister wrote me. I want to talk to him, Buck, but--but not let them outside know." "I'll fix it," Buck promised, carrying out steaming coffee, a plate of sandwiches, and two big oranges for the parson. He returned, filled up the trays for the others, and took them out. Soon the crowd were sitting around, or leaning against the heavy crap table, talking and listening. "Yo' come way down from the mountangs to find a mammy's boy?" someone asked, his tone showing better than his words how well he understood the sacrifice of that journey. "Hit's seo," Rasba nodded. "I'm partly to blame, myse'f, for his coming down. I was a mountain preacher, exhorter, and I 'lowed I knowed hit all. One candlelight I had a congregation an' I hit 'er up loud that night, an' I 'lowed I'd done right smart with those people's souls. But--but hit were no such thing. This boy, Jock, he runned away that night, 'count of my foolishness, an' we know he's down thisaway; if I could git to find him, his mammy'd shore be comforted. She's a heap more faith in me'n I have, but I come down yeah. Likely I couldn't do much for that boy, but I kin show I'd like to." "Trippin' a thousand miles shows some intrust!" somebody said. "I lived all my life up theh in the mountangs, an' hit's God's country, gem'men! This yeah--" he glanced around him till his glance fell upon the card cabinet on the wall between two windows, full of decks of cards and packets of dice and shaker boxes--"this yeah, sho! Hit ain't God's country, gem'men! Hit's shore the Devil's, an' he's shore ketched a right smart haul to-night! But I live yeah now!"