He had come like a ghost from the antique past, with his old bones straddling neither horse nor mule, but seated sidewise on a brindle bull, and to reach the place where he was to discourse music he had made a "soon start" yesterday morning and had slept lying by the roadside over night. Now on an improvised platform he sat enthroned, with his eyes ecstatically closed, the violin pressed to his stubbled chin, and his broganned feet--with ankles innocent of socks--patting the spirited time of his dancing measure. Outside in the yard certain young folk who had been reared to hold dancing ungodly indulged in those various "plays" as they called the games less frowned upon by the strait-laced. But while the thoughtless rollicked, their elders gathered in small clumps here and there and talked in grave undertones, and through these groups old Caleb circulated. He knew how mysterious and possibly significant to these news-hungry folk had seemed the strange circumstance of the bridegroom's answering, in the marriage service, to a name he had not previously worn and he sought to draw, by his own strong influence, the sting of suspicion from their questioning minds. But Bas Rowlett did not remain through the day, and when he was ready to leave, old Caleb followed him around the turn of the road to a point where they could be alone, and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Bas," he said, feelingly, "I'd hate ter hev ye think I hain't a-feelin' fer ye terday. I knows right well ye're sore-hearted, boy, an' thar hain't many men thet could hev took a bitter dose like ye've done." Rowlett looked gloomily away. "I hain't complainin' none, Caleb," he said. "No. But I hain't got master long ter live--an' when Jim an' me both passes on, I fears me thar'll be stressful times ahead. I wants ye ter give me yore hand thet ye'll go on standin' by my leetle gal an' her fam'ly, Bas. Else I kain't die satisfied." Bas Rowlett stood rigidly and tensely straight, his eyes fixed to the front, his forehead drawn into furrows. Then he thrust out his hand. "Ye've done confidenced me until now," he said simply, "ye kin go on doin' hit. I gives ye my pledge." CHAPTER XIV Among the men who danced at that party were Sim Squires and Pete Doane, but when they saddled and mounted at sunset, they rode divergent ways. Each of the two was acting under orders that day, and each was spreading an infection whose virus sought to stir into rebirth the war which the truce had so long held in merciful abeyance. Aaron Capper, who was as narrow yet as religious as an Inquisition priest, had always believed the Thorntons to be God's chosen and the Doanes to be children of Satan. The bonds of enforced peace had galled him heavily. Three sons had been killed in the battle at Claytown and he felt that any truce made before he had evened his score left him wronged and abandoned by his kinsmen.