Yet the crater did not at once burst into molten up-blazing. For a while yet it smouldered--held from eruption by the sober counsel of the man who had been fired on and who had seemingly escaped death by a miracle. Adherents of the two factions still spoke as they met on the road, but when they separated each turned his head to watch the other out of sight and neither trusted an unprotected back to the good faith of any possible adversary. To the house of Aaron Capper, unobtrusively prompted by Sim Squires, went certain of the Harper kin who knew not where else to turn--ignoring Parish Thornton as a young pretender for whom they had little more liking than for the enemy himself. The elderly clansman received them and heard their talk, much of which was wild and foolish. All disclaimed, and honestly disclaimed, any knowledge of the infamy that had been aimed at old Jim Rowlett, but even in their frothy folly and yeasty clamour none was so bereft as to deny that the Harpers must face accountability. If war were inevitable, argued the hotheads, it were wisdom to strike the first blow. Yet Aaron, who had during the whole long truce been fretting for a free hand, listened now with a self-governed balance that astonished his visitors. "Men," said he with a ring of authority in his voice, "thar hain't no profit in headlong over-hastiness. I've been foreseein' this hour an' prayin' fer guidance. We've got ter hev speech with young Parish Thornton afore we turns a wheel." Sim Squires had not been enlisting his recruits from the ranks of those who wished to turn to Thornton, and from them rose a yelping clamour of dissent, but Aaron quelled that mutiny aborning and went evenly on. "Ef warfare lays ahead of us we hev need ter stand tergether solid--an' thar's good men amongst us thet wouldn't nuver fergive affrontin' old Caleb's memory by plum lookin' over his gal's husband. Thet's my counsel, an' ef ye hain't a-goin' ter heed hit----" The quiet voice ripped abruptly into an explosiveness under which some of them cowered as under a lash. "Then I reckon thar'll be Thorntons an' Harpers thet _will_--an they'll fight both ther Doanes an' your crowd alike." CHAPTER XVI Parish Thornton sat on the doorstep of the house gazing abstractedly upward where through soft meshes of greenery the sunlight filtered. Here, he told himself, he ought to be happy beyond any whisper of discontent--save for the fret of his lingering weakness. Through the open door of the house came the voice of Dorothy raised in song, and the man's face softened and the white teeth flashed into a smile as he listened. Then it clouded again. Parish Thornton did not know all the insidious forces that were working in the silences of the hills, but he divined enough to feel the brewing of a storm, which, in its bursting, might strike closer and with more shattering force than the bolt that had scarred the giant tree trunk.