But with McCalloway, to whom he need not soften the edges of disclosure, he spoke of something else. His victory in primary and election seemed to demonstrate an augmented popularity, and yet he had become instinctively cognizant of a covert but bitter undertow of hatred against him: something unspoken and indefinable but existent and malign. McCalloway paused with his supper coffee cup half way to his lips when Boone announced that conviction one evening, and eyed the other intently before he made an answer. "I dare say," he hazarded at length, "that the old scars of the Carr-Gregory war have never entirely healed. The rancour may begin to smart afresh as your former enemies see your influence mounting." But Boone shook his head. "Of course, I've thought of that--but this is something else." "Then, my boy, what is your conjecture?" Boone's reply came slowly and thoughtfully. "To you, sir, I can speak bluntly and without fear of being charged with timidity. Frankly, sir, I'm more than half expecting to be 'lay-wayed' some fine day as I ride along a tangled trail." "I've had to take some chances in my time," asserted the soldier modestly, while his brows gathered in a frown, "but that is one form of danger that always sends a shiver down my spine; the attack that comes without warning." He broke off, then energetically added: "If _you_ give credence to such a possibility, it's not to be lightly dismissed. You must not ride alone, hereafter." Boone laughed. "For five years old Parson Fletcher never went abroad without the escort of an armed bodyguard. He even built a stockade around his house, but they got him. Jim Garrard was shot to death while militiamen stood in a hollow square about him. Precautions of that sort don't succeed. They are only a public confession of fear, and in politics a man can't afford such an admission. All I can do is to be watchful." "Have you a guess as to who the man is behind this enmity?" Boone nodded as he rose and went to the mantel where the pipes and tobacco lay. "Here and there of late I've heard a name mentioned that hasn't been much discussed for years--the name of a man who has been away." McCalloway shot a keenly searching glance at his companion as he interrogatively prompted, "You mean--?" "I mean Saul Fulton. Yes." Victor McCalloway went to the hearth and kicked a smoking log into the flame. He turned then with the sternly knit brows of deep abstraction and weighed his words before giving them utterance. "You have need to remember, my boy," he began gravely at last, "how deep the tap-root of heredity strikes down even when the tree top stretches far up into the sky." "Meaning--?"