“Sit still,” said Hale, quietly. “There's not going to be a fight so long as you are here.” “Thar hain't!” said one of the men. “Well”--then he looked sharply at the girl and turned his horse--“Come on, Bill--that's ole Dave Tolliver's gal.” The girl's face was on fire. “Them mean Falins!” she said contemptuously, and somehow the mere fact that Hale had been even for the moment antagonistic to the other faction seemed to put him in the girl's mind at once on her side, and straightway she talked freely of the feud. Devil Judd had taken no active part in it for a long time, she said, except to keep it down--especially since he and her father had had a “fallin' out” and the two families did not visit much--though she and her cousin June sometimes spent the night with each other. “You won't be able to git over thar till long atter dark,” she said, and she caught her breath so suddenly and so sharply that Hale turned to see what the matter was. She searched his face with her black eyes, which were like June's without the depths of June's. “I was just a-wonderin' if mebbe you wasn't the same feller that was over in Lonesome last fall.” “Maybe I am--my name's Hale.” The girl laughed. “Well, if this ain't the beatenest! I've heerd June talk about you. My brother Dave don't like you overmuch,” she added frankly. “I reckon we'll see Dave purty soon. If this ain't the beatenest!” she repeated, and she laughed again, as she always did laugh, it seemed to Hale, when there was any prospect of getting him into trouble. “You can't git over thar till long atter dark,” she said again presently. “Is there any place on the way where I can get to stay all night?” “You can stay all night with the Red Fox on top of the mountain.” “The Red Fox,” repeated Hale. “Yes, he lives right on top of the mountain. You can't miss his house.” “Oh, yes, I remember him. I saw him talking to one of the Falins in town to-day, behind the barn, when I went to get my horse.” “You--seed--him--a-talkin'--to a Falin AFORE the trouble come up?” the girl asked slowly and with such significance that Hale turned to look at her. He felt straightway that he ought not to have said that, and the day was to come when he would remember it to his cost. He knew how foolish it was for the stranger to show sympathy with, or interest in, one faction or another in a mountain feud, but to give any kind of information of one to the other--that was unwise indeed. Ahead of them now, a little stream ran from a ravine across the road. Beyond was a cabin; in the doorway were several faces, and sitting on a horse at the gate was young Dave Tolliver. “Well, I git down here,” said the girl, and before his mule stopped she slid from behind him and made for the gate without a word of thanks or good-by.