When they entered the cabin, a little old woman in black, dumb and noiseless, was cooking supper. The children of the two, he learned, had scattered, and they lived there alone. On the mantel were two pistols and in one corner was the big Winchester he remembered and behind it was the big brass telescope. On the table was a Bible and a volume of Swedenborg, and among the usual strings of pepper-pods and beans and twisted long green tobacco were drying herbs and roots of all kinds, and about the fireplace were bottles of liquids that had been stewed from them. The little old woman served, and opened her lips not at all. Supper was eaten with no further reference to the doings in town that day, and no word was said about their meeting when Hale first went to Lonesome Cove until they were smoking on the porch. “I heerd you found some mighty fine coal over in Lonesome Cove.” “Yes.” “Young Dave Tolliver thinks you found somethin' else thar, too,” chuckled the Red Fox. “I did,” said Hale coolly, and the old man chuckled again. “She's a purty leetle gal--shore.” “Who is?” asked Hale, looking calmly at his questioner, and the Red Fox lapsed into baffled silence. The moon was brilliant and the night was still. Suddenly the Red Fox cocked his ear like a hound, and without a word slipped swiftly within the cabin. A moment later Hale heard the galloping of a horse and from out the dark woods loped a horseman with a Winchester across his saddle bow. He pulled in at the gate, but before he could shout “Hello” the Red Fox had stepped from the porch into the moonlight and was going to meet him. Hale had never seen a more easy, graceful, daring figure on horseback, and in the bright light he could make out the reckless face of the man who had been the first to flash his pistol in town that day--Bad Rufe Tolliver. For ten minutes the two talked in whispers--Rufe bent forward with one elbow on the withers of his horse but lifting his eyes every now and then to the stranger seated in the porch--and then the horseman turned with an oath and galloped into the darkness whence he came, while the Red Fox slouched back to the porch and dropped silently into his seat. “Who was that?” asked Hale. “Bad Rufe Tolliver.” “I've heard of him.” “Most everybody in these mountains has. He's the feller that's always causin' trouble. Him and Joe Falin agreed to go West last fall to end the war. Joe was killed out thar, and now Rufe claims Joe don't count now an' he's got the right to come back. Soon's he comes back, things git frolicksome agin. He swore he wouldn't go back unless another Falin goes too. Wirt Falin agreed, and that's how they made peace to-day. Now Rufe says he won't go at all--truce or no truce. My wife in thar is a Tolliver, but both sides comes to me and I keeps peace with both of 'em.”