“He’ll pick you off some night from behind a tree,” warned Dan. “Sneak and coward!” muttered John. “Ye won’t let me help ye?” “No, go home and disband your men.” “May they keep the rig?” “If you won’t go on a raid.” “I’ll not, unless you need me, John Graham,” cried the mountaineer grasping again his young leader’s hand. “All right. I can trust you. Keep their costumes in your house under lock and key until I call for them.” As Dan turned slowly through the door he drawled over his shoulder: “You’ll ’em purty quick!” CHAPTER V--GRAHAM VS. BUTLER WHEN Dan Wiley closed the door John turned to his desk and drew from a pigeon hole the mass of legal papers containing the evidence he had gathered of Butler’s theft of his estate. The dissolution of the Klan had left him only the process of the law by which to recover it. Yet it was only a question of time when the decision of the Supreme Court would hurl the Judge from the Graham home and arraign him for impeachment. Now that he was ready to file the suit, his mind was in a tumult of hesitation. The soft invisible hand of a girl was holding his hand. He gazed steadily at the documents and saw nothing that was within. The ink lines slowly resolved themselves into the raven glossy hair of Stella piled in curling confusion above her white forehead, and he was trying in vain to find the depths of her wonderful eyes. Something in the expression of those eyes held his memory in a perpetual spell--their remarkable size and their dilation when she spoke. They seemed to enfold him in a soft mantle of light. He suddenly bundled the papers, replaced them, and took up his pen. “I’ve got to see her--that’s all!” he exclaimed. “Who knows? Perhaps I’m answering the great summons of life. I’ll put it to the test. At least I’ll not throw my chance away for a house, some trees and a few acres of dirt. When Love calls life’s too short for revenge.” On a sheet of delicate old note paper with a crest of yellow and black at the top, he wrote: _My Dear Miss Butler:_ _You were gracious enough to ask me to call again. I cannot believe your words were mere conventional phrases. Their accent was too genuine and sincere. So I beg the privilege of calling to-day while your father, my valiant political enemy, is busy down town with the delegates to his convention which meets to-morrow. I anxiously await your answer._ _Sincerely,_ _John Graham_. “Unless I’ve mistaken her character, she’ll see me!” he mused as he sealed the note. He went at once to Mrs. Wilson’s, found Alfred, and gave him the missive. “Take that to the Judge’s and give it to Miss Stella.” Alfred stared. “Down to de ole place!” “Yes, of course.” Alfred sat down and laughed. “Well, fore de Lawd, doan dat beat ye!” “Shut up, and hurry back--I’ll wait for you at the office.” “Yassah, right away, sah!” “And Alfred, not a word to a living soul of this.”