"Well, I must be going forward," he said. "Can you tell me if this trail will lead me around toward the river?" "After a bit," nodded Duval, inspecting Norton's outfit piece by piece. "It runs past Mr. Grigg's farm, then forks. Take the fork to the left, which circles around to the river a few miles down. Your servant, sir!" He bowed, Norton returning the compliment, and the three separated. Passing through some marshy cane-brake, the Louisianian presently came to higher ground, found the trees thinning, and perceived hemp and tobacco fields to the right. He was thinking of his own situation, however, and wondering at Duval's change of front. What had caused the lawyer to take this sudden attitude? Norton himself was a man who neither explained nor apologised for his own actions, and knew Duval for the same kind of man. There must be something behind his abrupt apology and surprising amiability, he concluded, though he was at a loss to conceive what it might be. Colonel Taylor had spoken none too warmly of Duval the day before, else he might have thought that Taylor had mentioned him and his errand to the lawyer, as he had done to Rosier. "By thunder!" frowned Norton, gazing at the few negroes at work in the fields among the scattered stumps and girdled trees. "There's something almighty strange about this whole affair. Well, I'm out of it now, and if they can reach me in the woods--let them! I guess I'll call on the charming Madam Kitty Grigg. Hm! Duval seems to have been ahead of me there, too. I'm afraid that if I lingered in Louisville, Mr. Duval and I would get farther than apologies----" He laughed a little, feeling that if he came to hand-grips with Duval the result might be dubious, but worth chancing. And so he came to Grigg's cabin, for farm it was not. There was no mistaking the place; the girl herself was sitting on the steps of the log shack, at work sewing. Behind him, Norton saw the back-ends of the plantations he had passed, whose buildings were perhaps a mile or more distant. Grigg's cabin was placed amid a grove of half-dead maple and walnut--girdled but never cleared. Even as Norton drew rein and dismounted, the girl rising at sight of him, a sudden thought came into his mind: Duval had said that he was in liquor the day before. Now Norton had seen enough drunken men to know that Duval lied in that statement. Dismissing this thought, however, he advanced to the shack with a smile. He had no cap and had neglected to buy one in town, and his brown hair and bronzed face were very good to look upon in the warm afternoon sunlight. "This is Madam Kitty Grigg?" he smiled, bowing, "I met your father and Mr. Duval upon the road, and finding that I had to pass here, determined to crave the courtesy of a drink of water."