"If you didn't think I was a policeman? Sorry I can't change your mind on that subject. But I'm not." Barr's eyes searched Jeff's. "Why'd the boy say it?" Jeff shrugged. "If I knew why boys say things, I'd be a lot smarter than I am." "But ya did tell the boy ya'd find out who kil't Blazer?" "Yup." "Yet, now ye got the chanst, you'd pass it by?" "This is a chance? I don't want to kill anybody. I never promised Dan anything except that we'd find his father's murderer. Afterwards I was going to turn him over to the law." Barr wrinkled his brows. "But ye be no policeman?" "I'm not," Jeff said flatly. "Barr, what had you intended to do with me?" It was Barr's turn to shrug. "Shoot ya." "And in your opinion, that was right?" Barr said fiercely, "A body don't stop to think should he tromp on its haid does he find a pizen snake on his h'arthstone!" Jeff lapsed into silence. His life story he had offered in jest, but he understood Barr's. His ancestors had been among the first to come to America, and they had come because there wasn't room enough for them in Europe. But neither had there been room enough in America's scattered colonies for people so fierce, reckless and proud. They had either left the settlements of their own accord or been driven out. They had wanted above all to live by their own personal inclinations and not by rules which they had little part in making. Always they had sought the wildest and most inaccessible places because only there could they live as they must. Barr Whitney typified this wild independence, which couldn't possibly endure. Sooner or later even the hill clans must submit to the forward march of civilization and Jeff hoped that the advancing juggernaut would not crush them completely. The spirit they represented always had been and always would be necessary to free people. Probably the older ones would go down fighting; certainly they would never learn that they must bend themselves to others. Perhaps their children, or their children's children, would. Jeff shrugged. That was to come. This was now, and neither civilization nor anything else had as yet tamed Barr Whitney. Jeff rubbed a hand on his trousers. "You ail?" Barr asked. "My hand's twitching." "The oil of shunk an' the grease of b'ar, mixed two of one to one of the other, an' cooked on a hick'ry fire when the moon's near horn points to water, will drive out ary itch." Jeff grinned. "Can't wait for the moon's near horn to point to water, and besides I don't want a cure. When my hand twitches, I'm lucky." Pete moved so swiftly that he seemed in one split second to be sitting on his chair and then, magically, to be standing with his rifle at half raise. But quick as he was, Barr was quicker. His rifle cracked, a lock of hair detached itself from Pete's head to float softly to the floor, and before the sound died Barr had levered another cartridge into the chamber. He spoke as casually as though he had just shot at a squirrel.