Brent retorted with obvious acrimony. “I don't see no 'casion ter doubt the goodness o' God--I never war so ongrateful nohow as that comes to.” He resented being thus publicly reproached, as if he were individually responsible for the iniquity of the bran dance--the scape-goat for the sins of all this merry company. Many of the whilom dancers had pressed forward, crowding up behind the old mountaineer and facing the flushed Brent and the flowerlike Valeria, the faint green leaves of her muslin dress fluttering about her as her skirts swayed in the wind. “Ye ain't so powerful afeard of the devil _now_ ez ye uster was on the mourner's bench,” the old man argued. “I never war so mighty afeard of the devil,” the goaded Brent broke forth angrily, for the crowd was laughing in great relish of his predicament--they, who had shared all the enormity of “shaking a foot” on this festive day. Brent flinched from the obvious injustice of their ridicule. He felt an eager impulse for reprisal. “I know ez sech dancin' ez I hev done ain't no sin,” he blustered. “I ain't afeared o' the devil fur sech ez that. I wouldn't be skeered a mite ef he war ter--ter--ter speak right out now agin it, an' I'll be bound ez all o' you uns would. I--I--look yander--_look!_” He had thrown himself into a posture of amazed intentness and was pointing upward at the overhanging boughs of a tree above their heads. A squirrel was poised thereon, gazing down motionless. Then, suddenly--a frightful thing happened. The creature seemed to speak. A strange falsetto voice, such as might befit so eerie a chance, sounded on the air--loud, distinct, heard far up the slope, and electrifying the assemblage near at hand that was gathering about the stand and awaiting the political candidates. “Quit yer foolin'--quit yer fooling” the strange voice iterated. “I'll larn ye ter be afeared o' the devil. Long legs now is special grace.” So wild a cry broke from the startled group below the tree that the squirrel, with a sudden, alert, about-face movement, turned and swiftly ran along the bough and up the bole. It paused once and looked back to cry out again in distinct iteration, “Quit yer foolin'! Quit yer foolin'!” But none had stayed to listen. A general frantic rout ensued. The possibility of ventriloquism was unknown to their limited experience. All had heard the voice and those who had distinguished the words and their seeming source needed no argument. In either case the result was the same. Within ten minutes the grounds of the famous barbecue and bran dance were deserted. The cumbrous wagons, all too slow, were wending with such speed as their drivers could coerce the ox-teams to make along the woodland road homeward, while happier wights on horseback galloped past, leaving clouds of dust in the rear and a grewsome premonition of being hindmost in a flight that to the simple minds of the mountaineers had a pursuer of direful reality.