"Well, you see, Judy," he said, "there are some things we don't mention, but you're a friend of mine, Judy, and you're entitled to my confidence. You see it's this way. The talk is that Boyd Westover and Colonel Conway's daughter Margaret were engaged to be married, when Westover committed--or was accused of committing the crime of which he was convicted and for which he was sentenced to the penitentiary. Some say she stood by him and he threw her over; some suggest that he couldn't explain things to her satisfaction--that she asked him questions he couldn't answer; some say he went back to Wanalah eager to marry the girl, and she threw him over because she didn't believe in his innocence. You see, Judy, he is, after all's said and done, only a pardoned criminal, and his pardon was based only on the confession of a poor demented fellow who has since been sent to Staunton as a lunatic. Anyhow it's plain that Colonel Conway believes Boyd Westover to be guilty, just as I do and as a good many other folks down our way do. If he isn't guilty, why's he hiding himself? Why don't he come into the district and face the music, instead of leaving that little monkey, Carley Farnsworth, to do everything for him? You never saw Carley Farnsworth, did you, Judy? Of course you didn't. Well, he's a little jackanapes of a doctor that's equally ready to give his blue pills by the mouth or at the point of a pistol. Boyd Westover has put him forward to overawe and intimidate everybody; but the Democrats will hold their vote this year and with your help, Judy, we'll make this election memorable." "I don't know jest what that last word means, Billy, but after what you's been a tellin' me you kin bet your next winter's meat I'll have a hand in this here 'lection." Judy never made promises that she did not fulfil. But if a candidate misinterpreted the phrases she used in making promises, she stoutly held that the fault was his and not hers. "My words is good for what they call fer," she was accustomed to say, "but good money don't stand fer no counterfeits." When she had got all she wanted out of Webb, she sent that worthy to bed, satisfied in his soul with things as they were, and as confident of the mountain vote in his behalf as of the excellence of Judy's cookery and the exhilaration that resided in her apple jack. XXI FLAGS FLYING Judy was right in her reckoning as to the effect of her blind message upon the mood and movements of Boyd Westover. It was not far from midnight when Theonidas reported what his mother had said, and although the night was one of extreme darkness and a drizzling rain was falling, Boyd Westover set out at once to stumble down the precipitous mountain path to the scarcely less precipitous mountain road three miles away, and thence down, down, down, to whatever level the road might ultimately reach.