There was only one method of discounting that danger. Bear Cat had come single-handed to his stronghold--he must now go single-handed, or escorted only by his customary body-guard, into the heart of Stacy territory, disavowing responsibility for the attack. He must, by that convincingly reckless device, appear to demonstrate that he trusted himself among them and expected in turn to be trusted by them. He hoped with a fair degree of confidence that Jerry Henderson had not reached the minister's alive--or that at all events he had not been able to talk with a revealing fluency. So the guileful old wolf had set out to ride boldly through an aroused and hostile country, facing a score of parlous contingencies. As he rode, he heard the rallying cry and its full portent in no wise escaped his just appraisal. It caused him to spur on faster, however, for the ugliness of the situation made it the more imperative that he should reach Lone Stacy's house in time to present himself as an ally before he was sought out as an enemy. But when he had sent his message ahead by a neutral bearer, Kinnard Towers slowed down and watched the stream of horsemen that flowed past him: all men with scowling eyes responding to the cry which meant war: all men who passed without attack, only because, as yet, the summons had not been explained. "By ther godlings!" muttered the Towers chieftain, with a bitter humor, "I didn't know thar was sich a passel o' Stacys in ther world. They'll stand a heap of thinnin' out!" "An' as shore es hell's hot," growled Black Tom Carmichael with a dark pessimism brooding in his eyes, "they'll _do_ right-smart thinnin' out their own selves--once they gits stirred up." * * * * * By the time the sun had fully dissipated the early mists, the door yard of Lone Stacy's house was dotted with little groups of men, and from the wide doors of the barn more faces looked expectantly out. Along the sandy creek-bed of the road, where a flock of geese waddled and hissed, other arrivals stamped their feet against the cold of the frost-stiffened mud, and rammed chapped hands into trouser pockets. They talked little, but waited with an enduring patience. They were determined men, raggedly clothed and bearded; incurious of gaze and uncommunicative of speech--but armed and purposeful. They were men who had left their beds to respond to the call of their clan. Slowly Bear Cat circulated among the motley crowd, exchanging greetings, but holding his counsel until the tide of arrivals should end. It was a tatterdemalion array that he had conjured into conclave with his skittering whoop along the hill-tops. There were lads in jeans and veterans in long-tailed coats, green of seam and fringed of cuff. They carried rifles of all descriptions from modern repeaters to antiquated squirrel guns, but, in the bond of unshrinking stalwartness, they were uniform.