Already the officer, with deep chagrin, recognized his folly. The open trap of the loft bristled with rifle mouths. The two doors which had a moment before been closed were now open and showed other muzzles peeping through, but who the men behind the guns might be, there was no indication--and there had been no sound. "I didn't need ter show them guns--jest fer you," said Bear Cat slowly. "A man don't hardly need ter call his folks tergether ter fight a skunk--but I knowed thet ye'd go back ter Kinnard Towers, an' I'd jest as lief hev ye name hit ter him, thet ye didn't find me hyar all by myself." He paused and then the cold contempt of his manner gave way to a more explosive anger. "I aims ter furnish ye with a lantern an' one of my men will start ye on yore road.... I wants ter see thet lantern goin' over ther hill-top plumb outen sight--an' I don't want ter see hit hesitate whilst hit goes. Ef hit does pause--or ef ye ever comes back ter me ergin with any proffer of partnership, so holp me God Almighty, I'll send yore scalp ter Washin'ton with my regards ter ther government." He pointed a peremptory finger to the front door. "Now, damn ye, begone an' go swiftly!" Outside Tapper saw a lantern moving, but revealing no face. He knew that it was attached to a long pole and that one side was masked--the hill device of men who need light for their footsteps yet seek to avoid becoming conspicuous--and he followed its glimmer until a voice said, "I reckon ye kin go yore own route from hyar--yon way lies ther high road. Ye kin tek ther lantern with ye." * * * * * Blossom who, until a few weeks ago, had been thought of as a lovely child, was now the "Widder Henderson" to all who spoke her name. The people she met accosted her with a lugubrious sympathy which was hard to bear, so that she hastened by with a furtive shyness and an anxiety to be left alone. Every day she made her pilgrimage to the graveyard to lay freshly cut evergreens on the grave there, and the rabbit that had its nest deep under the thorns sat on its haunches regarding her with a frank curiosity devoid of fear. He seemed to recognize a kinship of shy aloofness between them which need not set even his most timorous of hearts into a flutter. Yet although she was the "Widder Henderson," who had experienced the bitter fate of so many mountain wives, she was after all, in years and in experience, a child.