The mountaineer ripped off his hat and the black cloth which had covered his face--and Turner Stacy stood looking into the eyes of Lone Stacy, his father. For an instant he leaned forward incredulously, and his voice was strangely unsteady. "How did ye git hyar," he demanded. "They kept puttin' off my trial--ontil I reckon they wearied of hit," was the grave response. "Day before yistiddy ther jedge dismissed my case." "But no man hain't nuver been with us afore without he was oath-bound--how did ye contrive hit?" The old man smiled. "Dog Tate 'lowed I could take ther oath an' all ther rest of ther formalities in due time. He fixed me up an' brought me along. This hyar war a matter thet I was right interested in." "I 'lowed," Turner's voice fell to a more confidential note, "I 'lowed ye mout be right wrathful at all I've been doin' since ye went away. Ye used ter berate me fer not lovin' blockadin'." There was a momentary silence. The bearded man, somewhat thinner and more bent than when he had gone away to prison, and the son with a face more matured by these weeks and months, stood gazing into each other's eyes. To the reserve of each, outspoken sentiment came hard and even now both felt an intangible barrier of diffidence. Then Lone Stacy answered gruffly, but there was an unsteadiness of feeling under his laconic reply. "I've done showed ye how wrathful I air. I'm tolable old--but I reckon I kin still l'arn." * * * * * Even when Kinnard Towers sat a prisoner in the courtroom which he had dominated, and heard Sam Carlyle, seeking to save his own neck by turning traitor, tell the lurid story of all his iniquities, an unbending doggedness characterized his attitude. As his eyes dwelt on the henchman who was swearing away his life, they burned so scornfully that the witness twisted and fidgeted and glanced sidewise with hangdog shame. When the jury trooped in and stood lined solemnly before the bench, he gazed out of the window where the hills were beginning to soften their slaty monotone with a hint of tender green. He did not need to hear them respond to the droning inquiries of the clerk, because he had read the verdict in their faces long before. But when they had, for greater security, removed him to the Louisville jail and had put him in that row of cells reserved for those whose lives are forfeit to the law, it is doubtful whether that masklike inexpressiveness truly mirrored an inward phlegm. There was an electric lamp fixed against the iron bars of the death corridor, turned inward like a spot-light of shame which was never dimmed either day or night--and there was a warden who paced the place, never leaving him unwatched--and Kinnard Towers had lived in places where eagles breed and where the air is wild and bites the lungs with its tang of freedom. * * * * *