"Ye ain't--ye ain't seen none of 'em yourself, have ye, Leander?" The question came a bit breathlessly and the boy forgot his bashfulness as he expanded with the importance of his traveler's tales. "Not to know 'em fer sich," he admitted, "but I met up with a furriner a few leagues back along ther highway. He was broguein' along mighty brash on his own two feet. La! But he was an elegant party ter be a-ridin' on shoe-leather, though!" "What manner of furriner was he, Leander?" demanded Blossom with a clutch of fright at her heart, but the boy shook his head stupidly. "Wa'al he was jest a feller from down below. Ter tell hit proper, I didn't hev much speech with him. We jest met an' made our manners an' went our ways. He 'lowed ter go ter Lone Stacy's house." "Lone Stacy's house," echoed the girl faintly. "Reckon' I'll be a-ridin' on," drawled the young horseman nonchalantly. "Reckon I've done told ye all ther tidings I knows." Blossom stood, for a while, rooted where he had left her, listening to the splash of the mule's feet along the creek. If a prying eye should discover the Stacy still to-day it would find not only "a beautiful piece of copper" but Bear Cat lying there incapacitated and helpless! Her heart missed its beat at the thought. The hills seemed to close in on her stiflingly with all their age-old oppression of fears and impending tragedies, and she sat down by the roadside to think it out. What should she do? After a while she saw the tall figure of the elder Stacy climbing the mountainside, but he was taking a short cut--and would not come within hailing distance. Her eye, trained to read indications, noted that a rifle swung in his right hand. Bitterly she had been taught by her father to resent the illicit business to which Turner's service was grudgingly given. But above all ethical hatred of law-breaking rose the very present danger to Turner himself. Laws were abstract things and Turner was Turner! There was only one answer. She must watch and, if need arose, give warning. Just where the brook that trickled down from the still gushed out to the creek and the road which followed its course, lay a steeply sloping field of young corn. Along its back grew rows of "shuckybeans," and here Blossom took her station for her self-appointed task of sentry duty. CHAPTER V Jerry Henderson had lost his way. Aching muscles protested the extra miles because back there at Marlin Town he had been advised to cross Cedar Mountain on foot. "Unless they suspicions ye, 'most any man'll contrive ter take ye in an' enjoy ye somehow," his counselors had pointed out. "But thar's heaps of them pore fam'lies over thar thet hain't got feed fer a ridin' critter noways." Now Cedar Mountain is not, as its name mendaciously implies, a single peak but a chain that crawls, zig-zag as herringbone, for more than a hundred miles with few crossings which wheels can follow.