"Air these hyar tidin's true, Bear Cat? I've heerd thet yore paw's done been jailed," demanded Kinnard solicitously, ignoring the coldness of his greeting. "Kin I holp ye in any fashion?" "No, we don't need no aid," was the curt response. "Ef we did we'd call on ther Stacys fer hit." Towers smiled. "I aimed ter show ye this a'tternoon thet I _felt_ friendly, Turner." The manner was seemingly so sincere that the young man felt ashamed of his contrasting churlishness and hastened to amend it. "I reckon I hev need ter ask yore pardon, Kinnard. I'm sore fretted about this matter." "An' I don't blame ye neither, son. I jest stopped ter acquaint ye with what folks says. This hyar whole matter looks like a sort of bluff on Mark Tapper's part ter make a good showin' with ther govern_ment_. He hain't hardly got nothin' but hearsay ter go on--unless he kin make _you_ testify. Ef ye was ter kinderly disappear now fer a space of time, I reckon nothin' much wouldn't come of hit." "I'm obleeged ter ye Kinnard. Paw hes don' give me ther same counsel," said Bear Cat, as he hurried to the stable where he parted with Jerry Henderson after a brief and earnest interview. It was with a very set face and with very deep thoughts that Bear Cat Stacy set out for his home on Little Slippery. He rode all night with the starlight and the clean sweep of mountain wind in his face, and at sunrise stabled his mount at the cabin of a kinsman and started on again by a short cut "over the roughs" where a man can travel faster on foot. When eventually he entered the door of his house his mother looked across the dish she was drying to inquire, "Where's yore paw at?" He told her and, under the sudden scorn in her eyes, he flinched. "Ye went down thar ter town with him," she accused in the high falsetto of wrath, "an' ye come back scot free an' abandoned him ter ther penitenshery an' ye didn't raise a hand ter save him! Ef hit hed of been me I'd hev brought him home safe or I wouldn't of been hyar myself ter tell of hit!" Bear Cat Stacy went over and took the woman's wasted hands in both of his own. As he looked down on her from his six feet of height there came into his eyes a gentleness so winning that his expression was one of surprising and tender sweetness. "Does ye 'low," he asked softly, "that I'd hev done _thet_ ef he hadn't p'intedly an' severely bid me do hit?" He told her the story in all its detail and as she listened no tears came into her eyes to relieve the hard misery of her face. But when he had drawn a chair for her to the hearth and she had seated herself stolidly there, he realized that he must go and remove the evidence which still remained back there in the laurel thickets. He left her tearless and haggard of expression, gazing dully ahead of her at the ashes of the burned-out fire; the gaunt figure of a mountain woman to whom life is a serial of apprehension.