The first thing that Paul Torridon remembered was being led by the hand to a tall man with long hair and a short gray beard, a beard that was chopped off brutally, for convenience rather than for appearance. Seen from the back with his curls flowing down over his shoulders, John Brett looked the portrait of some chivalrous cavalier. Seen from the front with that blunt stub of a beard, he seemed partly grotesque, partly savage. To heighten the contrast, his beard had turned while his hair still remained a glossy, youthful black.

Of what had gone before, Paul Torridon had no idea, but something about the face of this giant pierced his mind and remained in his thoughts forever.

�Is this one of them? Is this one of them?� shouted John Brett. �Why did you bring this thing home to me?�

�Shall I take him back and turn him loose in the woods?� asked the man who held the hand of Paul. �That�ll answer the same purpose.�

�You fool!� cried Brett. �You blathering, hopeless fool. You�ve brought him inside my house, haven�t you? Turn him over to the women and never let me see his face.�

How the women received him, Paul Torridon forgot, except for one flash of recollection that had to do with an old crone who shook her finger at his head and groaned: �He�ll bring harm to us all!�

Then the mists closed again around the mind of Paul Torridon.

He should have remembered much more, for he was well over seven years of age and, of course, far advanced into the period of full memory, but something had shocked the past into total oblivion, or else there was a sense of mere shadows moving among shadows, in the beginning.

His recollection of the past was cut like a thread, and at the same time his knowledge of the present washed away in waves, today carrying off in its withdrawal yesterday, and all the days before, so that for some time to come his only surviving sense of that period was that he had been surrounded by cloth, a world of homespun in drab colors, the enormous skirts of the women, and the bulky coats of the men.

He could see, later, that this was the time during which he was left exclusively to the hands of the women, and so he voyaged by degrees out into the open light of full memory, full understanding.

He used to help the women at the milking of the cows. Once, as he was bringing in a three-gallon pail half filled, the giant, John Brett, loomed suddenly before him.

�What�s your name?� asked John Brett.

�Paul Torridon.�

The face of John Brett grew black.

�As quick as the bell answers the bell hammer,� he said.

He turned away, but poor little Torridon was so frightened that the milk pail fell to the ground and spilled a white tide across the mud. He knew that he would be beaten, but a whip could not fill his mind with terror as did the mere echo of the voice of John Brett.

He came upon one great and important truth�that there was something wrong with the name Torridon, and there was something right in the name Brett. Everyone around the place was a Brett. The house of John Brett, in fact, was hardly a house so much as it was a village gathered hodge-podge under one roof. There was a blacksmith, a carpenter, a shoemaker, for instance. There was a storekeeper, even. And all these people, and those who plowed in the fields and rode off hunting through the mountains, bore the name of Brett. To the dawning intelligence of Paul Torridon it appeared that the world was filled with the name of Brett, for on holidays and Sundays, sometimes, strangers rode up. They were all big men on big horses, like those who lived under the roof of John Brett. And these visitors, too, carried the name of Brett.

Paul began to feel that his name was a freak, just as he himself was a freak compared to the sons of the house�he was so slenderly made, so delicate, and they were so big and brawny. Once Charlie Brett, who was a little younger than Paul, took both the boy�s hands in one of his and crushed them with his grip. Paul wrenched and pulled. At last he cried out with the pain and began to weep. Charlie Brett looked at him, agape, and dropped the tortured hand.

�You�re just like a girl, ain�t you?� remarked Charlie.

There were other Torridons. But they were far away. All by that name on the western side of the mountains had been wiped out in that night of blood and fire that had blotted the mind of Paul. The only Torridons who remained in all the world lived on the eastern side of the mountains. There let them remain, unless the Bretts should decide to strike even at that distance and, riding through the passes, storm down on the enemy and smash them.

Charlie Brett used to talk about that. And he would end: �Then there�ll be no Torridon left but you!� With that he would laugh triumphantly, mockingly.

Later Paul learned that in the distant past the Bretts and the Torridons had been so matched in strength that each side occasionally won a battle.

John Brett kept Paul for two years without further important remark. Then he met little Paul in a hall of the house and seemed startled at seeing him.

�Are you still around? Are you still around?� he exclaimed gloomily. �You�re growin� up, too.�

He took Torridon by the shoulder and pushed him toward the light. There he examined his face thoughtfully.

�You�re growin� up,� he repeated. �In a couple of years there�ll be enough poison in you to kill a man . . . and a Brett!�

�I never would kill a man,� said Paul.

�You�re a Torridon, ain�t you?� asked John Brett.

Paul began to cry.

�Why are you whimpering?� asked John Brett curiously. �Have I hurt you?�

�I don�t know,� said Paul. �I can�t help crying. You . . . you make me tremble inside.�

John Brett went away.

Afterward Torridon was told that he was to be taken over the mountains to his kin, but two days after this he was ill with scarlet fever.

The summer went before he was strong enough to walk. In the spring of his tenth year a cow broke his leg with a kick. And another summer passed during which he was incapable of traveling. Bad luck dogged him. When he was twelve, pneumonia reduced him to a mere trembling wisp of a body. At thirteen he had not recovered. He was so weak that even Aunt Ellen Brett, that cruel and keen old woman who managed the household, forbade him to be given outdoor work. He was employed in the kitchen to scrub pans and light fires and carry in wood from the shed; in the long evenings he was set to work helping the women spin.

Now in the fourteenth year of his life, two great events happened. One affected the entire clan. One had to do with Paul Torridon alone.

The first thing was the foaling of the black colt, and the reason it was of such importance was that John Brett had been hoping for twenty years to produce a colt of that color. For in the old days he had owned a great black stallion, Nineveh, still famous through all the country�a sort of legendary flyer. People said of a horse that it was �as fast as Nineveh,� �as strong as Nineveh,� just as they might say that a man was as strong as Hercules. All the horses that the Bretts rode were descended directly from that famous stallion, but there was never his like again and, strange to say, in all his get there appeared the pure black strain only twice, and these were mares and of little note.

Now, however, after twenty years of waiting, a black colt was foaled. The whole clan swept from the house�man, woman, child�and stood in the pasture in a large open circle.

The mother was an undistinguished creature, with a backbone thrusting up like a mountain ridge and a vast prominence of hips. Ewe-necked, lump-headed, she was like an ugly spot in the fine race that had descended from Nineveh. But her foal was another matter.

He was black as coal. There was not a hair of white on any of his stockings. There was not a hair of white about his muzzle, or on his forehead, nor in his tail. He was one entire carving from jet.

He looked to Paul Torridon like any other foal, except that he appeared a good bit on the clumsy, heavy side, but John Brett�s face was working with delight. There was nothing about the colt that did not please him. He pointed out the slope of the shoulders, the depth at the heart, the huge bone.

�I gotta have a name for him,� said John Brett.

�Nineveh Second,� suggested Charles.

�He ain�t a second Nineveh. He�s gonna be better than that!� cried John Brett in great excitement.

No one dared to question the head of the clan, but at this speech heads were turned and covert smiles exchanged.

�What�s a name like Nineveh?� cried John Brett. �Nineveh was a town, wasn�t it?�

�It was a town in the Bible,� answered another.

�Who knows something about it?� asked John Brett.

He swept the circle with a stern glance. �Where�s the book-learning in this family? Where�s the women that had ought to know about Bibles and books and things? Do the men have to stay home and waste their time? Is that what�s come of it?�

The women looked gloomily upon one another. They might have pointed out that, if the men were busy with hunting and farming, the women were still busier with mending, sewing, spinning, weaving, milking, cooking, housecleaning, but no one, not even Aunt Ellen, dared to lift a voice when the master of the clan was in temper.

�Nobody!� cried John Brett, his gray beard quivering with wrath. �Nobody! Nobody knows nothing!�

A voice had been rising in Paul Torridon. It had been a great, bold voice when it started at his heart. It was the faintest of squeaking whispers when it came to his lips.

�I do,� he said.

He was not heard, except by Aunt Ellen, who was near him.

She caught him by the shoulder and shook him violently.

�You do?� she asked. �D�you know something about it? Hey, John Brett, here�s one that can talk about it.�

She thrust the boy out from the circle. For the first time in his life all eyes were upon him and not in scorn. Instead there was wonder, interest, hushed attention. Even John Brett was stirred.

�You know sump�n about Nineveh?� he asked, making his voice gentler than usual.

�Yes,� said Paul, but the words made no sound upon his lips.

�Speak out, Paul,� said the big man, still more quietly.

�I . . . I�ll try,� said Paul, his eyes almost straining from his head.

�Go on, then. Was Nineveh a town?�

�It was,� said Paul.

�What kind of a town?�

�A great city,� said Paul.

�Like Louisville?�

�It was much larger.�

�Hey? Like Philadelphia, then?�

�It was larger,� said Paul.

�Like New York?�

�Yes,� said Paul.

John Brett was filled with admiration.

�Now, that�s a dog-gone� queer thing,� he remarked. �There�s a town as big as New York that�s disappeared so complete that if it didn�t have its name tucked away into the Bible, we�d never�ve had a horse named after it. Now, Paul, I want a name that�s got something to do with this here city. Gimme one, can you?�

The mind of Paul Torridon went around and around.

�Say something, you little putty-faced fool,� said Aunt Ellen in a savage whisper.

John Brett raised his brows and turned his frown upon her. She shrank back in silence.

�It was in Assyria,� said Paul.

�Ah-ha!� cried John Brett. �That�s pretty good. It was in Assyria. How would Assyria do for a name for that colt?�

�It ain�t got sound enough to it,� suggested someone.

�No. It ain�t got enough sound to it,� agreed John Brett. �Now that Assyria, it would have a king, wouldn�t it, Paul?�

�Yes, sir,� answered Paul, who was recovering some of his self-control.

The entire circle was waiting breathlessly upon him and his answers.

�It would have a king, he says,� proceeded John Brett in the same half-anxious, half-soothing tone. �Now, look how we�re getting along. Now, Paul, that there colt is gonna be a king. He�s gonna be a big, black king among hosses. Look at him. Don�t be afraid. He�s just makin� up to you Paul.�

The black foal approached the boy with sharply pricked ear and began to nibble at his sleeve.

Paul dared not stir.

�Now, Paul,� went on John Brett, �might you be able to tell me something like the name of a king of Assyria?�

�Yes,� said Paul. �They had some very long names.�

�You even know their names?� said Brett curiously.

And a stir of wonder ran rapidly around the circle.

�Some of them,� said Paul. �There was Sennacherib, for instance, and . . .�

�Sennacherib! That�s a longish name, and hard to get a tongue around. Now, Paul, could you think of some of the other names?�

�Yes,� said the boy, �there was Merodach-baladan, and Shalmaneser, and Tiglath Pileser and . . .�

�Hold on, will you?� gasped John Brett. �Them names . . . I never heard nothing like them. But who was the biggest and the greatest king that they had, if you know, Paul?�

�Ashur-bani-pal was the greatest king,� said Paul.

�Ashur-bani-pal,� repeated John Brett slowly. �We don�t seem to get along very well, do we?�

The mare, anxious about her foal, came up behind the boy and sniffed at his neck; her breath sent a shudder through all his body.

�Steady,� said John Brett. �Steady, my boy. She ain�t gonna hurt you a mite. Only . . . I don�t see how names could be that long, even in a Bible country like Assyria.�

�The names really have several words in them,� said Paul, wanting to run from the mare but not daring to move.

�Like what?�

�Ashur-bani-pal means �Ashur creates a son.��

�And who was Ashur?�

�Ashur was the chief god. He was the war god.�

�And here�s the chief boss, and a war hoss,� said John Brett, �and there�s the name for him. Ashur it is! And you, Paul, how�d you come to know all this rigmarole about Assyria, and what not?�

The answers that young Torridon had made to the questions of John Brett had been attended by the rest of the clan with a most hushed interest, but to no answer did they give stricter heed than to the present one, when Paul said simply: �I�ve been sick a great deal, you know. And I had nothing to do but lie in bed and read.�

�Well,� said John Brett, �then I think I�ll put some of the other children to bed for a while.�

This brought a laugh, and in the laughter Paul was able to slip away. But he was vastly pleased. Never before had he been looked on with respect by the others. Certainly he never had been such a center of attention.

This was not the end of the incident; it was the beginning of a new phase in the life of Paul. From that moment he was someone in the community of the Bretts. Even old Aunt Ellen, regarding him with her over-bright eyes, said afterward: �He�s got a brain behind those eyes of his.�

He repeated that saying over and over again to himself for days and days afterward. He had a brain. The others had their great, strong bodies, their great, strong hands; he had a brain. The first spark of pride fell on his soul, and the fire was beginning to burn.

It burned exceedingly small, however, at first. There was need of much tinder of the most delicate sort to feed the flame, and only gradually he came to realize that his position in the household was altered. He had to do the same things as before. But there was a touch of respect on all hands. The Bretts valued in man little other than force of hand and courage of heart, but Paul Torridon they began to accept as an oddity with a sort of strength as great as his weakness.

In the early autumn John Brett summoned the boy one evening and told him to bring in all the books that he had read.

They made several loads. He heaped them on the table. Books were an accident in the Brett household, but there was an arithmetic, and an algebra of vast antiquity, a good old-fashioned grammar, a history of the ancient world, a thick tome from which the cover was entirely missing and the title page gone as well. This, together with a Bible and a PILGRIM�S PROGRESS, constituted the backbone of the reading of young Paul. The rest consisted of a miscellaneous assortment, from almanacs to novels. Not one of those books had been bought intentionally by the Bretts, but all had been taken in gathering in the effects of a bankrupt neighbor who could pay his debts in no way except through his goods. They had lain in an attic unnoticed for years, while the rats ate through many of them. There Paul Torridon had found them, and through the long months and months of his illnesses, he had worked over them with the patience of despair. Even the problems in the arithmetic and the algebra were a delight, and when the last of them was solved he had fallen into a profound gloom.

Now he stood by the table and saw John Brett, with thick and unaccustomed fingers, turning the frail leaves of the books. Delicately and carefully he handled them, as though in fear lest they rend like spider�s silk under his touch.

He remarked finally: �There�s thirty-five books here.�

�Yes,� said Paul.

�You�ve read them all?�

�Yes. Several times over.�

The big man lifted his brows. He rested his chin on the hard palm of his hand and stared.

�Several times? You mean that?�

�This one a great many times,� said the boy, and touched the ponderous ancient history.

�How come that?�

�After pneumonia, you remember it was weeks and weeks before I could leave my bed, and I had only this book in the room.�

�And you read that?�

�Four times through, carefully.�

�Didn�t you get tired of it?�

�No, because I never was able to remember everything in it.�

�Why didn�t you send for some of the other books?�

�I did ask for them. Nobody wanted to go.�

The glance of Brett sharpened again. Then he looked suddenly aside. That small remark evidently had meant something to him. He sent the boy off to bed, but a week later, when the first frost began, he conversed with Paul again.

�You�re fifteen, Paul?�

�Yes, sir.�

�You�ve been here eight years?�

�Yes, sir.�

�Are you willin� to work?�

�I�m willing to do what I can.�

�Education is pretty good,� observed John Brett. �I�m gonna make a school, with you for the teacher, and every man and boy up to twenty in the whole tribe is gonna come and study under you, and all the girls up to fifteen. Can you teach �em?�

Paul Torridon was aghast, but he dared not refuse.

He lay awake that night, staring at the darkness. He tried to think of himself imposing tasks upon Charlie Brett, for instance. The thought was unthinkable.

However, the plan went forward. Whatever John Brett determined upon, he put through with suddenness and with effect. The three clans of the Bretts lived at equal distances from one another. They were like the three points of a triangle. Almost in the center was a crossroads. There John Brett called a meeting of the heads of the families, and there he struck his heel into the ground and declared that the schoolhouse must be posted.

The others agreed. They dared not dispute with him, any more than soldiers would have dared to dispute with a general. They lived in a sea of dangers, and they knew the value of the leadership of this rough, rude man. The schoolhouse was built in two weeks. A stove was installed in the center of it. Paul Torridon was told to meet his first class.

Pale from a sleepless night, he walked out over the frosty, white road, stumbling in the ruts uncertainly. The boots that the Brett shoemaker turned out were only roughly shaped to the foot. And these which Torridon wore were cast-offs of Charlie Brett. His feet slipped about in them awkwardly. And three shanks as large as his could have fitted into the tops. His coat, too, was a discard. Much scrubbing with soap had faded and worn the tough homespun but had not dimmed the splendor of the grease spots with which it was checkered. It was rubbed through at either elbow, and was so big that he wrapped it around him and pinned one edge of it above his right hip. His hat was a battered, green-faded thing that lay without shape on his head, the brim falling down over his eyes.

There was so little strength in Torridon that he was wearied without being warmed by the walk. Neither can the weak enjoy the beauty of a winter scene, and he looked about him in despair at the naked trees, their limbs outlined with broken pipings of white frost. He saw no living thing except, on a bare bough, a row of little birds, with their feathers all ruffed out and their heads drawn in until they seemed little, round, headless balls.

He yearned with all his heart to be back in the kitchen at the house of John Brett, or even amid the sour smells of the creamery. Everything that was familiar was cheering to him. Everything that was strange was a load upon his mind.

When he came in sight of the schoolhouse, he halted. His legs were powerless to carry him forward. It was not until the chill thrust through his very vitals that he spurred forward and with slow steps approached the door.

He opened it with a desperate thrust of his hand and stepped quickly inside. His greeting was the tumbling of a bucket of water that had been propped above the door by a practical jester. He was drenched to the skin and stood shivering in a wild outburst of laughter.

In that roar of mirth were the voices of twenty-year-old youths, brutalized by heavy labor and exposure all the days of their lives. There was the shouting of girls almost as brown and strong as their brothers, and the shrill piping of children.

In the midst of that dreadful mockery, Paul Torridon shuddered and turned blue with the cold of the water. He went to the stove, wrung the water from his coat, and then spread his hands close to the heated iron.

He looked around him, his head jerking with nervousness. Seventeen grinning faces looked back at him, expectant, scornful, contemptuous. Only one looked neither at him nor at her companions, but down at her folded hands. That was Nancy Brett.

He could not make himself warm. He could only thaw the outer layers of the cold, as it were. Then he went to his desk. It was raised on a little platform at the end of the room. It consisted of a table with two drawers on either side. A subdued murmuring was sweeping from one side of the room to the other; the grinning faces watched him, brightly, as mischievous dogs watch a cat they are about to pounce on. Nancy Brett had raised her head and watched him, also, but gravely, with a veil over her eyes, so to speak.

He was more conscious of her quiet scorn than of all the unmasked grins of the rest.

�We�d better start,� said Paul hoarsely, �with writing down our names. You all have slates and slate pencils. Please write down your names.�

He sat down and waited. There was only one who stirred to obey, and that was Nancy Brett.

For five minutes he waited. Then he rose from his chair. His face was icy cold, and he knew that it must be deadly white. Directly opposite his desk was big Jack Brett, a burly six-footer, twenty years old, dark as an Indian, and as savage. He sat with arms folded, waiting, sneering.

Paul started for him, met that sneer, and hesitated. He looked wildly about him. In the farther corner he saw Charlie Brett drop his head and turn crimson, and he knew that Charlie was blushing with hot shame to think that one who had lived under the same roof with him should be such a helpless coward. But most of all, Paul saw Nancy, whose eyes were averted toward the window and whose face was pale, also.

And then a sudden thought came to him with a blessed relief. After all, he could not do more than die, and death itself would be the open door through which he would escape from this flamboyant mockery, this scorn, this contemptuous world in which all his days were so wretched.

He went straight up to big Jack. �Can you write?� he asked.

�Young feller,� said Jack, bending dark brows, �are you sassin� me, maybe?�

The room hushed to delicious expectancy.

�If you can write,� said Paul, �why haven�t you put down your name?�

The big fellow grinned. He searched inward for insulting phrases, but all he could find to say was: �Maybe I�m gonna write it and maybe I ain�t. Maybe I ain�t ready to write it. And you . . . what you gonna do about it? Do I get a licking?�

He leered at Paul out of the greatness of his strength. Death, certainly, was coming upon the teacher. So, at least, he felt. Those mighty hands could break him like a reed; those balled fists, like ragged lumps of iron, could smash straight through his body.

And across the mind of Paul came an echo from an old romance that he had read in one of his times of illness. In that book, ringed with enemies, the hero had bidden the most formidable of them all to come from the house with him and settle their differences in solitude.

Now he quoted from it, word for word: �Will you leave the room with me, sir?�

That �sir� might have caused more comment, but the excitement was so tense that it was passed over.

�And why in earth should I leave the room with you?� asked big Jack.

Almost in those words the brute of the novel had spoken, and the hero had answered as Paul answered now: �There are women here. Do you wish them to see blood?�

Big Jack lurched to his feet. He was half of a mind to knock down the little schoolteacher then and there, but Paul already was moving uncertainly toward the door. He found it through a mist, and stepped out into the cold, clear morning.

Jack strode behind him. Like a giant he seemed as he stood with feet braced at the bottom of the steps.

�Now what do you want?� he asked savagely.

�I want you,� said the young teacher, �to go home to your father and tell him that you have refused to do what I asked you to do. Or else go back into the school and begin to work.�

There was a gasp from the massed faces at the door.

The handsome face of Jack grew scarlet with anger. �And if I don�t do either, then what?�

�Then,� said Paul, �I�ll have to try to make you.�

�Well,� snarled Jack, �I ain�t gonna do neither. And you try to make me, kid. I ask you that.�

�Very well,� said Paul. He looked at those balled fists with a sigh. The stronger and harder they were, the better. Death would be utterly painless. �Very well,� said Paul, and, stepping a little closer, he flicked big Jack lightly across the face with his open hand.

The answer was all that Paul could have prayed for. It was totally painless. It seemed that a heavy blow fell on the base of his brain, and he dropped into a thousand leagues of darkness.

When he recovered, the sun was spinning across the face of the sky in vast circles. The schoolhouse fairly dissolved in the speed with which it whirled. The trees nearby blurred together.

�He�s alive!� cried a deep, heavy voice.

�Lift him up and carry him in from this frosty ground,� said the voice of a girl.

Paul closed his eyes again, and the darkness shot over his brain once more in a long, slow wave, beginning at his feet.

He wakened near the heat of the stove. A cold cloth was across his forehead. He raised his hand to a bulging, painful lump on the side of his jaw. That was where the blow had fallen. How strange that it had not broken the bone, snapped his neck, smashed all before it.

He could not see clearly, but, when that same heavy man�s voice spoke again, he recognized the tones of big Jack.

�How�s the back of your head, Paul? Will you feel it there . . . where it whacked the ground?�

Paul obediently fumbled at the spot. It was a little sore, but there seemed nothing wrong.

�It ain�t fractured?� gasped Jack.

�No. I�m all right. I . . .�

�Lie still, will you? Lie still and . . . Nancy, what�d we better do with him? I�ll get my wagon and haul him home.�

Paul sat up.

A silent, pale circle stood about them. On their knees beside him were Nancy and Jack.

�I�m all right,� said Paul.

He climbed to his feet. With his great hands, Jack followed the movement, ready to support him if he should fall again. But he would not fall again. He was stronger at that moment than ever he had been in the world. For he had come through the valley of death, and here was the face of lovely Nancy, pale, but lighted with eyes that were on fire with admiration.

There are various thresholds which we must cross, between that of life and that of death, and when young Paul Torridon had risen to his feet and stood safely on them, although his head still rang and his very soul was bruised by his great fall, yet he knew that he had crossed the greatest threshold of all and found himself.

He could look around upon that room without trembling. He went back to his desk, the huge Jack attending him. There, safely seated, he said in a rather faint voice: �Now we�ll begin again . . . your names, please, on the slates.�

Instantly the vast shoulders of Jack Brett bowed over the slate. He labored, and, having finished, he turned slowly around and stared grimly about the schoolroom. There were a full half of the pupils who still had not entirely understood what change had occurred in the school, but the dreadful glare of Jack quickly convinced them that something had changed. They hastened to snatch at their pencils. There was no sight except that of bowed, earnest workers.

Then a little girl of eight began to cry.

�What�s the matter?� asked the teacher.

�I dunno how to write!� wailed the child. �My mummy never taught me!�

The head of Paul Torridon was quite clear now. �Then I�ll teach you,� he said. �That�s why I�m here.� He began to make a tour of the room and studied the sprawling and labored writings until he came to the slate of Nancy. There he paused a moment.

�I think you had better be a teacher, too,� said Torridon.

She looked quickly up to him, surprised, and then she flushed a little with pleasure. �I will, if I can,� she said.

He moved on and came to Jack Brett.

A certain rigidity about the back of the giant took his attention. The neck was as rigid as a pillar of red-hot steel. The head was poised to withstand shocks. And when he looked over the shoulder of the big fellow he saw upon the slate�a meaningless scrawl.

He looked down into the eyes of Jack. They stared straight ahead. One who is about to enter the fire without protest would look forward in that manner.

Torridon picked up that slate and carried it to his desk, where he turned about and faced the class. Dreadful misery was in the face of big Jack now, and, by the peculiar prescience of the sensitive soul, Paul understood what his late enemy expected�that the shapeless scratchings on his slate would be exposed to all eyes.

Torridon laid the slate upon his desk, face down.

�Jack Brett!� he said.

Jack Brett rose slowly to his feet. One hand was gripped into a fist, not to strike, but to endure.

�There�s a lot of the wood in the shed that needs splitting. You�d better go and do that today.�

Vast silence seized upon the schoolroom. They waited as for a thunderbolt to strike. Then a faint sigh of amazement came from those who watched, for Jack Brett, his fine face crimson to the throat, turned and stalked from the room.

Still they waited, until from the rear of the school they heard the loud, crisp ring of an axe as it was driven home into hard wood. At that sound every eye in the schoolroom became empty, blank with submission, like the eye of a penned calf. Torridon knew that the great battle was fought and won.

All morning he worked. By noon he understood rather clearly what each one in the room knew, and it was pathetically little. There was hardly a girl there who could not sew, spin, manage a creamery, cook. There was not a boy who could not bring one of the massive, soft-iron rifles to his shoulder and shoot a squirrel out of a treetop. But about books they knew little or nothing. Only Nancy knew.

To read, to write, to spell, to do arithmetic. Those were the tasks for which he must prepare them, and he went about it methodically, patiently, hopefully. Nancy helped at once. She took the little girls about her and started their small hands to work on the copies that she furnished them.

Noon came. Lunch was eaten. Then for a half hour the place echoed with shouts as the children played. And afterward, the long afternoon went by almost to dusk. For John Brett had set down the hours that the school should endure.

Many a weary, suffering face had Torridon to look at before the school was dismissed. He went to the door and thanked Nancy. If she would ask her father if he would permit her to help in the mornings, then in the afternoon he would teach her what he could.

�And how old are you, Nancy?�

�I�m fourteen.�

He watched her go off after the others. He could tell her from the rest as long as she was in sight. Her clothes were as rough as those of the others, but she wore them differently. And her step was different. She was a harmony of pleasant music to Torridon.

Then the great shadow of Jack Brett stood before him.

�Well?� said Jack.

Torridon smiled frankly at him, although it was a twisted smile, for one side of his face was very swollen and sore.

�I thought it would be better if you stayed after school and worked with me,� he said simply.

They sat by the stove. So long as the day lasted, Jack Brett worked. It seemed impossible that he should cramp down his big fingers enough to hold the pencil. He leaned his head low and grimly set his teeth. Gross were his untrained muscles, but in his mind there was the same steady patience that had made him, at twenty, the finest shot in all that close-shooting clan.

Afterward, they locked the door of the school. Dusk was falling. The blueness stood close at hand, with the frosty trees only dimly etched. The freezing ground crackled under their feet. For a moment they looked around at this.

Then: �Well, good night, Paul.�

�Good night, Jack.�

They separated and went home, but something more than words had passed between them. The thin legs of Torridon bore him up lightly all the way to the house and he found himself singing, although with a faint voice.

He soaked his swollen face with a cold compress, but it seemed as swollen as ever when he went in to supper and sat down at the great table. Curious glances fell on him. Little Ned, opposite him, stared frankly, as though at a stranger never before seen, and suddenly the great voice of John Brett boomed: �Paul!�

He started to his feet. In that house everyone rose when addressed by the master.

�Yes, sir,� said Paul.

�What�s happened to your face, eh?�

He had half expected that question. He had turned the answer in his mind half a dozen times. It was the expectation of that answer that had made Jack Brett so pale and grave when he said good bye that evening, for, when the wrath of terrible John Brett descended upon the boy, it would be a thing to remember, to tell of in the clan for three generations.

He said slowly: �I had a fall today.�

All heads lifted. All heads turned toward him. There was a peculiar wonder in every eye.

�You had a fall?� echoed John Brett in a voice of thunder. �Where?�

�On the ground,� said Torridon.

�Come here to me.�

He went obediently, fear cold and heavy in his heart.

�You fell on the ground, did you?�

�Yes.�

�What made you fall?�

Torridon was silent.

The voice of John Brett rose to a terrible thunder that shook the room. �What made you fall?�

And still Torridon, cold and sick, was silent, and kept his eyes desperately fixed upon the eyes of the questioner. So he stood for hours of dread, as it seemed.

�Go back to your place,� said John Brett suddenly.

And Torridon went slowly back and sat down, stunned.

Opposite him he saw the malicious grin of Ned. Sly glances passed between the other boys. But only Aunt Ellen dared to speak, after a while, saying: �Standing up and defyin� the head of the house . . . that�s what it�s come to, eh? There�s the Torridon in him speakin�.�

�Be quiet!� commanded John Brett.

Aunt Ellen raised her brows. �I was teachin� him some manners,� she muttered.

The tyrant growled: �I�ll teach the young men of this house their manners. You . . . what�ve you been tryin� to do with Paul? Dress him up like a scarecrow? Ain�t there enough clothes in this here house to dress him like . . . a man?�

It was a crushing blow for Aunt Ellen. Fiercely she scowled down at her plate, but her lord and master had spoken, and she dared make no reply. As for Torridon, he could not believe that he had heard correctly.

That meal ended. When the others filed out, he waited until the last, half expecting that the harsh voice of John Brett would summon him again, but no summons came. He was allowed to go free.

He went out to the barn. Every evening it was his habit to do that, and to slip into the big stall where Ashur was kept like a young prince. He had a feeling of possession in connection with that colt, for, having given it a name, and through it having come to some note in the house of the Bretts, he retained a sense of kindness toward it. So, in the warm darkness of the barn, he gave the colt a carrot and remained a moment while Ashur sniffed at him and nibbled at his pockets, in hope of something more. Like silk was the muzzle of Ashur, silken was the skin of his neck where the boy stroked it, and by degrees peace came slowly down upon Paul�s soul, so troubled today, and so uplifted from the burden of the fear of man.

For several days he waited in expectation of punishment from John Brett, because he had stood before the king of the clan and refused to give an answer to his question, but the blow did not fall. And then, on the third day, Aunt Ellen clothed him in new, stout homespun. John Brett viewed him with evident pleasure.

�Now you look like something,� was all he said.

And the boy went off to his school.

Books had been ordered, books were arriving. Every evening young Torridon struggled eagerly ahead through the texts, making sure that he was perfect in them. For he himself must know before he could teach, and, above all, there was the necessity of keeping well ahead of Nancy. She learned rapidly, smoothly. Her mind was like clear crystal, and imagined all things well. In the mornings she helped him with the little ones. In the afternoon, she was a careful student.

Discipline in that school was perfect. Jack Brett looked after it. There were two other hulking fellows almost as strong as Jack himself. He thrashed them both soundly before the first week was over, and after that the school went easily along. During that first strenuous week, Jack himself remained each evening to work at his writing. He carried home his slate. There he worked again, covertly, seriously, by lantern light, sitting up until the odd hours of the morning. But on the next Monday he could take his place regularly with the rest of the class.

He asked for no special treatment. Like a bulldog he fastened on his work, and gradually he improved. The example of well-disciplined industry that he exhibited worked well with the others. Small and big, they began to bend to their studies, and, before Christmas came, big hands and small were writing and figuring to the great content of Torridon.

This occupation began to have its reaction upon him. He was no longer a wretched stray, to be scorned by the others. He had become a distinct person, and while no other youth among the clan of Brett would have looked forward to such a task as that of school-mastering, nevertheless Paul Torridon, being unique, was at least respected.

Sometimes he thought that some of their pleasure in his teaching was that they had made a member of another clan, an enemy, their servant, their public servant. But in the meantime, this new-found pride of spirit had even a physical reaction upon him. He grew taller, stronger. His cheeks no longer sank in beneath the cheek bones; there was a trace of hearty color in them. And, at Christmas time, another interest came into his life.

Big Jack, through all the weeks, had been rendering what service he could. Never once had he referred to the first tragic day in the school, nor to the shelter that the schoolmaster had put between him and the wrath of John Brett, but Torridon could feel that the big fellow�s gratitude would never be exhausted.

Several times, at the noon hour and after school, he had offered to teach Torridon how to shoot. But the thin arms and the weak shoulders of Paul could not sway up the massive weight of a rifle and hold it steady. On the last day before Christmas, therefore, Jack had brought to the school a small package, and, when the rest had gone from the school, he unwrapped his parcel and took out an old double-barreled pistol, made light and strong by some good gunsmith. He laid it in the hands of Paul Torridon.

�You can shoot this, Paul,� he said. �Why, even a girl could handle it. It�s like a feather.�

A feather indeed, in his great grasp, but to Paul Torridon it was weight enough. Nevertheless, when he closed his hand upon it, he felt that he had passed through another door and advanced still further into manhood.

There were tears of pleasure in his eyes when he shook hands with Jack. He accepted the small packet of powder and shot. Then Jack gave a little object lesson. He took the big chopping block as a target. Even then, standing not many paces away, he missed it thrice. The fourth bullet lodged in an upper corner, and Jack sighed with relief.

�A rifle�s the gun for me,� he said. �One of these here things, you gotta have nerves like steel to work with �em. But you, Paul, you could do it. You . . . you can stand up and turn yourself into ice.�

He flushed, making this oblique reference to the first day of school, when Paul had stood up only to be knocked down.

So Paul took his new treasure home.

He looked upon it as the most beautiful thing he ever had seen. The fact that big Jack had missed a target thrice with it showed that it was hard to master. But here was something within his strength, and once a master of the gun, then he would feel a man indeed.

It began a new period in his life. Excalibur to the young Arthur meant no more than this weapon to Paul Torridon.

The Indian border was not far away. The land was filled with rough men. The law of the land was not so strong as the law of guns, and this was a weapon that he could learn to use. He held it in an almost superstitious regard. Every night, his last act, performed with devotional care, was to clean it scrupulously, and through the day it never left him. Jack himself taught him how it could be carried out of sight in a sort of pouch under his left armpit, ready to be drawn. And it seemed that no one suspected that it was with him. Powder and lead were plentiful in the house of John Brett; what he took never was missed, and his practicing was done in the heart of the woods, where the small, hollow echo from the little weapon soon died away.

Yet the shooting of the gun was the smallest part of Paul�s labor. He practiced for hours holding it on a mark. At first it twitched curiously in his nervous hand. But by degrees he learned to steady the nerves, until at last it was held in his fingers as in a rock.

In the three years that followed, he marked time by the progress that he made with the gun, and in the third year, when he walked toward the school over the frosted roads, woe betide the unlucky rabbit that tried to bolt across the way to shelter on the farther side. The pistol glinted into the hand of Torridon, and the rabbit leaped once, and leaped no more.

He had grown taller. Among the gigantic Bretts he was hardly more than a child, but actually he was well above the average. It was not in height that he differed from them so greatly, however, as in the manner of his making. There was hardly a woman or a girl among them with a hand so small, unless it were little Nancy�s. There was hardly a pair of shoulders that would not have made two like his.

But he was not weak. He had not the power that enables a man to lug a heavy pack through the uncertain going of the woods for hours and hours, covering long miles. The lumbering giants of the Brett clan could do this. There was not a man of them who could not hold up his end. But Torridon, of a different blood, had other gifts.

If it came to a foot race�bare feet along the hard, beaten path�he flashed home by himself. Not even big Jack�now passed beyond John Brett�s arbitrary school age�could keep up with the slender youngster. And that quality gave him additional standing, for fleetness of foot is prized in a community where speed of foot may mean the difference between life and death before the possessor is very old.

The massive rifle still was clumsy in his hands; he had an awe of it, but no fondness for its use, and therefore he was shut out from distinction in the most important of all backwoods pursuits. But he could ride a horse. He had no might to crush the ribs of a horse, as the Bretts were apt to do. He had no jaw-breaking power in his hands and arms to check his mount, either. But he learned that touch will do what power will not, and balance will keep the saddle when strong knees are flung to the ground.

So he grew up, light, wiry, nervously exact in his proportions. Beauty, after all, we are apt to judge by utility. In the backwoods, men wanted hands in which a massive axe would quiver like a reed, in which the ponderous iron rifle was a mere toy; to them such hands are beautiful. They wanted shoulders, too, that thought nothing of a hundred-pound pack and a day�s march, in time of need. So such shoulders were a point of beauty, too. They wanted a body of sufficient bulk to match those vital hands and shoulders. So their ideal grew up as naturally as a tree from the ground. But if an artist had been there to scan them, and then turn his eyes to Paul Torridon, he would have had strange things to say, things of which Paul himself was most ignorant. He despised that slender, supple body of his, those quick, light hands. He despised all things about himself except, alone, his knowledge of books, which had made the clan prize him, and his ability with the pistol that, in some distant day, might come to mean much to him.

As for his attitude toward the clan, he accepted them because he knew nothing else.

Said Jack to him on a day�Jack, newly back from a long hunting trip, brown, hard, powerful as Hercules��Tell me, Paul, don�t you ever hanker to get over the mountains to your own people?�

Paul had often thought of it, of course. But his answer to himself always had been what it was to Jack Brett on this day. �Suppose that I started. They�d hunt me down with dogs, Jack.�

�Who?� asked Jack, frowning.

�John Brett . . . your own father . . . perhaps you yourself, Jack.�

�I?� cried Jack. �Never, Paul!�

The schoolteacher laid a hand on the arm of his great friend. �You don�t know yourself. Suppose that I�m out of sight. I�m no longer Paul. I�m just a Torridon. Well . . . what did they do to my people before me?�

Jack sighed and shook his massive head. �I don�t know, Paul,� he said. �How do you know? It was a fair fight, I think.�

�That�s what the Bretts say.�

�John Brett wouldn�t lie.�

�I�m afraid to ask him. Suppose he has to tell me an ugly story? Then what would happen after that? He�d know that I hated him. He�d be suspicious. The first time I moved . . . that would be an end of me.�

�But how can you stand it?� cried Jack. �Ain�t you gonna try to find out?�

�Someday.� Paul nodded.

�Well,� said Jack, �you�re . . . patient.�

And Torridon knew that an uglier word had been in the mind of his big friend.

Yet it seemed to Paul the wise thing to wait and let time bring its own decision. Vaguely, little by little, he could feel manhood coming upon him. He could feel a strength�not the strength of a Brett�garbing him.

And at last that strength was revealed to all the clan and to him, as well.

Ashur, the beginning of his rise in the world, was the turning point again.

For John Brett, anxious that his chosen horse should grow great and strong, had refused to allow so much as a strap to be put on it until it came to its third year. And now, three years and more in age, he at last summoned the best rider he could find and bade him try out the colt.

Of course that was Roger Lincoln.

The great man came riding upon a lofty horse with rich wampum braided into its mane and tail. His own hair was free to flow down over his shoulders. He did not have a hat on his head. A crimson band around his forehead held the hair from fluttering into his eyes. Over his shoulder was a painted buffalo robe of price. He wore a splendid suit of antelope leather, beaded over almost its entire surface. His moccasins were miracles of Indian art.

Even when Paul Torridon saw him in the distance, with half a dozen fences in between to obscure him, he recognized Roger Lincoln by the many descriptions that he had heard of that glorious hero. For Roger Lincoln was a king of the prairies, far West, and a true lord of the mind. Indian or white man, all were captivated by his mien, his grace, his dauntless heroism.

It was very lucky that John Brett could find him. Nine-tenths of his days were spent on the distant plains, but now he was back on one of his rare visits.

All the Bretts were on hand to see the breaking of Ashur.

That great event was to take place at 10:00 a.m. Hours before, the clan began to assemble at the house of John Brett and then poured out into the pasture. So the whole crowd turned when the coming of Roger Lincoln was announced.

He did not turn up the road. He came straight toward the pasture, jumping his horse over the fences on the way. It was a wonderful gray mare. Everyone knew the story of how Roger Lincoln journeyed far south to the land of the Comanches and captured that mare, the pride of its horse-loving nation. It was not overly tall, but it carried the weight of big Roger Lincoln like the merest feather, and winged its way over the fences�Roger Lincoln sitting handsomely at ease, his head high, his buffalo robe flaunting out behind him.

He seemed to be regarding distant things upon the horizon, paying no attention to the obstacles in his path.

So he came up to the pasture and leaped to the ground. With one hand he held the robe, flung gracefully about him. The other hand, his famous right hand, he offered to John Brett and to all the rest of the clan in turn, without making the slightest exception. He even paid that attention to tiny Miriam, two years old, as she backed against the knees of her mother and stared in fear at the tall stranger.

Paul Torridon followed that progress with interest. Everyone seemed altered as by a touch of witchcraft at the coming of Roger Lincoln. The women seemed rudely made, ugly, clumsy, as he stood before them. The men, one after another, turned to heavy louts. Even Jack Brett, so tall, so handsome, so mighty of shoulder, seemed a staring, stupid boy in contrast with this bright Achilles of the plains.

There were only two exceptions, for even the coming of Roger Lincoln could not dim the fierce presence of John Brett, the patriarch and lawgiver. And when the hero came to Nancy Brett, although she was a small girl in her seventeenth year, she seemed to grow taller, older, more beautiful. Torridon himself, as he afterward knew, was seeing her for the first time, that instant. He had always felt, before, that she was a little too proud, too calm, too self-contained. If she were kind and gentle, often it was merely because she had set herself a high standard, and, for the sake of her own self-respect, she would not fall beneath that level. She was judicious, grave; there was nothing emotional about her, nothing free, easy, carefree.

But on this lovely day, when she took the hand of Roger Lincoln and smiled up into his handsome face, Torridon saw that there was an inner soul in Nancy such as he never had guessed at.

He was full of the wonder of this when Roger Lincoln approached him.

Of all the people gathered, Torridon was the only one that Roger Lincoln did not notice, and this was not because of any lack of courtesy on his part, but because Torridon was utterly overshadowed by the stallion.

He had been given the task of holding Ashur, and for a very good reason. The horse was not used to others. He had been treated with such scrupulous and almost frightened reverence by the rest of the clan, since the moment of his foaling, that no one dared to take liberties with him, fondle his arched neck, rub his forehead between his gleaming eyes. But Torridon had begun in the beginning. He had made his way with sugar and apples and carrots. It was he who groomed the proud young beauty every morning before he went to the school. It was he who whistled Ashur in from the pasture in the evening.

This morning, therefore, what more natural than that he should put the saddle on Ashur, and slip the bit between his teeth. He had taken Ashur by the forelock and pulled down his lofty head, so that the ear stalls could be slipped into place.

Now, as the crowd gathered, it was Torridon who stood at the head of the stallion. He kept some wisps of grass with which to wipe away the froth that came as Ashur, growing excited in the presence of such numbers, champed at the bit and frothed.

And while the observers circled and stared and wondered and admired this descendant of coal-black Nineveh, sometimes Ashur, wearied of them all, would close his eyes and flatten his ears, and thrust his nuzzle strongly against the breast of his keeper. At other times, however, he amused himself biting the back of Torridon�s hands. Sometimes he would catch the boy by the wrist and press harder and harder, mischievously dealing out pain until Torridon cried out in pretended agony. Then Ashur would throw up his glorious head, with upper lip stiffly distended, eyes wild, as though he expected a blow in repayment.

They were full of understanding of one another. For three years, they had known one another every day.

So it was only natural that Roger Lincoln, having made his circle of the crowd, when he came to the bright presence of the young stallion should not notice the youngster who stood at the head of the horse.

Roger Lincoln stood for a long time gazing. Silence came upon all the crowd. They were still with expectancy and fear, because Roger Lincoln, of course, knew horseflesh as no other man in the world could know it.

Only John Brett kept an unchanged face, but Torridon, who knew how to watch little things, made note that the pipe tilted up in the grip of the patriarch�s teeth and from its bowl thick clouds of smoke were driven forth by his heavy breathing.

�Come here, Comanche,� said Roger Lincoln.

The gray mare came to him like a dog, and all the women cried out softly, in admiration of such a tender intimacy between a man and his horse.

Then all fell silent again, biting their lips and looking from Lincoln to John Brett. Because, of course, it was patent that Roger Lincoln had some disagreeable things to say, but that he would not say them until he could illustrate the difference between the colt and a perfect pattern, such as the gray mare.

With a word the plainsman made his mare stand like a rock. Then he began to circle the two. He stood behind them. He stood before them.

There was almost a tragedy when he reached for the hocks of Ashur. That young and haughty prince tried to bite and strike and kick at the same instant.

Torridon, blackness whirling before his eyes, looked to see Roger Lincoln fall torn and crushed to the ground, but the big man had slipped away, as a dead leaf slips from before a striking hand.

�I�ll go with you,� said Torridon eagerly. �Then he�ll be all right.�

�You will?� said Roger Lincoln, and he turned to Torridon and saw him for the first time.

Such eyes never had fallen upon Torridon before. They were between hazel and brown, and now they had a peculiar yellowish cast, like the eyes of a bird of prey.

�You�re not afraid of him?� asked Roger Lincoln.

�He knows me,� explained Torridon, and he stood beside the hip of the stallion and took him by the hock. The young stallion raised that leg and kicked with it, but it was only a small and feeble gesture that did not disturb Torridon�s hold.

Roger Lincoln stepped up in turn, thus escorted, and laid his hand on the joint. He fumbled at it for some moments. And, again escorted by Torridon, who was bursting with pride, the man from the Indian country thumbed and fingered the knee of Ashur, and the cannon bone beneath it. Then he looked at the way the head was placed on the neck and put his fist beneath the jaws of the stallion while Torridon held Ashur irreverently by the nose. At length the great man stepped back and looked at the gray mare and went over her, in turn, with as much care as he had used on the stallion.

Then he had ended�and he had consumed a full half hour in this examination. �I haven�t been on him, yet,� he said to John Brett. �But from the ground I can tell you this. I�ve never seen the horse that compares with Comanche until today. And now I can tell you that he�s as far above her as the sun is above the moon.�

John Brett blinked. There was a sort of moan of joy and relief from the others.

But Roger Lincoln laid his hand on the brow of the gray.

�Poor girl,� he said. �Poor girl.� It was as though a queen had been dethroned that day.

Torridon expected that the big man would, when he desired, simply leap into the saddle and gallop away on the colt. But he did nothing of the kind. First of all, he examined the girths with the greatest care, and then looked to the straps. The saddle itself he seemed suspicious of, although it was new and strong. He took the measurement from his own stirrups and came back to lengthen these to the same degree. He looked well to the bit, the bridle, and above all to the reins.

Then he stepped back and said quietly to John Brett: �That colt may be spoiled. It�s been petted too much.�

�Ha?� cried John Brett. �Paul Torridon, have you spoiled that horse with petting? I�ll . . .�

He grew purple with rage; Paul Torridon grew white with fear.

�However,� said Roger Lincoln, �it may turn out all right.�

And he could not help a little smile, as though the sense of his own strength and skill overcame his modesty for an instant.

Then, in a trice, he had leaped into the saddle.

�Good boy,� he said gently to Ashur. �Go along. Get up!�

Ashur, as he felt the weight, turned stiff as a rock, and crouched.

Torridon stepped back. He forgot his fear of John Brett and began to grow hot with anger. He knew very well that he had no right to feel this anger, but he could not help it when he saw Roger Lincoln on the back of Ashur.

�Get along!� said Roger Lincoln, and slapped the colt lightly on the flank.

Torridon could hardly keep back a voice that wanted to shout through his lips, tearing his throat with violence: Don�t do that! That�s the wrong way! Let him go easily . . . give him time! He needs time to learn!

Ashur, however, suddenly straightened and broke into a trot. It was wonderful to see the silken ease of his movement, the supple fetlocks playing under the strong drive of his legs.

From Roger Lincoln a single delightful glance flashed at John Brett. He pulled on the rein, and the colt swung slowly around while the crowd murmured: �Look. He�s broken Ashur already. He�s a perfect rider. What a man!�

Past John Brett came the colt, and Roger Lincoln leaned to say: �Brett, this horse is the king of the world!�

That instant Ashur acted as though he were a king indeed, and a very angry monarch. He began to buck.

It was a coltish, clumsy beginning. He did not seem able to gather his legs under him, and he grunted when the weight of his rider beat relentlessly down on him.

Roger Lincoln laughed and kept a tight rein. With his free hand he slapped Ashur on the flanks.

�You might as well shake it out of yourself,� he said.

That blow seemed to rouse a hornet�s nest. Or perhaps it was that what Ashur had done before had been enough merely to warm his blood and give him a somewhat greater understanding of his powers. For now he went up into the air as though by the beat of wings, and he came down with head lowered, back humped.

The impact jarred the ground as far as where Torridon stood, and he could hear the gasp of breath driven from the body of Roger Lincoln by the shock.

But that was only the start. In that instant Ashur seemed to have learned all about bucking. He began to plunge high and come down on a stiffened foreleg, a double shock that snapped the head of Roger Lincoln heavily to the side, or down upon his breast. It was irresistible, like the snapping of a whiplash. And yet Roger Lincoln remained in the saddle!

�Ashur can kill himself, but he�ll never get Roger Lincoln off,� said someone.

Torridon turned his head.

It was Nancy who had said that, Nancy looking white and fierce, with her nostrils quivering.

With wonder Torridon saw that she was loving the battle. He turned from her, a little sickened, in time to see Ashur spin like a top to the left, halt with planted hoofs that gouged up several feet of earth, and spin again in the opposite direction.

Then Roger Lincoln was flung from the saddle with incredible force. His dignity dissolved in mid-air, so to speak. He was a whir of arms and legs, and then landed with a desperate thud, and rolled over at the very feet of Torridon

Paul, looking down, knew by one glance at that white, senseless face and the half-open eyes that this man was badly stunned�killed, perhaps.

Then he heard a shout of men, with a tingling scream of women rising over it. People fled from about him, and there was Ashur coming like a tiger, with gaping mouth prepared to finish his victim.

�I spoiled him . . . I did it!� cried Paul to his own frightened, sorrowful heart. And suddenly he was bestriding the fallen man and stretching out both his hands to ward off the resistless rush of the stallion. �Ashur, you fiend!� he shouted.

The great, shining black body reared itself high above him. He was looking up into a gaping mouth from which the foam flew, and the eyes of Ashur were like the eyes of a dragon, and the mighty forehoofs of Ashur, each like a steel sledge in the hands of a giant, were poised to beat him to a lifeless pulp.

Even then Torridon had time to hear��Don�t shoot!��shouted in the great voice of John Brett.

He had time to put the words together, added to an important thought�that his own life, even the added life of great Roger Lincoln, did not amount to the value of the life of Ashur, in the mind of John Brett.

Then the dreadful danger fell�but it swerved past him. The flying mane whipped his face with a hundred small lashes, and then the big horse swept away. He flaunted far off; he was a flash in the distance, with the reins tossing high above his neck.

A wave of people spilled around them. They brushed Paul aside, for of course the question was simply: what had happened to Roger Lincoln?

Torridon sank down beside a stump of a tree that marred the surface of the green pasture. He felt nauseated. When he opened his eyes, the landscape spun violently. When he closed his eyes, it spun with still more fury. And he felt sweat running down his face in rivulets of ice.

Voices sounded in the distance�how far in the distance they were, how hollow. They broke slowly, the sound vibrations rolling up through his body and roaring in his ears. Those were the voices of people thronging around Roger Lincoln.

At length they had picked him up and were departing toward the house. Women were scampering ahead, holding up their skirts so that they could run more rapidly. In the midst of his dizziness Paul looked after them and almost laughed, they were so like waddling ducks.

A shadow crossed him; someone dropped upon knees beside him.

�Were you hurt, Paul?� asked the voice of Nancy Brett.

It jerked one veil of the darkness from his eyes and he looked up at her amazed. She looked anxious and white. Her lips were parted.

�How is Roger Lincoln?� asked Torridon. �I think he broke his neck.�

�I don�t know,� said Nancy. �Do you feel pain, Paul?�

�I seemed to hear it,� muttered Torridon. �I seemed to hear the bone snapping. . . .� He clutched his face with one hand.

�Did Ashur strike you with one of his hoofs?� asked Nancy. �Try to tell me, Paul.�

�He . . . he fell right before me, Nancy!� gasped Torridon.

�I don�t care!� she cried. �I want to know about you. Did he strike you?� She began to pass her hands over his head. Her fingers were trembling.

�I�m all right,� gasped Torridon. �But I feel awfully sick . . . at the stomach.�

�You�d better lie flat. Keep your eyes closed,� she ordered. She took him by the shoulders and pushed him down.

He tried to resist her. �I don�t want to be a baby. They�ll think I fainted,� protested Torridon, but, as he tried to struggle, a shuddering dissolved his strength and he collapsed along the ground.

She sat close beside him. With a handkerchief she wiped the perspiration from his face. Then she began to fan him.

�Put out your hands and take hold of the grass,� she said.

He obeyed.

�Is that better?�

�Yes, Nancy. It�s . . . it�s . . .�

�You don�t have to talk. Just lie still. Just close your eyes.�

He obeyed. Presently he said: �I can feel the strength coming back.�

�You�ll be all right in a moment more. Your color�s a lot better. It�s the touch of the ground that helps. I know.�

�No, it�s coming out of you into me . . . the strength, Nancy, I mean. I think I can sit up now.�

�You�d better not.�

�I don�t want them to see me like this. I�d rather die than have them see me.�

�There. I�ll help.�

She drew him up and put his shoulders against the stump of the tree. He could open his eyes. The landscape no longer was spinning, and in the distance the stallion was grazing.

�Who wanted to shoot? Was it Jack?�

�Yes.�

�Dear old Jack.� Weak tears ran into his eyes. �You�d better go away, Nancy,� he murmured, and he looked down with bent head lest she should see his trembling lip and the water in his eyes.

She said simply: �Uncle John wouldn�t let him shoot. He . . . he thought the horse was more . . . Paul Torridon, you�re crying like a baby!�

�I can�t help it. Nancy, please, please go away.�

She stood up. He heard the rustling of her dress as she left him.

Afterward he could sit on the stump, although he still was weak in the knees and in the elbows. He wished with all his heart that he had not seen the bright face of Nancy when she spoke to Lincoln that day, because, if he had not, he would not have cared for her opinion so much, but now he felt dreadfully disgraced. He was a man, and he had cried at the thought of the goodness of Jack Brett.

So, clasping his hands together and tearing them apart again, he sat in suffering.

Someone came out from the house toward him. It was Charlie Brett, who of all the young men in the clan had the least good feeling for him, since they lived in the same house. Young men cannot be near one another without forming a great attachment or a profound dislike. There is no such thing as indifference.

First it jumped electrically through the mind of the schoolteacher that Nancy must have told Charlie and that he had come to mock a grown man who cried like a girl.

So Torridon stood up and began to walk up and down. He made himself whistle, although he did not know the tune that puckered his lips.

But when Charlie came up, he said in a respectful tone: �Dad wants to know will you come into the house, Paul? Roger Lincoln wants to talk to you.�

Torridon, in duty bound, went toward the house, and Charlie went beside him, although at a little distance, for he kept his head turned toward Torridon and watched him with an intensity of awe, like a child viewing a strange monster in a cage.

Torridon was more ill at ease than ever when he came into the house. He knew that many of the methods of John Brett were terrible. Now he might choose to shame him before the entire household. He was convinced something dreadful would happen when he found that almost the whole clan was gathered in the big central room of the house. There was Roger Lincoln, reclining in John Brett�s own chair, and John Brett stood behind him, looking more fierce, more sage, more patriarchal than ever before.

When Torridon came in with his light step, in place of the universal indifference that usually greeted him, he found that all heads turned suddenly toward him, and all eyes remained fixed upon him.

They were all waiting.

He halted near the door and waited, too tense and white, praying that the trembling in his heart might stop. But it did not stop. It grew greater. There was not even a whisper of sound. All stared at him except Roger Lincoln, who was looking down at the floor, his long hands folded in his lap.

Paul glanced around him. Yonder was Nancy Brett�the traitor who had told of his weakness. He thought at first that her faint smile was mockery, now, but then he saw that her eyes were big and tender.

Roger Lincoln looked up. He held out his hand. His handsome face lighted with a smile.

Irresistibly drawn, Torridon went up to him.

His fingers were taken in that strong and gentle clasp.

�Out yonder among the plains Indians,� said Roger Lincoln, �they have a habit of showing their friendship by giving you a teepee and everything that�s in it . . . by giving you an entire string of horses . . . by offering you their rifles and the scalps they�ve taken.� He paused, still smiling. �White men can�t offer things like that. It�s too much like buying friendship. What I can say, is that I love my life, Torridon. No one has a better time than I do . . . no one loves his life more. Well, you�ve saved it for me. To be killed by a horse? Bah! That�s worse than to die at the hands of Sioux. But, at any rate, I want to offer you before these people . . . so they�ll be witnesses if ever I break my word . . . I want to offer you my hand and everything that I have . . . my gun, my horse, my money, my heart, Torridon. I�m going to leave in a few moments, if I can ride. As to the black colt, you�re the man to handle him. I should have seen that at the first. In the meantime, if you ever should need me, send after me. This is my mother�s ring, and I�ll always go back with the bearer of it to find you.�

Torridon took it, feeling himself turn from cold to hot. He could not speak. There was not a word in the world that he could bring into his mind.

Then John Brett said: �The lad�s lost his tongue. But he feels what you say, Lincoln. He�s a good lad.�

That covered Torridon�s retreat as he stumbled back into the throng.

Or rather, he tried to get into it and hide himself, but he could not. They drew back from him a little in order that they could see him. Only old Aunt Ellen came and plucked at his arm with fingers like steel claws.

�The heart is the biggest half of the man,� said Aunt Ellen, and cackled at him like a hen.

He moved away. He found a door and escaped.

All the world was new, delightful, gentle, bright. He moved in an ecstasy the more violent because he felt that the appreciation he had met with was undeserved. It was something for nothing. His weak tears, surely, had more than balanced that withstanding of the stallion�s rush. But they were not noticed. Nancy had not said a word.

He went into the trees near the house and waited there, hot with joy, ashamed of seeing the faces of his fellows, until he saw Roger Lincoln depart, riding as straight as ever, but keeping gray Comanche at a walk. No doubt he was dreadfully hurt and shaken by his fall, but no one would have guessed it, except that the dashing rider went now so slowly. The heart of Torridon swelled with admiration and worship.

That was a man!

Some of the young men followed Roger Lincoln, making an escort for him, as befitted his dignity, but all the others came back into the pasture nearby. He saw several of the youngsters sent off by John Brett. Then the voice of the patriarch himself was raised.

�Paul! Oh, Paul! Paul Torridon!�

He came slowly out of the wood and toward them. They had smiles for him. They drew back and opened a lane to where John Brett was standing.

�Sneaked off and hid yourself, eh?� said that giant. �By God, you act like a girl, pretty near, Paul. Now, we all come here today to see Ashur rode. Are you gonna disappoint us?�

Paul blanched as he thought of the plunging black monster and the form of Roger Lincoln hurtling through the air.

�Go get that hoss and ride him here!� roared John Brett.

And the force of his voice blew Torridon away.

He crossed the pasture with shaking knees, but, when he was near, the stallion saw him and came trotting and tossing his head in the unaccustomed bridle. He had broken the reins. Torridon was glad of it and of the little delay that this excused as he knotted them securely once more. Ashur in the meantime was hunting at his pockets for carrots. And, finding none, he transferred his attention to Torridon�s head and began to push his hat about.

He merely turned his head curiously when Torridon put foot in the stirrup. But, when he drew himself off the ground, Ashur grunted and flinched away.

Heaven help me, thought Torridon.

But he was able to throw his leg over the saddle, and by kind fortune it fell exactly in the opposite stirrup.

Ashur, sprawled in a most awkward position, was reaching about and biting at the knee of his new rider. So Torridon in a shaking voice, reassured him.

�Get on,� whispered Torridon. �Good boy, Ashur. If ever I�ve given you carrots and apples, be a good horse today to me.�

Ashur tossed his head and walked a few steps.

A shout of triumph rang from the far side of the pasture and Ashur leaped a dozen feet sideways in acknowledgment of it. But Torridon, braced and ready, was not unseated. He kept the lightest touch on the reins. He made no effort to control Ashur; he merely wanted Ashur to control himself. And the colt turned his head again with a mulish expression, one ear back and one tilted forward. Then, unbidden, he broke into a trot, into a gallop; he bounded high into the air and a groan echoed heavily over the field�an expression of the boy�s heart, although spoken by the crowd. Yet he kept his seat by balance only, and with the reins he barely kept in touch with the stallion letting him have his head freely, but always talking softly, steadily.

Ashur suddenly began to fly. He had been galloping fast before, but this gait had wings to it. He headed straight for the fence.

A crash! thought Torridon, and set his teeth and tried to hope for heaven.

Ashur rose like a bird, floated, landed lightly, and went on in his stride.

Oh, noble Ashur . . . The heart of the boy began to rise.

They flew through the soft meadow beyond. Ashur was loving this run. They reached the brook, and, soaring high, the stallion cleared it and sped on beyond while Torridon shouted with a sudden joy. Fear had been snatched away from him. He understood now. To Ashur it was merely a frolic and the stallion rejoiced to have his old companion with him.

He pulled on the right-hand rein. The head came first. But then, understanding, Ashur curved with the pull and swung back. Once more the silver face of the creek shot beneath them. They winged the fence to the pasture, and now, at the draw of both reins, Ashur fell to a canter, to a trot, to a walk, and came to a stop fairly before John Brett.

A shout of triumph rang up again. Ashur leaped and whirled at the same time and Torridon found himself sitting on the ground. There had been hardly a jar. The colt simply had twitched from beneath him.

�You fools,� groaned John Brett. �You�ve spoiled the chance with your damned yapping. Silence, there! Catch the horse, some of you.�

There was no need, for Ashur came quickly back and sniffed at the shoulder of Torridon, stood like a rock then, while Torridon sprang up and into the saddle again.

�He didn�t mean it,� said Torridon. �He goes like an old horse, without a fault. Look!�

And he began to ride Ashur in a figure eight before them all, at a trot, at a walk, at a canter.

There had been three steps in the climbing of the ladder. Now, dizzy with joy, Paul Torridon found himself at the top�the most considered youth in the clan of which he was not a member.

That very night John Brett grew tired of bellowing the length of the table. He had Torridon come up and sit beside him, where they could converse about horses in general and particularly of that horse that was nearest to the heart of John Brett. He urged Paul to waste no time in other pursuits. The perfect breaking of the stallion so that even a child would be at home on his back was the thing for him to do now.

For a month Torridon had no other occupation. Except that he slept in the house, he was with Ashur every moment. He groomed him in the morning, fed him, watered him. Then exercise in the fresh cool of the day. Then a thorough rub-down and drying out. Then freedom in the pasture, where the teacher followed.

He was intent on rewarding John Brett for the home and the shelter that had been given to him by making an absolute masterpiece of this work that had been given into his hands. The patience that he had acquired during his wretched childhood and the added patience that he had gained by slowly grinding knowledge into the heads of young Bretts, whose brains were befogged with too much outdoors, now helped him in training the horse.

Already much had been done. Ashur had known the whistle and the voice of his master. He had formed the habit of absolute trust and confidence in Torridon, and, when an animal believes that a man can do no wrong, nine-tenths of the battle is over. But there were other things that had to be taught, many of them, and although Ashur was a wonderfully adroit equine pupil, still the allotted month was a short time.

A month to give a horse perfect manners.

But Torridon would not be contented with that. He worked by day and he worked by night. A nervous horse would have gone mad under the coaching that this one received, but the nerves of Ashur were as steady as steel. He could have lessons for endless hours, and still take them with lightness as though they were a game.

So, one month from that first riding of the colt, John Brett and twenty others turned out to see the riding. They expected to see a fairly broken horse; they saw, instead, a masterpiece of manners.

Torridon sat the saddle with shining eyes. He had groomed Ashur until the black velvet of his skin seemed black no longer, but flashing silver metal wherever the sun touched. Moreover, there was a change in the very physique of Ashur. A month of steady work had taken the foolish colt look out of his eyes, and the muscles were beginning to show like ropes along his thighs and shoulders. His belly was stiff with heavy power; his quarters were beginning to be defined more square and precise. From just behind, he looked strong enough to pull a plow.

With an audience to look on, Torridon rode Ashur up and down. There was no tugging at the reins, until he asked the stallion for a burst of speed that needed a bit of a pull for steadying. Ashur walked, trotted, cantered, raced. He was drawn from one pace down to another, flung from one pace into high speed again.

When Torridon checked him at last, John Brett laughed with pleasure.

�Stove polish couldn�t finish him no finer, Paul,� he admitted. �Now let one of the boys take him.�

�There�s something more,� urged Torridon.

And, looping the reins over the pommel, he folded his arms and controlled the stallion by the mere sound of his voice. He started, stopped, increased speed, slowed, swerved right and left slowly, dodged right and left as though confronted by sudden danger.

Again he halted. And a good hearty shout of applause was sweet in the ears of Torridon. Even the young men joined in. For although they would have been envious of most feats of horsemanship, they felt that this youngster had risen to a class so high that he could be admired from a distance. They raised a whoop with the others, so that a crowd of crows, startled from the trees, flapped heavily away into the distance.

�There�s something more,� said Torridon, bursting with his pride.

Once more the reins were dropped upon the pommel, and this time Ashur went through his paces guided neither by hand nor voice. Pressure of heel or hand or sway of body accomplished all those effects. Indeed, it was not so very unusual an accomplishment. More than one plainsman had taught his favorite mount to leave his hands and voice free in the time of need. But the manners of Ashur were such a vivid contrast to those which he had possessed only a few weeks before that the watchers hardly could believe their eyes.

And to crown all, bringing the stallion back before John Brett, at an unseen signal, Torridon made him kneel, then fling himself prostrate on his side, while the rider stepped easily to the ground.

There was no need to explain the advantage of that last trick. All who might have to use their horses as breastworks in the desert against Indian attack appreciated it.

A single gesture, and Ashur sprang to his feet, shaking himself like a dog, while his bridle rang.

�Mount Charlie,� said John Brett. �We�ll see how Ashur goes with another.�

Charlie Brett came with shining eyes, pleased to be mentioned even by his father, and eager to show how he could sit the saddle.

The stirrups were altered a little to suit him, then he sprang up.

Ashur stood like stiff iron, his ears flattened.

�Get down,� said Torridon anxiously. �Get down, Charlie! He means trouble! He means trouble! Get down!�

�Stand away from his head,� answered Charlie Brett with perfect assurance. �If I can�t ride this hoss now, I can�t ride a stick. He�s broke as smooth as silk.�

�Uncle John,� begged Torridon, for so they all termed the head of the clan, �make him get down. Ashur looks dangerous.�

�Stand away,� answered John Brett. �It ain�t any shame to you if somebody else can ride the hoss that you�ve trained so slick. Let�s see him run, Charlie!�

Charlie, nothing loath, leaned in the saddle, gripped hard with his knees, and tightened the reins. He had no time or need to give a starting touch of his heels. As Torridon stepped back, Ashur leaped. He was in the middle of the pasture before the first gasp of the spectators began.

Then something happened. Even Torridon, watching every instant in fear, could not be sure. The black horse seemed suddenly to be in two places at once, so swiftly did he dodge and double, and Charlie sailed from the saddle and rolled over and over on the ground.

He came to his feet again with a shout of terror, running for his life, and with good reason, for the stallion was about and after him with tigerish eagerness.

�Shoot!� screamed a woman.

The whistle of Torridon went like a needle through the air. The stallion tossed his head and, swerving from the fugitive, came back in a broad sweep toward the crowd. They scattered with cries of fear as though they expected him to crash straight through them.

But Torridon was his goal, and before his master he stopped, mischief still hot and bright in his eyes, stamping and dripping from exercise.

John Brett lowered the rifle that he had just raised. He turned to Torridon with a grave face.

�Paul,� he said, �I�ll not forgive you if you been making that a one-man hoss.�

Torridon could not answer. The peril in which Charlie had been placed, and his own astonishment, stifled him, and he stared helplessly back at the patriarch.

�Jack!� called John Brett. �We�ll make this thing sure, now. Jack, will you take a chance in that saddle?�

Jack, pale but determined, came from the crowd, settling his hat more firmly on his head.

�Go with him,� cautioned John Brett.

But as Jack mounted, Torridon already was hurrying to the side of his friend.

�Take him easily . . . talk to him,� he cautioned. �I don�t know what�s in him. He�s never tried anything like this with me.�

Jack spoke, indeed, but his quiet voice had no effect on the big black. Ashur stood trembling, ready to spring into the air. He kept turning his proud, fierce head to Torridon, thrusting at his shoulder with his nuzzle as though asking impatiently why this indignity should be.

�I�ll try him now,� said Jack, and turned the head of the colt well away from its teacher.

The trial lasted not half a second. Two whiplash leaps and stops dropped Jack as though he had been struck from the saddle by a club, and the stallion wheeled at him furiously, always intent to kill.

The horrified cry of Torridon stopped him; he came back to Paul and danced like a savage panther behind him, looking over his shoulder at the world and champing foam from his bit.

Jack staggered to his feet and stood straight. �He turned into a steel cable on springs,� he said quietly. �And then somebody got hold of the far end of the cable and cracked it a couple of times under me.�

He smiled, but his eyes were still blank with the shock that he had received.

Back they went to John Brett and the murmuring, horror-stricken crowd.

�I�ll teach somebody to handle him,� protested Torridon eagerly. �I know that with time I can do it.�

John Brett smiled bitterly.

�I spent half my life at the breeding of that hoss,� he said with unbreakable gloom. �And now it sort of looks like I�d done all of that work for a Torridon.�

He turned on his heel and walked toward the house, and for the first time in many months Torridon felt the gulf open at his feet. He was a Torridon; they were Bretts. Nothing on earth could heal the breach.

Autumn and the school year were at hand now, but Torridon worked feverishly through the interim to try to teach one member of the household to back the stallion with safety. Charlie was the willing pupil. To Charlie he taught the whistle, the call; to Charlie he taught the tricks of guiding without reins, by voice, by gesture and signal, by sway of the body.

It was utterly of no avail.

Released from the hand of his master, the black colt was a tiger instantly. Twice a serious mauling of Charlie was barely averted, and Charlie gave up the effort. John Brett, when this was explained to him, smiled, half sadly, and half in anger. But he spoke no more about the colt. One might have thought that Ashur was no more to him than a shadow of a horse.

But Torridon knew better, and, watching that stern, cold face, he saw that he had outworn his welcome among this clan of his enemies. The court takes its tone from the king; all eyes fell coldly upon him, except the eyes of Nancy and those of Jack.

Those two, stanch as oak, did not alter. One day Jack stopped at the house with word that Nancy wanted to see him.

�She�s gone out riding up Bramble River. You�d catch her along that road, Paul, if you rode Ashur.�

Paul saddled Ashur in haste and started out.

The way to the Bramble River led through a semicircle of trails and roads, but with Ashur it was possible to go cross-country like a bird. There was sadness in the heart of Torridon as he went, for it might be the last day he backed the stallion. At any moment he expected from John Brett the command never to go near the black colt again.

They reached the river road at last. It was not really a road. No one ever had leveled it, but strong wagons had been dragged along its course more than once, and, where wheels once had traveled, it was the custom to speak of a road. It was in reality merely a winding hint of a trail, twisting back and forth among the trees. Then Paul saw a rider before him, a woman. He called to Ashur, and the stallion swept up to her like the wind.

She had turned back to face them, laughing with pleasure at the speed of the horse. Laughing more than a little, felt Torridon, at his own eagerness.

�You wanted me, Nancy?�

�Let�s sit down,� said Nancy. �There�s a rock by the water. And Ashur�s such a silly fool. He�s always dancing.�

They tethered Nan�s gelding to a tree. Ashur, certain not to stray, was turned loose, and the two sat on a table-topped rock at the verge of the river. Their feet were on sand as clean and white as the sand of a sea beach. The broad river swept before them. Moving water hypnotizes. Torridon began to feel that they were on an island together�then that the island had broken adrift and was sweeping out into the stream.

Nancy had not spoken. He looked at her presently, startled. He found that she was smiling with thoughtful eyes.

�You�d forgotten that I was with you, I think,� she said.

�Oh, no,� he said, and turned a brilliant red, thereby confessing.

�Well,� said Nancy, nodding. �That�s books. They take you away from things.�

He looked at her with frightened eyes. She was so practical and so full of common sense, often, that he was in awe of her. She differed from the others of her clan. They simply could understand nothing but the earth and things of the earth. That vague, cloudy universe in which he lived they never entered. But Nancy could enter it, if she chose. She knew all about it, he felt, and she wanted none of it. She preferred facts, it seemed. He respected Nancy, and her beauty delighted him, but he was afraid of her. He always had been afraid of her, from the first day when he met her judicial eyes in the school.

�Yes,� he said vaguely.

She shrugged her shoulders. �I wanted to talk to you about yourself,� said Nancy.

Paul sat up straight. He had a stick which he had picked up and he jabbed it nervously into the strip of white sand.

�Don�t do that,� said Nancy. �You�re making the mud show through.�

He threw the stick away with a nervous gesture and clasped his hands together.

She went on: �What are you going to do with yourself, Paul?�

�I don�t know,� he said. �I don�t know what you mean, exactly.�

�Just what I say. For instance, what are you going to do this winter?�

�Teach the school, of course.�

�How old are you, Paul?�

�I�m nineteen. That makes you eighteen, doesn�t it?�

�Do you know that much about me?�

She laughed a little, nodding to herself, laughing at him. And he flushed again. Color always was coming and going in his pale face with every emotion.

�You won�t teach the school, though,� she said, �if you�re wise.�

�And why, Nan?�

�Because you�re a Torridon,� she said bluntly. She frowned, driving home her point with cruelty.

�I�ve always been a Torridon.�

�Different, though.�

�Just as much before.�

�You were only a boy. Children don�t count so much.�

�I�m not so very old now,� said Torridon anxiously.

�You�re a great deal older than you think.�

�Why do you say that?�

�You�re always looking forward, thinking that you�re going to grow bigger . . .�

�I didn�t think you�d taunt me with that,� said Torridon, straightening his shoulders and growing crimson with shame and sorrow.

�Don�t be silly. I don�t mean your size. You�re big enough. I only mean . . . in your mind. You keep thinking that you�ll change. Perhaps you will. You feel like a child, now, compared to what you hope to be. But the Bretts don�t see things that way. When a boy has his height, he�s a man. Well, you�re a man to us.�

He was silent. There was so much truth in what she said that he could not answer. He was depressed. One always is down-hearted when it appears that another knows the truth about one. Conversation flows out of mysteries, half knowings, partial revealings of what is kept securely hidden, more securely hidden because it is half revealed.

�I�m just the same as I was last year,� he said.

�You�re not, though,� she replied with her usual assurance.

�What�s made the difference?�

�That!� She pointed to Ashur. �Speak to him,� she said.

�Ashur,� he said.

The stallion jerked up his head and looked on his master with bright eyes of love and trust.

�That�s made the difference,� said the girl.

He shook his head, bewildered.

�I mean, when you were a boy, it didn�t matter. But after you mastered the school, and big Jack . . .�

�I didn�t master Jack.�

�What did happen, then?� she asked sharply, still frowning at him. �Don�t talk small, Paul, to make me talk big about what you�ve done.�

�I think you�re a little rude,� said Paul Torridon, so angry and proud that he was about to spring to his feet and leave her.

�Nonsense,� said the girl. �You�re very hard to handle. You�re just like . . . a girl.�

He did leap up, then. �I think I�ll go home,� he said.

She answered calmly: �What home?�

�Why, to Uncle John�s place, of course.�

�He�s not your uncle.�

Torridon tried to answer. He could not, and because he was unable to find a word, he began to hate Nancy.

�And his house isn�t your home, Paul.�

�Is that what you brought me here to tell me?�

�Just exactly,� said Nancy. �When you were a child, that was different. Then you changed into a youngster. You showed that you had something in you when you turned Jack into a sort of . . . slave to you.�

�Slave? What are you talking about, Nancy? You�re just . . . you�re just trying to make me angry.�

�What else is he?� said the girl. �Does he do anything without coming to you for advice? Does he ever think anything out for himself? Look at last year. He wanted to marry Charlotte. He went to you, and you told him he�d better save a lot of money first, and build a cabin before he married her. So she got tired of waiting and married Will Morgan.�

The dreadful truth of this was dropped upon him, a load that bowed his shoulders.

�I thought it was best,� he said stiffly.

�Perhaps it was best. That�s not the point at all. You�d better sit down, Paul.�

�I think maybe I�m needed back at the house,� replied Paul.

�No, you�re not.�

�See here, Nancy. Don�t you talk like this any more!� he cried at her. �I won�t listen. You�re just trying to upset me.�

Nancy stamped lightly on the sand. It made a crisp sound under her foot. �You . . . you baby!� cried Nancy. �You won�t dare to open your eyes and see facts. You�re afraid of the truth!�

He braced himself, actually planting his feet to withstand the shock. �What truth?� he asked her.

�That you�ve turned into a man . . . that the whole lot of us knew it the day you saved Roger Lincoln. Saved Roger Lincoln . . . think of that. And then you rode Ashur yourself. We knew that day that you were a man. We knew that you were a Torridon. We began to hate you from that minute, and you�re afraid to see it. You won�t see it or admit it till somebody shoots you through the back!�

He sat down, not because he felt more kindly toward the girl, or because he was more prepared to listen to the truths that she was telling him, but because her last words had tapped him behind the knees and unstrung the sinews, so to speak.

He began to fumble at his cold face with one hand, flashing glances at her, and then at the brightness of the river.

She sat bolt upright, with her head high, looking straight at him.

�You do hate me, I see,� said Torridon.

�Is your lip trembling?� she asked coldly and sternly.

�Oh, Nancy,� he exclaimed, �how can you be so brutal?�

�I can�t be brutal to you,� she said. �I�m only a weak girl. And you�re a strong man.�

He opened his eyes at her. He parted his lips at her. �A strong man?� he repeated. Then he laughed bitterly and added: �You�re wicked enough to keep taunting me, too.�

She exclaimed with impatience. �I suppose I have to prove it to you!� she said. �What do you mean by strength?�

�Oh, Nancy��the boy sighed��does it give you pleasure to show you that I know? Well . . . there you are . . . look at them . . . look at my hands.� He flung them out before her�slender, delicately made hands.

�Well,� she said, �suppose you had big hands. What could you do with them?�

He laughed bitterly and jerked up his head. �I could . . . well, I could throw logs around as if they were matchwood.�

�Humph!� said Nancy.

�I could . . . I could knock down a bull.�

�Like Jack, you mean?�

�Yes, yes. Oh, what a man Jack is!�

�And who is Jack�s master?� she said.

�Don�t talk like that, Nancy. Of course I�m not his master.�

�You are, you are,� she insisted.

�This is just saying �yes� and �no� like children. You can believe that, if you want to.�

�Who is the strongest man that ever came among us . . . the bravest, most wonderful man?�

�Do you mean Roger Lincoln?�

�Of course I mean Roger Lincoln.�

�Yes.� The boy nodded with interest.

�Well, then, who was it that got the affection of Roger Lincoln when he came? Who was it that became a sort of brother to Roger Lincoln? Which of the strongest men in the clan?�

�That?� murmured Paul. �That was just a sort of accident.�

�Does Roger Lincoln like weak men?� she asked sharply. �Is he a fool? Does he offer his friendship forever to fools and weaklings?�

Torridon was agape. Then he said slowly: �I can�t carry a pack the way they do, Nan. My legs buckle under the weight.�

�Horses are for carrying packs,� she said.

�If I wrestle . . . even the youngsters can throw me down.�

�Partly because you don�t put any heart into it. You take it for granted that you�ll be beaten. Besides, men don�t fight with wrestling . . . they don�t fight with bare hands.�

�They fight with rifles!� he exclaimed. �And what am I with a rifle? They�re too heavy for me!�

�You haven�t tried one for years. You know you haven�t. You could handle a rifle now just as well as anyone.�

He started to deny this, but hesitated. It was true that he had not made the attempt for a long time.

�You just give up,� said the girl. �You just sit and wring your hands like an old woman. But you have a pistol.�

He started. �Jack told you that?�

�Yes, Jack tells me everything. Look . . . Could you hit that with your pistol?� She picked up a pebble and tossed it a dozen yards away.

�Perhaps,� he said. He drew the pistol and fired. The pebble disappeared. Then he began to reload, absent-mindedly, never looking at his gun.

�Well,� said the girl after a moment, �who else among us could do that?�

�What does a pistol matter?� he said sadly.

�Suppose that pebble had been the heart of a man?� said the girl.

�I never thought of that,� he muttered. Then he added: �Well, what do you want me to do?�

�Leave us while you have a chance to leave. While you have life in you.�

�You don�t think they�d murder me, Nancy? Why should they want to? What have I ever done to them?�

�You�ve stolen Ashur.�

�No, no, no! I wouldn�t dream of doing it!�

�You don�t understand. You have to hear it in words of one syllable, I suppose. Well, why do wolves kill a dog?�

�Why, because . . . because they�re different, and . . .�

�That�s why the Bretts will kill you. Because you�re different. You�re a Torridon.� She went on, gravely: �There�s not a man or a woman in the tribe who likes you, except Jack. There�s not one that doesn�t hate you, really . . . or they would hate you, if any one encouraged them to do it. The young men are jealous of you. The girls don�t understand you. They think you despise them because you never go near them.�

�But, Nancy, how crazy that is. I�m simply afraid of them.�

�Well, I�ve told you what you ought to know.�

He dropped his chin on his hand. After a while he could hear the rustling of the water, again, the noise of the horses, grinding the grass with their powerful jaws.

�Now, Paul, tell me just what�s in your mind this very minute.�

�I . . . a great many things.�

�I want to know exactly what you�re seeing and thinking and hearing.�

�How all the gold and red and purple from the trees and the bushes floats in the stream there. It never is drowned, Nancy. Nothing that�s real seems to be worthwhile. Do you see?�

�I don�t see. Why do you look at the trees in the water, and not on the bank, just opposite, and all around us?�

�Well, those trees will lose all their leaves the first strong wind that comes along. But their images in the water . . . you see where the still water is, around the curve? . . . they stand in the water taller and bigger and brighter than they really are. You can see the blue of the sky, too, and a bright streak of cloud all filled with sun. That�s not real, so you can look at that picture in the water and it will never die. It�s like a thought. You see that, Nancy?�

She nodded and muttered something.

�There is no wind to go moaning and mourning through the branches that are reflected there, Nan. That�s important, I think. Now, while I look at that picture, I�m hearing all the humming and buzzing and whirring and singing of the insects. The hornets, and the wasps, and the bumblebees and the bees, and the crickets and the flies, and the grasshoppers. They aren�t real noises. If you speak, you put out all those sounds. Well, you see how it is. You just sit close to the ground with your eyes and your ears open, and you gather things in. All those things die. They�re singing just for this autumn only. Two days together the sounds will never be the same singing exactly. So it�s better to shut your eyes on things as they are and see them as you want them to be.�

�That�s all I wanted to know,� said Nancy briskly. �I�ve told you that you�re in danger of your life and you start in thinking about reflections in the water, and humming bees. I�m finished, Paul. I�ll never try to do anything for you again. I just suspected that it would be like this.�

�You want me to go away,� he said, looking deep in the quivering beauty that lay in golden towers inlaid with blue in the river. �Well, I would have to leave Ashur if I went.�

�A man can live without a horse,� she said. �Besides, you�ll have your memory of Ashur, you know. And memories and thoughts . . . they�re all that you really care about.�

He was so earnestly intent that he failed to see the sarcasm.

�Oh, no, they�re not . . . not always, I mean. There�s Ashur. I can�t use him for a starting point and go on imagining finer horses. He�s perfect. He just fills my mind. I can�t imagine him made differently.�

�Perhaps you can�t,� said the girl. �Well, Ashur would go with you if you whistled to him.�

He shook his head. �Then I would be leaving good old Jack.�

�I think good old Jack would follow you, too, Paul.�

�Suppose that I had Jack and Ashur . . . of course I couldn�t have either of them . . . but just supposing . . . then there�d still be you left behind me.�

�I?� said Nancy in an oddly altered voice. �That would be hard for you, of course.�

He was perfectly serious, still. �Even if I ran away,� he went on, �I would have to come slipping back to try to see you. Do you know why I want school to begin? So that I can see you every day. You are so beautiful, Nancy.�

�Paul!� cried a breathless voice. �I don�t see why you�re saying this.�

He stared gloomily at the lovely waters. �Oh, I know that you don�t care. But you�ve started me confessing. Do you mind if I go on about you?�

�No,� she said, �perhaps you�d better. You don�t simply hate me for being so blunt?�

�Hate you? What an idea! Why, Nancy, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I want to see you so much that I almost jump up out of bed to go and stand under your window. Sometimes when I think of you I feel . . . I feel . . .� He became silent.

�You were saying,� she prompted in a faint voice, �when you think about me, Paul . . .�

�I feel the way a dog sounds when it bays the moon.�

He laughed a little. Nancy did not laugh.

�I think of your mother and your father, Nancy. They have you every day.�

�And they have no other child. And I�m only a girl.�

�You?� cried Torridon. �You? Only a girl? Why, Nancy,� he went on, carried away, and turning upon her, �you�re the most beautiful thing in the world, and the sweetest . . . although you frighten me terribly, you�re so cold and grave . . .� He stopped in mid-gesture, mid-speech.

Great, bright, glistening tears were running rapidly down Nancy�s face.

He could not believe it. But most of all it was wonderful that she did not try to conceal them. She simply kept on looking straight at him with wide eyes. As if she were looking through him, and not at him. It was like the falling of proud towers, like the rushing of great walls and the battlements to the earth, so that a city was revealed in all its undefended beauty.

�I suppose you�re finished,� said Nancy.

�Oh, Nancy,� he stammered, �I never meant to hurt you. I never dreamed, no matter what I said, you�d ever care. Tell me what I�ve done, and how I can make up for it? I wouldn�t care if I had to work on my knees all the rest of my life.�

And he fell on his knees before her as he spoke. His heart was aching terribly. But he could not tell whether it was joy or sorrow that swelled it so greatly.

�I don�t want you to work on your knees,� said Nancy. �But I think you ought to kiss me, Paul.�

They went back down the road, side-by-side, slowly, their horses close. Outstretching branches brushed at their faces. The moist odor of decaying leaves was pungent from the woods, and here and there were faintly tangled suggestions of wood smoke, drawn from far away and drooping down again, to be caught among the trees.

The day was wearing late, past the heat of the afternoon; the sun in the west was turning gold, but they rode in the shadow of the valley. All about them the autumn colors that had looked like scarlet enamel, gold leaf, and burnished Tyrian purple under the higher sun, now were filmed across with delicacy. But the heads of the trees lifted into a more brilliant beauty than ever before, yet harmonizing more, drawn from one into another by the golden softness of the light.

It was, in a way, like passing through water and looking up to the day. It was like riding through thin winter mist, except that not winter chill, but summer warmth was above them.

As they drew down the broadening valley, they looked from a gap in the trees and saw a house in the distance. All its western windows flared like polished metal; blue-white smoke rose kindly above it. And suddenly the two lovers looked at one another with inexpressible tenderness and joy.

�What shall I do?� he said. �Tell me, Nancy. You think better than I do.�

�Make a small pack of your clothes tonight as soon as you are in your room alone. Then, when the house is still, come out and to my house.�

�Nancy, Nancy, what do you mean?�

�Are you frightened?�

�I�m trying not to be,� he said. �I want to be a hero for you, Nancy darling.�

�You will be,� she said slowly, looking at him half critically, half smiling. �You always will be when the danger really comes. But you�ll come?�

�If you told me to ride down into the river, I�d never dream of disobeying.�

They laughed together�she softly, he on a broken note.

�I�ll be waiting for you before eleven o�clock,� she went on. �I�ll have two horses . . . I don�t suppose that you�d bring Ashur?�

He looked down to the beautiful head of the horse and stroked the stallion�s neck, and the colt turned its head and looked back to him.

�If you think it would be stealing . . .� said Nancy. �Well, but they�ll never be able to make any use of him when you�re away.�

�I want him more than diamonds,� he said sadly. �More than masses and masses of diamonds, Nancy dear. But I . . .�

He looked at her in apology, and she shrugged her shoulders.

�I�ll be waiting with two horses, then. I don�t mind stealing.�

�It�s all that I�d ever take from your father. And usually fathers give their children something. We�ll give ours everything.�

�Oh, yes,� she said, with tears in her eyes. Then, after a little pause, she added: �By the poplars beside our house I�ll wait for you. I�ll have some money, too. I have some of my own.�

�You give me everything, and I give you nothing!� cried Torridon in anguish.

�You will give later, dear.�

�I have this one thing to give you. Do you see?� He took her hand. �Here is this ring.�

�This? This is the ring of Roger Lincoln. See his initials on the seal?�

�It�s all I have.�

�You mustn�t give this away.�

�I must. It makes me happier to think of giving you something.�

He slipped it on her finger. She did not look at it, but at him. There was such joy in them that for a moment they remained speechless, worshipping one another.

�We haven�t decided where to go, dear.�

�We�ll go to the Torridons over the mountains . . . my people, dear Nancy.�

�What would they feel if you came back to them out of death and brought a Brett with you?�

�They would love you. Everybody loves you, Nancy.�

�We�d better go to a new place, Paul.� She shook her head.

�I don�t care.�

�We could go west . . . beyond the river.�

�Into the Indian countries?�

�Into the free countries,� she said.

�I don�t care. Oh, Nancy, what a kind world it is.�

�Now I must go home. Poor old Jack. What will he do when you�re gone?�

�Would he want to come, Nancy?�

�He�d go to the end of the world with you and me.�

�Shall we tell him?�

�If you want to.�

�You tell him if you think best, Nancy.�

�I shall, then. Good bye.�

�I hate that word,� he said. �Only for a little while.�

She held out her arms to him and he took her close to him. There was fragrance in her hair; her eyes were looking up to him; he began to tremble.

�Paul Torridon, Paul Torridon,� she said, �heaven give you to me . . . and heaven give me to you.�

He watched her ride away. When she was at the next bending of the trail, she turned and waved back to him, then the trees swallowed her, but still the beat of her horse in full gallop sounded faintly.

�If that should be my last sight of her,� said Torridon to his soul.

Then he looked up and saw that the sun was down, and all the glory was stolen, even from the heads of the autumn trees. He shivered with his thought and with the sudden cold.

Then he rode home, taking the slow way, the roundabout way. It was well enough to gallop madly across country, flying the fence. But that was before he belonged to another, and now what would Nancy do without him?

Still he could not entirely believe, and, before he reached the house, he pinched himself once or twice, wondering if it were real, not all a dream. If, after all, she had not been making a cruel game with him, drawing out his folly so that she could tell her people, and then all of them would laugh long and loudly. He was still tormented by that foolish dream when he came in the dusk toward the house.

It was all dark, and he wondered at that, although doubtless only in the kitchen and dining room were the lamps lit at this hour. He had no sooner come to that conclusion than three or four men started out of the brush.

�Who goes there?� cried one of them.

Paul reined in his horse. He was too shocked to make a quick answer.

�Answer!� called a voice that he thought must be that of Charlie Brett. �Answer, or we�ll blow you to bits! Who are you?�

�Why, it�s only Paul Torridon,� he said. �Is that you, Charlie?�

�Don�t Charlie me, you murdering traitor,� answered young Brett. �Get off that hoss, will you? Get off and get off quick!�

Paul dismounted. He leaned against the shoulder of the stallion, unable to believe that such things could be.

Had they spied upon him and seen beautiful Nancy in his arms? That must be it.

They were all about him. Charlie caught one of his arms. Will Brett caught another. They lashed his wrists together behind his back.

Finally he could ask: �But what does it mean, Will? What does it mean? What have I done?�

�What have you done? You ask that! You and a dozen of your sneaking Torridons ain�t come down on the Harry Bretts and wiped them out, I suppose?�

�What?� breathed the boy.

�You spy!� cried Charlie, furious. �I could thrash you! I could thrash you within an inch of your life! You sneaking spy! We�re gonna burn you to a crisp. Walk on.�

And they jerked Paul Torridon headlong up the path toward the house.

They dragged Torridon straight in before old John Brett, and the latter regarded him with bent brows.

�Paul Torridon,� he said, �I�ve been keeping you in my house for twelve years or more. I�ve kept you in food and clothes and I�ve given you easy work. Your own father wouldn�t�ve treated you half as good. How�ve you paid me back?�

Torridon looked earnestly back into the face of the clansman. It was not contorted with anger. It was simply hard and cold. He glanced rapidly at the others. Their passion was less under control than that of their leader. They stared at him with hungry malice.

�They say that Harry Brett has been killed,� said Torridon.

�He�s been raided. That was news to you, maybe?�

�It was,� answered Torridon calmly.

The peril was too great to be feared. In the den of the snakes, one forgets the fear of death. So Torridon was surrounded with malice and rage.

�No,� said John Brett ironically, �it�s more likely that one of the Bretts themselves sent on word to those hounds of Torridons beyond the mountains. That�s a pile more likely.�

Torridon was silent. He was determined not to speak until words had a chance of benefiting him.

�It was one of the Bretts,� went on the leader, �that must�ve let the Torridons know that the three men was away from the house and that there was no one but boys and women there.�

�Did they . . . did they hurt . . . the women?� asked Paul Torridon, horror stricken.

John Brett leaned forward in his chair.

�You didn�t aim on that, eh?� he said. �You only wanted to have the men wiped out?�

�Uncle John,� said Torridon earnestly, �will you tell me what I have to gain by an attack on the house of Harry Brett?�

�What has any Torridon to gain?� asked John Brett. �What have the snakes in the field to gain by sneaking up and biting a man that�s sleeping?�

Torridon was silenced.

�They�ve come before you was ready, and I can believe that,� said John Brett. �You figured that tomorrow, maybe, would be better. Then you�d slip away on Ashur. Was that the plan?�

Still Torridon did not speak, and Charlie Brett stepped in from the side and struck him heavily in the face. The blow knocked him with a crash against the wall. He staggered back onto the floor, his head spinning. The hard knuckles of Charlie had split the skin over his cheek bone and a trickle of blood ran down rapidly.

Then, as his brain cleared, he looked to John Brett to hear some correction of that brutality, but there was no change in the expression of the chief.

�Answer when he speaks to you, you dog!� Charlie had said as he struck the blow.

�He�s gonna play Injun on us and keep his mouth shut,� suggested Will Brett.

�Shut up!� John Brett commanded his younger men. �I�ll do the talking here, please. You, Torridon��he spoke the name as though it were cinders and ashes in his mouth��you speak up and tell me where the band of murderin� sneaks will be hiding now.�

Torridon sighed. �Is it likely that I know?� he asked.

�You dunno nothing, maybe?� asked the chief with heavy irony.

�I�ve never spoken to a Torridon in my life . . . that I can remember,� said the boy.

�You didn�t put it into a letter?�

�I�ve never written to one of them, either.�

�It�s a lie!� broke in Charlie Brett, unable to control himself. �Is it likely, I ask you now, that any skunk of a Torridon would spend twelve years without getting in touch with his people?�

John Brett accepted that suggestion with a nod of agreement. �It ain�t likely. It ain�t possible,� he stated. �You see, Paul, there ain�t any use in trying to fool with us. It�ll be easier for you to come straight out with the truth. And if you can get us to the place where we�ll find your murdering crew, I�ll tell you what I�ll do. I�ll turn you free, Paul. I�ll turn you free and see you safe and livin� out of the valley. No man could offer you more than that.�

�Uncle John,� said the boy in a trembling voice, �I swear . . .�

�My name is John Brett,� corrected the patriarch sternly, �and the oaths of the Torridons never was worth the breath that was needed for the speaking of them. Talk on, and leave out the swearing.�

Paul Torridon sighed again. �I don�t even know what�s actually happened,� he said. �And you want to kill me because I can�t talk.�

�You dunno?� said John Brett. �I�ll tell you, then. I�ll tell you that there was four boys in the house of Harry Brett. The oldest was fourteen. The youngest was nine. There was a girl of seventeen and there was Elizabeth Brett, who�s forty. That house was rushed this afternoon. One of the boys got away to tell us what happened. He saw two of his brothers murdered. He saw Elizabeth Brett shot through the head . . .�

�Stop, stop,� whispered Torridon, and grew sick and dizzy with horror.

�You don�t like it?� John Brett sneered. �There�s many a cook that don�t relish the dish of his own makin�. But you�re gonna help to pay us back for this here, Torridon. You�re going to help to pay us back.�

�Listen,� said Torridon, arguing for his life. �If the Torridons came to find some Bretts, as they came through the mountains, isn�t the house of Harry Brett the first one they�d come to? Isn�t that the reason that they attacked the house?�

�Then how did they know that Harry and his two brothers wasn�t at the place?�

�They scouted about it, first.�

�He�s got an answer for everything,� said Will Brett. �Ain�t he a professional word user? Ain�t he a schoolteacher? Let�s listen to him no more. By grab, Uncle John, it�s time that we tied him to a tree and built a fire under his feet . . . so�s we could see to do our shooting.�

John Brett smiled. It was plain that the horrible suggestion was exactly after his own heart. �You hear him, Torridon?� he asked.

�I hear him,� answered the boy.

�That�s what�ll be done to you unless you talk up.�

�There�s nothing I can say.�

Charlie Brett seized his shoulder viciously. �Is that all, Uncle John?� he asked. �Can we have him?�

John Brett had lurched from his chair. The savagery of a barbarian was working in his features, and yet he controlled himself.

�Joe Brett has been taken away by the Torridons. It may be that we�ll have to keep this rat to trade in for Joe. Throw him into the cellar. And keep a watch at the cellar door. Tie him hand and foot and keep a watch. If he gets away, I�ll skin you and hang up your hide to show the Bretts what happens to fools.�

They carried poor Torridon away with them, wrenching and dragging him along.

The creaking cellar door was heaved open and big Charlie said: �Lemme put him down there. Tie his legs with that rope, Will.�

It was done. The legs of Torridon were lashed securely together.

�Now stand him up,� directed Charlie Brett.

They stood up Torridon like a ninepin. And Charlie Brett drove at him with all his might.

Excess of malice spoiled his aim. Instead of landing fully in the center of the face, the blow glanced on the side of Torridon�s head, but nevertheless it was enough to hurl him backward down the steps.

He felt himself going, and purposely made his limbs and body limp. He landed at the bottom of the steps on the damp floor, rolled over and over, and crashed against a big box. There he lay.

He was too overwhelmed with woe to think clearly, but he was able to say to himself that after bright day comes the black night. Now Nancy was at her house. She, too, was hearing the tale of the raid upon the house of Harry Brett. Would she believe that he had conspired against the slaughtered family?

Then he tried to work out the matter in his mind�tried to conceive how people who bore his name, in whose veins his blood flowed, could have contemplated such a horrible massacre�far less, actually to have done the thing.

And after that he lay still without even a thought. He heard feet stamp on the floor above him. He heard loud voices, once or twice. Faintly he could hear the murmur of ordinary conversation. And after a long time there was a rattle of hoofs.

The first division of hunters for the marauding Torridons were coming back, no doubt. And what sort of a report would they make? Had they found their quarry? Had they shot them down like dogs? Or were the destroyers safely away through the woods and into the throat of the mountain pass?

No one came near him for several hours. Then the cellar door was lifted and a glimmer of lantern light broke into the pitchy darkness.

Charlie Brett, with old Aunt Ellen behind him, came down into the improvised dungeon. He kicked the prisoner roughly in the side. �Wake up,� he commanded, although he could see by his lantern that the eyes of the boy were wide open.

�Leave him be,� said Aunt Ellen. �Leave him be. I�m gonna just sit down here and comfort him a little. You go on up and leave the lantern down here with me.�

Charlie merely paused to leer at Torridon. �Things has changed a little, eh?� he said. �You ain�t so much the cock of the walk now. I�ll show you who�s on top, you hound!�

He left them, and Aunt Ellen sat down on a broken box beside the boy and uncovered a steaming dish.

�You gotta eat, dear Paul,� she said. �You gotta eat and save your strength, because maybe you�ll be needing all of it one of these days.�

It was good roast beef, cut in large chunks. And Torridon, wriggling until he could prop his back against a musty barrel�s side, ate heartily, and then drank the coffee that she had brought with her, also.

She looked like a witch, crouched over an evil deed. But as he ate, she patted him. She brushed the mold and the damp of the cellar from his face and hair. Then she smiled and nodded at him.

�Aunt Ellen,� he could not help bursting out, �I always thought that you hated me, and here you are taking care of me. The only one who cares at all.�

�It�s little that I can do for you, lad,� she said.

�You can go to Uncle John and tell him that I�ve sworn to you that I never was in touch with the Torridons. And heaven knows, if I had been there, I would have fought to keep the poor children safe from those brutes. Aunt Ellen, it�s not possible that he or you believe that I could have helped at such a thing.�

�I wouldn�t dare to go near to Uncle John this night,� said the crone. �He�s as black as the raven and as cold as steel, since the boys come home and said that they couldn�t get no trace of the killers.�

�No trace,� murmured the prisoner.

�It�s a weary, weary night,� said Aunt Ellen. �There ain�t been the like of it in the mountains since the night when Hugh Torridon and his people was killed.�

�Who was Hugh Torridon?� asked the boy.

�Now, now, now,� she said. �Would you be wantin� me to believe that you never heard tell of Hugh Torridon?�

�Never,� he assured her earnestly.

�Ah, but that�s a story,� she said. �And if I stay here to tell it to you . . .�

�Do stay, Aunt Ellen,� he pleaded. �Do stay, because, after you go, I�ll have all the long, black, cold night ahead of me. I�ll be half dead before morning with the damp and the chill, and the horrible smell of the rats, Aunt Ellen.�

�Will you, now?� she said, running her hand gently over his head again. �But what if I stay so long down here comfortin� you that John Brett raises his voice after me? He�s got a voice that has to be heard.�

She did not wait for an answer, but went on: �Hugh Torridon . . . Hugh Torridon . . . And you never heard of him?�

�I always was afraid to ask about the Torridons,� said the boy. �It always made the Bretts angry to be reminded that there were more people of my name in the world.�

�D�you know why there�s any Torridons alive today?� she asked curiously.

�Tell me, Aunt Ellen.�

�Because of Hugh Torridon. It was him that brought the Torridons up from nothing. They was beaten. Their backs was against the wall when I was a girl. They didn�t have nothin�. They was so poor you wouldn�t believe it. And then Hugh come.

�He was young, but he could talk. He persuaded the whole pack of them to move across the mountains and start farmin� there. The climate was better and the ground was richer, and pretty soon the Torridons on that side of the mountains was a lot better off than ever they had been on this side. It was a surprisin� thing how quick they began to make money and get respectable lookin� again. Pretty soon they was about as rich as the Bretts.� She paused and waggled her head at this important thought.

Then she went on: �After they was strong enough, with all good horses and with all the best kind of pistols and rifles and knives, and everything that men kill deer and each other with, they begun to march in back through the mountains, and, when they found a Brett here and there, they just nacherally shot him.

�Hugh Torridon had the leadin� of them. He was an iron man. Bullets would bounce off of him, the young men here used to say. Uncle John was a young man, then.� She chuckled with the idea. �The Torridons, they kept walkin� deeper and deeper into our valleys. I remember when they swept all the cattle off my pa�s place.�

Then she went on: �This man died, and he left a young son, also called Hugh . . . and the young son, he was raised to remember how his father died and to try to get even for it.�

�And how did the first Hugh Torridon die, Aunt Ellen?�

�As he was ridin� down the riverside,� she said, �there was a couple of clever young Bretts lyin� in the brush, and they shot him after he�d gone by.�

�Through the back?� said the boy, writhing.

�One bullet was under the shoulder blade and another was right in the middle of the spine. He didn�t make no noise. He just died and dropped out of the saddle.

�Now then, his son, the second Hugh, he come up to his manhood as big and as brave as his father, but he didn�t have the brain. Brains is what wins for everybody. You got brains, poor Paul. That�s why you been amountin� to something. But anyways, I gotta tell you about this second Hugh, he couldn�t have no pleasure in stayin� on the far side of the mountains, and so he built him a house of strong logs right over our heads on this slope. We always could see the smoke goin� up from his place. And he done a lot of harm to us, until finally Uncle John thought it would be a good idea to make a truce. So a truce was made between the Torridons and the Bretts.

�And after that a couple of years went by, peaceful and quiet, but all the while Uncle John was plannin� and waitin�. And finally he went down with ten good men . . . only ten, because more might�ve made too much noise. He took those men and went to the house of Hugh Torridon and he pried the front door off its hinges, very quiet.

��Who�s there?� sings Hugh Torridon from the darkness.

�But already they was inside. They got into the first room where there was Hugh Torridon�s wife and baby. And Hugh Torridon, when he heard them two screamin� . . . he sort of lost his wits.�

�Don�t! Don�t!� Paul cried. �You don�t mean that they murdered a woman with a baby beside her?�

�A Torridon is a Torridon, young or old, male or female. Uncle John is the one who knows that. But I was tellin� you that Hugh Torridon come smashin� along down the hall and got at that room, where there was two of his family dead, and where there was ten armed men waitin� for him . . . and, when he come along, the ten got a little mite afraid, because he was so brave. They locked and bolted the door of that room, and then they waited, and Hugh Torridon busted down that door the way a bull would bust down a pasture gate.

�He come in and they let off all their rifles, and they shot Torridon with six bullets through the body and the legs. But he went on and got hold on one of them, and that was Jim Brett, and he strangled Jim Brett as he died.�

�What a glorious man he must have been!� cried the boy.

�He was a great Torridon��nodding, she agreed��only that he didn�t have the brains of his pa. But after he�d killed Jim, the rest of the Bretts got a little mite angry, and they went through the house and they killed everyone. There was only one boy left that had been knocked on the head and fell like dead.

�When they had cooled off a little and counted the eight dead bodies, then they begun to think of startin� home, and just then the boy that had seemed to be senseless, he got up on his feet and began staggerin� around. They�d cooled off, as I was sayin�, so that they didn�t have the heart to finish him. They just let him live, and Uncle John, he had a pretty good idea, because he said . . . �I�ll take him home and raise him up, and we�ll make a man of him, in Jim�s place.��

She paused.

�Took him home,� echoed poor Torridon. �Took him here. Aunt Ellen, have you been telling me the story of my grandfather, and my father and mother?�

�I been,� she said. She added: �And your baby brother, and your two sisters, and your cousin who . . .�

�Don�t,� whispered the boy. �It hurts me terribly. Ah, Aunt Ellen, but I had to know.�

�Of course you did, honey.� She raised the lantern so that it shone into the eyes of the captive, but, in so doing, she allowed it to fall, unawares, upon her own eyes, and Torridon was amazed to see that she was grinning with toothless, wicked malice.

Then he could understand. It was all a device of her ancient hatred. She had wanted to sit by his side and watch him while she opened wounds of which he never had dreamed. This was her fiendish pleasure, and now she stood up.

�I dunno what else I can do for you, sonny. My stories don�t seem to rest you none.�

�Only leave me,� he said.

�Then lie and think,� she said, thrusting her wicked face closer to his. �You lie and think about the good day that�s comin� before you, and you eat plenty of good meat and keep yourself fat and strong, because you�ll need all of your strength when they take you out and tie you to a tree, my son.�

She turned from him, shuffling away with the lantern. It cast vast shadows that swung up against the ceiling and then down and out before her. It made the room seem awash.

Then she was gone, and the cellar door was closed with a heavy, smashing sound.

The ears of the captive must have been attuned by sorrow, for he could hear the voice of Will Brett saying calmly: �You spent a long time down there.�

�My business couldn�t be done quick,� she replied. �Gimme your arm into the house, Billy dear.�

After that the long silence began once more and ran on into the morning. Yet Paul did not grow irritated by the blank time. His thoughts ran before him like a rapidly flowing river. He was seeing all the past of his race. Before that, the name of Torridon had had no content to him. The malice of Aunt Ellen with her recital of horrors had given him a history and his people a past. He was almost grateful to her for the torture of that story.

Ten days of blackness, utter blackness.

He was fed once a day. He was shifted into a corner room of the cellar. There it was damper, wetter. Twice during the ten days heavy rains came, and the water covered the floor on which he lay.

He wondered profoundly why he did not sicken and die. But he had not so much as a cold in the head. It was not disease that troubled him. It was the constant misery of the wet, the dirt, the darkness, the scampering of rats, which repeatedly crossed his hands and face. And once, stretching out his hand at a noise, he passed his fingers along the sliding back of a snake.

So ten days passed.

Then he was visited by John Brett in person. The old leader threw the door back and came heavily down the stairs. He pushed his lantern into the face of the captive and leaned above him.

�Are you awake?�

�I�m awake,� said the boy.

�I�ve brought news for you.�

�Yes?� he answered calmly, for he had given up hope.

�We offered you in exchange for Joe. But they say they don�t believe that we�ve got a real Torridon. No real Torridon would�ve lived twelve years with the Bretts.�

He paused to allow this information to sink in.

�They won�t give up Joe Brett for you,� he concluded. �So you see what they done for you? We gotta kill you, my boy. Duty to do it. Only it�s night now. We gotta wait for the mornin� to have light to see the show. So long, Paul. I hope you keep your head up high in the mornin�, the way that a Torridon should.�

He turned away. At the door he paused and threw over his shoulder: �She�s been here beggin� for you, draggin� herself at my knees, weepin� and cryin� for you. But though you might be able to make a fool out of the Brett women, you ain�t gonna make a fool out of me through their talk.�

He slammed the door, turned the key with a screech in the rusty bolt, and then stamped away.

Paul Torridon was almost glad that the waiting was over. It was not death, but the manner of it that was terrible. But at least he could depend on good old Jack. Jack Brett would never see him suffer, but would drive a bullet cheerfully through his heart, and so the merciful end.

The wind came up. He heard its distant whining and moaning. And the rain drove against the house in rattling gusts. By fits and starts, the squalls of that storm rushed against the house, and Torridon was glad of the storm, too, because it would help to fill the long hours of the night. He hoped that it would rave and scream in the morning, too, when he was led out to die. For he had only that one grim hope left�that he might find the strength to die with a smile on his lips, as a brave man should. He even hoped that, before the end, he could be able to find a speech of sharp defiance, and taunting, so that the memory of how he had died might have a noble place in the mind of Nancy, since that was all that he could leave to her.

A leak had sprung somewhere in the very center of the cellar. A quick, sharp rattling fall seemed to come at his very door. The wind howled far off; another gust of rain smashed on the house and again he could hear that clatter at his door.

And then, was it not the faint, harsh murmur of the hinges, slowly turned?

He braced himself. There was such a thing as a midnight murder to defeat the hand of justice, which was beginning to be extended more and more often into this region where the gun had been the only judge.

Then a soft voice called: �Paul Torridon!� A man�s voice�quiet, pitched just with the fall of the rain.

He said loudly: �Here I am. If you�ve come to murder me, strike a light. I want to see your face.�

Something crouched beside him. His body turned to rigid steel,

�Torridon, I�m Roger Lincoln.�

That name dissolved the world and left the blackness and the cold and the dark of despair far off, and brought the prisoner suddenly into the light of warm hope and comfort.

Roger Lincoln!

The ropes were cut away from his hands, from his feet. He tried to rise, but Lincoln thrust him back again. There was wonderful power in the famous hand of that hero.

�Lie still. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply, and relax.�

He obeyed those quick orders with perfect attention.

And then the strong hands began to move, rubbing his numbed muscles, bringing sense and power into his nerves, into his whole body. Paul began to tingle where the ropes had long worn at the flesh, until the tingling made him almost cry out.

�Now,� said Roger Lincoln, ceasing from his labor. �Now, try your feet.�

Paul stood up in the dark.

He found himself ridiculously weak. His head went around. He would have fallen, but the other clutched and steadied him.

�This is bad,� he heard Lincoln mutter. �This is very bad.� He paused, breathing hard from the work of that rubbing. Then he said: �I�ve brought an extra pistol. Can you use a pistol at all?�

�Yes.�

�Here it is. Double-barreled. It shoots straight and it�s not too heavy. Never fire till I give the word, and I won�t give the word unless it�s the last chance. And . . .�

�Hush,� said Paul Torridon.

He had lain those endless hours in the place until his ear could make out everything, everywhere in the cellar.

Someone had raised the cellar door, the big, flat, massive door.

Outside that was always at least one guard. John Brett took no chances.

�How did you come in?� whispered Paul.

�Through the door,� said Roger Lincoln. �The hail knocked them silly a little while ago. Then I went in when they hunted cover. They�re tired of their work.�

�They know that you�re here,� said Torridon in an agony of conviction.

�How can they?�

�They�re opening the cellar door now.�

�Follow me . . . straight behind me, if you can.�

�I can, I think. If you go slowly, slowly.�

He concentrated. He fought his reeling head, his clumsy, weak limbs, and made them go straight. So he marched ahead. They were through the door of the cell that had held him, and then a suddenly unhooded lantern flamed against their eyes. And behind the lantern light they saw the dim silhouettes of four men, guns in hand.

Long afterward, when he thought of that moment, Torridon went cold with fear and horror, but at the moment, overriding all else, was the knowledge that he had only two bullets in that double-barreled pistol, that he had nothing wherewith to load again, and that each of those two bullets must bring down a man.

At the gleam of the lantern he had stumbled and fallen flat as its rays swept over them. Roger Lincoln had leaped to the side with cat-like suddenness. And three guns boomed and flashed from the hands of the Bretts�three rapid, long flashes that lighted up the dark of the cellar.

At the left-hand and last flash, Torridon fired his right barrel. And he heard the slump of a body to floor. He had fired just beneath the flash�his bullet should have found the body, perhaps the heart.

He remembered, afterward, how he had thought out those details. Roger Lincoln had fired two shots to his right.

Then a vague form loomed above Torridon and hurled itself at him with a sound like the growl of an infuriated dog. Up at the head of the lunging shadow he fired. A heavy weight struck him, rolled loosely off. And he got to his hands and knees just as Roger Lincoln leaned above him.

�Are you hurt?�

�Not hurt, Roger.�

�Thank goodness.�

To make speed, Roger Lincoln caught up the youngster and heaved him over one shoulder. He rushed up the steps, with a sound of stifled groaning following him from the cellar. Two shots followed them. One bullet landed with a soft thud. Torridon was sure that it must have struck the flesh of his rescuer, but Roger Lincoln went on, unhesitating.

The door of the cellar was cast wide.

Out from the house rushed half a dozen forms, armed, shouting with excitement.

�What�s happening? Who�s there? Stop those two men!� shouted the voice of John Brett. �Where�s a lantern?�

There was no lantern. Through the dusk, Torridon thought they might escape, but Roger Lincoln did not attempt to avoid the group. Instead, he strode on straight toward them, straight through them.

�It�s Roger Lincoln!� he called. �He�s down there with Torridon. He�s broken into the place . . . he�s killed Charlie, I think. And we downed one of �em . . .�

�Roger Lincoln!� cried John Brett.

And all of them rushed like bulldogs toward the point of danger. Several others swarmed down from the house. The door was swinging and crashing.

Then they turned the corner, and Roger Lincoln lowered Torridon to the ground.

�Are you hurt?� he asked.

�No,� said Torridon.

�Come on with me then. My horse is near here.�

They began to run, and no sooner did the strain of the muscles begin than Torridon felt a long, burning pain that went through his body and up his side.

�The gray can carry you . . . I�ll run alongside,� said Roger Lincoln. �I started with a second horse . . . it went dead lame. I couldn�t wait till tomorrow . . .�

�I would have been dead tomorrow,� gasped Torridon. They broke through a group of trees. �I�ll get Ashur.�

�Aye, if we could get him.�

�They�re after us!�

A wave of angry shouting broke upward from the cellar door and spread abroad into the night.

�I�m going to take the gray mare,� said Roger Lincoln. �I�ll ride across them and get them after me, if I can. You go on to the barn and get Ashur. Do you want to try that?�

�I�ll try that.�

They had reached the covert in which Comanche was hidden, and now Roger Lincoln flashed away on her, and Torridon ran for his life toward the stable.

He could feel the blood slipping down his side now. It sent electric thrills of fear through him. What would happen to him? How far would his life last?

He climbed the last fence. He was through the rear stable door and Ashur�s whinny of greeting met him in the dark. And here was Ashur, plunging, snorting with joy, like a dog long separated from a loved master.

In all his life, Ashur never had failed to see young Torridon every day. Now he was frantic with pleasure. And nothing Torridon called in the way of softly muttered orders had any effect on him. He pitched off the saddle when it was dragged onto his back. Only when the bridle and bit had been given to him did he quiet, and then, from the distance, Torridon heard voices.

And there was left to him only Ashur, and an unloaded pistol.

Frantically he caught up the saddle and dragged it over the back of the stallion again. The cinches swung readily into his hand, and he jerked them home on the buckles.

�Who�s there?� someone was calling. Lantern light began to turn the stall posts into myriad tall shadows, pitching to and fro like waves before a gale.

�It�s someone at Ashur! Quick . . . it may be him!�

Clearly, clearly rang that voice, freezing the heart of Torridon. No Brett could miss a target fairly seen. Only the night, which had covered him before, might cover him now.

He climbed into the saddle. He had a certain nervous force in his hands. With that, he dragged his trembling, failing body. The light was rushing down upon him, like a ship driving through a sea. There were more than two. Three men were coming, and may heaven defend him.

He twisted Ashur from the stall. The stallion heard his whisper. Like a human being, aware of danger, it slipped forward with stealthy steps, and the rear door of the stable was just before them, swinging half shut in the wind.

And then the full tide of the lantern light washed over them.

�There he is!�

�Shoot!�

�Shoot for the horse! Anything to get him!�

Then Paul called: �Ashur!�

And Ashur leaped for the half-shut door, with Torridon bending along his neck. It was too narrow a space for horse and man to go through, but Ashur turned his head and, like a man, gave the door his shoulder�gave it such a blow that it crashed open under the shock.

Three guns filled the barn with thunder. Horses, frightened, began to neigh and stamp, and Torridon was out under the wet skies. Noise everywhere, from the house, from the stable.

Had the stallion been struck?

There was no way to tell at once. His great heart would not fail until his blood ran out. And he would tell time like an hourglass to the last running of the sand.

Torridon turned the black toward the road. Three fences, big, black, shaggy with the night, rose before them. Strangely large they loomed, but Ashur went over them softly, lightly. Surely he was not struck. But what if he were laying down his life for his master? Was the life of any man worth such a price?

They gained the road before the house. Other horsemen were pouring out from the door of the barn behind him. But there, glimmering through the dark before him, he saw a horseman�Roger Lincoln on his gray?

He shouted, and the ringing voice of Roger Lincoln struck back to him. Then he was with that hero from the plains! And the pursuit was beating behind them.

Let them come! Let them ride the hearts out of their horses; they would no more catch this pair than they would catch the eagles in the air with their bare hands!

Swiftly they slid away. Like quicksilver flowed the mare. Like the wind ran the black. For a blinding mile they ran, and then the silver mare slipped behind. A neck back, a length back!

�Steady!� called Roger Lincoln. �You�ll fly away from me, lad!�

Torridon drew in the stallion. They ran more easily, with long bounds that devoured the distance. There was not even a sound of pursuit, now, behind them.

At moonrise they stopped.

Then they looked to the horses. Ashur was untouched.

�And you?� said Roger Lincoln.

�I�m scratched along the side, I think.�

It was only a scratch, a glancing cut that might have taken his life, if it had been a fraction of an inch deeper.

Lincoln bound it up. �Now what?� he asked.

�I must go to the right, down the next road. I . . . I have to see a girl, if I can, before I ride on, Roger.�

�That�s pretty Nancy?�

�Do you know about her?�

�Everyone knows about her and you. Jack told me.�

�Jack?�

�She gave Jack my ring that you�d given her. It was Jack that found me and sent me back.�

�Bless him! But . . .�

�She�s not in her father�s house. She�s been sent away to the west . . . to the house of a cousin.�

�Then west, west!� said Torridon feverishly. �How far will it be?�

�Ten days of careful riding,� said Roger Lincoln. �Into a new world, lad.�

�And can we find her?� Torridon persisted.

�Perhaps, I don�t know.�

�West, then,� said Torridon, �if you�ll take me.�

�Look to Ashur,� said the plainsman. �Will he fail you?�

�Never.�

�He is only a horse,� said Roger Lincoln, �and I�ll hope to show you that I�m a man, Torridon.�