Ruth and David hardly knew the judge as he looked and spoke now, for it was he who was speaking as they came in.  He had just motioned his nephew to silence with a sternness which was not to be disobeyed.  His voice rang with a decision and severity, such as none of the household had ever heard from him, who was commonly so carelessly mild and abstracted.

“No one shall, with my consent, or even my knowledge, go from my house to Duff’s Fort on any account whatever.”

“Pardon me, sir,” began William, stiffly.

He was keeping his self-control with the air of one who does it under great provocation, and who has scant respect for those who lose it; but his face was flushed, and his eyes were angry.  The strained coldness of his tone and manner were like oil to the flame of his uncle’s wrath.  The judge’s hand went out in a gesture that had almost the force of a blow.

“Stop!” he shouted.  “I refuse even to discuss the matter.  It is enough for me to tell you again that no one shall go from under my roof to the place where robbers and cutthroats congregate.  It’s a disgrace that I haven’t been able to break up their den.  I have done my best, and I am still doing it, but the reproach of this band’s existence, here at my very door, nevertheless rests on me more than on any one else.  I am the representative of the law—­the law, good God! with the country in the murderous clutches of that lawless gang!  Keep away, I tell you!  And I will ask Alston what he means by even seeming to give countenance to those scoundrels by going nigh them.  Business!  What business can he or any other decent man have with the nest of rattlesnakes that we can’t drag out from under that bluff?”

“It is a very simple matter, sir, if you would permit me to explain,” William said more coldly and deliberately than ever.  “Mr. Alston is merely making a trade for a boatload of horses, and simply asked me, as his attorney, to meet him at Duff’s Fort to draw up the contract with Mason and Sturtevant.”

The judge stared blankly for a moment, so overwhelmed by surprise that he forgot his anger.  “Mason and Sturtevant,” he repeated.  “Do you mean to tell me that a man of half Alston’s intelligence doesn’t know that those men never have a horse that they haven’t stolen?”

William Pressley said nothing more; he suspected that his uncle had been drinking a little more heavily than common.  Moreover, it scarcely seemed worth while to argue with blind prejudice, drunk or sober.

“Then if you’ve got nothing more to say, it’s with Alston that I will settle this matter.  But all the same, I forbid you to go near Duff’s Fort.  I have a right to forbid you, as a member of my household.  I have a right to forbid any one belonging to my family to do anything that touches my own honor, my good name.  And this touches both to the quick.”

“Very well, sir.  I shall tell Mr. Alston what you say.  I must, of course, give some reason for breaking a professional engagement,” said William.