“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Tom, with more bravado.  “I wouldn’t go back there if it was the only place on earth.”  Then suddenly:  “Who was it that told on me, Uncle Silas?”

“Never mind about that.  It was one who could have no object in misstating the fact—­which you have not denied.  Let us go home.”

The mile walk down the pike, lying white and ghostly under the starlight, was paced in silence, man and boy striding side by side and each busy with his own thoughts.  As they were passing the Deer Trace gates a loose-jointed figure loomed black against the palings, and the voice of Japheth Pettigrass said: 

“Why, howdy, Brother Silas!  Thought ye’d gone back to South Tredegar.  When are ye comin’ out to Little Zoar ag’in to give us another o’ them old-fashioned, spiritual times o’ refreshin’ from the presence of the Lord?”

Silas Crafts turned short on the scoffer.

“Why do you ask that, Japheth Pettigrass?  The Lord will deal with you, one day.”

“Yes, I reckon so; that’s what makes me say what I does.  There’s a heap o’ sinners left round here, yit, Brother Silas.  There’s the Major, for one, and I know you’re always countin’ me in for another.  I dunno but you might snatch me as a brand from the burnin’, if you could make out to try it one more lap around the you’se.  I been thinkin’ right p’intedly about—­”

But the preacher had cut in with a curt “Good night,” and was gone, with his broad-shouldered nephew at his heels; and the horse-trader went on, with the stars for his audience.

“Look at that, now, will ye?  Old Brother Silas is gettin’ right smart tetchy with the passin’ of the years; he is, so.  But he’s a powerful preacher.  If anybody ever gits me for a star in their crown, it’s Brother Silas ag’inst the field, even money up.”

Pettigrass turned and was groping for the gate latch when a hand fell on his shoulder, and a clutch that was more than half a blow twirled him about to face the roadway.  He was doubling his fists for defense when he saw who his assailant was.

“Why, Tom-Jeff! what’s ailin’ ye?” he began; but Tom broke in with gaspings of rage.

“Japhe Pettigrass, what did you think you saw last Wednesday forenoon up yonder at Big Rock Spring on the mountain?  Tell it straight, this time, or by the God you don’t believe in, I’ll dig the truth out of you with my bare hands!”

“Sho, now, Tom-Jeff; don’t you git so servigrous over nothin’.  I didn’t see nothin’ but a couple o’ young fly-aways playin’ ’possum in a hole in the big rock.  And I’ll leave it to you if I didn’t call Caesar off and go my ways, jes’ like I’d like to be done by.”

“Yes,” snarled Tom, dog-mad and furious in this second submergence of the wave of wrath.  “Yes; and then you came straight down here and told my uncle!” The hand he had been holding behind him came to the front, clutching a stone snatched up from the metaling of the pike as he ran.  “If I should break your face in with this, Japhe Pettigrass, it wouldn’t be any more than you’ve earned!”