Chad rode on, amused, and thinking that Hence had gone daft, but he was to learn better.  A reign of forty years’ terror was starting in those hills.

Not a soul was in sight when he reached the top of the hill from which he could see the Turner home below—­about the house or the orchard or in the fields.  No one answered his halloo at the Turner gate, though Chad was sure that he saw a woman’s figure flit past the door.  It was a full minute before Mother Turner cautiously thrust her head outside the door and peered at him

“Why, Aunt Betsey,” called Chad, “don’t you know me?”

At the sound of his voice Melissa sprang out the door with a welcoming cry, and ran to him, Mother Turner following with a broad smile on her kind old face.  Chad felt the tears almost come—­these were friends indeed.  How tall Melissa had grown, and how lovely she was, with her tangled hair and flashing eyes and delicately modelled face.  She went with him to the stable to help him put up his horse, blushing when he looked at her and talking very little, while the old mother, from the fence, followed him with her dim eyes.  At once Chad began to ply both with questions—­where was Uncle Joel and the boys and the school-master?  And, straightway, Chad felt a reticence in both—­a curious reticence even with him.  On each side of the fireplace, on each side of the door, and on each side of the window, he saw narrow blocks fixed to the logs.  One was turned horizontal, and through the hole under it Chad saw daylight—­portholes they were.  At the door were taken blocks as catches for a piece of upright wood nearby, which was plainly used to bar the door.  The cabin was a fortress.  By degrees the story came out.  The neighborhood was in a turmoil of bloodshed and terror.  Tom and Dolph had gone off to the war—­Rebels.  Old Joel had been called to the door one night, a few weeks since, and had been shot down without warning.  They had fought all night.  Melissa herself had handled a rifle at one of the portholes.  Rube was out in the woods now, with Jack guarding and taking care of his wounded father.  A Home Guard had been organized, and Daws Dillon was captain.  They were driving out of the mountains every man who owned a negro, for nearly every man who owned a negro had taken, or was forced to take, the Rebel side.  The Dillons were all Yankees, except Jerry, who had gone off with Tom; and the giant brothers, Rebel Jerry and Yankee Jake—­as both were already known—­had sworn to kill each other on sight.  Bushwhacking had already begun.  When Chad asked about the school-master, the old woman’s face grew stern, and Melissa’s lip curled with scorn.

“Yankee!” The girl spat the word out with such vindictive bitterness that Chad’s face turned slowly scarlet, while the girl’s keen eyes pierced him like a knife, and narrowed as, with pale face and heaving breast, she rose suddenly from her chair and faced him—­amazed, bewildered, burning with sudden hatred.  “And you’re another!” The girl’s voice was like a hiss.