As the big man stepped from the room, a gasp of astonishment escaped from the company, and the two jokers, with frightened faces, broke into a shrill, nervous laughter.  Then a buzz of talk went round; the fiddlers struck up again; the callers shouted; the dancers stamped, and bowed, and swung their partners as they sang.

And out in the night under the trees, at the edge of the gloomy forest, the strongest man in the hills was saying over and over to the big, white faced sorrel, “I don’t dare do it.  I don’t dare.  Dad Howitt wouldn’t.  He sure wouldn’t.”

Very soon two figures left the house, and hurried toward a bunch of saddle horses near by.  They had untied their animals, and were about to mount, when suddenly a huge form stepped from the shadows to their horses’ heads.  “Put up your guns, boys,” said Young Matt calmly.  “I reckon you know that if I’d wanted trouble, it would o’ been all over before this.”

The weapons were not drawn, and the big man continued, “Dad Howitt says a feller always whips himself every time he fights when there ain’t no—­no principle evolved.  I don’t guess Dad would see ary principle in this, ’cause there might be some truth in what you boys said.  I reckon I am somethin’ at playin’ a fool, but it would o’ been a heap safer for you to let folks find it out for themselves.”

“We all were jest a foolin’, Matt,” muttered one.

“That’s alright,” returned the big fellow; “But you’d better tie up again and go back into the house and dance a while longer.  Folks might think you was scared if you was to leave so soon.”

CHAPTER XVI.

On the way home.

Not until the party was breaking up, and he saw Sammy in the doorway, did Young Matt go back to the house.

When they had ridden again out of the circle of light, and the laughter and shouting of the guests was no longer heard, Sammy tried in vain to arouse her silent escort, chatting gaily about the pleasures of the evening.  But all the young man’s reserve had returned.  When she did force him to speak, his responses were so short and cold that at last the girl, too, was silent.  Then, man-like, he wished she would continue talking.

By the time they reached Compton Ridge the moon was well up.  For the last two miles Sammy had been watching the wavering shafts of light that slipped through tremulous leaves and swaying branches.  As they rode, a thousand fantastic shapes appeared and vanished along the way, and now and then as the sound of their horses’ feet echoed through the silent forest, some wild thing in the underbrush leaped away into the gloomy depth.

Coming out on top of the narrow ridge, the brown pony crowded closer to the big, white faced sorrel, and the girl, stirred by the weird loveliness of the scene, broke the silence with an exclamation, “O Matt!  Ain’t it fine?  Look there!” She pointed to the view ahead.  “Makes me feel like I could keep on a goin’, and goin’, and never stop.”