Uncle Sammy was given the time allowance he asked and then Scratch Hill wended its way down the path to the branch and the highroad.  Yancy led the straggling procession, with the boy trotting by his side, his little sunburned fist clasped in the man’s great hand.  He, too, was armed.  He carried the old spo’tin’ rifle he had brought from the Barony, and suspended from his shoulder by a leather thong was the big horn flask with its hickory stopper his Uncle Bob had fashioned for him, while a deerskin pouch held his bullets and an extra flint or two.  He understood that beyond those smacks he had seen his Uncle Bob fetch Mr. Blount, he himself was the real cause of this excitement, that somebody, it was not plain to his mind just who, was seeking to get him away from Scratch Hill, and that a mysterious power called the Law would sooner or later be invoked to this dread end.  But he knew this much clearly, nothing would induce him to leave his Uncle Bob!  And his thin little fingers nestled warmly against the man’s hardened palm.  Yancy looked down and gave him a sunny, reassuring smile.

“It’ll be all right, Nevvy,” he said gently.

“You wouldn’t let ’em take me, would you, Uncle Bob?” asked the child in a fearful whisper.

“Such an idea ain’t entered my head.  And this here warranting is just some of Dave Blount’s cussedness.”

“Uncle Bob, what’ll they do to you?”

“Well, I reckon the squire’ll feel obliged to do one of two things.  He’ll either fine me or else he won’t.”

“What’ll you do if he fines you?”

“Why, pay the fine, Nevvy—­and then lick Dave Blount again for stirring up trouble.  That’s the way we most in general do.  I mean to say give him a good licking, and that’ll make him stop his foolishness.”

“Wasn’t that a good licking you gave him on the Ox Road, Uncle Bob?” asked Hannibal.

“It was pretty fair fo’ a starter, but I’m capable of doing a better job,” responded Yancy.

They overtook Uncle Sammy as he turned in at the squire’s.

“I thought I’d come and see what kind of law a body gets at this here co’t of yours,” the patriarch explained to Mr. Balaam, who, forgetting his lumbago, had hurried forth to greet him.

“But why did you fetch your gun, Uncle Sammy?” asked the magistrate, laughing.

“Hit were to be on the safe side, Squire.  Where air them Blounts?”

“Them Blounts don’t need to bother you none.  There air only Dave, and he can’t more than half see out of one eye to-day.”

The squire’s court held its infrequent sittings in the best room of the Balaam homestead, a double cabin of hewn logs.  Here Scratch Hill was gratified with a view of Mr. Blount’s battered visage, and it was conceded that his condition reflected creditably on Yancy’s physical prowess and was of a character fully to sustain that gentleman’s reputation; for while he was notoriously slow to begin a fight, he was reputed to be even more reluctant to leave off once he had become involved in one.