gone and the roof of the little barn caved in.  Smoke was coming from Steve Hawn’s chimney, and in the porch were two or three slatternly negro women.  The boy knew the low, sinister meaning of their presence on public works; and these blacks ate, slept, and plied their trade in the home of Mavis Hawn!  All the old rebellion and rage of his early years came back to him and boiled the more fiercely that his mother’s home could never be hers, nor Mavis’s hers—­for a twofold reason now—­again.  It was nearing noon and the boy’s hunger was a keen pain.  Rapidly he went down the crest of the spur until his grandfather’s house was visible beneath him.  The horse at the front fence was gone, but as he slipped toward the rear of the house he looked into the stable to make sure that the horse was not there.  And then a moment later he reached the back porch and noiselessly opened the door—­so noiselessly that the old man sitting in front of the fire did not hear.

“Grandpap,” he called tremulously.

The old man started and turned his great shaggy head.  He said nothing, but it seemed to the boy that from under his bushy brows a flash of lightning was searching him from head to foot.

“Well,” he rumbled scathingly, “you’ve been a-playin’ hell, hain’t ye?  I mought ‘a’ knowed whut would happen with Honeycutts a-leadin’ that gang.  I tol’ ’em to go up thar an’ fight open—­man to man.  They don’t know nothin’ but way-layin’.  A thousand of ’em shootin’ one pore man in the back!  Whut’ve I been tryin’ to l’arn ye since you was a baby?  God knows I wanted him killed.  Why,” thundered the old man savagely, “didn’t you kill him face to face?”

The boy’s chin had gone up proudly while the old man talked and now there was a lightning-flash in his own eyes.

“I tried to git him face to face fer three days.  I knowed he had a gun.  I was aimin’ to give him a chance fer his life.  But seemed like thar wasn’t no other—­”

“Stop!” thundered the old man again, “don’t you say a word.”

There was a loud “Hello” at the gate.

“Thar they air now,” said the old man with a break in his voice, and as he rose from his chair he said sternly:  “An’ stay right where you air.”

Through the window the boy saw the two horsemen who had passed him in the road that morning.  His eyes grew wild and he began to tremble violently, but he stood still.  The old man went to the door.

“Hyeh he is, men,” he shouted; “come in hyeh an’ git him.”

Then he turned to the boy.

“You air goin’ back thar an’ stand yore trial like a man.”

The boy leaped wildly for the door, but the old man caught him and with one hand held him as though he were a child, and thus the two astonished detectives from the Blue-grass found them, and they gaped at the mystery, for they knew the kinship of the two.  One pulled from his pocket a pair of handcuffs, and old Jason glared at him with contempt.