I didn’t answer.

“Davy,” she cried, “be happy while you’re young.  ’Tis a fine day, and Kaintuckee’s over yonder.”  She picked up her skirts and sang:—­

“First upon the heeltap,
Then upon the toe.”

The men by the cane-brake turned and came towards us.

“Ye’re happy to-day, Mis’ McChesney,” said Riley.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” said Polly Ann; “we’re all a-goin’ to Kaintuckee.”

“We’re a-goin’ back to Cyarter’s Valley,” said Riley, in his blustering way.  “This here ain’t as excitin’ as I thought.  I reckon there ain’t no redskins nohow.”

“What!” cried Polly Ann, in loud scorn, “ye’re a-goin’ to desert?  There’ll be redskins enough by and by, I’ll warrant ye.”

“How’d you like to come along of us,” says Riley; “that ain’t any place for wimmen, over yonder.”

“Along of you!” cried Polly Ann, with flashing eyes.  “Do you hear that, Davy?”

I did.  Meanwhile the man Cutcheon was slowly walking towards her.  It took scarce a second for me to make up my mind.  I slipped around the corner of the house, seized the pistol, primed it with a trembling hand, and came back to behold Polly Ann, with flaming cheeks, facing them.  They did not so much as glance at me.  Riley held a little back of the two, being the coward.  But Cutcheon stood ready, like a wolf.

I did not wait for him to spring, but, taking the best aim I could with my two hands, fired.  With a curse that echoed in the crags, he threw up his arms and fell forward, writhing, on the turf.

“Run for the cabin, Polly Ann,” I shouted, “and bar the door.”

There was no need.  For an instant Riley wavered, and then fled to the cane.

Polly Ann and I went to the man on the ground, and turned him over.  His eyes slid upwards.  There was a bloody froth on his lips.

“Davy!” cried she, awestricken, “Davy, ye’ve killed him!”

I grew dizzy and sick at the thought, but she caught me and held me to her.  Presently we sat down on the door log, gazing at the corpse.  Then I began to reflect, and took out my powder gourd and loaded the pistol.

“What are ye a-doing?” she said.

“In case the other one comes back,” said I.

“Pooh,” said Polly Ann, “he’ll not come back.”  Which was true.  I have never laid eyes on Riley to this day.

“I reckon we’d better fetch it out of the sun,” said she, after a while.  And so we dragged it under an oak, covered the face, and left it.

He was the first man I ever killed, and the business by no means came natural to me.  And that day the journey-cakes which Polly Ann had made were untasted by us both.  The afternoon dragged interminably.  Try as we would, we could not get out of our minds the Thing that lay under the oak.

It was near sundown when Tom and Weldon appeared on the mountain side carrying a buck between them.  Tom glanced from one to the other of us keenly.  He was very quick to divine.