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Brother Japheth's business was concluded, and the architect who was building the latest extension to the pipe-pit floor was heading across the yard to consult the young boss. Pettigrass paused with his foot in the stirrup to say, "Old Tike Bryerson's on the rampage ag'in; folks up at the valley head say he's a-lookin' for you, Tom-Jeff." "For me?" said Tom; then he laughed easily.
For now the sleeping conscience was broad awake and plying its merciless dagger; now, indeed, he knew very well what he had done what he had been doing since that fatal moment at the barrel-spring when he had fallen under the spell of Nan Bryerson's beauty; nay, back of that how the up-bubbling of zeal had been nothing more than wounded vanity; the smoke of a vengeful fire of anger lighted by a desire to strike back at those who had laughed at him.
Wherefore the small world of Paradise and its environs looked to see a warrant sworn out for the mountaineer's arrest; and when nothing was done, gossip reawakened to say that Tom Gordon did not dare to prosecute; that Bryerson's crime was a bit of wild justice, so recognized by the man whose duty it was to invoke the law.
His task was to scrutinize Nancy Bryerson's past, and to identify, if possible, one or more of the three men who, in January of the year 1890, had inspected and repaired the pipe-line running from the coke-yard tank up to the barrel-spring on high Lebanon.
Then, and not till then, was the question of Nancy Bryerson's future suffered to present itself. For Miss Dabney the question was settled before it came up for discussion. In the Major's young manhood Deer Trace had maintained a pack of foxhounds, and it was the Major's bride, a city-bred Charleston belle, who first objected to the dooryard kennels and the clamor of the dogs.
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