“So you reckon it was that—­” said Yancy, with a deep breath.

“It’s a blame outrage, Bob, fo’ him to act like this!” said the merchant with heat.

“When do you reckon he’s going to send fo’ him?” asked Yancy.

“Whenever the notion strikes him.”

“What about my having notions too?” inquired Yancy, flecked into passion, and bringing his fist down on the counter with a crash.

“You surely ain’t going to oppose him, Bob?”

“Does he say when he’s going to send fo’ my nevvy ?”

“He says it will be soon.”

“You take care of my mule, Mr. John,” said Yancy, and turned his back on his friend.

“I reckon Bladen will have the law on his side, Bob!”

“The law be damned—­I got what’s fair on mine, I don’t wish fo’ better than that,” exclaimed Yancy, over his shoulder.  He strode from the store and started down the sandy road at a brisk run.  Miserable forebodings of an impending tragedy leaped up within him, and the miles were many that lay between him and the Hill.

“He’ll just naturally bust the face off the fellow Bladen sends!” thought Crenshaw, staring after his friend.

That run of Bob Yancy’s was destined to become a classic in the annals of the neighborhood.  Ordinarily a man walking briskly might cover the distance between the Cross Roads and the Hill in two hours.  He accomplished it in less than an hour, and before he reached the branch that flowed a full quarter of a mile from his cabin he was shouting Hannibal’s name as he ran.  Then as he breasted the slope he came within sight of a little group in his own dooryard.  Saving only Uncle Sammy Bellamy, the group resolved itself into the women and children of the Hill, but there was one small figure he missed, and the color faded from his cheeks while his heart stood still.  The patriarch hurried toward him, leaning on his cane, while his grandson clung to the skirts of his coat, weeping bitterly.

“They’ve took your nevvy, Bob!” he cried, in a high, thin voice.

“Who’s took him?” asked Yancy hoarsely.  He paused and glanced from one to another of the little group.

“Hit were Dave Blount.  Get your gun, Bob, and go after him—­kill the miserable sneaking cuss!” cried Uncle Sammy, who believed in settling all difficulties by bloodshed as befitted a veteran of the first war with England, he having risen to the respectable rank of sergeant in a company of Morgan’s riflemen; while at sixty-odd in ’12, when there was recruiting at the Cross Roads, his son had only been able to prevent his tendering his services to his country by hiding his trousers.  “Fetch his rifle, some of you fool women!” cried Uncle Sammy.  “By the Fayetteville Road, Bob, not ten minutes ago—­you can cut him off at Ox Road forks!”

Yancy breathed a sigh of relief.  The situation was not entirely desperate, for, as Uncle Sammy said, he could reach the Ox Road forks before Blount possibly could, by going as the crow flies through the pine woods.