That grant, he thought, had taken from him his rights.  He would destroy it—­he would tear it into bits, and cast it to the turbulent mountain winds.  It was not his, to be sure.  But was it justly Nate’s?—­he had no right to enter the land down the ravine.

And so Birt argued with his conscience.

Now wherever Conscience calls a halt, it is no place for Reason to debate the question.  The way ahead is no thoroughfare.

Birt did not recognize the tearing of the paper as stealing, but he knew that all this was morally wrong, although he would not admit it.  He would not forego his revenge—­it was too dear; he was too deeply injured.  In the anger that possessed his every faculty, he did not appreciate its futility.

There were other facts which he did not know.  He was ignorant that the deed which he contemplated was a crime in the estimation of the law, a penitentiary offense.

And toward this terrible pitfall he trudged in the darkness, saying over and again to himself, “I’ll git even with Nate Griggs; he’ll hev no grant, no land, no gold—­no more ’n me.  I’ll git even with him.”

His progress seemed incredibly slow as he groped along the path.  But the rain soon ceased; the wind began to scatter the clouds; through a rift he saw a great, glittering planet blazing high above their dark turmoils.

How the drops pattered down as the wind tossed the laurel!—­once they sounded like footfalls close behind him.  He turned and looked back into the obscurities of the forest.  Nothing—­a frog had begun to croak far away, and the vibrations of the katydid were strident on the damp air.

And here was the tanyard, a denser area of gloom marking where the house and shed stood in the darkness.  He did not hesitate.  He stepped over the bars, which lay as usual on the ground, and walked across the yard to the shed.  The eaves were dripping with moisture.  But the coat, still hanging within on the peg, was dry.

He had a thrill of repulsion when he touched it.  His hand fell.

“But look how Nate hev treated me,” he remonstrated with his conscience.

The next moment he had drawn the grant half-way out of the pocket, and as he moved he almost stepped upon something close behind him.  All at once he knew what it was, even before a flash of the distant lightning revealed a little tow-head down in the darkness, and a pair of black eyes raised to his in perfect confidence.

It was the little sister who had followed him to-night, as she always did when she could.

“Stand back thar, Tennessee!” he faltered.

He was trembling from head to foot.  And yet Tennessee was far too young to tell that she had seen the grant in his hands, to understand, even to question.  But had he been seized by the whole Griggs tribe, he could not have been so panic-stricken as he was by the sight of that unknowing little head, the touch of the chubby little hand on his knee.