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Isom’s paleness was unnoticed in the dark. The old throbbing began to beat again at his temple; the old haze started from his eyes.

“Hyeh’s yer gun, Isom,” he heard Steve saying next. The fire was blazing into his face. At the chimney-corner was the bent figure of old Daddy Marcum, and across his lap shone a Winchester. Steve was pointing at it, his grim face radiant; the old man’s toothless mouth was grinning, and his sharp black eyes were snapping up at him.

“Hit’s yourn, I tell ye,” said Steve again. “I aimed jes to lend it to ye, but ye’ve saved me frum gittin’ killed, mebbe, ‘n’ hit’s yourn now–yourn, boy, fer keeps.”

Steve was holding the gun out to him now. The smooth cold touch of the polished barrel thrilled him. It made everything for an instant clear again, and feeling weak, Isom sat down on the bed, gripping the treasure in both trembling hands. On one side of him some one was repeating Steve’s plan of attack. Old Brayton’s cabin was nearly opposite, but they would go up the river, cross above the mill, and ride back. The night was cloudy, but they would have the moonlight now and then for the climb up the mountain. They would creep close, and when the moon was hid they would run in and get old Brayton alive, if possible. Then–the rest was with Steve.

Across the room he could hear Steve telling the three new-comers, with an occasional curse, about Crump’s blind, and how he knew that old Brayton was hiring Crump.

“Old Steve’s meaner ‘n Eli,” he said to himself, and a flame of the old hate surged up from the fire of temptation in his heart. Steve Marcum was his best friend; Steve had shielded him. The boy had promised to join him against old Brayton, and here was the Winchester, brand-new, to bind his word.

“Git ready, boys; git ready.”

It was Steve’s voice, and in Isom’s ears the preacher’s voice rang after it. Again that blinding mist before his eyes, and the boy brushed at it irritably. He could see the men buckling cartridge-belts, but he sat still. Two or three men were going out. Daddy Marcum was leaning on a chair at the door, looking eagerly at each man as he passed.

“Hain’t ye goin’, Isom?”

Somebody was standing before him twirling a rifle on its butt, a boy near Isom’s age. The whirling gun made him dizzy.

“Stop it!” he cried, angrily. Old Daddy Marcum was answering the boy’s question from the door.

“Isom goin’?” he piped, proudly. “I reckon he air. Whar’s yer belt, boy? Git ready. Git ready.”

Isom rose then–he could not answer sitting down–and caught at a bedpost with one hand, while he fumbled at his throat with the other.

“I hain’t goin’.”

Steve heard at the door, and whirled around. Daddy Marcum was tottering across the floor, with one bony hand uplifted.

“You’re a coward!” The name stilled every sound. Isom, with eyes afire, sprang at the old man to strike, but somebody caught his arm and forced him back to the bed.

“Shet up, dad,” said Steve, angrily, looking sharply into Isom’s face. “Don’t ye see the boy’s sick? He needn’t go ef he don’t want to. Time to start, boys.”

The tramp of heavy boots started across the puncheon floor and porch again. Isom could hear Steve’s orders outside; the laughs and jeers and curses of the men as they mounted their horses; he heard the cavalcade pass through the gate, the old man’s cackling good-by; then the horses’ hoofs going down the mountain, and Daddy Marcum’s hobbling step on the porch again. He was standing in the middle of the floor, full in the firelight, when the old man reached the threshold–standing in a trance, with a cartridge-belt in his hand.

“Good fer you, Isom–“

The cry was apologetic, and stopped short.

“The critter’s fersakcn,” he quavered, and cowed by the boy’s strange look, the old man shrank away from him along the wall. But Isom seemed neither to see nor hear. He caught up his rifle, and, wavering an instant, tossed it with the belt on the bed and ran out the door. The old man followed, dumb with amazement.