"Anything ye've got ter talk ter me about, George Lescott kin hear,"
said the youth, defiantly. "I hain't got no secrets." He was heir to
his father's leadership, and his father had been unquestioned. He meant
to stand uncompromisingly on his prerogatives.

For an instant, the old miller's keen eyes hardened obstinately. After
Spicer and Samson South, he was the most influential and trusted of the
South leaders--and Samson was still a boy. His ruggedly chiseled
features were kindly, but robustly resolute, and, when he was angered,
few men cared to face him. For an instant, a stinging rebuke seemed to
hover on his lips, then he turned with a curt jerk of his large head.

"All right. Suit yourselves. I've done warned ye both. We 'lows ter
talk plain."

The mill, dating back to pioneer days, sat by its race with its shaft
now idle. About it, the white-boled sycamores crowded among the huge
rocks, and the water poured tumultuously over the dam. The walls of
mortised logs were chinked with rock and clay. At its porch, two
discarded millstones served in lieu of steps. Over the door were
fastened a spreading pair of stag-antlers. It looked to Lescott, as he
approached, like a scrap of landscape torn from some medieval picture,
and the men about its door seemed medieval, too; bearded and gaunt,
hard-thewed and sullen.

All of them who stood waiting were men of middle age, or beyond. A
number were gray-haired, but they were all of cadet branches. Many of
them, like Wile McCager himself, did not bear the name of South, and
Samson was the eldest son of the eldest son. They sat on meal-whitened
bins and dusty timbers and piled-up sacks. Several crouched on the
ground, squatting on their heels, and, as the conference proceeded,
they drank moonshine whiskey, and spat solemnly at the floor cracks.