initial commit of ebook 36047HEADmain

15 files changed, 30605 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/36047-8.txt b/36047-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8136d8b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10130 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Red Debt, by Everett MacDonald,
+Illustrated by William Oberhardt
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Red Debt
+       Echoes from Kentucky
+
+
+Author: Everett MacDonald
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 6, 2011  [eBook #36047]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED DEBT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Garcia, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
+available by Kentuckiana Digital Library (http://kdl.kyvl.org/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 36047-h.htm or 36047-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36047/36047-h/36047-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36047/36047-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Kentuckiana Digital Library. See
+      http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;view=toc;idno=b92-232-31280811
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RED DEBT
+
+Echoes from Kentucky
+
+by
+
+EVERETT MACDONALD
+
+Illustrations from Original Drawings of William Oberhardt
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+G. W. Dillingham Co.
+New York
+
+_The Red Debt_
+
+Copyright, 1916,
+By G. W. Dillingham Company
+All Rights Reserved
+
+Published April, 1916
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+Linotype Composition, Electrotypes, Presswork and Binding
+By the J. J. Little & Ives Company
+425-435 East 24th Street
+New York City
+N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+    WITH UNUTTERABLE LOVE I DEDICATE
+            THIS VOLUME TO
+              My Mother
+             _THE AUTHOR_
+
+
+[Illustration: "... use me as best you can for a grandfather?"]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+         I A Mighty Man
+
+        II Belle-Ann Benson
+
+       III The Traitor
+
+        IV An Ultimatum
+
+         V Orlick's money Spurned
+
+        VI Upon the Altar
+
+       VII Dedicated with his Blood
+
+      VIII "Lessen he kills the Revenuer"
+
+        IX Orlick works Evil
+
+         X In Prison
+
+        XI A Friend in Need
+
+       XII The Stigma
+
+      XIII Rubric Drops
+
+       XIV "The onlyest Lutts"
+
+        XV Buddy forces an Issue
+
+       XVI The Murder Partners
+
+      XVII Circuit Court
+
+     XVIII The Graveyard Massacre
+
+       XIX Hatfield overtakes the Traitor
+
+        XX In the Hands of the Enemy
+
+       XXI "Draw--now--Coward!"
+
+      XXII The Mission School
+
+     XXIII Belle-Ann visits Lexington
+
+      XXIV The Guest of a Grandee
+
+       XXV Know Ye the Truth
+
+      XXVI Belle-Ann has a Vision
+
+     XXVII A Grandfather
+
+    XXVIII A Confession
+
+      XXIX The Red Debt
+
+       XXX The Shooting of Peter Burton
+
+      XXXI In which Slab prophesies
+
+     XXXII The Near Assassin
+
+    XXXIII Belle-Ann comes back
+
+     XXXIV The Reunion
+
+      XXXV The Downfall of Sap McGill
+
+     XXXVI Belle-Ann's Recanted Creed
+
+    XXXVII The Ghost-Man
+
+   XXXVIII The Haunted Church
+
+     XXXIX The Flight
+
+        XL His Rock of Ages
+
+       XLI In which Providence takes a Hand
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+   "... use me as best you can for a grandfather?"
+
+   "Yo' know where _they_ be"
+
+   "He kilt my maw--he ded--an' he kilt my pap"
+
+   "Who air th' head o' th' people--who air Cap'in heah in Moon?"
+
+   "Hit air God's buryin' now"
+
+
+
+
+THE RED DEBT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A MIGHTY MAN
+
+
+No imagery can adequately picture the profound grandeur and wide wild
+beauty of these Kentucky highlands. At the age when its purity was
+whitest, a great moon hung midway between Southpaw peak and Moon
+mountain. Its divine splendor, unalloyed with any tithe of partisanship,
+laved with a mystic luster these two primeval ranges that had scowled
+impenitently at each other, behind their mask of flowers and tinseled
+verdure, across the lethal gulch separating them, for fifty
+blood-touched, feudal years.
+
+This wondrous effulgence purged every exposed crevice, naked rock and
+open cove with its chastity. On the ground underneath the patch-quilt of
+virgin petals and emerald leafage, it peopled a theatre of animated
+pictures. And the coppice pooled the shadows, creating a hippodrome of
+transitory caricatures, fanciful, grotesque and fearful. Each sullen
+moss-hooded boulder flung its distorted, exaggerated image down and
+fixed a creeping mummy hard by.
+
+Still another white beacon leaned over the hills where, like a stellar
+flambeau, the lead-star trembled and sputtered, kindled just on the apex
+of Henhawk's knob. The chasm that furrowed between and, topographically,
+held these two warring communities apart, sunk its rock-lined bed sheer
+two hundred feet below. Through this sinuous adamantine artery the head
+waters of Hellsfork dashed in rampant flight, beating themselves into a
+madness against a troup of gigantic, orange-tinctured boulders polished
+glassy by the torrents Nature had unloosed at the beginning of time.
+
+The onrushing wavelets leaped like furious creatures at these menacing
+things which evermore preyed upon their foaming, impotent wrath; shaping
+crystal goblets that bubbled over and burst, and flung showers of
+magical frothy flowers aloft. From across the silvery expanse of
+spectral mist that overhung the mountains, near and afar, a hundred
+voices of the wilderness night were calling.
+
+That this barnacle of blood-lust should leech itself upon the fair face
+of a modern civilization; that in this nineteen hundred and twelve epoch
+of obeisant civism, hedged about with emollient Christian culture--such
+a vast stratum of malignant strife should coil here, hidden amidst a
+congress of Nature's sublime artistry, is an irony at once awesome and
+hopelessly insoluble. Nevertheless, immured upon natural ramifications
+on the shoulder of Moon mountain, old Cap Lutts, a strategist and
+mountain despot of kingly renown, dominated as the head of an implacable
+dynasty that boded ill to inimical invaders; be it agents of the
+government or spies of the shaggy Southpaw clan where Sap McGill, who
+had stepped into his father's war shoes at the end of their last fatal
+encounter with Cap Lutts, now marshalled his horde of bush-whackers,
+bent upon the speedy annihilation of the Lutts folk, kith and kin.
+
+Supported on a platform-like plot projecting from the hip of Moon
+mountain, the domicile of old Lutts stood out in the moonlight, traced
+in silver brocade against a somber ribbon of scrub timber that girded
+the waist of the mountain.
+
+From the Lutts abode the eye traveled for miles along the gorge to the
+right. To the left the chasm cut deeper into the hills, until it ended
+in the valley where Boon Creek and Hellsfork intersected; where the
+paw-paws and the ferns, the weeping willows and the familiar, unnamed
+flowers were luxuriant.
+
+Straight ahead, traversing the dry bed of a blind gulch, a train of
+pigmy peaks, left dun and naked by a river dead a thousand years, rose
+up and bared their serried spurs like hound's teeth.
+
+On the opposite side of Hellsfork, lifted the stupendous Southpaw
+range--the stronghold of the enemy--rearing its savage peaks higher and
+higher, piling upward and onward until they pierced the myriad stars;
+then tumbled downward into the russet realms of lilac mist.
+
+Beyond the Lutts cabin and towering above it, a single monster boulder
+jutted outward from the perpendicular wall of granite and hung
+perilously over sheer space. This freakish rock, known as Eagle Crown,
+looked like a ragged punctuation pause in a folk-lore story; a relic
+tossed on high by some legendary, boastful giant.
+
+The wonder was how Cap Lutts gained its forbidding lofty platform, for
+surely there was no visible means of ascent. Howbeit, Eagle Crown had
+been the old man's retreat for sixty-odd years. This imperishable shelf
+of granite offered him sanctuary when travail and sorrow, that weighted
+his life, pressed hard upon him. There he had spent his moody hours
+since boyhood. There his father and his great-grandfather had gone to be
+alone. And there to-night, high up and alone, his majestic form was
+silhouetted plainly against the sky.
+
+A mighty man, this Lutts. At seventy-six he stood six feet seven
+inches--straight as an arrow; a seasoned ball-bearing pyramid of big
+bones, mounted with iron-fibered muscles; and a drop of chilled steel
+for a fighting heart. In the premises of peace, this same heart swelled
+up to proportions of compassion and generosity that named him father of
+all the community north of Hellsfork--a man who never failed his people;
+one to whom they hurried with their woes when they needed material help,
+succor, sympathy and protection.
+
+From this height, the old man fondly turned his eyes downward toward the
+clearing that now held his sacred treasure--a log church. There, high up
+toward heaven, in the profundity of his loneness, only God knew this
+somber, silent man's thoughts--this feud-hunted, law-hounded man whose
+soul brimmed with his own religion; whose being was wrapped about with
+that which he took for the right; whose heart spurned all that he
+thought wrong.
+
+His so-called bandit-spirit was insulated with the convictions of his
+own peculiar faith. His every utterance and deed were tempered with the
+tenets of a unique creed handed down by his mountain fore-fathers. In
+his heart there murmured a runic cadence, the language of which was only
+interpreted by the omnipotent, all-merciful Over-soul.
+
+Why the menacing hand of an outer world was lifted against him was a
+problem he had long since despaired of solving. Fondly now he gazed down
+toward the spot where the new cedar clapboards of the meeting-house
+shimmered like a disk of true gold beneath the moon's whiteness;
+beckoning to him with an insistence that stirred his stoic heart to its
+depths.
+
+A tender look softened the old man's opaque mask-like features, as
+fumbling in his shirt-pocket and bringing forth a worn tintype picture
+of a woman, swathed in buckskin, he held it to the moon's rays and for a
+full minute peered tenderly at the kindly pictured eyes and smiling
+lips. Then, clasping the tintype reverently between his two mighty
+hands, he leaned against the natural buttress at his back, and his great
+head, crowned with its hoary white mane, was bowed down.
+
+"To-morry--to-morry," he whispered, and he knew that the picture smiled
+forgivingly and happily back to him.
+
+With the proceeds of moonshine whiskey, backed by the brawn of heredity
+and a righteous purpose, old Cap Lutts had at last realized the dream of
+two lives--his own and that of his dead wife, Maw Lutts. Although
+grievously late, he had now moulded this double dream into a tangible
+reality; for now before him, in the center of the clearing at the
+frowsy, feudal base of Moon mountain, and just where the rabid waters of
+Hellsfork leaped like live, wild things in their down-grade race across
+forty-odd rugged miles of Kentucky, this grizzled hillman viewed in
+sober, pious exultation, the product of his log church, all but
+finished.
+
+A church is an acquisition strangely alien to this mountain-piled
+country, where the strategy of family wars and illicit distilling is
+religiously pursued. Nevertheless, he and Maw Lutts had dreamed in
+unison for years and had longed for the culmination of this extravagant,
+divine purpose.
+
+Formerly, it had appeared to him that the propitious hour in their
+furtive existence had not arrived, although daily he had clearly
+foreseen it in the rising sun of the morrow. Always with the firm
+intention to do, he had added postponement to delay, and another broken
+promise on the creased brow of Maw Lutts and another prayer in her
+sorrowing heart.
+
+However, the belated church was finally upon the perilous premises. Then
+with the poignant achings that many desirable citizens had felt before
+him, the old man had gone to the orchard like a penitent truce-breaker,
+where on his knees in supplicant whispers he had unfolded his tardy
+atonement and laid it like a tarnished sceptre at the woman's mute,
+unseeing grave-side.
+
+Since the majority of native adults were babies, the magic name of Cap
+Lutts was mouthed in every cabin on the border range. He held the novel
+status where popularity was abreast with notoriety. Long since the
+populace had heard of his intention to build a church. Looking across
+the epitome of delay, they told themselves that this was the first
+pledge the old man had ever made, which he had not kept, so now the
+redeeming news of Cap Lutts' finished meeting-house and the day of
+dedication had penetrated the remotest habitants of the mountains. This
+intelligence had gone hither to friend and enemy, pious and wicked
+alike, with the same mysterious agency and puzzling rapidity that
+characterizes winged warnings of the on-coming revenuer.
+
+Every man and woman in the district, big enough to pull a trigger, knew
+that he held a certain latent stock in this meeting-house. It came like
+an unknown heritage suddenly delivered. While some would,
+surreptitiously, have exchanged their interest for a mustard plaster,
+they knew that it was not negotiable. They lied aloud, but in their
+hearts they knew that sooner or later they would follow that magnetic
+spark Luttsward. They knew that they would either cross the hypnotic
+threshold of that sanctuary into the halo of sacred enlightenment, or
+halt without in the darkness of superstition and feudal malice and spend
+their ammunition to help crush it.
+
+There was no intermediate platform. There was no neutral grand-stand
+wherein the indifferent could take refuge. The populace stood either for
+or against. Even the lethargic, voteless clay-eaters sat up and took
+notice like a nest of snakes in the sunshine. The relatives and friendly
+factions representing the prospective congregation, did homage to Cap
+Lutts and clamored to make the church a success. The enemy over in
+Southpaw had already advanced the prophecy that they would take the
+meeting-house. But the flapping of feudal wings did not perturb this
+veteran hawk of the hills. His one apprehension was of the common enemy,
+the "revenuer."
+
+There was now but one day between the new church and its dedication. In
+secret service circles, down in Frankfort, it had long been mooted that
+the pet aim of Peter H. Burton was to capture old Cap Lutts.
+
+Burton had, during his service, previously captured many members of the
+Lutts faction. The commissioners were ready enough to bind them over,
+but trials never carried a conviction. Burton had even juggled cases,
+alternately, on venue writs, between the six Federal Courts in the
+Eastern District, but the Lutts blood invariably cropped up, stealthful
+and rich in sympathy, in the precincts of the petit jury room. Acquittal
+followed acquittal.
+
+But now Burton, feeling himself close upon the heels of the King of
+Moonshiners, altered his procedure and, armed with a premature change of
+venue to Frankfort, he hunted Lutts with a renewed zeal, keen and
+pleasurable.
+
+Indeed, the younger attachés of the office regarded Cap Lutts as an
+historic myth. In jest, knowing Burton's affinity for wildcat skins,
+they hinted that the Lutts in question was merely a wraith-pilot
+pointing toward new skins--a favorite platitude upon which to stage
+another hunting vacation. But to Chief Burton, the subject of this jest
+was far removed from joking premises; mainly for the adequate reason
+that he himself, like many of his predecessors, had eyed old Cap Lutts
+more than once. His corporeal being had felt Lutts' lead.
+
+Although the astute Burton had toiled a part of each season for eleven
+consecutive years on the border trail of this subtle law-breaker, Lutts
+had as yet never seen the county calaboose, or the barriers of a
+blue-grass jail. Burton had surprised him time and again, but inventory
+of these encounters always told the same trite story--the moonshiner had
+simply melted into absence.
+
+After the smoke of some of these sorties, Burton had either limped or
+loped away with hopes mounting over a trail of blood. But these red
+splotches never led to the man. This feud leader and distilling
+chieftain of the range still reigned and the stereotyped report to
+headquarters was simply dated and signed with open blanks, a form to
+apprise headquarters that the officer was still alive.
+
+Under pressure the county authorities periodically sought old Lutts. The
+times when they did find him, they merely flirted mutually with the
+faction and subsided harmlessly.
+
+With the completion of the meeting-house, Cap Lutts had attained his
+goal; nor had he suffered the neighboring denizens of the foothills to
+raise an axe, or donate a single clapboard toward the erection of this
+infantile sanctuary. It was an enshrined monument to Maw Lutts. It was a
+mural hanging against Moon mountain, the place of her birth and the
+scene of her death. It was her own cherished endowment to the
+rifle-toting, tobacco-swallowing, snuff-chewing community. It was Maw
+Lutts's and his individual, holy triumph. All Cap Lutts expected of the
+people was, he told them:
+
+"T' cum when th' ridin' pahson rid up t' ded'cate th' gawspel-house; an'
+tote thar sins t' th' altar, an' donate 'em at th' cross t' be wyshed
+'way with th' blood uv Calv'ry--an' keep on a comin' thet they mought be
+clean an' onspotted an'--Gawd an' my gun'll damn ary hillbilly what
+darst lift a han' to hender."
+
+The church represented months of hard toil, interrupted only when Cap
+Lutts fled up to the rock-ribbed pockets of the mountain or down into
+some untrodden ravine to escape Burton, the revenuer. Even in such
+intervals, the old man had sallied out into the night like the
+crag-panther, when the moon had turned white; and climbed high, with
+rifle ready and the hollow-flanked hound at his heels, to visit the
+clearing and gloat in solitude beneath the trembling stars over the
+progress of his sacred enterprise.
+
+The church itself stood on "squatted" soil. Crowned with rhododendrons
+and laurel blossoms, it reared its exotic head in defiant challenge to
+Satan, like a single star upon the horizon of feudal gloom.
+
+The level space had cost Lutts nothing but labor. The logs had cost him
+nothing but work. With his own hands and crude appliances of the back
+forests he had split, shaped and trimmed eleven thousand cedar
+clapboards; but when it came to interior finish he was extravagant and
+fastidious.
+
+The white-pine tongue-and-grooved boards that he used to make the
+platform and the altar, the window and door plates; and the wide, smooth
+planks turned into benches, all represented cash--and cash was a rarity
+in the sterile Moon mountain district. And, too, the new gold-hued bell,
+which now nestled in its cotlike belfry, about to utter its virgin
+exhortation across those Godless hills, cost money.
+
+Cap Lutts had paid this money ungrudgingly, for it was his own. Had he
+not, together with his son Lem, and Slab, the negro, and the two red
+steers, plowed the slanting plot that hung on the hip of the mountain
+and sown the grain, and tilled it, and reaped it, and carried it to the
+hidden still, where he had brewed it into money?
+
+It was Lutts's own scant, hard-earned dollars that had bought the
+boards, the nails, and the bell.
+
+True, it was not a regular church bell; but it was the largest farm bell
+he could procure and it had taken the steers five hot days to go to Flat
+Gap Junction and haul back the bell, and the nails, and the polished
+boards and glass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BELLE-ANN BENSON
+
+
+Beneath Eagle Crown the four-room cabin reposed in a shelter of
+spruce-pine, hemlock and cedar. Its plot was covered with countless
+quaint flowers and its rock-hemmed path to the horse-block in front was
+lined with pink wild roses and forget-me-nots. Here the creeping ivy and
+honeysuckle ran wild.
+
+Although the mound of Maw Lutts, in the scrub orchard behind the log
+barn, was green again for the third time, her beloved flowers had come
+back to earth each year with reassuring, tender messages for Belle-Ann
+Benson, who had adopted them and had nourished and tended and cherished
+them with a pathetic devotion.
+
+Belle-Ann knew their language well. And when they died--more than at any
+other season--the kindly, smiling face of old Maw Lutts followed the
+girl all through the chilly fall days.
+
+It was Belle-Ann who had folded Maw Lutts's two hands, one upon the
+other, back on that terrible day. It was Belle-Ann whom the men found
+after the battle, crouching in despair over the dear, still form lying
+in the yard, and crying out to God for Him to make the mute lips speak
+back to her.
+
+Belle-Ann had never known her own mother, but she had found a mother in
+Maw Lutts. So it was Belle-Ann who fed the martins, and encouraged the
+wild birds, and the tame squirrels Maw Lutts had loved.
+
+The Lutts family now consisted of the old man, two boys, the adopted
+girl and an old negro who had fled from Lexington when a boy, in the
+first days of the Rebellion, and who subsequently had found sanctuary at
+the Lutts abode. He had been permitted to remain because no form of
+persuasion could induce him to leave the premises, once fed, and had the
+distinction of being the only negro on Hellsfork.
+
+Belle-Ann was a daughter by proxy, since her own mother had died in her
+babyhood and Maw Lutts had opened her heart and home to the child.
+Belle-Ann was now some months past sixteen and her unusual physical
+beauty was noted throughout the mountain community and wondered at by
+the few strangers who chanced to reach the isolated cabin on Moon
+mountain.
+
+To-night the girl dropped a wooden bucket and gourd after watering the
+plants, and walked briskly over the carpet of shadows, stepped out under
+the radiant moon and stood gazing intently up to Eagle Crown, where she
+saw the magnified outlines of Cap Lutts against the sky.
+
+Near by a huge witch-elm butt, sawed into three steps, shaped a
+horse-block. Upon the topmost step of the block she seated herself. Her
+brow puckered slightly and she waited with an expectant air. Even the
+pale moonlight revealed her marked loveliness.
+
+Her form was tall for sixteen, with that subtle grace wholly
+undefinable. Clinging about her head and mantling her shoulders, a mass
+of natural curls clustered in riotous abundance, shimmering like
+polished ebony in the moon's rays.
+
+Her features were chiseled with a delicate, hellenic touch, and sweetly
+oval. Her thin nose was straight and short and small; and her red mouth
+told of unfathomable depths of emotion. Her wide, limpid eyes were like
+two blue patches of early June sky.
+
+Her sleeves were short of her dimpled elbows, and her skirt reached
+scarce below her knees. Her graceful legs were bare, but her little feet
+were incased in neat, cow-hide moccasins with the hair on, laced and
+thonged about her round ankles.
+
+A great measure of the girl's physical beauty had been transmitted by
+her mother, who had been a gentle blue-grass woman, of noted beauty and
+lineage, and who had in a fit of pique, married the picturesque trapper
+of the Cumberlands and buried herself in her unloved husband's
+wilderness existence.
+
+Many pathetic tales were told of the great-hearted Tom-John Benson's
+patient struggle to make his wife happy; but the most beautiful woman
+the mountain people had ever seen had pined away and had gone to an
+early end.
+
+Belle-Ann's father now worked for a lumber company, down on the Big
+Sandy. It was only now that he had saved sufficient money to send
+Belle-Ann to the mission school at Proctor, and so fulfil his wife's
+last request.
+
+Belle-Ann had heard the news only three hours ago.
+
+Jutt Orlick, returning from one of his mysterious, periodical visits
+abroad, had stopped to say that her father had sent word that he would
+come for her the following week and take her to the school at Proctor.
+And Orlick, whom the girl distrusted, had not departed without the usual
+flattery she always half resented.
+
+As Belle-Ann sat on the horse-block her little heart was prey to many
+emotions, and she was well-nigh reduced to tears.
+
+Impatient to tell the tidings, she was waiting for the boys, who had
+been away since early morning, and for the old man to come down from his
+lofty station. From the cabin door a vague, lank shape came toward her
+through the shadows.
+
+"Yo', Slab!" she called.
+
+"Heah me!" responded an old treble voice from the dappled path.
+
+When Slab reached the horse-block, although he said nothing to the girl,
+he took a posture that indicated pointedly that he expected something of
+her; and she slipped from the horse-block and sat down on the big
+grapevine family bench a few feet distant.
+
+Here a blind hound appeared and, feeling his way slowly and uncertainly,
+laid his old muzzle in the girl's lap and raised his sightless eyes to
+where he knew her face must be.
+
+Then Slab took Belle-Ann's place on the witch-elm block and produced his
+beloved instrument--a cross between guitar and banjo, self-made of gut
+and a gourd. Just as he had done every fair night for years, he was
+ready to sing his favorite song.
+
+He maintained vigorously that if he sat elsewhere than on the
+horse-block the banjo fell bewitched and refused to answer its master's
+fingers.
+
+Tentatively, he plucked the strings; then launched abruptly into the
+song he had rendered for years--a sad and stirring melody, telling the
+early love-story that had been his before the days of emancipation:
+
+    "You ask what makes this darky weep,
+      Why he, like others, is not gay?
+    What makes the tears roll down his cheek,
+      From early morn till close of day?
+    My story, darkies, you shall hear,
+      For in my memory fresh it dwells,
+    'Twill cause you then to drop a tear
+      On the grave of my sweet Kitty Wells."
+
+When the notes had died away Belle-Ann spoke up:
+
+"Slab, ef pap er th' boys don't cum short now, I'll blow th' horn, I
+reckon."
+
+"No--no, honey; doan yo' blow dat horn. Yo' let dat horn blow itse'f if
+it's got t' blow; but doan you blow it, honey. Yo' jist let pap
+be--he'll cum heah soon. 'Sides, ain't Slab heah wif yo', honey--ain't
+Slab heah?"
+
+The old negro picked the strings with a preface to the second verse of
+"Kitty Wells," his condolence being entirely lost on Belle-Ann.
+
+As he gathered a solemn breath to begin, the disconsolate girl, sitting
+on the vine-bench in the moonlight, raised a protesting hand and stopped
+him.
+
+"Slab, ef I don't blow th' horn I jest got t' cry."
+
+Slab settled the banjo jerkily between his long, thin legs and rolled
+indulgent eyes upon her.
+
+"Now, looky heah, honey; yo' ain't gwine t' take on so, is you? Yo'
+oughter be tickled inter a keniption fit, yo' ought, 'stead of actin'
+up. Why, honey, jist give praise to de good Lord dat yo' at las' got de
+chanst! Yo'll cum back home powerful smart an' edicated, like my missus
+wus 'fore de war.
+
+"An' when a li'le gal gits edication, she naturally gits purttier; an'
+if yo' gits purttier dan yo' is now--why, honey, yo'll shore cum back er
+angel! Now, doan be pesticatin'. Smile up, smile up! Gwine t' school
+ain't gwine t' kill nobudy."
+
+As Slab concluded these cheering words, he poised his banjo again and as
+his lips parted the girl stopped him with a gesture.
+
+"Slab, air thes my heart heah--right heah?" she queried, pressing a hand
+upon her breast.
+
+"Sho', honey!" Slab assured her testily, striving to disguise his own
+impatience. "Now, tell me why yo' ax dat--jist tell Slab what fer yo' ax
+sich er sorry question noways?"
+
+"Slab, I 'low my heart'll burst in two when I got t' go 'way!" she
+returned unsteadily, her black-fringed lids blinking bravely to keep
+back the mist that would creep across the violet of her eyes.
+
+Slab gazed at her speechless, and heaved a hopeless sigh.
+
+Tenderly, Belle-Ann lifted the blind hound's reluctant head from her
+lap, stepped nearer to the old negro, and held a profound, exacting
+finger close to his face.
+
+"Slab, will yo' promise me somethin'? I kin trust yo'-all, Slab, ef yo'
+promise ag'inst the witch. Will yo' promise Belle-Ann somethin', Slab?"
+urged the girl, and her sweet bell-voice fell subdued and imploring.
+
+Slab's mouth opened slowly and he hesitated. He would have died for
+Belle-Ann; but he was much opposed to dragging in the witch, because he
+feared to make his sacred witch a party to any contract that carried the
+slightest chance of rupture, and thereby hold him to eternal reprisal.
+
+"Will yo' promise thes, Slab?" the girl urged solemnly.
+
+"Air yo' sho' I kin do it, honey?" he probed, loose-lipped and with eyes
+that rolled wider.
+
+"Sho' yo' kin!"
+
+"Ez yo' say I kin do it, me promises," he assented dubiously.
+
+"Cross yo' heart on th' witch-block!" she demanded.
+
+He solemnized the pledge with a gnarled and bony hand, and the girl's
+eyes welled full and her throat pained.
+
+"Slab, yo' must promise to be good to ol' Ben heah--feed em an' bed em
+reg'lar, but don't give em no cracklin's. An', Slab, yo' must promise to
+pick the flowers every Sabbath, jest like I alers do--yo' knows the ones
+well's I do--pertic'lar th' for-get-me-nots over yon by th' grind-stone.
+Yo' must pick 'em in th' mornin' early, Slab--every Sabbath--an' put 'em
+on Maw Lutts's grave. Will yo' fergit?"
+
+A deep breath relieved Slab's tenseness as he agreed effusively.
+
+"Lord, goodness! Yo' jist leave it t' Slab, honey! He do dat ebry single
+Sabbaf!"
+
+"An', Slab, when hit gits cold an' th' leaves air gone an' th' flowers
+air all daid, yo' must pick th' geraniums outer th' boxes inside an' put
+'em on Maw's grave--an' when hit gits powerful cold an' snows hard an'
+th' snow gits piled up on Maw's grave--would yo' care--would yo' go,
+Slab, an'--an'--an'--push hit off--an'----"
+
+Her petitions thickened, tumbled together in her aching throat, and
+refused to cross her trembling lips.
+
+She turned away quickly. At the log bench she sank slowly down with her
+black head in her arm. The heavy curls clustered around her face and
+caressed her neck. She sobbed in soft, whimpering outbursts.
+
+The blind hound thrust his nose questioningly into her lap, licking her
+free hand, and caught the tears from her young heart warm upon his gray
+face. He whined aloud and reached for her wet cheek.
+
+The old negro fumbled at random and did not speak.
+
+Turning, he looked upward to where Cap Lutts sat in the flood of
+moonlight on the palm of rock; as silent and motionless as the inanimate
+pillar of granite under him. Slab's eyes wandered down to the trail and
+he spoke hastily to the distressed girl.
+
+"Honey, heah cum de boys!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE TRAITOR
+
+
+Belle-Ann jumped instantly to her feet, looked, brushed her eyes with
+her hand, and hastened to meet them, her curls bobbing and her bare legs
+and arms gleaming in the moon's luster.
+
+Little Bud turned off toward the cabin, but Lem's tall figure came
+straight ahead.
+
+"Lem," she cried excitedly, "I got t' go--dad sent word by Orlick. Dad's
+a comin' heah t' take me t' th' mission school. Air yo' sorry, Lem?"
+
+Lem halted as if struck. Then, recovering from the surprise, he took her
+hand and they continued toward the witch-elm block. Slab had
+disappeared.
+
+"Sho', I'm sorry, Belle-Ann," Lem answered. "Yo'-all don't 'low I'd be
+tickled t' lose yo', do yo'? But I 'low hit's fer th' best, an' yo' know
+Maw wanted hit, too," he ended, with a touch of sadness.
+
+"Yes, Lem," she agreed, "thet's why I'll try t' be brave, 'cause Maw
+Lutts alers talked t' me 'bout my schoolin' same's she did 'bout th'
+church. Lem, I do wish Maw could jest see th' new church now thet pap's
+got hit finished! Hit looks jest like she said, Lem. I 'low she'd jest
+cry fer gladness, wouldn't she?"
+
+Lem nodded absently and quickly put a question that had been waiting
+from the instant he heard of Orlick's visit.
+
+"What time ded Orlick cum?"
+
+"He cum short past sun-down," returned Belle-Ann as the two sat down on
+the bench.
+
+"Ded he parley 'bout long?"
+
+"Jest a short spell. I wouldn't talk t' em much."
+
+Lem stood up. He was long and lank, but broad of shoulder for a boy of
+eighteen. He had a pleasing, intelligent countenance, with light,
+steadfast eyes that never looked askance. He removed his wide, soft hat
+and gazed up to Eagle Crown.
+
+"Ded pap see Orlick?" he asked.
+
+Belle-Ann shook her curls in the negative.
+
+"Belle-Ann, ef yo' takes pertic'lar notice, every time Jutt Orlick cums
+t' Moon mountain somethin' alers happens--somethin' goes wrong. 'Peers
+like things starts back'ards."
+
+"I 'low he air a hoodoo," observed Belle-Ann: "but he do look
+soldierfied, don't he, Lem?" she added, with a subtle regard for
+Orlick's military aspect and his bombastic airs.
+
+Lem shot a jealous, reproachful look at the girl, turning sharply as she
+rose, and pointed down to a gap in the scrub timber, which was half
+lighted by the moon. They caught the fleeting shadow of a horseman
+mounting the trail to the cabin.
+
+"Hit's Orlick!" Lem announced.
+
+The sound of metallic hoof-strokes came rapid and distinct. When the
+rider had looped the spur they beheld the front of Orlick's horse coming
+head on up the moon-path, his hocks now in the air. As always, Orlick
+had flank-spurred his mount on the last lap, and the animal plunged,
+panting, to the horse-block, and brought up stiff-legged, with
+red-rimmed nostrils and distended jaws, fighting a cruel Spanish bit.
+
+Orlick rolled out of the Mexican saddle, laughed shortly, and drawled:
+
+"Howdy, yo'-all?" and smirked as he always did. "I hain't seen yo'-all
+in a coon's age, Lem," he added cordially, though his evil eyes were
+upon the girl as he extended his hand in greeting.
+
+Lem Lutts touched the outstretched hand briefly.
+
+Belle-Ann stood aloof with a look of suspicious admiration on her lovely
+countenance.
+
+"I hain't seen yo'-all 'bout much nuther," answered Lem, with a
+contemptuous scrutiny of Orlick's brave trappings. Orlick chuckled.
+
+"Yes--I'm gittin' over th' country a little nowadays. But, say, Lem, I
+cum up to tell ye thar's a stranger down at th' cypress cut what wants
+to come up. He's down yonder now a waitin'. He's got some business with
+the cap'n."
+
+Belle-Ann shrank away, shuddering.
+
+"I rec'on hit's Burton, th' ghost-man," she muttered under her breath.
+
+Always since that memorable day when she had knelt beside Maw Lutts'
+dead body in the yard did the coming of a stranger thrill her with a
+great fear--a fear that stirred the venom that already tenanted her
+heart; a vivific thing, spawned at the killing of Maw Lutts. Time had
+never healed this wound. Time had only nurtured its corrosive, growing
+poison. Time that came to others of mankind to succor and heal, had
+never assuaged Belle-Ann's heart-hurt.
+
+Struggle as she would to forget, she only remembered that she had
+struggled, and the aching grew on. It was a silent, self-contained
+suffering,--a hatred for the law that sneaked into their home and dealt
+death. This supernatural hulk, Burton, embodied the law. Burton, this
+lupine, leering lover of blood--this killer of women.
+
+When Orlick announced that a stranger had business with the old man, the
+revenuer's ugly visage popped before the girl more vividly than ever.
+That grim hated shadow of prey darted upon her tensioned senses and made
+her shiver, sending a-scutter and a-scurry all the innate righteous
+instincts whose home had been her heart; leaving in its void a well of
+hate that congealed and turned into a live thing, that squirmed,
+burrowed, and crawled to and fro in her soul; armed with a hundred claws
+to goad and agonize and spread a misery through her young life. All this
+warped the girl's spiritual being and imperiled the beauty of her
+countenance, for at times it mingled the lettering of its presence with
+the charms of her face.
+
+Without a word, but with a significant look at Belle-Ann, Lem took the
+cow-horn suspended over his shoulder by a rawhide, pointed it upward
+toward the lone figure on the cliff and gave a long, sonorous blast.
+Instantly the solitary figure on high moved and disappeared from view.
+
+Belle-Ann drew apart, while the two men stood together, Orlick doing the
+talking, and watched for the old man to come out into the trail.
+
+There came a slight sound behind and, like a shadow, old Cap Lutts
+stepped forth under the trees and confronted them, his polished rifle
+gleaming in the moonlight, and a big, spotted hound hugging his heels.
+
+His straight, powerful form rose to giant proportions. His very presence
+pulsed keen discernment, subtle alertness, an agile, seemingly
+implacable strength and aggressive tenacity.
+
+He listened in silence as Orlick told his mission and then said quietly:
+
+"Lem, you an' Orlick go down yonder an' lead th' party up heah ef he's
+alone; if he ain't yo'-all blow the horn. An' yo', Orlick," the old man
+added, with eyes that bored into Orlick's smirking face, "what air thes
+I heered about your trapesin' around over yon in Southpaw?"
+
+Orlick shifted his weight to the other foot.
+
+"Yo'-all ain't 'lowin' to fix nothin' on Jutt Orlick--on a Orlick,
+cap'n?" he cried huskily. "Where's my pap an' four brothers--where's
+Hank an' Bill an' Tom Orlick, an' Tod an' old Elijah Lutts Orlick?
+
+"Shot to pieces heah on Hellsfork, fightin' the revenuers an' th'
+McGills! I kin lead yo' to their bones down yonder!" He pointed his
+trooper's hat trembling in his outstretched hand.
+
+"An' whut air I heah fer t'-night? Yo'-all ain't 'lowin' to fix nothin'
+on the onlyst Orlick left, cap'n?"
+
+Throughout this fervent defense not for one instant did the piercing,
+chill eyes of old Lutts leave the boy's face.
+
+"Orlick," he began slowly, "I hain't studyin' 'bout the past. Hit's the
+time a comin'. I jest axed yo', have yo' been over in Southpaw?"
+
+"Naw, I hain't!" declared Orlick, flushing slightly.
+
+"Have yo' snooked with the revenuers below?"
+
+"Not by er damn sight!"
+
+"Leastways," observed the old man as he drew back, "I 'low yo're in bad
+company, son; but ef yo' ever cross Hellsfork er I know plumb sho' thet
+yo' snook with th' revenuers below, don't never 'low me t' git eyes on
+ye', Orlick."
+
+"Don't force th' old man t' lift a hand agin' yo' pint-blank, git out o'
+th' mountings first. Now, yo' boys go an' fetch th' stranger party up.
+Ef hit's thet infernal ghost-dog revenuer, don't skeer em off--bring em
+up, quick! Ef hit's a sheriff, don't hurt his feelin's--bring em up,
+cose I'm lonesome like."
+
+Orlick fully understood the import of Cap Lutts' parting words, and,
+casting a covert look toward the cabin where he knew Belle-Ann lingered
+in the shadows, he swaggered along after Lem, leading his horse. And the
+while a bold design shaped itself in his perfidious heart as he
+pretended loyal friendship to the silent boy trudging beside him.
+
+A cloud of dark suspicion hung over the head of Jutt Orlick.
+
+Things had happened in the mountains the past two years which
+subsequently pointed accusing fingers in his direction. Unless he was
+present no one ever knew just where Orlick was.
+
+Two years since he had disappeared and come back after nine months,
+wearing soldier's garb, which he had affected ever since.
+
+He told lurid tales of his conquests and adventures with the Mexican
+revolutionists. He elaborated on the gilded splendor and the beautiful
+things that the big cities held.
+
+He recounted deeds of heroism abroad in which he was sole hero and he
+poured these fabulous tales into Belle-Ann's ears at every opportunity.
+
+At the end of his periodical migrations he always returned with a new
+horse, and sums of money that astounded the humble mountaineers.
+
+For more than two years, Orlick had been determined to possess himself
+of Belle-Ann Benson. But he resolved first to free himself of Lem Lutts.
+
+He had noted of late the subtle little courtesies exchanged between
+Belle-Ann and Lem, and he knew that they had arrived at the realization
+that they were not brother and sister. Was it not reasonable to conclude
+that, in view of the girl's beauty, it was only a matter of time before
+Lem would take Belle-Ann for his own?
+
+The mere thought stirred Orlick's hot blood to a fury, as with a scowl
+he fixed his eyes upon the figure leading the downward trail and he was
+seized with a mad impulse to shoot Lem in the back.
+
+His hand crept downward. The cool contact of steel in his holster woke
+him to his folly and he trailed along, curbing his impatience, resolved
+to follow to the letter the plan he had worked out to get Belle-Ann out
+of the mountains and away, or bring ruin down on the whole Lutts family.
+
+When Lem Lutts returned to the cabin an hour later, with a large, tired
+man and a fagged-out horse, Orlick was not with them.
+
+Old Lutts was pacing to and fro in the moonlight. He was occupied mainly
+with thoughts of his new church and the dedication on Sunday.
+
+The stranger below was to him a matter of secondary concern. He had been
+a hunted man all his life. Therefore, there was neither novelty nor
+consternation in the reflection.
+
+The old man stalked up to the horse-block and greeted the stranger.
+
+"Howdy? Sort o' warmish t'-night. Whut mought be yo'-all's business
+seein' me?"
+
+"This is Mr. Lutts, I take it?" ventured the newcomer.
+
+"Thes air ol' Cap Lutts, o' Moon mountain," corrected the old man in a
+precise tone.
+
+"Yes, certainly," continued the man hastily. "Well, captain, I'm a
+deputy sheriff. I was despatched to see you and deliver a message from
+the sheriff."
+
+Here he revealed his shield, then unbuckled his belt, containing a pair
+of pistols, and hung them over the saddle-tree.
+
+"And, captain," he pursued wearily but genially, "I'm dog tired. I've
+been five hours coming up the last five miles. Can I talk with you a
+bit, captain?"
+
+The old man, who had listened intently, spoke up now, and there was a
+touch of sarcasm in his drawl.
+
+"Yo' air a new deputy, I 'low--hain't yo', sheriff?"
+
+"You are right. I was appointed two weeks ago, and I'll get even with
+somebody for sending me on this Godless trail--I smell some spite
+somewhere."
+
+"Wal, set down heah, sheriff, an' perceed," invited Lutts, with a
+generous gesture toward the bench.
+
+"I can state my position and my errand, captain, in very few words,"
+began the new deputy, who had plainly lost a measure of his official
+zeal along the almost impassable trail, and now appeared disgruntled.
+
+"The sheriff, the district attorney, and the collector of this district
+have gotten together and have drafted an ultimatum and I was chosen to
+deliver it to you and get your answer. They propose to quash all the
+various indictments now against you for illicit distilling and for
+shootings alleged through warrants by some of the McGill faction."
+
+"Both the Commonwealth, the civil and Federal authorities stand as a
+unit to clear the dockets of these charges, providing that you come down
+and sign an agreement to cease all further operations pertaining to feud
+wars and the illicit distilling of liquor and turn over all your present
+distilling property to the government. That's it in a nutshell. I just
+want your answer--yes or no, captain--and my work is done."
+
+The sheriff looked up into the inscrutable face for answer. The old man
+smiled good-humoredly and tossed his long hair backward.
+
+"I air all-fired sorry, sheriff," he responded calmly, "thet yo'-all hit
+heah so late. I want t' show yo' th' gawspel-house. I built hit all
+myself--every dang lick an' cut, sheriff; an' I air a givin' hit t'
+Kaintucky, pertic'lar these parts whar hit's needed bad like. Lem, tote
+thes hoss back an' rub em an' fresh em an' fill em an' stir thet Slab
+roun'. Tell em t' step like a catamount an' hash up a hot snack fo' th'
+sheriff. Pull a yaller young pullet offen the south limb o' th' burnt
+cedar over yon. An', Lem-boy, yo'-all tell Belle-Ann t' jog thet Slab up
+a pinch. Sheriff, yo' hain't a goin' 'way from heah, leastways till
+mornin'.
+
+"Ez I wus a sayin', sheriff, we-uns air bin a needin' a gawspel-house
+hyarbouts fo' a hundred yeers--now hit's arriv'. Thar's some powerful
+pesky folks hyarbouts, sheriff," with a deprecating gesture towards
+Southpaw.
+
+"Th' McGills mought hev j'ined in ef they'd ac'ed right. Maw wus fo'
+peace--Maw Lutts wus--Maw alers hankered fo' peace. She air up yon in
+th' groun' now. Thet damn ghost-man, Burton, kilt her!"
+
+Lutts turned his face quickly away and was silent. A huge hand slid
+coaxingly over the gleaming surface of the rifle-barrel between his
+legs.
+
+"Sheriff, hit hain't thes rifle-gun's fault--hit hain't my eye ner my
+hand, I'll swear. Sheriff, I've hit thet damn ghost-revenuer ez many
+times ez yo' see rocks at yore feet thar. He air holler inside, sheriff.
+
+"Yo' know outside shoots hain't a hurtin' nobuddy--hit's when th'
+bullets gits down in a buddy's in'ards an' gits tangled up with his
+insides thet counts. Thet revenuer hain't got no insides. He air holler,
+sheriff."
+
+The old man paused in silence, his auditor pondering the manner of man
+before him.
+
+"Ez I wus a sayin', sheriff, th' McGills mought 'a' j'ined my
+gawspel-house ef they had ac'ed half right. One Sabbath mornin', 'fore I
+built th' gawspel-house, I follered Maw Lutts down t' th' brink of
+Hellsfork, Maw a totin' a truce-flag.
+
+"I hollers across t' ol' Sap McGill; an' I says, 'Sap McGill,' I
+says--'seein' thet we-all air even up now on th' killin', ef yo'-all
+lays down I lays down.' An' Maw Lutts up an' hollers across, too, an'
+says: 'Sap McGill, ef yo'-all lays down yo' kin jine th' gawspel-house
+pap 'lows t' built on Hellsfork, an' we-uns 'll all have our sins wyshed
+away an' stop a fightin'.'
+
+"Sheriff, ol' Sap, he hollers back, quick like, an' onery ez a varmint,
+an' says: 'To hell with yore gawspel-house on Hellsfork! Hyars yo'
+answer.' An' he shot me twice 'fore I could believe he wus so low-down
+onery an' pesky as to do hit, an' Maw a holdin' up th' truce-flag! So I
+had t' kill em."
+
+The old man's eyes swept the moonlit distance that embraced the church
+as he went on.
+
+"I 'low we-uns 'll show yo' th' gawspel-house early in th' mornin',
+sheriff. Ef yo' don't 'low t' go I'll pick yo' up in my arms an' tote
+yo' down thar. Yo' got t' see hit. Thar hain't no purttier gawspel-house
+down Blue-grass."
+
+Belle-Ann stood before them.
+
+"I 'low yo'-all kin be comin' along now, pap, 'fore th' snack gits
+cold," she said shyly in her low, sweet drawl.
+
+As the men rose the sheriff caught himself ogling. Following the
+gliding, moccasined feet, he noted the grace and loveliness of her
+lithe, round form. He assured himself that he had never beheld such
+artless, unusual, natural beauty in a girl.
+
+And he pondered soberly upon a lineage of blue blood manifest in her
+face, her form, her voice, and manner.
+
+A restless murmur rippled through the cool cedars where the birds had
+gone to sleep. Cautiously a small shape with wizened face slid from out
+the mystic shadows, lugging a rifle twice his length. Even for his
+eleven years, Buddy Lutts was undersized.
+
+His body was thin and small. His reasoning was little. But his heart was
+big with hate for that devil-thing, the law. He vanished as noiselessly
+and furtively as he had come. Little Bud had overheard every word the
+sheriff had uttered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN ULTIMATUM
+
+
+A veil of azure morning mist lingered at the apex of Henhawk's knob. A
+young eagle--aggressively bold in his youth--sallied forth into the
+mystic dawn, setting himself high on Eagle Crown rock, and surveyed the
+dim world with a challenge in his blinkless agate eye. The air was
+fragrant with the perfume of a thousand blossoms.
+
+Splashes of crimson and gold dappled the east, and a great sun shot its
+lances of molten glory beyond the mountain-tops.
+
+Before the sun showed half its russet disk the deputy sheriff sat his
+horse at the witch-elm block in front of the Lutts cabin, preparatory to
+departure.
+
+The Lutts household, including Slab, was on hand with hospitable
+farewells--though little Bud hung back suspiciously.
+
+At no time during the sheriff's stop had Cap Lutts uttered a word of
+reference to the business that had brought the officer to his door. Nor
+had the sheriff broached the subject again. With keen understanding and
+quick insight he waited patiently for the answer to his mission.
+
+But now, as he sat his horse on the verge of departure, he looked at old
+Lutts expectantly and with direct inquiry in his eyes. Lutts caught the
+import, and answered with small concern.
+
+"Oh, yes! Yo' jest tell th' sheriff an' them revenuers down below thet
+ef they want th' ole man bad 'nough, t' cum up an' root em out."
+
+The deputy knew this was final, and as the old moonshiner's great hand
+closed over his in parting the officer secretly hoped that the arm of
+the law would fall short of the Lutts domicile.
+
+"Well, captain, I'm afraid they'll start something below--especially
+that man over from Frankfort--that Burton. He's awful determined, and he
+blames us some. Good-by!"
+
+A short distance away the officer pulled up short and, turning in his
+saddle, beckoned to the old man.
+
+The deputy leaned over and spoke in undertones, as though the rocks and
+trees had ears.
+
+"Captain," he asked significantly, "is that fellow, Jutt Orlick, a
+friend of yours? Remember, I haven't said a word, captain; not a word!"
+
+For a full minute the old man stood looking after the rider. Then a new
+light was added to his fixed suspicion of Jutt Orlick.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+High noon of the following day found Orlick riding slowly, with loose
+rein, up the twisted trail toward the Lutts cabin. His horse was
+lathered and blown.
+
+He had covered the rugged distance from the junction since dawn, where
+he had held all-night counsel with Peter Burton, the revenuer.
+
+With astuteness and cunning Orlick had instigated a conspiracy that
+would have done credit to a city-bred malefactor, and for which Burton
+praised him extravagantly and, incidentally, liquorously.
+
+Burton had offered to secure Orlick an appointment as deputy marshal in
+the eighth district at Danville as recompense for his espionage and
+treason against his people. But even Orlick's audacious spirit cast the
+thought of this honor out of his mind decisively, and not without a
+shudder.
+
+Providing the raid succeeded, upon the plea that Orlick feared the
+Luttses, Burton had pledged himself to keep Lem and old Captain Lutts in
+jail to the last technical hour. He further promised to frustrate any
+attempt at communication with the Lutts faction and intercept any
+messages that they might attempt to launch from the prison.
+
+Burton confided to Orlick that his chief aim now was to capture and take
+the Luttses to Frankfort, out of the jurisdiction of the county, and
+isolate them from the subtle influences that had always favored them in
+the surrounding counties.
+
+The revenuer admitted that he entertained grave doubts as to taking old
+Captain Lutts alive; but he hoped to capture Lem Lutts, at any rate, and
+break the boy's stoic spirit and coerce him into disclosing the
+whereabouts of the old still that had flooded Hellsfork with moonshine
+for two decades.
+
+But Burton did not know Lem as Orlick knew him, and to Orlick the
+prospect of a long term of confinement for Lem Lutts was very pleasing.
+Notwithstanding, Orlick knew that Lem would get out of jail
+subsequently, and that he--Orlick--might by then be a marked man.
+
+Orlick was fully aware that when the suspicions already against him on
+Hellsfork had shaped themselves into convincing proofs of treason, his
+life would be worth nothing in Kentucky.
+
+The Lutts faction would follow him even into the blue-grass precincts.
+They would dog him to the very threshold of the sheriff's office. His
+undoing would be swift and certain--and pitiless.
+
+But all this was now a remote contingency in the face of his unbridled
+passion for Belle-Ann, and it was with a sense of bravado that he
+realized it was a mere matter of time before the calamity of exposure
+would overtake him.
+
+But against the advent of this unerring nemesis, he banked on at least a
+few weeks, and probably a few months, during which, he told himself, he
+might win out and have Belle-Ann ensconced safely in some big city, far
+removed from the arm of the law and the limits of Kentucky.
+
+After that he did not care.
+
+He had cast the die, and had staked his life upon the outcome. If by any
+ill luck the outcome demanded his life, he stood ready to pay the toll.
+That Lem Lutts should never get Belle-Ann he had fully determined.
+
+He regretted that Peter Burton had not killed Lem long ago, as he had
+always hoped.
+
+He would have risked the chance and steered Burton up to the Lutts
+still, but he could not do so for the ample reason that he did not know
+where it was. He had known, so long as he had remained a mountaineer in
+good standing; but old Captain Lutts had moved the still in the early
+stages of Orlick's mysterious sojourns, and the faction had not since
+volunteered to tell him its whereabouts, and he was loath to jeopardize
+his own skin in looking for it.
+
+However, while Orlick was serving Burton, he had served himself doubly.
+The smooth, unruffled manner in which his plans were unfolding up to
+date filled him with high glee, and his spirits soared to the skies.
+
+Wild and desolate as this wilderness country is, it is nevertheless
+almost impossible for an outsider to invade its precincts without his
+presence being mysteriously communicated to the denizens of the hills.
+Whenever an invasion is accomplished secretly it is invariably
+engineered by some traitor who knows every nook and cranny in the
+mountains.
+
+But Orlick had determined to double-cross Burton and circumvent his
+plan, if Belle-Ann manifested any substantial symptom of requiting his
+suit for her hand or yielded to his persuasions.
+
+To-day as Orlick halted in the shade of a poplar to rest his spent
+horse, he rolled a cigarette contemplatively with a half smile on his
+lips. If Belle-Ann favored him, he told himself that he would remove
+every seeming obstacle that promised to come between them. This was a
+compact ratified with himself when he rolled the cigarette and smiled;
+and if he could not win her, he would at least deprive her of Lem Lutts,
+through the medium of a quick, desperate coup, the details of which he
+had already confided to Burton.
+
+As Orlick lit his cigarette, cast the match away, and hooked his right
+leg over the saddle-horn, he gave himself up to the favorite meditation
+upon which his fancy had fed for months. With a vain-glorious grunt he
+regarded his new trooper's outfit.
+
+He was exuberantly conscious of the great roll of bank-notes bulging in
+his pocket. And, too, it was all easy money. He confessed this as he
+muttered above his breath:
+
+"Dead easy--easier 'n easy!"
+
+In truth, he had never imagined that one man could get hold of so much
+money so easily as he had done since his lucky affiliations with a
+certain one-eyed gentleman known as Red Herron, who engineered a
+nocturnal business in Louisville.
+
+Money was a necessary adjunct, especially to a lover, and lent an
+atmosphere of reality to this lover's stock of artifices.
+
+Moreover, Orlick nurtured a robust desire to see Belle-Ann's physical
+beauty adorned and enhanced with smart attire in emulation of the
+handsome girls that met his admiring eyes in the streets of Louisville.
+Orlick's fancy, furthermore, had the hardihood to picture his wedding
+tour, with Belle-Ann as his wife.
+
+Their trip on a luxurious Pullman train to Omaha! Ah, how the people
+would stare at this lovely, stylish girl--his wife! And he had the money
+in his pocket at this moment, and knew where to get more.
+
+So excited was he by this scintillating dream of requited love that, as
+if to hasten to its glorious reality, he threw his foot suddenly into
+the stirrup, rolled the spur against the horse's ribs, and proceeded
+toward the Lutts abode, flushed with a mighty confidence.
+
+Nearing the cabin, Orlick's brow grew black as he thought that Lem
+Lutts's possible presence at home might thwart his conquest.
+
+A young hound, with a fore-leg bandaged in splints, lay in the shade
+near the horse-block. The dog, emitting barks of alarm, sidled up on
+three legs and sniffed suspiciously.
+
+The Lutts' dogs knew Orlick well enough, but they had always met him
+with growls of distrust, and had never become reconciled to his
+presence.
+
+Orlick cast his eyes about, but he saw no signs of the family. He
+stripped the horse; and, picking up a cob, made shift to clean the
+animal's hind quarters, where the lather had congealed into hard, salty
+cakes, while his eyes were searching the premises for the object of his
+visit.
+
+Leaving the horse to follow his own will, Orlick sat down on the bench
+and waited.
+
+He remained there for a full half-hour, in compliance with ethics of the
+mountains, which prescribes that a caller shall wait at a distance,
+especially where there are womenfolk, until invited to advance.
+
+When the dogs bark and the inmates fail to appear there is all the more
+reason why he should wait.
+
+With the peculiar instinct a horse has for locating water, Orlick's
+animal had taken himself off at a brisk trot toward the log stable.
+
+Missing his horse, Orlick looked about and caught a fleeting glimpse of
+him through the vista of trees, and, knowing that if he got to the water
+in his heated condition he would founder, Orlick dashed away in pursuit.
+
+Thus it happened that he came unexpectedly upon Belle-Ann, who stood at
+the horse-trough, urging Orlick's animal away from the water. Orlick
+stopped short, regarded her confusedly; then, removing his trooper's
+hat, executed a bow and smirked copiously.
+
+His heart thumped wildly in that instant. Each time he saw Belle-Ann he
+vowed mentally that she was more beautiful than before. The sight of her
+invariably threw him into a state of nervous flurry, and drove from his
+mind the pretty things he had previously decided to say to her.
+
+Small wonder then that he stood abashed before her. Never in all his
+travels had he seen her equal.
+
+"Yo' wusn't jest a lookin' fo' me--eh--Belle-Ann?" he managed to say
+awkwardly. She scanned him deprecatingly.
+
+"No--I jest wusn't," she agreed. "Th' boys hain't home, Orlick," she
+added pointedly, seating herself upon an inverted wagon-bed near by.
+
+Orlick sauntered over and sat down, too, now regaining his poise.
+
+"I didn't know I wus comin', either--till a short spell 'fore I
+started," he said tentatively.
+
+Belle-Ann eyed the horse, now standing under a poplar, too tired to
+crop.
+
+"Yo' must hev started frum th' ocean, didn't yo'?" she asked, with a
+gesture toward the animal.
+
+"Aw--he's soft, Belle-Ann. I 'lowed I'd rest em up a bit--till th' boys
+cum," he ended lamely.
+
+"Why don't yo'-all buy a mountain hoss? Thes hoss wasn't cut out fo'
+thes country," observed Belle-Ann.
+
+"Mabby hit's 'cause I hain't aimin' t' stay in thes country, Belle-Ann."
+
+She shot a quick look at him. He met her eyes and noted a glint of
+suspicion in them, so he hurried to forestall any utterance in reference
+to his mysterious sojourns the past two years.
+
+"Yo' see, I'm layin' off t' git married, Belle-Ann," he explained,
+watching her oval features narrowly; "an' when I do, I 'low t' settle
+down below, whar th' folks stan's t' give a honest man a chanst."
+
+Belle-Ann turned wondering eyes upon him.
+
+She had never before heard anything coming from Orlick but arrogant
+self-praise; hence she marveled at his meek voice and doleful aspect.
+
+"Whut makes yo' look so sorry--air yo're gal so powerful ugly?" Try as
+she would, she could not restrain a sudden burst of mirth, and she
+laughed outright.
+
+Now, if Belle-Ann's accents were soothing and captivating in speech,
+verily, her laugh rivaled the rippling sweetness of the lute. It trailed
+across Orlick's mood like a tonic and fired his face with a hot flush of
+anticipation.
+
+"Ugly!" he ejaculated--"ugly--no, Belle-Ann. She air th' all-fired'st
+purttiest gal in all Kentucky--an' she hain't fer away, either, I 'low!"
+
+Saying this, he came perilously near to overrunning the ethics of the
+mountains and seizing her in his arms and smothering her with his
+kisses.
+
+With an effort he restrained himself.
+
+His vehement words had startled her. She scrutinized his countenance
+keenly. What she saw brought the hot blood to her cheeks and left no
+doubt in her mind as to the significance of his eulogy and his
+impassioned eyes.
+
+His look was an insult. She rose and tossed the elf-curls back from her
+dimpled face. Orlick sat a moment speechless, his mouth open, and
+studied the graceful length of her back.
+
+Now she faced him again and spoke, and her words carried a volume of
+reproach.
+
+"Orlick," she began, "why do yo'-all cum t' see th' boys fo'--when
+you're a drinkin'?"
+
+By way of denial he suddenly gave vent to a raucous guffaw and whipped
+his knee with his hat, which artifice he calculated would enhance his
+prestige off-hand. On the contrary, his strident laugh grated strangely
+upon the girl's mood.
+
+"Drinkin'--drinkin'!" he cried out, amazed. "Why, Belle-Ann, I hain't
+teched a drap o' liquor fo' six months! An' what's a heap sight mo',
+Belle-Ann, I hain't never a goin' t'!"
+
+Here he stood up and raised his hand high over his head. "An' I hope
+Gawd'll paralyze me daid ef I ever touch th' stuff agin!" he declared
+with a profound, solemn flourish, calculated to emphasize a pledge.
+
+A sudden look of pity grew in the girl's eyes as she studied his face, a
+look which Orlick mistook for interest.
+
+"Yo' hain't a gittin' down on me like th' tuther fools, air yo',
+Belle-Ann?"
+
+Belle-Ann smiled ambiguously, lifted her pretty arched brows, and
+centered her azure eyes upon a red-head which at that instant was
+hammering a hole into a dead sycamore hard by. Orlick sighed.
+
+"Yo' orten t' git down on a feller lessen he's done somethin' pesky," he
+resumed tentatively. "What hev I done more'n cum an' go peaceable--an'
+make more money than any of 'em? Yo' see, Belle-Ann, our people hain't
+got no use fer a feller whut's got spunk enough t' git out o' th'
+mountains an' make money. Hit's hard draggin' when a feller's tryin' t'
+do right an' everybuddy ag'in em."
+
+His words stopped. Belle-Ann gazed his way. Orlick looked like a martyr,
+the very picture of persecuted righteousness. The left corner of his
+mouth, usually tilted, descended in emulation of its mate.
+
+His woebegone eyes followed the sky-line, and he appeared to be on the
+verge of an oral prayer.
+
+Belle-Ann's tender, unsophisticated heart was momentarily swayed with
+compassion. She glanced covertly at his averted, forlorn face, and her
+frigidity thawed a trifle as she was cognizant of an element of truth in
+Orlick's claims.
+
+She knew that a mountaineer was respected and eligible only while he
+stayed closely in the mountains.
+
+Orlick sat rigid, immobile, with eyes afar and apparently utterly
+oblivious of Belle-Ann's presence at that moment. She walked back to the
+wagon-bed.
+
+Her low, dulcet voice roused him out of his lethargy.
+
+"Orlick," she said, "why don't yo'-all stop traipsin' round an' snookin'
+below--an' cum Sabbath an' jine pap's church? Don't yo'-all want t' be a
+Christian?"
+
+If all the sins of Orlick's past had taken life and come up out of the
+ground at his feet to confront him he would have been less shocked. He
+flushed guiltily.
+
+He started perceptibly and squirmed in speechless discomfort.
+Belle-Ann's wide, clear eyes were upon him, and as he hesitated her lips
+parted to speak.
+
+"Eh?" he gurgled.
+
+"I say--don't yo'-all----"
+
+As though not daring to hear that seductive voice repeat its query, he
+spoke up hastily.
+
+"Why, sho', Belle-Ann!" he blurted in confusion. "O' course, I'd like t'
+be a Christian--an' I'll sho' be at th' ded'cation Sabbath. Belle-Ann,
+air yo' down on me 'cose I go below t' make money what I can't make th'
+likes of hyarbouts?"
+
+Orlick suddenly produced the roll of bank-notes, and, shuffling them up,
+rained them down in one greenish, crisp pile of opulence upon the
+wagon-bed.
+
+This unexpected spectacle staggered the girl's senses for the moment.
+She had never seen so much money in all her life before. Her eyes grew
+round with astonishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ORLICK'S MONEY SPURNED
+
+
+"Oh, Orlick!" she breathed in amazement.
+
+Unconsciously she sat down on the wagon-bed, with the pile of money
+beside her; and thus, wholly enthralled, she muttered faint
+exclamations. Orlick's eyes glittered in their devouring scrutiny, fixed
+upon Belle-Ann's beauty.
+
+"Oh, Orlick," she reiterated, "is thes all yore money? Where did yo' git
+all thes money, Orlick?"
+
+For an instant he fumbled blindly for words; then found them at the end
+of his short, ingratiating laugh. He lied with a gusto that reddened his
+face.
+
+"Git hit!" he echoed blatantly. "Why, Belle-Ann, I worked fo' hit! I'm
+trainin' hosses below, I git a hundred a month, Belle-Ann; an' I don't
+drink, an' I 'low t' save my money, I do, 'cose yo' know I 'low t' git
+married, Belle-Ann; an' hit takes a powerful sight o' money t' keep a
+wife like I'm aimin' t' do.
+
+"I hain't aimin' t' keep my wife in these mountains. She'll dry up an'
+blow away 'fore a buddy kin git to her to bury her. I air a goin' t' buy
+a nice house in Louisville an' fill hit up with fancy fixin's, an', talk
+about fine, fancy clothes--well, mebby my wife won't hev some fine
+things, 'cose I got th' money t' git 'em with, Belle-Ann!"
+
+"Orlick," she said, "how much do yo' 'low is heah?"
+
+So engrossed was she in lifting the bills one by one out of the tangled
+heap, examining both sides minutely, and laying them in one smooth
+stack, that she had heard little of Orlick's discourse, being vaguely
+conscious only that he was talking.
+
+"Why, Belle-Ann," said he, "hit's fo' hundred dollars!"
+
+He chuckled immoderately and pressed his cowlick down, which defiant
+tuft popped instantly back to its position of attention.
+
+"Yes," he went on, noting every look that crossed her lovely face as she
+proceeded, deeply absorbed in handling this dazzling pile of wealth.
+"Yes--an' a hundred a month comin' long all th' time. Thet hain't
+powerful bad fo' a boy like me--air hit, Belle-Ann?"
+
+Orlick rubbed his hands in the throes of self-exaltation and added a
+laugh that grated upon the girl's senses, inspiring her with a sudden
+impulse to end this conversation without delay.
+
+"I reckon I'll be a goin'. Slab'll cum soon from th' mill, an' I got
+some bakin' t' do."
+
+She made as if to rise. With a swift stride Orlick stood close to her,
+defeating this move. The money lay in one even, smooth pyramid on the
+wagon-bed.
+
+With one hand he snatched up the bills and laid them in Belle-Ann's lap.
+
+She tossed her curls, lifted her face, and fixed an inquiring look upon
+him. Above her his face had changed to something evil. His features were
+shot with a dull red from chin to brow. His lips were a-quiver with the
+words that clamored in his throat.
+
+"Belle-Ann, thet money 'is all yo'ren," he blurted out, "an' all I
+make's yo'ren, Belle-Ann; an' I want yo' t' run away with me an' marry
+me, eh? I want yo' t' go now!"
+
+This effrontery brought her to her feet, and the money spilled out on
+the ground. He stepped quickly in front of her and held up a restraining
+hand, blocking her intent to move away.
+
+"I bin a lovin' yo', Belle-Ann, I hev. I bin a lovin' yo'-all fo' mo'
+than two year gone. I'm a goin' t' keep on a lovin' yo', I air, an' I
+hain't 'lowin' t' let any man take yo' away from me. I make mo' money in
+a month than Lem makes in six, Belle-Ann. Yo'-all hain't got no business
+in these mountains noways.
+
+"Yo' belong down below where th' worl' kin see yo'--down in Louisville,
+er Lexington, among th' fine folks where yo' maw wus born, an' all
+dressed up like I'm lovin' t' dress yo', with a diamond ring, an' a
+watch, an' a gold bracelet; an' a trap with a cob-hoss which has a hock
+fling t' em--an' a fine house full o' fixin's."
+
+"Thet's the place yo'-all belongs by rights, an' thet's th' place I'm a
+goin' t' take yo'. I bin in all th' big towns below, an' in Mexico, an'
+I'll swear t' Gawd I hain't never seen a gal with yore purtiness! They
+hain't no gal a livin' with curls fixed aroun' a face like yo'ren! Gawd
+only made one pair o' blue eyes--yo' got 'em! Heah, Belle-Ann, I want
+yo' t' marry me, eh? Cap an' th' boys air gone, an' Slab's away. Let's
+hurry off now, eh, Belle-Ann?" he urged in breathless tremor, his eyes
+afire with the quest that trumpeted in his heart.
+
+Throughout this impassioned discourse Belle-Ann had covertly maneuvered
+inch by inch toward the cabin. But Orlick had hedged in front, and they
+now stood scarce twenty feet from the wagon-bed.
+
+His words stirred her to a resentment that at first suffused her neck
+and face with a flood of crimson indignation; a humiliation that ebbed
+slowly away before the chill of a fear that now crept into her
+countenance, leaving her sweet, bowed lips a trifle pallid.
+
+"What ails yo', Belle-Ann--don't yo' 'low t' go?" he blurted out
+fiercely.
+
+She pointed toward the wagon-bed. In his voice she had sensed a note
+that boded ill.
+
+"Pick up yore money, Orlick; yo' mought need hit," she advised with calm
+dignity, while he stooped and gathered up the bills in a flurry of
+haste, stuffing them in a tangled mass into his pocket. When he turned
+about Belle-Ann was walking leisurely, but directly toward the cabin. He
+was at her side in a trice.
+
+He kept pace with her, dinning into her ears an avalanche of torrid
+appeals, urging her to flee with him. To his onslaught of frantic words
+she maintained a stoic silence.
+
+This apparent indifference seemed to enrage him beyond all
+self-restraint. At a point near the open door of the kitchen, he
+suddenly grasped her wrist and pulled her toward him. With a dexterous
+turn she put her back to him, twisting her arm so a cry of pain rose to
+her throat, though she closed her teeth hard upon it.
+
+He held on, and she felt the wheeze of his hot, fierce breath beating
+against her shoulder.
+
+She could not alter her position without throwing herself face to face
+with him, so she leaned outward, and then slowly turned her head and
+their eyes met; and in that instant Orlick loosened his grip as though a
+hot bar had been laid across his two hands.
+
+Sin had long been Orlick's adopted brother. Since early boyhood odious
+temptings and wild deeds had been his running-mates. When a soul has
+known naught but abasement and evil the sight of good is appalling. He
+stood away now, puzzled at first and strangely disturbed.
+
+She still stood half smiling. It was a pitying smile. Orlick was
+dismayed and crestfallen, and in that minute he knew that he had
+jeopardized his last hope.
+
+With a tenacious persistence, born to the breed of his kind, he ventured
+a lame apology. With his perfunctory laugh he suddenly stammered the
+fragments of words, confused and inarticulate.
+
+"Sho'," he was muttering. "I wus jest a funnin', Belle-Ann. Yo' thought
+I wus a goin' t' kiss yo'. I warn't. Ha! ha! ha!--thet's one on yo'-all!
+Yo' thought I wus a meanin' thet. I wus jest a funnin', Belle-Ann," he
+ended in a faltering attempt at vindication.
+
+"I air powerful sorry," she breathed in her soft tones, "I've hearn lots
+th' folks says, Orlick; but I wusn't a believin' thet yo'-all'd hurt a
+gurl thet-away."
+
+Her mild reproach stirred him to a vehement defense. He sprang forward.
+In two strides he was beside her.
+
+With a hand that shook perceptibly he strove gently to touch her hand.
+But she deftly raised her hands and locked them safely behind her head;
+a posture which seemed to fix the crucifixion of his one last, fleeting
+hope.
+
+"Good Gawd, Belle-Ann," he cried, "yo' hain't hurted! I wus only
+foolin'. I wouldn't darst kiss yo', Belle-Ann, lessen yo' let me. I'd
+die daid ten times 'fore I'd hurt yo'-all! Don't be mad, Belle-Ann," he
+pleaded guiltily.
+
+"I air powerful sorry--sorrier than I kin say--thet I ever knowed a
+man's name whut'd hurt a gurl. I don't know what pap an' Lem 'll say."
+
+The terrible look that flamed up into Orlick's face stopped her words.
+The mention of Lem's name had a galvanic effect upon him.
+
+It seemed to rake across all the rampant, violent passions of his
+nature.
+
+He was transformed instantly from a penitent subject to a dangerous
+animal-thing that knew naught but the power of its own brute strength. A
+scowl of jealous rage distorted his features. He stepped near to her.
+
+"I want yo' t' marry me, Belle-Ann," he panted. "Air yo' a goin' t' run
+away an' marry me? Jest say yes or no."
+
+The desperate, unbridled fury in his eyes sent a chill to her heart.
+Notwithstanding this, she preserved her outward calm and smiled back
+serenely upon his menacing grimace.
+
+"Well--yo' better saddle up. See, yore hoss is at th' trough. I'll wait
+at th' block."
+
+For a moment he stood nonplused. His shifting eyes lighted with the back
+tide of hope that had all but ebbed away.
+
+"Yo're a meanun' t' go?" he cried out in a voice husky with new
+exultation.
+
+"I said fo' you'-all t' saddle an' I'll meet yo' at th' block," she
+repeated.
+
+He started away, then jerked about and looked searchingly into her face,
+the light of a sudden suspicion a-glitter in his eyes.
+
+"Yo're aimin' t' run in an' shet th' door on me, hain't yo'?"
+
+Indignation was now in her eyes as she tossed her mass of curls and
+regarded him with a sense of outraged veracity.
+
+"I said I'd wait fo' you'-all at th' witch-block," she said once more.
+
+He turned quickly and hurried after his horse.
+
+True to her word, Belle-Ann was waiting for Orlick at the horse-block.
+She sat serenely, watching his advance. At the ends of a rawhide thong a
+cow-horn dangled at her side, and there was no longer any fear in her
+heart.
+
+When Orlick caught sight of the cow-horn he stopped as though a gun was
+leveled at him. A flash of fury swept his face. Then she raised the horn
+to her lips.
+
+"Lord!" he ejaculated; "don't blow, Belle-Ann. They hain't no need--I'm
+a ridin' now."
+
+His rage had instantly given place to a sudden meekness, and he came on,
+his twitching features the hue of chalk and the gloom of utter defeat in
+his eyes.
+
+Belle-Ann slowly swung the horn to her side. She leaned against the
+horse-block and watched him saddle. Her look was neither triumphant nor
+scathing. Orlick did not glance at her, nor did he speak, being
+strenuously engaged with the horse which, having recovered its spirits,
+fought the bit determinedly. The saddle was double-cinched, and when
+Orlick tightened the flank girth the animal revolved, kicking in a
+circle like a bucker.
+
+When he had leaped into the saddle Orlick wheeled about facing the girl,
+grinning, arrogant, and bombastic. The only sign of his thoughts was a
+peculiar glitter playing in the depths of his eyes.
+
+"I'll say good-day t' yo'-all, Miss Benson," he said, with mockery in
+his tone and giving vent to a laugh, though it carried a threatening
+note.
+
+"I 'low yo'-all'd be happier, Orlick," ventured Belle-Ann, "ef yo'd
+change a bit an' jine pap's church thes Sabbath a comin', an' settle
+down in th' mountains an' marry some gurl thet's better matched t'
+yo'-all."
+
+His vibrant laugh cut into her words.
+
+"Belle-Ann Benson," he cried, glowering down upon her placid face, with
+one arm pointing downward across the sunlit valley, "yo' know where
+_they_ be. My pap an' my fo' brothers air asleep down yander under th'
+willers on Pigeon Creek. They died fo' the Luttses, they ded--shot t'
+pieces a fightin' fo' yo'-all!
+
+"Who knows hit better 'n yo'? An' this day yo'-all run th' last Orlick
+off en yore place. Whut fer--'cause I'm a lovin' yo'? Whut fer air
+yo'-all so stuck up? 'Cose yore beaut'f'l, an' 'cose yore mother wus a
+blue-grasser, an' 'cose yore a goin' below t' school?
+
+"Yes, I reckon yo' an' Lem Lutts 'll be satisfied now--yo'-all run th'
+last Orlick offen yore place."
+
+[Illustration: "Yo' know where _they_ be."]
+
+With a vicious jerk he turned the horse's head around and spurred the
+animal so cruelly that it reared and plunged away down the steep, rocky
+trail at a gallop that threatened disaster to both horse and rider. And
+above the jumbled clatter of the horse's shod hoofs the echoes of
+Orlick's wild, defeated laugh came back to Belle-Ann's ears.
+
+She lingered a while at the horse-block, and pondered soberly upon the
+advisability of acquainting the old man and Lem with Orlick's visit.
+There could be only one consequence if she did this.
+
+Presently she decided humanely to keep her own counsel, and, slipping to
+the ground, she walked slowly toward the cabin.
+
+She walked slowly to allow the two unfortunate dogs tagging at her heels
+to keep pace with her. One was old Ben, the blind hound, the other a pup
+with a broken fore-leg which Belle-Ann had bolstered up with splints. As
+she approached the kitchen door, she beheld Slab standing in the yard,
+rigid, and looking at her with a beaming countenance. Slab, always an
+optimist, ever presented a hopeful face. But at this moment when she
+noted his presence with the tail of her eye, she glimpsed something so
+extraordinarily illuminating as straightway to pique her curiosity, and
+she stopped short and regarded him inquiringly. A prodigious grin now
+lured the corners of his mouth beyond sight; inspiring the freakish
+suspicion that they met at the back of his head.
+
+"Lan's sake'--what ails yo'--Slab?" she interrogated.
+
+The sound of her voice seemed to fuse some combustible deposit of
+exultation cached within him. Instantly he began leaping up and down in
+a most frantic and alarming manner, yelling in loud outbursts, causing
+the girl mentally to question his sanity.
+
+"I tol' ye so--I tol' ye so--I tol' ye so----"
+
+"What ails yo'-all?"
+
+"Halliluja'--halliluja'----" he answered, keeping time with a grotesque
+dance.
+
+"Slab--have yo' gone plum offin' yore haid?"
+
+Belle-Ann watched his antics curiously. Presently he ceased this
+puzzling exposition as abruptly as he had startled her, and advanced,
+smearing the sweat over his seamed face with one gnarled hand, and she
+noticed that he kept the other hand concealed behind his back. His
+unique plaudits having subsided, he stood before her. He screwed his
+head around and looked furtively about, his sable features now drawn
+into a visage of deep and profound solemnity. He spoke in low,
+mysterious accents.
+
+"Lil'le gal," he began softly, "lil'le gal,--sompin' hev drap--some
+mammon hev drap--some mammon, lil'le gal--drap plunk inter de ole man's
+han's. I got sompin' heah ter show yo'-all,--sompin' whut makes dis ole
+man nigh bus' wif gratatudness an' praise fo' de good Lo'd,--no--no--now
+yo' jest wait, honey--Slab'll show yo'--I mos' bus' when dis mammon drap
+down ter de ole man--drap down ter Slab, lil'le gal,--jest like olen
+times when de good Lo'd drap mammon down ter his starvin' chillens--de
+good Lo'd do sho' love dis ole niggah man, same ez he do good white
+folks. Belle-Ann--fo' seben nights Slab, he pray jes' ez hard--he pray
+de good Lo'd fo' wharwithal ter buy some flannel shirts wif. I done pray
+fo' seben nights, lil'le gal--den las' night, er big ole owl he sot on
+dat sycamore, an' he call me outen ma sleep--den I snuck down dar by dat
+wagon-bed, an' I wait, an' when Mr. Owl say 'hoo-ho' I say 'hoo-hoo'
+back--den when owl say 'hoo-ho' seben times, he goed away--Slab, he know
+zacly what dat mean--den I look roun' an' fine er lil'le bitty
+obeah-stone, an' lay it on de wagon-bed. Den dis morn'n' 'fore I goed
+ter de mill, I tuk er peek--but de obeah-stone war jes' zacly whar I lay
+him--den on ma way back jes' now, I tuk er nudder peek--obeah wus goed
+away. Den I look all roun' an' ma eyes see sompin' layin' clost up ter
+de wagon-bed--den ma han' reches down an' picks it up--an', lil'le gal,
+I mos' bus' wif happiness--whut yo' think I pluck, lil'le
+gal?--looky--looky--jes' look at dat bull, feedin' on dat green."
+
+A triumphant, gloating grin broke over his face again, as he exhibited
+to the impatient girl a crisp, new five-dollar bill, with a buffalo
+engraved thereon.
+
+As Belle-Ann took a bucket and gourd, and proceeded to water the flowers
+on the shady side of the house, a knowing smile lingered at the
+up-turned corners of her little red mouth. Again she was holding her own
+counsel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+UPON THE ALTAR
+
+
+The following morning, being Saturday, Cap Lutts held a conclave in the
+cavern that concealed the illicit still. When the conference was over
+half a dozen men were scattered about the mountain to watch for the
+approach of the law, which now seemed likely.
+
+Not until late in the day did Lutts and the boys reach the clearing and
+the gospel-house. By the time they had placed the last window casement
+and hung the church door nightfall was near at hand.
+
+As the old man sat rigid on a log in the clearing, at an angle where he
+could view the church--front, side, and bell-crowned roof--he was filled
+with a profound, soul-satisfying joy.
+
+Beside him sat Lem and little Bud; and the family of three regarded the
+church in silent admiration, for all was now ready for the great
+dedication to-morrow.
+
+The sun had turned from yellow to a crimson glory as it made for a niche
+in the haze-shrouded peaks. The billows of emerald, capped with frothy
+banks of blossoms that tumbled down from the savage heights above, grew
+somber as the shadows reached out and wrapped their arms about Moon
+mountain.
+
+Silhouetted across the clearing, the little church contributed a quaint
+design.
+
+In the cool laurel thickets a hidden chorus arose. A redbird dipped
+through space from across the creek, and his florid wings shed a flash
+of blood as he forded a shaft of fleeting sunlight.
+
+The long-drawn cry of a she-panther echoed up from the shaggy maw of the
+ravine, answered straightway by the quick, broken squall of her mate,
+betraying an early forage plot. With magic minstrelsy issuing from the
+thickets the wilderness evening drifted in.
+
+With common impulse the two boys awoke from their reverie and looked up
+at their father.
+
+The joy of a moment since had gone from his eyes. As he stared in blank
+pathos at the church a face rose up and blotted out the vision of the
+belfry--the smiling face of his dead wife.
+
+"Ef Maw had lived t' see thes, Lem!" deplored the old man in a faint
+voice.
+
+"Yes, ef Maw had lived, pap!" echoed Lem.
+
+"Ef Maw had lived!" repeated the small voice at the end of the log.
+
+"Leastways, Maw's better off 'n we-uns, boys," consoled Cap Lutts,
+"'cause she air up thar whar they hain't no sorry--ner pain--ner
+fightin' an' killin'--an' I 'low as how Maw air a lookin' down on hit
+all now--on th' gawspel-house an' on we-uns, boys. An' say, boys, mebby
+yo' pore good Maw hain't glad like--eh? Why, I kin jest see her now--I
+kin see Maw now jest as plain--a smilin' an' a smilin'--an' whar----"
+
+"Yes--so kin I," interrupted Lem reflectively.
+
+"I kin see Maw now," supplemented little Bud.
+
+Suddenly a look shot into the old man's eyes like the florid tongue of
+flame at the muzzle of a gun. Instantly it was communicated to the two
+brothers. If the volcanic fires reflected in the eyes of the men were
+terrible, the molten, satanic hatred that crossed the countenance of
+little Bud was appalling because of his tender years. Each knew of what
+the other was thinking. Each recalled that hillside fight when Big Pete
+Burton had again struggled to do his duty and a misdirected bullet had
+killed Maw Lutts.
+
+The old man kicked viciously at a root, then pointed to the belfry.
+
+"I kin see Maw jest this minnut," he resumed, "a smilin' an' a smilin'
+an' a walkin' 'mong th' folks an' a shakin' han's like she done down
+Sandy thet air time th' ridin' pahson stuck fo' two weeks. I kin jest
+heer her now a tellin' 'em as how Gawd an' we-uns walcums every pizen
+sinnah in thes end o' Kaintucky--an' as how th' spurrut o' Gawd 'll he'p
+we-uns an' stop all th' fightin' an' killin' an' cheatin' an' lyin' an'
+cussin' an' chawin' 'mong th' weemanfolk.
+
+"Jes' wait till Sabbath day--an' thet's to-morry; jest wait till th'
+ridin' pahson cum t' ded'cate th' gawspel-house--I bets yo'll see a
+rousin', whoppin', boostin', prayin' 'vival--yo' sho' will, boys,"
+promised the old man in the heat of growing anticipation as he wafted
+the rebellious hair backward with a jerk of his head.
+
+"Aw--my soul!" ejaculated little Bud.
+
+"An' I kin tell yo' a heap sight more, boys; I kin," promised the old
+man, rubbing his huge hands together gloatingly. "One day nigh yo'll see
+th' steers a pullin' a real slappin' new organ machine into th'
+clearin'--yo'll see th' steers cum jest in 'twix' yon two spruces an'
+pull jest roun' thar, an' stop jest a frontin' th' do'r!"
+
+At this moment the long, ominous blast of a cow-horn echoed across the
+ravine with startling import, and the utterance failed and died in the
+old man's throat.
+
+Immediately the faint note of a bell reached their ears, followed by a
+second horn-call, strong and clear, farther up the gulch. The three rose
+to their feet simultaneously, and the old man felt instinctively about
+him for something that was not there. For the first time in his career
+his groping hands encountered neither stock nor steel. The rifle was
+absent!
+
+A pallor overspread his face. With head reared like a bull elk he
+listened to the portentous sounds of mountain warfare that floated into
+his brain.
+
+The pallor was not from fear. It was the mantle of chagrin--he had
+forgotten for the moment where he had rested the rifle. He stood
+befuddled, but alert.
+
+His gun gone, he felt that a part of his big body had suddenly been
+dismembered. The thought that he had been such a fool seemed to lock his
+two feet to the ground.
+
+Again the blare of the horn followed the notes of the bell.
+
+"Sompin's sho' bust loose, boys!" growled the old man as the three
+listened through several tense seconds. In his extremity he wondered if
+he could coax the lost information out of the lad behind him.
+
+"Han' hit heah, Lem! han' me hit!" Without turning his head he thrust
+both hands behind him, his working fingers begging for the gun.
+
+The boy, as innocent of the whereabouts of the weapon as his father,
+only muttered and pointed toward the rim of the clearing. The next
+second came the crackling noise of dead brush, then the sound of a rush
+to the left.
+
+The old man clenched his teeth as a horse mouths the bit, and his
+birdlike eyes snapped when he saw the disheveled figure of a girl burst
+through the wall of laurel that bordered the clearing. She halted for an
+instant, then dashed toward them.
+
+"Hit's Belle-Ann!" cried the awe-stricken Bud.
+
+The girl fairly leaped over the space that intervened. Her black curls
+streamed in the wind. She was wild-eyed and panting. Her bare legs were
+bleeding from brush scratches, and the tatters of her torn skirt were
+weighted with burs.
+
+"He's cum! He's got through, he air! He's a cumin' now! Go! Go! Run,
+Lem! Run away!" she cried in a choking riot of fear, throwing her body
+against Lem and fairly pushing him before her.
+
+"Whar's yo' gun, pap? Whar's yo' gun? Run, Lem! Fo' Gawd's sake, run
+away! He's follerin' right ahin' o' me--thah! thah! thah!" she screamed
+in her terror, pointing, heaving, gazing with charmed stare at the spot
+where she had emerged from the thicket.
+
+Despairing, horrified at the stunned inactivity of the Lutts men, the
+frantic girl grabbed little Bud by one arm and half dragged, half
+carried him across the clearing. Together they disappeared into the
+undergrowth.
+
+Then, rousing suddenly, stung to action, the old man remembered his gun
+and started for the church, while Lem fell prostrate and lay close
+behind the log on which they had been seated.
+
+Old Lutts had no more than gained the threshold of the sanctuary when a
+giant figure, with heaving chest, sprang into the open behind the church
+and just to the right. It was Peter Burton, and the surprise was full
+and complete, for his rifle was leveled at the old man's blue
+shirt-front as he called:
+
+"None of your damned nonsense now, Lutts! I've got you at last, and I
+want you alive! Stand where you are!"
+
+His voice rang triumphantly as he hurried nearer, and he leered and
+cried:
+
+"Maybe I'll take you down Blue Grass this time, eh? Well, I guess yes!"
+
+Cap Lutts hesitated for just the fraction of a second.
+
+In that fleeting time a horde of impossibilities raced through his
+brain. The downfall that had haunted him for years was at hand.
+
+Fear of death was beyond his comprehension, but the sting of defeat was
+agonizing.
+
+Then, glaring defiance and hatred, he whirled about and fled into the
+church, and there he leaped toward the altar. With a feline bound the
+big revenue detective was through the door and into the church after
+him.
+
+And now the old man had gained the pulpit itself, and was reaching for
+the rifle he had left leaning against the wall.
+
+Through the little church an ear-splitting crash rang out that fairly
+rocked the walls!
+
+In the pulpit the war-scarred moonshiner drew gently, deliberately
+backward, leaving the rifle untouched. Straightening up with strange
+majesty, he turned half around, and the malevolence melted away and left
+his face empty of all hatred.
+
+His eyes grew very soft, gazing upward at something beyond this world;
+his lips moved in soundless speech.
+
+Then, abruptly, his legs crumpled beneath him. He sagged and swayed for
+an instant; there was a ghastly, ragged, spongy gap between his
+shoulders.
+
+Then, with a crash, the mighty form sank to the altar, and lay there
+motionless upon its back, legs close together, the arms stretched
+straight outward from the body.
+
+Burton mopped his wet features and eyed his awful work without emotion.
+
+A little the hard-breathing man-hunter pondered. Then, having taken a
+fresh quid of tobacco, he levied upon his strength and lifted the body
+from the pulpit, and placed it upon a bench. He wiped the blood from his
+clothes and shoes and, rolling his handkerchief into a ball, tossed it
+away.
+
+He stared at the pulpit for a time.
+
+The red blood had crawled upward and touched the old man's hoary crown.
+It had traveled downward toward his heavy boots. It had followed the
+coat-sleeves of his two sprawling arms.
+
+And now that the body had been taken away, the vermilion imprint of a
+ragged, dripping cross was clearly etched upon the smooth pine of the
+unpainted altar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the crash of the gun had died away, Lem raised his head and peered
+over the log toward the church, expecting to see his father emerge. He
+waited several seconds. He wondered why the old man did not call. He
+yearned for his own gun now, inside the church.
+
+Then he lay down behind the log again with a sober fear creeping upon
+him. Then he remembered whose son he was, and almost snickered aloud at
+his fears. The boy could not conceive any odds that his father, Cap
+Lutts, could not vanquish. His thoughts flew backward to the valorous
+achievements of his parent.
+
+Now he crawled to the end of the log and peered again toward the church
+door. He told himself that the old man would come out of that door where
+he had gone in. He knew that the old man would come out of the church
+dragging the revenuer after him--hauling the thing as he had seen him
+haul a half-dead, struggling bear.
+
+Lem lay on his stomach and waited.
+
+Presently he spied a yellowish-white vapor trailing out of the church
+door into the lifeless air. Instinct told him that it was not his
+father's gun that had spoken. He started to his feet.
+
+A terrible, sickening apprehension filtered into his numbed senses.
+Then, weaponless and forgetful of the prowess of the uncanny man-tiger
+within, the boy grabbed a huge wooden mallet near by and rushed inside.
+
+As he ran toward the altar his fire-shot eyes swept the church for the
+old man. He saw only the towering hulk of the hated Burton standing
+erect, with hands in his trousers-pockets, calmly eyeing his approach.
+
+When Lem reached the altar he halted short, dumb, fear-stricken,
+trembling. He stared at the bloody cross. He whirled around.
+
+His eyes fell upon the still form on the bench, and he knew. With an
+inarticulate scream he fell one step backward and aimed a terrific,
+deadly blow at the unblinking, fishy eyes of the animal-headed thing
+before him.
+
+Some minutes later Lem Lutts crouched upon a bench, hunched up, naked to
+the waist, broken, bleeding, panting, heaving, piteously weeping, his
+chin down till it touched his bare, lacerated breast.
+
+Without, amidst the darkling shades of night, the she-panther crept from
+the gloomy haunting depths of the ravine, up to the very rim of the
+clearing. Up-reared, with her bowed fore-legs upon a scrub cedar stump,
+the big cat's spotted lips parted and she cried out a tremulous
+portentous wail across the dusk. Then came the sound of the pattering of
+padded jungle feet as she skulked back to her lair down in the bristling
+bowels of the shadow-peopled gulch.
+
+The man of iron who stood scowling over the conquered, broken youth,
+felt a compelling loneliness picking upon his steely nerves.
+
+"Come, Lutts! Let's hike out of here," ordered the detective as he
+pulled the stupefied boy to his feet.
+
+He half dragged Lem to the door of the church, saying:
+
+"I guess I'll take you down to Frankfort. Mebby when you're there a
+while you'll tell where that damn whisky shop is you've been running up
+here the last hundred years."
+
+Near to the door in the dim light, a few scant feet to one side, the boy
+caught sight of a long, vertical streak of yellow rope crossing the dark
+background of the gloom. Then it was that, with a lightning-like
+quickness, Lem lunged sidewise and fastened his fingers like dog's teeth
+upon the length of hemp suspended from the belfry. With a growl of rage
+Burton sprung upon him.
+
+He rained blow after blow down upon the boy's head and body, torrents of
+resounding smashes, awful, crushing, killing blows.
+
+The terrific struggle, with the bell-rope for a prize, set the new bell
+ringing, and the reverberations carried for miles up and down Hellsfork.
+Its frantic utterances resounded across the hills like the screams of a
+woman.
+
+In despair the revenuer ceased his beating, and his fingers, reeking
+with the boy's blood, found Lem's neck.
+
+His terrible hands garroted Lem's throat flat and stopped his breath.
+With all his mighty strength, the revenuer choked him until the lad's
+face blackened and his tongue and eyes started.
+
+Then, with a great heave upward, he shook his victim as a terrier shakes
+an old boot, and cast him away and stood panting in the dark and cursing
+breathlessly.
+
+The damage was done. The revenuer knew that he could count himself lucky
+to get away alive now, far less drag a prisoner; even at that moment
+desperate men were hurrying to answer the call of that church-bell.
+
+Burton fled into the night toward the spot where he knew that Jutt
+Orlick awaited him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DEDICATED WITH HIS BLOOD
+
+
+Out into that troublous, tempestuous night a hundred alarmed militant
+mountaineers rushed down through the jungle shadows, over a score of
+savage, rugged trails. Onward they hastened, down toward the startling
+night-cry of the bell which they knew emanated from the new church on
+Hellsfork. That choking, desperate bell-scream had raked across their
+senses like the cracking of a hundred rifles. To them its importunities
+had resolved into the sanguine roar of a fusillade. It had aroused in
+them an audacious, desperate quickness to kill. They rushed hither,
+prepared to sprinkle the white-clover with their blood, and die there in
+the churchyard, or vanquish whatever the menace might be.
+
+They pictured an assault on the church by the McGills or the revenuers,
+and in their fancy saw old Cap Lutts, his great figure in the forefront,
+spouting soft-nosed bullets from his hot rifle! The ringing of the bell
+inspired those on-coming loyal mountain hearts with a red-eyed animal
+fierceness, and lent a lightness to their heavy feet that brought them
+to the church within the hour.
+
+Men and boys, and indeed a few women, with weapons of all sorts,
+descended on the church, wild and panting with the lust of conflict.
+
+When Lem Lutts opened his dazed eyes the place was half filled with
+frenzied people. Belle-Ann knelt beside him, bathing his wounds and
+uttering in her soothing, low drawl, little phrases of encouragement and
+condolence.
+
+Buddy's hard little visage protruded out of the lantern light like a
+ghostly mask done in white marble.
+
+Lem finally got to his feet and staggered toward the altar. A dozen
+lanterns were scattered about the church. The shaggy band stood around
+gazing at their dead leader. Crazed with rage, they stood and wept,
+walked aimlessly and cursed, or knelt and prayed.
+
+To a man they were for beating the mountains for the revenuers; but Lem
+held them back. He climbed upon the altar, and little Bud scrambled up
+beside him, hugging his father's rifle which he had hungrily recovered.
+
+With the realization that Lem was now their leader, the Moon mountain
+men crowded up toward the pulpit, eager for his words.
+
+Lem pointed one unsteady hand to the bloody cross at his feet, and the
+other to the dead form of his father stretched on the first bench. He
+raised his bruised, torn face upward; then, in a voice that was terrible
+in its calmness, he said the only prayer he knew, while the grief torn
+host fixed their eyes upon him and drank in every word:
+
+"God Almoughty, plead thou my cose with them thet strive agin we-uns.
+Lay a han' on yore shiel' an' buckler an' stan' up t' he'p we-uns. Let
+'em be confound' an' put t' shame, fo' they hev privily laid thar net t'
+destroy me withouten a cose--even withouten a cose hev they made a pit
+fo' my soul. Let th' sudden destruction cum on our'n enemy onawares, an'
+his net thet he hev laid privily keech hisse'f, thet he mought fall int'
+his own mischief his ownse'f. Ahmen!"
+
+And a great volume of vibrant amens rose from the hot hearts present.
+
+Lem talked from the altar for an hour; exhorting the clan to stick
+together and cleave to the tenets of his dead father. All through the
+discourse little Bud kept close to his brother on the pulpit, steadying
+the long rifle with one caressing hand and not once did a word escape
+him; his eyes were glued to his brother's face.
+
+Finally, Lem wound up his appeal with a stern adjuration. His calmness
+deserted him at the end, and his voice soared to a frenzied pitch that
+carried it through the open windows, far out into the brooding night.
+
+"Yo'-all heer me? Yo'-all heer me?" he shouted in vibrant tones. "Not a
+bein' o' yo'-all darst lift a han' t' harm the revenuer--not a han', yo'
+heer? He air my houn'-dog t' kill.
+
+"He belongs t' me, an' ef yo'-all ketch em, yore t' han' him t' me, ole
+Cap Lutts's boy whut stan's heah frontin' his pap's daid body, a callin'
+on yo'-all t' see jestus done! I'll bring th' skunk heah, my men, an'
+kill em heah--heah whar he kilt my pap!"
+
+His mouth fairly frothed as with both clenched fists he beat his breast.
+Bud beat his own thin chest and wrenched his peaked face into a terrible
+grimace, but said never a word.
+
+The watchers relapsed into dumb, stunned silence and waited with their
+dead--waited for the saddest of all days; a day crowned with a grievous
+memory that followed them through life.
+
+No Sabbath born to the mountains had ever dawned as this one. The early
+morning was charged with a sepulchral mist, impinging upon the senses
+like sounds vocal, telling of some great sorrow hanging on the crest of
+the world.
+
+The first chill light saw the gospel-house holding its dead to its
+breast--the venerable sire that begot it. The dawn-breath floated down
+from the blue-wooded ridges to the clearing and stooped to kiss the
+pallid belfry.
+
+And all the blossoms bowed down their tremulous heads and shed their
+dew-tears amidst the chanting of spirit-voices. The tumultuous cry of
+the cascade, wont to rant in the ragged throat of Hellsfork, was now
+hushed to a repining monotone.
+
+The first beam of sunlight, pallid as a candle ray, parted the vapor
+shroud enveloping the gospel-house, and a dolorous ring-dove mourning on
+the pinnacle of a dead sycamore tolled her triple-noted angelus across
+the clearing in measured, solemn accents.
+
+Before the day had fairly broken, an exodus of humanity had begun, bound
+for Hellsfork. For weeks and months the day of dedication had been
+discussed throughout the mountains. Hour after hour the rock-strewn
+highways of the hills were traversed by travel-worn crusaders. This
+stream of human souls converged at the church clearing, filling it up
+like the gradual rise of a tide.
+
+They came on mule-back, on horse-back, in buck-boards. They came singly
+and in twos and threes.
+
+Bed-ridden cripples were borne hither by their loved ones, that the
+great preacher might lay hands upon their infirmities and implore the
+merciful God to alleviate their sufferings. The halt and the maimed were
+come to sue for absolution and to be made whole again.
+
+One misshapen hunchback--a veritable Quasimodo--with stubby bowed legs,
+abnormal arms, and ape-like visage, carried his helpless offspring
+eighteen miles to this sanctuary; begging prayers to relieve the
+creature's torture.
+
+Every man and boy of them was armed in some fashion, and by high noon
+the clearing was filled with a multitude of people, sorrow-torn, racked
+with abject grief.
+
+Over in Southpaw the enemy gazed down from the heights upon this
+spectacle in amazement. As young Sap McGill stood on a crag and watched,
+his eyes met a sight unlike any which the ranges of Kentucky had ever
+witnessed.
+
+His old arch enemy's strength in death was a force that appalled him. It
+was only now that he fully realized the peculiar far-reaching power
+wielded by old Cap Lutts throughout his lifetime. The dead monarch had
+always ruled his followers through strength and love. Fear had never
+been a dictator. He repelled his enemies through a will and courage that
+never flinched, and elicited from them a meed of awesome respect.
+
+The church was wofully inadequate and would not hold a twentieth of the
+mass. A great abundance of live laurel was cut and piled beneath a tree
+in the church clearing. And hundreds of eager hands hurried into the
+byways of the vale and returned with arms heaped with blossoms. These
+tender tributes were carefully placed on the couch of laurel until it
+rose to a great bier of fragrant petals.
+
+Tender hands removed the old man's body from the church and laid him in
+this laurel-thatched casket of many-hued flowers.
+
+Later, a great yellow mule paced out of the west, bearing a tall figure
+garbed in black, and the voices were hushed to a murmur and the
+church-bell began its tolling.
+
+When the circuit rider reached the clearing the mass of awed humanity
+parted and opened an aisle leading to the mammoth bier, where smiling
+death reposed, cradled amidst billows of blossoms. The parson had been a
+lifelong friend of old Cap Lutts.
+
+His towering figure moved on toward the bier and his clean-shaven
+features were drawn in a terrible sorrow. When his anguished eyes rested
+upon the still form, a great sob convulsed him; and like an echo the
+pent-up achings burst in a horde of throats; subdued, piteous weeping
+ebbed and rolled over the dead hero of the host.
+
+Two benches had been carried from the church and placed near the dead
+man. One was for the parson; on the other sat Lem and Bud and Belle-Ann.
+Little Bud crouched like a shrunken, lifeless thing. Belle-Ann's
+beautiful eyes were swollen and her heart wrung dry of tears.
+
+Lem's eyes, too, were dry as bone; not a single tear had he shed. For
+hours he sat staring over the heads of the people, and on his bruised
+and swollen face was stamped a grief more soul-searing than words or
+tears could tell.
+
+At eventide a cortège reaching from the church to the cabin bore the old
+man to the barren orchard, and there they laid him beside Maw Lutts. Old
+Cap Lutts, monarch of Moon mountain, had passed out of feudal history,
+and beyond Federal jurisdiction; his church on Hellsfork had been
+dedicated with his blood!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"LESSEN HE KILLS THE REVENUER"
+
+
+Tom-John Benson did not come up to Moon mountain the following week, nor
+the next. But at the end of the third week he appeared to take Belle-Ann
+below to Beattyville and across the Kentucky River to the mission school
+at Proctor.
+
+He came riding a strong, mountain horse and leading another for
+Belle-Ann. He unwrapped a huge bundle, and displayed an entire new
+outfit for the girl--two blue sailor dresses with white collars, shoes,
+hat, and kindred articles of apparel.
+
+Belle-Ann dressed herself in these store things; and while Slab prepared
+a lunch for Benson, she walked out and down toward the spring, where she
+thought Lem was lingering. But Lem was not there, and she continued on
+to the old honeybee tree, where he sat on a log in deep meditation.
+
+He wished to see her alone. He knew she would find him.
+
+He looked up with a smile when he saw her trim, round figure approach,
+beautiful even in the cheap clothes.
+
+She tossed the black curls from her oval face, smiled back at him, and
+stood demurely waiting his approval of her apparel.
+
+"Yo' sho' do look purty, Belle-Ann," he observed. "Air yore pap ready
+yet?"
+
+"Yes. When he's done his snack, I 'low we-uns 'll be goin', Lem," she
+answered, with an assumed cheerfulness she was far from feeling.
+
+Although her heart ached, she had determined before she came to meet Lem
+that she would not cry. She had been steeling herself for days for the
+ordeal of this parting. Down in the depth of her heart she held fast to
+one great purpose; and if she gave way to her feelings and cried, she
+knew that it would be shattered.
+
+"I 'lowed yo'-all wanted t' say good-by, Lem," she said presently. He
+aroused himself and stood up before her, his eyes full of a meaning she
+had never seen there before.
+
+"Naw, Belle-Ann, I hain't wantin' t' say good-by; but I 'low I hev t'.
+But thar air one thing I air wantin' yo' t' promise me, Belle-Ann," he
+said soberly as he reached down and took her small, tanned hand.
+
+Belle-Ann's heart was throbbing wildly now. This was the crucial moment
+she had foreseen, and now was the time to summon all the forces at her
+command.
+
+"Mebby I cayn't promise hit, Lem," she rejoined almost inaudibly, with
+violet eyes that wandered guiltily away from his face.
+
+He stared at her. There was a timbre in her tone that startled him. He
+saw and felt instinctively that she had discerned what he held in his
+mind. The fact that she had divined correctly, and answered in this way,
+filled him with a sudden, sinking apprehension.
+
+Her words shocked him into a stupor. He thought that he knew her very
+soul as he knew his own soul. Had the years that had unfolded her young
+life before him, betrayed him and withheld deep things from his
+understanding? Things that would join in the pursuit with other searing
+grievances to sting and urge his being onward toward desperation? There
+was, in truth, a depth to this girl, whom he had known all her life,
+that his cursory penetration had failed utterly to fathom. When Lem's
+parents had been killed by the revenuer, then it was that an inexorable
+avowal had resolved itself in the soul of Belle-Ann. An inviolable
+thing, the evulsion of which could never obtain save at the shrine of
+death--the death of the hated Ghost-man. Lem had only a general and
+superficial conception of the intrinsic intensity of this thing that had
+taken hold of the girl. Little did he know of the doleful hours she had
+brooded away over this theme of vengeance. Long, brain-dulling hours
+during her waking time. Haunting, troublous hours during her dream-time.
+And always in the imaginings of her girl-heart she nurtured and built up
+an ideal, who would kill the revenuer. A hero who would hasten to her
+with the affiliating tribute, and lay the crimson laurels of the deed at
+her feet. She well knew that Lem thirsted for the life of this uncanny
+man, who had come and deprived him of his beloved mother and father. She
+knew that day and night as he traversed the hills he was ever waiting
+and watching for him. She was keen, and appreciatively sensible to this,
+and ever prayed that Lem would succeed. But all this was not the deed.
+Theoretically, it occupied the tenure of a debt. A premise that looked
+for no advancement save payment. Until this thing was done they would
+both suffer. She told herself over and over again that she would never
+betray her true feelings to Lem until he had killed Burton, and appeased
+her vengeance. Love him as she thought she did, some vital element was
+poignantly amiss. However unwarranted, and fatuous, an indefinable
+barrier would stand between them until the culmination of the yearning
+that had made ugly crosses in her heart.
+
+Never could she forget the past. As she stood now before Lem, with
+downcast eyes, the past rushed upon her more vividly than ever. That
+sun-smitten day, made dark and dreadful, when she had hovered over the
+still form of Maw Lutts in the yard. Maw Lutts, who from Belle-Ann's
+baby-days to the woman's last minute in the yard, had never uttered to
+the girl a cross word, or cast her an impatient look. Her parting smile
+was rooted in Belle-Ann's soul, climbing and wrapping its tendrils
+around her heart like an evergreen.
+
+Even at this instant in her gloomy retrospection, she could put her
+finger on her own bosom, precisely where the bullet had struck. That
+reddish-purple spot that did not bleed. Very often the vision of that
+small, round death-sore multiplied and floated in one gesticulating
+mirage before her eyes. Often they consolidated into one compact darkish
+background, against which would develop the satanic, puffed visage of
+the revenuer who had done this thing. When old Cap Lutts' spirit went
+out by the same hand, the girl's soul had sickened to a distortion of
+mingled fear and hate, which at times bade fair to drive her primitive
+mind bereft.
+
+A devouring monitor of revenge had skulked into her life, following her
+better self relentlessly, as a panther stalks a spent beast. To her it
+was all like the happening of the past hour. Three weeks only had
+elapsed since she had witnessed the last withering stroke of this evil
+creature bent upon their destruction. Across her every mood the
+prickling echoes of that frantic bell-scream raked. It filled her ears
+when she strove to shut it out, and projected its curse into her
+slumbering hours.
+
+She felt that unhallowed hour upon her--the moonlit night when the very
+trees shuddered as she and little Buddy, clinging to each other, had
+crept through the ghastly shadows back to the meeting-house after the
+mad bell's appeal had died and the demon had gone.
+
+Never, while reason held its throne, could she obliterate from her eyes
+what they two saw in the church that night. So it was that Belle-Ann had
+long since, secretly, reared a citadel within her, and down in a remote
+grotto therein, had locked away her love; isolated it from her impulses
+and fealty.
+
+With valiant, tender delicacy, she always tried not to sully and
+overshadow Lem's life with this that she knew was in her. She knew that
+Lem had a cross of his own to bear. Although she fancied, as humans are
+prone to do, that his burden did not parallel her own. But she would not
+contaminate the boy's love with the presence of this red-rare oath
+sticking like a projectile in her being. This rubric, monastic avowal of
+vengeance that now hung in her soul like a garnet etching. But always
+she prayed that God might direct Lem to avenge her, and thus tear down
+this phantom picture that overshadowed her life, and thereby redeem her
+peace.
+
+Like animated photography, all this dashed through the girl's mind in a
+trice when Lem expressed a wish that she would promise him something.
+And with it her cryptic avowal centralized and surged up strong within
+her. Taking a firm hold on her will, she raised her eyes full upon his
+supplicant figure suing before her. Lem looked, and acted like a man who
+had been stunned by a blow. He was confronted with a new and unexpected
+phase of her nature. As his own gaze met her eyes, he discerned the
+indelible lettering of some palpable, deep purpose. What strange alien
+agency had laid hold of her? Was this the call of her blue-grass blood
+asserting itself in this, the hour of parting? The celerity of the
+transition, from his romping, hilarious play-fellow, to this serious,
+solemn, sudden incarnation, who denied him so unexpectedly, the pledge
+upon which he had staked his future, was a cyclonic blow that left his
+faculties bereft and numbed. Belle-Ann was looking fixedly at him. His
+lips were palsied. His mouth moved mutely to form words. Suddenly he
+found his voice and launched forth out of a daze.
+
+"Why, Belle-Ann, yo' kin sho' promise me thes, cyan't yo' now?"
+
+"Yo' hain't tol' me whut hit air yet, Lem," she protested faintly.
+
+"Belle-Ann," he blurted out huskily, "I air pizen sho' yo'-all knows
+whut I air a firin' at."
+
+She shook the silken mass of black curls that would insist in tumbling
+down on her small face, and elevated her pretty brows negatively. But
+beneath her drooping lids a flicker of tell-tale light was playing.
+
+"Looky heah, Belle-Ann,"--his voice dropped to pleading tones--"Lem
+wants thet yo' should promise em sompin' 'fore yo'-all goes away. I want
+yo' t' promise, Belle-Ann," he went on earnestly, recovering the hand he
+had dropped in his amazement. "I want yo' t' promise thet when yo'-all
+cums back t' home thet yo'll marry me--eh?"
+
+Not rudely, but reverently and slowly she drew her hand away from him.
+With eyes averted, her bosom stirred and she struggled with the choking
+in her throat.
+
+She removed her sun-hat, and stood swinging it in her perturbation. With
+a great will she steadied her voice.
+
+"I cyan't promise thet, Lem--leastways not now," she answered slowly,
+without looking at him.
+
+He fell back, crestfallen and hurt.
+
+For a minute silence stood between them. Never before had he seen her so
+bewitching.
+
+Then she turned her matchless violet eyes upon him.
+
+"I hain't a spitin' yo', Lem," she explained hurriedly. "I hain't a
+spitin' you, cose yo' air a good boy an'--an' I like yo', Lem. But I
+jest cyant promise whut yo' want me t' now."
+
+Astounded, he stood fumbling for words. Then he suddenly tossed his long
+hair back with a jerk of his head--a gesture that had characterized his
+father.
+
+"Belle-Ann," he cried hotly, "whut ails yo', little gal; air hit some
+tuther bein' yo' love? Air thet Jutt Orlick bin a pesterin' yo' an'
+yo're afeerd t' tell me? Belle-Ann, little gal, do yo'-all love Orlick?
+Air hit em whut yo' love, an' afeerd t' own on hit? Air ye 'lowin' t'
+get shut o' me, Belle-Ann?" he pursued vehemently.
+
+She faced about and fixed her liquid eyes upon him. Her heart hurt and
+she turned away again. And he was instantly sorry that he had accused
+her.
+
+She stepped over and sat on the spruce-log, dangling her hat and
+regarding her tan shoes.
+
+"Looky heah," he burst out fervently, "cum, deah little Belle-Ann; cum
+kiss me."
+
+Very slowly she shook her raven curls.
+
+"I cyant, Lem," she said; "not now." At this refusal from her a pallor
+swept his features. Utterly crushed, he walked to and fro, a prey to
+conflicting emotions.
+
+Her mysterious mien and unaccountable frigidity drove the chill of
+another fear into his being. Could it be that this was the first bud of
+a fruit that had already started to thrive in Belle-Ann's heart, before
+she had even reached the school?
+
+She was going out into a new world away from him. Did she already regard
+herself exalted above the things that made up his humble life?
+
+He looked at her sitting on the log, silent, beautiful,
+mysterious--another girl from the one he had known all his life.
+
+Abruptly he halted before her. Her eyes sought his face. He fell back a
+few paces, now white to the lips with feelings that tore him. He
+stretched his two arms toward her beseechingly.
+
+"Looky heah, Belle-Ann! Look t' me now, little gal!" he cried out in
+words that tumbled over each other, "Hain't I fittin'? Gawd cyan't find
+th' bein' thet loves yo'-all like me, Belle-Ann! Hain't I honest? Hain't
+I knowed yo' all yore little life, Belle-Ann? Whut would maw say, seein'
+yo'-all driftin' away from me like thes? Do yo' 'low t' go below an'
+never cum back, Belle-Ann? Hain't I alers fit fo' yo'-all, Belle-Ann?
+Hain't I fit for yo' all my life?"
+
+He took a step nearer, and with his two strong hands ruthlessly ripped
+his flannel shirt open and exposed his naked breast to her eyes.
+
+Transfixed, the girl stared at the twenty wide, white scars that
+criss-crossed his bosom. At sight of this, with sheer will and gallant
+courage she fought back the tears into her aching heart--fought them
+back desperately, just as he had fought off the she-bear that had made
+those marks when they two were children--fought her off single-handed
+with a club, and saved Belle-Ann's life.
+
+With wide eyes she regarded him as he reached out for her.
+
+His impassioned words penetrated to her very soul. She heard him on
+vaguely, struggling to control herself. The tide of emotion past, his
+petitions came now in low, entreating accents.
+
+"Gawd 'lows I air honest, Belle-Ann. I hain't pesky, Gawd 'll tell; I
+hain't sneakin', Gawd 'll tell. Lem wus rise up 'long side o' yo', deah
+little gal; an' he loves yo' now, same as alers. Why, I'd stan', ef yo'd
+say th' word, with a laff on my face an' let yo'-all fire on me, an' die
+a grinnin'--cose I knowed yo' done hit, Belle-Ann.
+
+"I air jest pore regular Lem, little gal, whut has loved yo' all yore
+life--frum a little bitty gal up t' now. An' my heart's jest heah whar
+hit alers was--jest heah fo' yo', Belle-Ann, with nothin' hidin' out!"
+
+With back-flung head he paused, his pleading eyes still upon her.
+
+Throughout this, Belle-Ann did not meet his eyes directly. She dared
+not. She prayed he would stop.
+
+She could no longer withstand his pleadings. She rose up from the log
+and, in her turn, though more slowly, her little feet trod where Lem had
+walked.
+
+Unconsciously, her hat dropped to the ground as her fingers relaxed and
+she placed her two hands upon her bosom. She looked full into his eyes.
+
+"Lem," she breathed, the carmine leaving her cheeks, "yo' axed me t'
+marry yo' when I cum back. I cyant promise. Yo' axed t' kiss me, Lem;
+oh, please, please don't kiss me. I--I----"
+
+She shut her teeth tightly, and pressed hard upon her turbulent bosom.
+Alarmed, he sprang up to catch her. With a quick gesture she held him
+off.
+
+"Lem, I took a vow--I did," she panted. "I took a vow on th'
+witch-block. I took hit t' myself--nobuddy but Gawd knows. Now, I got t'
+tell yo' all, Lem. _I took a vow that no livin' bein' 's gain' t' kiss
+my face lessen he kills th' revenuer!_ I took a vow thet I'll
+never--never--_never_--marry nobuddy, till th' revenuer's daid; I vowed
+on hit, Lem!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ORLICK WORKS EVIL
+
+
+Lem listened in awe to her panting, hurried words, looking down into her
+pain-swept features, struck dumb with the earnest vehemence of her
+avowal. The girl went on:
+
+"I couldn't bust my vow, Lem. Hit air jest heah in my breast by day an'
+by night. Hit follers me alers, Lem--follers me like a hant. I don't lay
+no store by nuthin' till hit air gone away--an' hit'll never go away
+till th' ghost-man's daid."
+
+Lem lunged forth out of a stupor.
+
+"Gawd'llmoughty, Belle-Ann, yo'-all hain't a-lowin' thet I don't want t'
+kill em, air yo'?" he cried, in a tempest of chagrin and amazement.
+
+"No, no, no!" she interposed hastily. "I know thet yore a-watchin' an'
+a-waitin' an' a-lookin' fo' em."
+
+She took the hat Lem picked up from the ground, saying:
+
+"Yo'll do somethin' perticlar like, Lem, when yo' do kill em. Keep
+a-watchin', an' a-tryin', Lem, but don't 'low em t' git first bead on
+yo', Lem. He air a hant."
+
+"Ef I air lucky, an' kill em--will yo'-all promise then, Belle-Ann?"
+implored the boy in low, yearning tones. Side by side they were walking
+now.
+
+"Yo' jest ax me when th' revenuer's daid, Lem," she returned, looking
+up, the dimples playing and her small Grecian face aflush with the
+thought.
+
+He could not mistake the light that flickered between her fluttering
+lids. There was an answer hovering about the red, bowed lips. Her
+enhanced loveliness in the new sailor dress ravished his senses.
+
+Such a girl! She had always been his, he told himself. He knew she would
+come back to him. Then a sober fear assailed him again, that
+contradicted his faith.
+
+"Belle-Ann," he queried, "when yo'-all git yore deah little haid stuffed
+with th' larnin', an' th' high-tucked ways at th' school--an' know all
+'bout books an' sich, mebby yo'-all won't never 'low t' cum back heah
+agin? Mebby I won't never see yo'-all agin, deah little gal, eh?"
+
+She stopped and stood rigid.
+
+"I kin promise thet, Lem. Heah, watch me, I cross my heart thesaway,
+Lem--see? Now kiss my han'. I'll sho' cum back some day, Lem--I
+promise."
+
+Eagerly, ravenously, he grasped her small hand, brown, but
+fine-textured. A dozen times he kissed it hotly, fervently, wrung with
+sorrow. So much might happen before he saw her again!
+
+At this juncture, a cow-horn sounded, and they knew that Belle-Ann's
+father was waiting. The time of parting was at hand. That vibrant
+horn-call sank deep into Lem's smarting soul.
+
+"Kiss me heah, Lem," the girl said, showing the top of her head. He well
+knew what she meant.
+
+He placed his hands on her soft curls and pressed his lips to the little
+white scar that crossed the part in her hair. He had kissed it before.
+Many times now, did he press it.
+
+His throat pained terribly as he poured his fervent kisses of adoration
+upon this tiny scar that he had accidentally inflicted years ago, in the
+excitement of a sham battle.
+
+She suddenly tore away from him and ran ahead. She dared not trust
+herself to linger longer. He followed, a tribute of grief in his
+resigned, dull eyes, like a man with flowers to put on a mound.
+
+When Lem left the spot, Orlick ducked sneakingly out of a dense clump of
+laurel where he had watched the love scene with burning eyes--eyes
+glittering with hate and jealousy.
+
+Unheard and unobserved, he slunk away through the pawpaw thicket into
+the impenetrable rhododendrons. For hours he had followed Lem that
+morning. But he had been too far away to overhear anything that passed
+between him and the girl.
+
+Now that old Cap Lutts was gone, Orlick had hidden here with the
+intention of killing Lem. He had worked his way up on his stomach and
+was just inching his rifle into position, when the girl appeared, and he
+desisted for some remote reason of his own. However, he slunk away, his
+foul heart beating high with hate.
+
+If he could not have Belle-Ann, he would make sure that Lem would not.
+As she neared the horse-block, Belle-Ann turned and waited for Lem.
+
+"Will yo' sho' kill th' ghost-man, Lem?" she reminded him in parting.
+
+He nodded apathetically. He was beyond the heat of any enthusiasm in
+this tense minute. He only knew that she was going away from him.
+
+In her drawling, sweet voice she continued as they proceeded toward the
+horse-block where they could see Benson and the horses ready.
+
+"Ef yo' do, Lem, hit'll smoke all th' sorry outen my heart, an' I'll be
+glad agin, like 'fore maw an' pap wus kilt--gladness th' kind whut
+hain't a-carin' ef hit rains, or ef hit suns. Don't be sad, Lem,"
+glancing into his woful, tragic eyes. "Belle-Ann'll be a-prayin' fo'
+yo'-all. An', Lem, when I cum back, mebby yo'll kiss me heah," she ended
+with a finger on her puckered, red lips.
+
+Buddy and Slab and the dogs were mingling with the restive horses in the
+sunshine. Benson had already mounted.
+
+Forgetful of her precious dress, Belle-Ann dropped on her knees in the
+dirt beside old Ben and, with her arms around the blind hound's neck,
+she hugged the old dog to her and kissed his soft ears. Buddy hung on to
+her with appeals for her early return. Old Slab shuffled around her with
+a medley of adjurations.
+
+She turned in the saddle and called back:
+
+"Keep a-watchin' an' a-tryin', Lem--an' yo', Slab--don't yo' fergit whut
+yo' promised against th' witch."
+
+Her voice was unsteady now.
+
+Benson was leading the way a few rods ahead. As they looped the spur and
+headed down the trail toward the cypress cut, Belle-Ann could no longer
+combat her feelings. Bending low over the saddle horn, she wept
+inconsolably.
+
+At the gap below she looked back. Lem stood up on the horse-block waving
+to her. Through dim eyes she looked and flourished her wet handkerchief
+above her head.
+
+Far down in the valley, where they struck the faint wagon trail and the
+horses came out to the ford at Boon Creek, Belle-Ann turned her eager
+eyes up toward Moon mountain and there, as she had expected, she
+discerned Lem's outline high up on the apex of Eagle Crown.
+
+And as the horses paused in mid-stream to drink, she caught flashes in
+the sunlight, and she knew that Lem was waving his hat to her, and she
+knew he was straining his eyes and his heart for her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In these troublesome times, gray and somber with woe, the Lutts cabin on
+Moon mountain was a dismal and cheerless abode.
+
+Lem and little Buddy were inconsolable, and the monotonous days
+following Belle-Ann's departure were sad and long--and very lonely.
+
+Slab was tireless in his efforts to keep the boys cheered up.
+
+On pleasant nights he would sit on the witch-elm block before the cabin
+and sing "Kitty Wells." This sacred duty over, he would turn his talent
+to enlivening negro melodies, interspersed with doubtful tales, well put
+together, dealing with war times in general, and the wonders of
+Lexington in particular.
+
+And when the storms came, and the lightning crackled, and the cascade in
+Hellsfork raged, and the lashing trees soughed in the rain and tempest,
+Slab would render the same musical program in the big front room, but
+vary his plots of fiction woven about his beloved Lexington. In case Lem
+and Buddy glanced at each other approvingly, or applauded his comics
+with even a half smile, his old face showed plainly that he was amply
+repaid.
+
+Lem had eight trusty men working "The Worm" up in the secret cave, but
+spent most of the time each day, after counting the demijohns to be
+turned over to the bootleggers, in wandering aimlessly over the
+mountains. He was always alert and watchful.
+
+Over in Southpaw there were evidences of unrest, and Lem looked for an
+attack from the revenuers at any hour.
+
+Indeed, so furtive had this habit of vigilance become, that in these
+days he rarely traveled the trails, but moved under cover parallel with
+the paths.
+
+One day he stepped out in the open trail and picked up a fledgling hawk
+that had tumbled out of its nest. Ahead was a group of boulders, one of
+which was immediately under a spruce sapling.
+
+To these he walked leisurely and, resting his rifle against the first
+rock, he climbed up to put the youngster beyond reach of the badgers and
+razorbacks.
+
+He was in the act of reaching up when, at a slight sound, he turned and
+looked straight into the round, black end of a rifle, less than six feet
+from his chest!
+
+Down at the stock was the big bull-dog face of the ghost-man, leering at
+him triumphantly.
+
+The peculiar, erratic impulses of the psychological moment are ever
+puzzling and insoluble. Lem gazed calmly, almost unconcernedly, down
+upon Peter Burton. Indeed, at this instant, there was no more evidence
+of excitement in Lem's face and mien, than had the revenuer been a
+venturesome fox squirrel gamboling about.
+
+Lem almost grinned pleasantly, as he turned and reaching up, placed the
+young hawk safely on a low branch.
+
+The little creature threw out his wings. Lem steadied it with careful
+deliberation, then leaped down from the boulder. The instant his feet
+struck the ground it seemed to shock his very blood into icy currents
+that congealed and left him befuddled and shivering.
+
+As he stared into the revenuer's insolent face, the earth looked like a
+pinwheel.
+
+Suddenly the film lifted from his brain and he was conscious for the
+first time that the revenuer had taken his rifle. The man's thick lips
+were moving. He was talking to him. Lem's poise came back. Fully
+aroused, his face went livid with rage. The revenuer perceived this and
+thrust the rifle muzzle closer.
+
+"You don't doubt that I'll shoot, do you?" he inquired, with his eyes
+fixed savagely upon Lem.
+
+"Naw, houn'-dog," returned the boy in low, quavering tones. "Yo'd kill a
+female baby."
+
+The revenuer laughed.
+
+"Don't you know when I first saw you on that rock training that hawk to
+sit up, you kind of scared me?" He expelled a volume of tobacco juice.
+"You scared me some, Mr. Lutts. I thought you was fixing to ring a
+church bell on me."
+
+He let loose of Lem's rifle and it fell behind him. He held his own,
+pistol-fashion, under his arm, with his finger in the guard, as he
+stepped nearer and shook a huge menacing fist in the boy's pallid face.
+
+"You'll have a swell chance ringing anything on me again unless you've
+got a church bell in your pocket. You pulled a swell trick on me that
+night, didn't ye? You thought the bunch that galloped down to your
+dog-house would get me that night, didn't ye? Young man, I'm going to
+bust this gang of thieves up here, or I'll drink Hellsfork dry! And
+you--you--you're not only carrying on your daddy's business----"
+
+A blinding, reckless fury that fired Lem with the strength and savagery
+of a tiger propelled his body through the air like a catapult. He landed
+on the revenuer's neck and with his naked hands he tried to kill him.
+
+He learned speedily why Burton had not fired, for a second man who had
+been concealed behind the boulders, together with Jutt Orlick, sprang
+out and upon him. These two heavyweights soon overpowered and handcuffed
+the boy, while Orlick lay with gloating eyes, peering out at the scene.
+
+Burton rolled Lem over on his back, and left him to exhaust the
+maledictions he was heaping upon their heads.
+
+As Lem scrambled to his feet, Burton launched forth as he deftly cut the
+leather thong and relieved Lem of his cow-horn.
+
+"Lutts--your family owes the government a million dollars and then some.
+And you're going to pay in some shape or form--you're in the hands of
+the law now. You ain't monkeyin' with these county people. You're on
+your way to Frankfort now--and I think I'll be able to send you to
+Atlanta for a while. Eh, Tom?"
+
+Burton turned to his perspiring companion.
+
+"Sure--they say the punk tastes like cake down there, too."
+
+"Now, Lutts," resumed the revenuer with his bullying insolence, "you've
+got one chance, and if you could see what's ahead of you, you'd take it
+quick! You lead us to that layout of yours and you're free. Otherwise,
+you're going to jail for a year anyway. I got the evidence all right.
+What you going to do about it?"
+
+Lem's brain was busy.
+
+If he had been sure that there were only the two of them he would have
+been only too eager to comply with Burton's proposition--because he knew
+that these two men would never again report for duty. But how was he to
+know how many men Burton had hiding to trail them.
+
+Upon second thought Lem declined to put his own people in jeopardy.
+
+"Well," growled Burton, "don't be afraid to talk. Are you going to lead
+me to that liquor hole?"
+
+"Yo' kin blow my brains out first," replied Lem scornfully and
+emphatically.
+
+"Well, fool, you're on your way. Tom, let's get busy. Bring his gun."
+
+The revenuer produced a length of strap and, tying one end to the short
+chain connecting the iron cuffs, he motioned Tom ahead.
+
+The iron cut into Lem's flesh at the slightest pressure, and acted like
+a bull-ring. In their desire to get the prisoner away with as much
+secrecy as possible they avoided the trails, traveling cautiously under
+cover.
+
+A few minutes after the revenuer and their captive had departed, Orlick
+crept out from the rocks like a reptile, and warily dodged along in
+their wake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IN PRISON
+
+
+At high-noon the next day Lem Lutts was landed at Frankfort, a United
+States prisoner. This dismal trip represented the first ride Lem had
+ever made on a railroad. The terrible chagrin and consternation that
+obsessed him, and the bullying presence of his furiously hated arch
+enemy made it one that lingered long in his memory.
+
+In the early hours of the trip the revenue officer and his deputy had
+plied the boy with a torrent of questions in their vain attempt to break
+him down. This cross-fire finally wearied Burton, as Lem acted like a
+man deaf, dumb, and blind; and the surly officer desisted with a series
+of dire predictions, mingled with some exquisite punctuations of choice
+profanity.
+
+A pall of far-stretching clouds obscured the sky and a film of drizzling
+rain veiled the atmosphere. Through this thin downpour Burton walked his
+shackled prisoner to the Federal Building.
+
+After a wait of almost an hour--which added nervous agony to Lem's grim
+speculations--he was led into the austere presence of the commissioner.
+
+A row of ornate heavy chairs was lined up against the east wall of the
+high-ceilinged room. Across the room on the west side, the commissioner
+sat at a long claw-footed table, hemmed about with various other pieces
+of massive office furniture, while to the left of him a pale, icy blonde
+woman hammered a typewriter.
+
+On the walls were the portraits of five men, presumably former
+commissioners.
+
+The whole atmosphere of the chamber was charged with a chill that went
+to the heart of the prisoner. When they first entered the room the two
+officers escorted Lem to one of the chairs against the wall. While the
+deputy remained seated here with Lem, Burton swaggered his damp hulk
+across the room and halted before the commissioner, his big shoulders
+slumping awkwardly. Here he stood mopping his sweaty, heavy features.
+
+Lem's eyes were fastened upon his blunt profile. When the commissioner
+threw his pen down and looked up, Burton met his gaze with a leering
+grin, the while wetting his thick lips with his tongue and jerking his
+thumb toward Lem and the deputy with some words that were inaudible.
+
+As Burton grinned now, Lem had seen his own dog grin, and, at this tense
+moment, the analogy almost coaxed a smile to Lem's tight lips. Lem had
+seen his own hound lay a limp, dead rabbit at his feet and look up, and
+lick his lips with his tongue, and grin just as Burton grinned now.
+
+A subdued and lengthy conversation followed between the commissioner and
+Burton. From their expressions and gestures it was apparent that Burton
+was describing the killing of old Cap Lutts. Finally Burton beckoned the
+deputy, who led Lem across the great room and stood him before the
+commissioner.
+
+The latter leaned backward and slightly to one side, while with
+curiously wrinkled brow he started at Lem's boots and glanced slowly and
+critically up Lem's corduroy trousers, past his heavy belt, across his
+gray flannel shirt front, and finally rested his keen eyes upon Lem's
+face.
+
+He did not see a hang-dog criminal.
+
+He saw before him a young mountaineer, in height a good six feet; spare
+of flesh, but with back-flung shoulders that promised to develop at
+maturity into the frame of a mighty man. He saw a candid, open
+countenance, though now a trifle pale, little short of handsome, and
+absolutely free from any indications of dissipation.
+
+He noted a well-shaped, firm mouth above a square chin; a thin, hawklike
+nose leading to a wide vertical forehead.
+
+Throughout this acute examination Lem's steady gray eyes never wandered
+from the commissioner's face. He focused his own gaze upon the
+commissioner's eye as intently as he would have watched a groundhog hole
+in the hills. Then the commissioner leaned forward and, taking up his
+pen, spoke softly:
+
+"So you are old Lutts's boy?"
+
+"He's a dangerous man, Cap'n," interposed Burton. "He ain't no boozer.
+He makes the stuff, but he don't drink it himself so you can notice it;
+and that makes him more dangerous. I can hook seventeen rummy-shiners
+before I can get half-way to a sober one. Then again, he's got the nerve
+of the old man, and that helps some, I reckon. He's the old man over and
+over--he's fixin' to lead us a dog's life, Captain."
+
+The commissioner studied Lem again.
+
+"I knew your father, Lutts," he said. "In fact, I have a small piece of
+lead inside me yet that your father put there." He paused again and,
+oddly enough, the severe frown with which he had raked the prisoner at
+first now vanished. He continued evenly:
+
+"Do you see those portraits along the wall? They are men who worked
+themselves up in the service during the thirty-five years that I can
+remember. They all looked for your father; they all found him. But none
+of them ever brought him in."
+
+The commissioner shifted his eyes to Burton.
+
+"So it was left to you, eh? Well--well, of course, I rather
+expected--that is, I hoped to get old Lutts alive, but----"
+
+He broke off abruptly and added his signature to the blue printed blank
+he had filled in, then handed the slip to Burton with:
+
+"I'll continue the hearing for further evidence--take him over to the
+jail, Burton."
+
+He now looked at Lem.
+
+"Have you anything to say for yourself?"
+
+Throughout all this the boy had stood straight and unflinching. His
+features were pale but his jaws were hard set. Friendless and moneyless,
+he knew his chances were small. He knew that he stood on the perilous
+brink of some dire happening. He understood the import of the
+commissioner's order to hold him for additional evidence, and while he
+was not wholly unafraid, he stood tense and determined, boding no
+retreat, like a brave horse taking a deep, wide ditch in the dark, with
+yawning depths beneath him, and the gush of waters in his ears.
+
+"I said, have you got anything to say?" repeated the impatient
+commissioner.
+
+"I hain't got nothin' t' say--only--only----" he began, in a voice that
+split and ruptured in crowding past the lump that choked him. He turned
+his gray eyes and fixed them upon the bloated, triumphant visage of
+Burton.
+
+"Only," he struggled on, quaveringly, as he lifted his two cuffed hands
+and leveled them at the revenuer, "he kilt my Maw--he ded--an' he kilt
+my pap, he ded--an'--an'----"
+
+[Illustration: "He kilt my maw--he ded--an' he kilt my pap."]
+
+Burton grabbed one shoulder with a snort, the deputy the other, and they
+led him out.
+
+As the door closed, the blonde typist resumed her machine, and her
+chilly eyes were moist. She glanced covertly at the commissioner. His
+downward drawn mouth was ajar, and he was gazing blankly at a familiar
+ink spot on his desk.
+
+Once again Lem found himself marching through the rain between his
+captors, and all the unknown strange noises of a city consolidated and
+merged into a tumult that harried his very soul. His next distinct
+impression came when he realized that Burton was unlocking his
+handcuffs.
+
+He was now inside of a jail. He stood before a desk and a man in uniform
+was putting various questions to him in a curt and gruff voice,
+concerning his age and residence, to which Lem answered in an apathetic,
+dazed way. The man made a record of these responses in a book. While he
+was thus occupied, Lem was eyeing his awesome surroundings.
+
+Now for the first time, he was conscious that Burton and his deputy had
+disappeared, and another man in uniform stood at his side. The desk-man
+presently handed this officer a pink slip, and he in turn told Lem to
+follow, leading the way across a big rotunda of concrete to a huge
+iron-barred gate which he unlocked. He ushered the prisoner into a long
+corridor, and transferred him to the care of a second uniformed guard,
+who proceeded to search Lem's clothes with a skill and deftness that
+would have inspired envy in the bosom of a professional pickpocket.
+
+The guard seated Lem on a bench which was already occupied by two men in
+blue cotton shirts, and the perversely striped trousers of convict garb.
+
+"Blinky," said the guard, "where's Last Time?" addressing a huge convict
+with red hair, a mop and a bucket.
+
+"He's over at the bath house."
+
+"Send him front when he comes back. And you," turning to Lem, "sit there
+till you're wanted."
+
+Whereupon, with the pink slip in his hand, he walked to a small desk at
+the farther side of the corridor and sat in an arm-chair with his back
+toward the three now on the wooden bench, waiting for Lem knew not what.
+
+In the meantime, Lem's eyes roved about making a grim inventory of this
+great merciless cage that had engulfed his body. He was inside a mammoth
+arcade-like structure that stretched its repellent length out a thousand
+feet and more to a blind, sinister end. Along its sides, equi-distant,
+appeared high arched double windows, bolted and barred with a
+lattice-work of iron. Wherever Lem perceived a spot of God's light, a
+cold, forbidding hand lay across it like a blasphemy, spreading out its
+unyielding, black, skeleton fingers to enmesh a human soul.
+
+Moreover, this stupendous, invulnerable shell incased and jealously
+protected a second structure equally strong and grisly, for as Lem
+looked, he noted this other structure occupying the center of the
+arcade. It was a tomb within a tomb, and the boy's already heavy heart
+sickened as his eyes slid down the seemingly interminable vista of small
+iron-barred doors, some four feet apart, that diminished in perspective
+toward the distant end until they shrank to the size of a newspaper.
+
+The doors in this cunning edifice were accessible by means of a steel
+skeleton-work forming lengthwise porches five stories high, where even a
+sluggish imagination could visualize convenient gibbets stationed just
+outside these black, mysterious doors, awaiting the condemned necks of
+the inmates.
+
+While Lem made further notations in undisguised wonderment, convicts
+were constantly passing to and fro. They were "short time" men who had
+their allotted duties, working about the tiers and corridors.
+
+Presently, Lem became suddenly conscious that the two men at the other
+end of the bench were eyeing him curiously. Their interchange of looks
+and low words to each other made it obvious that Lem was a subject of
+comment. Now that Lem was looking straight at them, the man nearest slid
+along the bench, smiled good-humoredly, then whispered:
+
+"What did ye draw, bo?" The man watched Lem's mute lips for response.
+
+"What did they give ye, pal?" he repeated, while the second man slid
+over and craned his neck for the answer. Lem still looked puzzled, but
+finally answered.
+
+"Nothin'."
+
+The other started a laugh which was squelched with an elbow punch in the
+ribs from his companion.
+
+"I mean, pal," pursued Lem's inquisitor, "did ye git a sentence in this
+jail, er did they bind ye over?"
+
+"I air continued," replied the boy gloomily, "wherever thet takes me."
+
+"Oh, yes--is this your first pinch?"
+
+Lem risked a nod, with only a vague notion of what "pinch" meant.
+
+Presently the man spoke again.
+
+"Say, pal, you ain't never been in jail before, have ye?"
+
+"Naw," responded Lem without hesitation, "an' I 'low I want out o' heah,
+too."
+
+He delivered this earnest sentiment with such guileless sincerity that
+both men snickered.
+
+"Don't you care. You'll feel dopy for a day er two--then ye won't mind
+it. It'll git your nanny the first time. This is my fifth time in this
+joint," he volunteered. "I got eight spots ahead of me. Say, pal, sneak
+me th' makin's, will ye?"
+
+Lem did not answer.
+
+"Have ye got any tobacco on ye?"
+
+"Ef I had, yo'd be welcome to hit--I never use hit."
+
+The man looked disappointed.
+
+"Say--when the bull frisked ye--did he git all your matches--ain't ye
+got no matches either?"
+
+"I haint got nary a match."
+
+Here a big, husky fellow in stripes, who walked as if he had springs for
+shoe-soles, passed by. Then he stopped, and turning back, looked keenly
+into Lem's face. Lem met his gaze and noted that he wore a livid scar
+from the right cheek-bone down to the chin. He did not appear to see the
+other two men on the bench, but stood looking with open interest at Lem.
+
+"Hello, Last Time," greeted the man next to Lem. Wherefore, the newcomer
+shifted his gaze searchingly, then grinned. With a furtive backward
+glance toward the guard's desk, he thrust his hand out.
+
+"What did you draw, Rox?" he probed.
+
+"Eight."
+
+"A mere speck--I could stand on my head that long. I may see you
+to-night." He hurried on with his elastic tread toward the guard's desk.
+
+"I'm dead sure we'll git some tobacco now," predicted the man beside
+Lem. "That's 'Last Time'--he's a time-lock expert--believe me,
+gents--he's some cracker, too. I met him in Joliet, and I met him agin
+in San Quinten. Say, Monk, do ye remember readin' about that back-track
+stunt Last Time pulled off five years ago? No? Well, that was a funny
+caper. You see, Last Time touched a big joint in Cincy and got four
+thousand bucks. Then he beat it west. Two days later he got stewed in
+Chi--then he boarded a train with a bottle of booze, thinkin' he was
+bound fer Omaha; but he woke up that night and walked smack into the
+arms of the fly cops in Cincy. What do ye think of that? They didn't
+prove it on him very strong, but he drawed two spots at Columbus on
+general principles. I wonder what he turned this time. I met him last
+winter in St. Louis and I was up aginst it good and strong, too, but
+Last Time slipped me fifty as easy as dirt. He's got a heart as big as a
+cow's. Don't you worry--we'll git tobacco now. I wonder how much longer
+they'll keep us here," he faced about and addressed Lem. "I'm waiting to
+git my top-knot clipped--I reckon ye wouldn't want to lose your hair,
+would ye, pal?" he observed, regarding Lem's flowing locks.
+
+"I reckon he will lose 'em, though," projected a raspy voice.
+
+The three looked up. Blinky was standing over them with a pair of
+clippers in his hand.
+
+"What are you, anyhow," chided Blinky, sneeringly. "Are you a cowboy or
+a preacher?"
+
+Lem felt a warm sting rise to his cheeks, as he fixed his eyes
+inquiringly upon Blinky's insolent face.
+
+"What else could he be," interposed a new arrival, "but a preacher? He
+ain't no convict--the Captain jest sent fer him. He's goin' to live here
+amongst us and reform a lot of you bad guys."
+
+At this juncture, still another convict came up, bearing a blue cotton
+shirt and a pair of prison trousers over his arm.
+
+"Is this the new duck?" he queried.
+
+"Duck--duck," echoed Blinky. "Ain't ye got no manners? I'm ashamed of
+ye--ain't ye got no respect for a preacher? This is Brother Silsand--he
+got a call--here."
+
+"Oh, excuse me. Well, Brother Silsand, you'll carry these elegant pants
+and this fancy shirt on your arm when Last Time comes to escort you to
+the beach. When you come back, you'll feel like a gentleman sure
+enough."
+
+Other men were attracted, and now a little group clustered around the
+bench, all eyes turned upon Lem, as though he were some strange animal.
+And all in turn contributed their jest calculated to furnish fun for the
+others.
+
+"Here comes Brizz now," announced Blinky. "Ha, there, Brizz--I brought
+your clippers down. Pipe this guy's hair--you'll never git that reaped
+twixt this and sun-down. Say, Shorty, you been bellerin' for a mattress
+ever since I knowed ye--now's yer chance--rake this pretty hair up as
+fast as Brizz mows it, and feed it to that hungry tick of yourn. I'll
+bet my plug Saturday to three matches that the bell won't wake ye up."
+
+At this moment, Brizz, a heavy man with a ponderous paunch, crowded in
+and took the clippers out of Blinky's hand. Brizz was the official
+reception room barber.
+
+"It do look uncommon extensive, don't it?" said Brizz.
+
+All this while, Lem had grown more and more uneasy, and his first
+resentment was rapidly amounting to real anger under these unkind
+criticisms, and the jeering faces that now encircled the bench.
+
+"I'll swear it do," reiterated Brizz. "Still, I'm a regular old rip when
+it comes to mowin'--come here young feller," he urged with a
+business-like flourish of the clippers. "Let's start early so's we'll
+get done for supper."
+
+He laid a hand on Lem's shoulder. Whereupon, Lem rose up, his jaws set,
+his muscles tense, while a steady light shot his gray eyes.
+
+"Ef yo'-all tech me with them things," he said, low and steady, "I'll
+take em away from yo' an,'--an' hit yo' with 'em."
+
+The men were so enthralled with these festive proceedings that they
+failed to notice Last Time sneak up from behind, where he was taking it
+all in. When Lem stood up and showed fight, a chorus of low derisive
+laughter rippled around the circle which was instantly disrupted as Last
+Time burst ruthlessly into their midst, throwing one of the convicts
+completely off his feet.
+
+"What you fixin' to do, Brizz?" he growled.
+
+"Who--me?--I'm here to cut this man's hair," wherefore, the barber
+applied the clippers so unexpectedly and so roughly to the head of the
+man who had been seated next to Lem, that the unlucky fellow protested
+loudly. Last Time turned upon Blinky. He scowled at him for a second,
+his lips curled away fiercely, emphasizing an under-shot jaw.
+
+"You old clothes thief," he hissed, "you rod-ridin', cheap, ugly
+leather-snatcher--you forgot the hammerin' I handed you last month, eh?"
+Last Time shot a quick look across the corridor at the guard's back.
+Then he reached out and took a clutching handful of Blinky's
+shirt-front, and thrust his right fist close to Blinky's nose. Blinky,
+who was a head taller, now hung away, white and dumb.
+
+"You let this new man alone--do you get me? You let him alone. The next
+time I get at you I'll take your jaw off--I'll send you across the lot
+for many a day--get away--get," he snarled, with a violent, contemptuous
+push.
+
+The minute the other onlookers had noted Last Time's attitude toward
+Lem, they faded noiselessly away like so many rats. All except Shorty.
+He stood meekly, holding the shirt and the trousers across his arm.
+
+"That's the bully of the jail," said the convict, following Blinky with
+a belligerent look. "He's got 'em all bluffed--but one," he added with a
+scornful laugh.
+
+"What you waitin' on?" he demanded of Shorty.
+
+"Here's his clothes," replied Shorty, indicating Lem with a jerk of his
+head. Last Time scathed him with a withering look.
+
+"Say, I had a trained cockroach once that could learn things quicker
+than you--you get dumber and dumber day by day. This man is on the court
+side--he keeps his own clothes. Take them things back to the
+dud-cubboard, and put 'em back where you got 'em from. Let's see--you're
+Lutts, ain't you?" he broke off, producing from his pocket the pink slip
+Lem had seen the guard have when he was first brought into the cell
+house.
+
+"Yes--I air ole Cap Lutts' boy o' Moon mountain."
+
+The convict shot a curious look at Lem.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A FRIEND IN NEED
+
+
+"Sure--that's right," he assented. "Well, Lutts, come with me now. You
+have to take a bath--everybody that comes in here has to take a bath,
+the first dash out the box. You ain't never been in a place like this
+before, have you? A blind man can see that," he conjectured, gnawing a
+chew off a very black prison plug. "Have a chew?"
+
+"I never hankered fo' t'baccy," declined Lem, smilingly, with a gesture
+which he meant for a polite curtsy in lieu of thanks.
+
+As they proceeded across the graveled prison yard, toward the bath
+house, Lem's keen inherent sense of penetration had analyzed the man
+beside him as accurately as Last Time had read the artless, simple soul
+of the big mountain boy, and notwithstanding that Lem knew instinctively
+that this bull-necked, scar-faced fellow was a bad and desperate
+character, he at the same time felt a warm feeling springing up within
+him toward this man. He felt that he had a friend in Last Time, who was
+the first and only one to give him a kind look or word since his arrest,
+and a sympathetic look or a cheering word coming from any quarter was
+indeed a welcome offering to a person in Lem's unfortunate and
+distressing position.
+
+As they walked, the convict talked along in a friendly way, and noting
+Lem's roving eyes, he proceeded to tell the boy about the various
+buildings scattered about the great lot.
+
+"That's the Chapel over there," he said. "That's where you will go to
+church on Sunday, if you want to. If you don't, you'll stay locked in
+your cell. There's the dining-hall back there by the left wing of the
+cell-house. That long shed over there open on all sides is where the
+shop men stop to wash up. There's three hundred men over there now at
+work. They make brushes and wire fences and shoes and a lot of other
+things, but you won't work there--cause you're held for Court--but I'd a
+damn sight rather work than stay locked up all day--night's bad enough.
+
+"I hope you don't come back here after your trial. Any man with as much
+intellect as an oyster can see that you don't belong here. And there's a
+few more like you here, that don't deserve bein' in a place like this--a
+waller for the scum of the earth. Don't look at me, Lutts--that don't
+include me--I got off damn light. I was due for five spots in the pen.
+You see that little brick coop over there, Lutts--without any windows,
+and a solid iron door? That's Calcutta--the dungeon--they call it the
+'hole.' That's where they put the bad actors. Inside, there's a solid
+sheet-iron cell, with an iron cot, and an iron bucket in it--that's
+all--not a crack of light. They chain 'em to the bed an' leave 'em--once
+a day they give 'em fresh water and toss in a piece of punk. When the
+men march in at night, you'll notice the Captain standing at the
+cell-house door making the count, and you'll see a bull standing by him,
+pullin' men out of line. When you see a guy pulled out, it's Calcutta
+for him."
+
+"I've been here nine months, and I've been in that 'hole' five times,
+'cause I can't stand these fresh stiffs around here. The last time was
+for makin' hamburger out of Blinky. See them little wooden houses away
+'cross there up on the wall? Them's for the lookouts. See, there goes
+one now, walking on the wall with his cannon in his hand.
+
+"Here's where you get your bath, Lutts. Upstairs over here is the
+Hospital. That's where I sent Blinky and a couple more of his cowards."
+
+Last Time's laugh predicated a deep, pleasurable reminiscence, as they
+entered the bath house. There was no one in the bath house at this time
+save the convict attendant. He handed Lem a towel which in dimensions
+resembled a large table napkin, and a piece of yellow soap which in size
+looked like a chewing-gum wafer. Here, Last Time reached out and took
+the mite of soap and the meagre towel out of Lem's hands.
+
+"Hoggie, I'll look after him. You stay up at the door and watch the
+big-top. If you see the bull come out and pike over uneasy, you squeak.
+Wait, Lutts--I'll get you a decent piece of soap."
+
+With this he climbed up on a box, and reaching up behind a series of
+steam pipes, he produced a half-bar of white soap and a towel of coarse
+fabric, but clean and ample. Lem then busied himself with the bath,
+which was sunken into the concrete floor. As this new-made friend talked
+along, trying to acquaint Lem with the rules of the prison, he noticed
+that the boy fumbled, and hesitated, and was plainly abashed when it
+came to divesting himself of his clothes. Last Time thoughtfully left
+the mountaineer to himself, saying:
+
+"I'll help Hoggie watch for old Caladadac--you can wash your hair if you
+want to--that soap is O. K."
+
+Some fifteen minutes later, when Lem had concluded his hasty bath and
+joined his conductor at the door of the bath house, a high-keyed bell
+suddenly pealed out. It was the first familiar sound Lem had heard since
+he left the mountains.
+
+"That's the recall," said Last Time. "Stay back in the door a minute and
+you'll see the file come out--they've stopped work now--it's four
+o'clock."
+
+The celerity with which these convicts got out of the shops was
+remarkable. Hardly had the tower bell ceased when five long rows of
+stripes stood ready to march. The guards each blew a mouth-whistle in
+turn, and the columns moved across the plaza toward the wash-shed like a
+great dragon with hundreds of legs. Then out of the wash-shed the
+columns crawled, bent around the dungeon-house, and marched into the big
+dining hall, with the scraping rise and fall of the lock-step--a
+peculiar, sinister sound.
+
+Lem had peeped out at the bath-house door upon this spectacle with
+awesome eyes. He stood in open-mouthed wonder, and was aroused only when
+Last Time spoke and touched his arm.
+
+"The night bull 'll come on now, and he'll be hollerin' for me--we
+better git along," he said. "You won't eat with them men. You'll git
+yours in the dining hall inside."
+
+Upon reaching the cell-house, Last Time conducted Lem to the tables at
+the front end of the basement corridor where the Court prisoners were
+already at supper, and then left him. A soup-bowl, filled with a
+substance that at least resembled coffee; a plate of beans, and a thick
+piece of bread were placed in front of Lem by a convict waiter.
+
+Lem felt at the moment that he never again would want to eat anything.
+Not only was his appetite wholly gone, but the mere sight of this food
+was nauseating, although he had not tasted anything since he had eaten
+breakfast at home the day before.
+
+While he sat looking about him with lugubrious eyes, the man next to
+him--an uncouth individual indeed--whispered surreptitiously:
+
+"Ain't ye goin' to eat your punk?"
+
+Lem shook his head.
+
+"Kin I have it?"
+
+Lem pushed the whole fare over to him gladly. Presently a gong rasped
+out two harsh, reverberating notes. At this the men, some forty in
+number, rose, fell into line and straggled up the basement steps to the
+main corridor. At the head of the steps Lem met Last Time, who was
+apparently waiting for him.
+
+"I'll show you your cell now. You're 420--right next to me on the first
+tier."
+
+Here a great commotion of hurrying feet sounded below and overhead on
+the tiers above, mingled with the metallic ring of keys and the cold
+clanking of steel doors and the rattle of iron. And from far up the dim
+corridor Lem heard a sound that, somehow, filled him with a strange
+dread. It was the rising and falling of a scraping, tide-like
+rhythm--the muffled rhapsody of a hundred-legged lock-step. The last
+column of convicts was marching into the cell-house from the dining hall
+on the plaza.
+
+It was the on-coming of a grisly, striped, argus-eyed multiped, with
+fifty heads. This ugly sound reverberated soft and stealthful at first;
+like the padded feet of some fabulous, carnivorous monster sneaking into
+this cavernous mortuary to gloat over the dead souls it had cached here.
+Then again, beneath the nearer tumult, this natant, ill rhythm died down
+to a measured, sinister moan, echoing through the stone corridors in
+soughing jabs, like sounds marking the visitation of some maimed Hydra.
+
+The denotation of this eery evil tread of ruined lives grated terribly
+on Lem's highly tensioned nerves. And oddly enough, he did not seek to
+shut it out--this revolting, dreadful scrape, that nothing can ever
+imitate. On the contrary, he strained his ears for it, impelled by the
+same indefinable, weird influence that charms one to turn again and look
+back upon a horror that has fascinated the eyes. Thus was Lem fascinated
+by this hateful noise. Enthralled in this that had dominated his senses,
+for the moment, he had unconsciously ascended the skeleton iron stairs.
+
+When he aroused himself, Last Time was pointing into the cell allotted
+him, and looking at him pityingly. Lem shot one swift look into this
+dark hole, then withdrew his startled eyes and fastened them upon the
+convict's scarred visage. The boy's eyes were freighted with the igneous
+luster of some unnamable terror that seemed to stultify his senses,
+leaving his manly instincts in the grip of some perverted agency that he
+did not know was there.
+
+If Lem Lutts had possessed a pistol, he would have killed himself in
+that instant. Quaking perceptibly, he hung back from the cell door. His
+hand trembled as he held to the railing of the iron porch. His lips
+moved, and he tried to tell the convict something. The world seemed to
+be falling about his ears, carrying his soul down into the fumes of
+hades. Of all the subtle, dormant influences that awake, and invade the
+scheme of human life to sway the impulses of men, there is none so
+bewildering as this phase of psychological prompting which holds its
+profound mystery intact, and baffles solution.
+
+Where is the abode, and what is the origin of this plenipotent conjurer?
+Certainly Lem Lutts trembled at the threshold of this stone cell. Last
+Time could see that. What sweeping, pillaging power was this that
+assaulted Lem's will, causing him to quake thus like an aspen. Surely it
+was an abstruse form of fear.
+
+Verily, it could not have been the stigma of cowardice. Lem Lutts had
+never known fear. From the very cradle his life had been enveloped in
+danger. Deeds stood out boldly to refute this suspicion of weakness.
+Scores of times in Lem Lutts' life he had looked into the grim teeth of
+on-coming death unflinchingly and unafraid, with a self-forgetfulness
+that spells sublime courage. But here he stood now, on the brink of a
+moment that was in some strange, exaggerated way, awful to him. He
+stood, pale and shaken, in front of this black jail-cell, undeniably
+fear-stricken.
+
+Perhaps this was the same quality of fear that caused Napoleon to
+dismount, cursing his horse, pale, sick, and unsteady for an hour,
+because his steed had crushed a camp cat with its hoofs. Possibly it was
+the same subtle thing that inspired the late C. K. Hamilton, the most
+daring of all aviators, to rush in panic from a dental chair. It may
+have been the same brand of unknown dread that impelled one of the
+greatest war conquerors in American history to shun a graveyard after
+nightfall. Some time or other this strange power lays hold of the
+bravest hearts. It had Lem Lutts now, and he was backing away and trying
+to get down the stairs. Last Time spoke to him gently, as he took his
+arm and urged him slowly into 420.
+
+"Hurry up, Lutts--don't you hear 'em? They're lockin' up now, and I've
+got to run the tier for the bull--there now--I know just how you
+feel--I've forgot all the other times, but I've never forgot the
+first--and God knows I never will. You can't tell me--but you'll be all
+right--I'll come and talk to you after a while. They don't lock me up
+until eleven o'clock."
+
+Lem had stepped inside gingerly, as if he expected the floor to collapse
+and engulf him. There was a dull rolling, a click, and the iron-barred
+door was closed upon him.
+
+"Stand up at your door until the bull makes the count," imparted Last
+Time, as he hurried along the tier looking into each cell. Then he came
+back, and pulling a great lever at the end of the tier, locked all the
+doors automatically. Now he started back, again calling into the cells
+as he passed.
+
+"Stand up--stand up--stand up!"
+
+A big guard followed close behind the convict, with a gliding tread that
+did not give forth the slightest sound. He dashed a cold, penetrating
+stare in at the faces that hovered at the bars. When the guards had made
+the count for the night, a babble of conversation began between the
+prisoners all over the place. They called to each other by the cell
+numbers, or nicknames; and the talk waxed to an incoherent, mixed medley
+that tangled itself into nothing intelligible. Though strange to record,
+this did not seem to bother or confuse those talking.
+
+The door of Lem's cell seemed to be as sensitive to every sound as a
+telephone receiver. A voice at the farthest end of the corridor trailed
+into Lem's cell as distinctly as a voice two cells away. Thus, a sound
+two cells away might be interpreted as emanating from the remotest cell
+in the place. Lem, sad, dejected, and with a weight of gloom at his
+heart that submerged his spirit and held him in a lethargy, still stood
+at the door with his fingers twined around the chill bars. His eyes,
+starry with the emotions that swept over him, were fixed upon the only
+thing he could see--the blank stone wall opposite, laced with a series
+of steam pipes, and the high windows blotted with a skein of iron.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE STIGMA
+
+
+He was in jail now--he, Lem Lutts,--old Cap Lutts' boy--was gunless
+to-night; hanging on to the bars of a jail door. His father, seventy-six
+when he fell in the Church of Hellsfork, had never been in a jail.
+Crowding up amidst other lamentations, and superseding them for the
+moment, Lem felt keenly the stigma and sting of this scandal. It was a
+disgrace on the whole Lutts faction that he, their leader, now should
+stand behind the iron bars of a jail door. The irony of it was deeply
+excruciating--that he, their chieftain, should succumb to a revenuer.
+
+Moreover, was it not unspeakably shameful that this revenuer who took
+him was the man who had invaded his home and killed his mother? He had
+waited a little and killed his father. Then he tore him away from his
+domain and his people; and caged him where he stood to-night--gunless,
+in an iron and concrete hole, with the cold, unyielding bars between him
+and his free, wide, high Cumberland Kingdom.
+
+Lem probed his conscience for the hundredth time in quest of the crime
+he had committed to bring him to this hell. And when a small voice
+answered back from out its castle of inherent chauvinism, and told him
+that he sinned against no man--then it was that the smouldering, dormant
+hate, sleeping in his heart, stirred and welled up into a mighty tide,
+effacing all other kindred emotions that had traversed his being upon
+being jailed. This new force aroused him to action, and somehow he felt
+better.
+
+How strange are the workings of that mystically mated pair--the human
+heart and brain! How appallingly strange that a phase of hate should
+assuage the pain in any heart. But this was a truism that for the time
+inspired Lem to action and forgetfulness of his environments, for now
+his previously dull eyes were afire, as he turned back into his cell for
+the first time. He felt his way to the limits of the wall. The distance
+was a mere three steps for him. Then he turned and took the three steps
+back to the door. Then back again he went. And thus he took up this
+three-step march, the while the ugly visage of the revenuer projected
+itself against the gloom, and he saw Burton's dog-grin. He saw him smear
+the sweat off his leering face, and fancied he heard his vaunting words
+of triumph to the commissioner, gloating over the killing of Lem's
+father, and the taking of himself.
+
+And here, while Lem paced to and fro, he forgot all else save his thirst
+for revenge. And through these walls he heard dim voices from two graves
+in the hills urging him onward, and he invoked God to give him strength
+to endure. He vowed that he would be patient and endure, even to the
+crack of doom, that he might stand face to face with this man-brute,
+when he, Lem Lutts, would hold the upper hand, in that great day, over
+this wanton blood-lover who had done these things.
+
+Lem's life was linked to this Nemesis by an inexorable blood-debt. He
+was bonded to the revenuer, with the rigid, unmalleable nexus of hate
+that naught but annihilation of one or the other could sever. Thus, with
+these hurtful thoughts whirling through his brain, Lem forgot in a
+measure, which mitigated the dejection and chagrin imposed by his
+terrible predicament.
+
+Wherefore, he continued to follow these stormy thoughts as from door to
+wall he paced--three steps backward, then three strides to the bars,
+walking, turning, walking and turning again--until presently he stopped,
+transfixed, startled, and blinking. A flood of brilliant light, had
+dashed into his cell. The boy had heard of this wonderful invention, but
+he had never before seen an electric globe. This magic effulgence that
+rushed in and drove the darkness from his cell was a most welcome
+visitation, but it added to his strange, uncanny surroundings, and
+perplexed him deeply. He stood rigid for a long minute gazing intently
+at the incandescent globe that stuck put from the wall, irradiating its
+brightness in so mystifying a manner. He approached this bottle-like
+device, and examined the wall around it minutely. He raised one hand
+cautiously and with a forefinger touched the globe gingerly, as if he
+feared it might burn him. While he was thus engaged pondering upon the
+necromancy of this light which smacked so strongly of witchcraft, and
+upon the avenue that conveyed it hither and the puzzling power that
+sustained it, he heard a slight sound at the door. Whereupon, he wheeled
+quickly and met Last Time's scarred face grinning through the bars at
+him pleasantly, and obviously amused. Knowing that the fellow had been
+watching his antics around the electric globe, and acutely conscious of
+his own crudeness, Lem stepped to the door with an abashed smile.
+
+"How are you now?" inquired the convict.
+
+"I ain't powerful happy," returned Lem lugubriously. "This air the
+all-fired'st cave I ever been into. I 'low I'll never git used t'
+hit--leastways I air glad thet yo'-all come round t' talk. I ain't much
+on th' talk myse'f--I never could talk much, someways,--th' folks up my
+ways air all putty much thet-away--they don't any of 'em spill over with
+talkin'--'pears like they got so much to think about thet hit keeps
+their tongues stalled all th' time, most--but ef I can't say much--I air
+glad yo'-all come round, 'cause I like to heer yo' talk. Gawd'll
+Moughty! hit's powerful lonesome-like in heah."
+
+"Sure," sympathized the convict. "It's lonesome'ern hell; but it ain't
+that altogether thet hurts a first-timer, Lutts--it's the gang of
+old-timers he's bound to meet inside every jail."
+
+Lem smiled wearily, in a mirthless way, and delivered his short,
+eloquent gesture, implying acquiescence and approval, as he watched the
+convict's face with interest. Silently, Last Time produced a small tin
+box containing a bit of woolen rag and a tiny piece of flint, together
+with a button through which two cords passed through separate holes.
+Standing, he lifted his knee, placed the box thereon, and with dextrous
+skill started the button like an improvised buzz-saw against the flint.
+The spark flew and ignited the woolen rag. He then lighted his
+cigarette, replacing the box, and leaning his big shoulder against the
+bars, forced the smoke through his nostrils reflectively.
+
+"I don't know what brought you here, Lutts--I ain't askin' you--it's
+none of my business--but I hope you don't come back here after your
+trial--it's the old-timers, like me, that the cul meets in jail that
+makes the criminals of this country. Just listen to that talk now--that
+ain't up-liftin', is it?--Sure not. Just hark to that swearing and them
+rabby songs--sure, that's all aginst the rules of the prison, but what
+can they do to stop it? Nothin'. They'd have to keep a bull at each
+door. The men are allowed to talk a little while to each other from
+their cells before the lights go out. They can't speak during the
+day--they got to let them talk some time or other in a place like
+this--if they didn't, they'd all go crazy--then where would the
+politicians and the prison contractors be?
+
+"Then when these guys start in to talk, what do you hear? But there
+ain't much of that stuff comin' from the first-timers, Lutts--they're
+too thoughtful to-night--they ain't hard enough yet--but wait till they
+come back--very soon. If they do, they won't get any jobs when they get
+out, believe me--it's me that knows. What happens when a guard starts
+out to catch some of these cursers? A bull's got to be almost in front
+of his cell to be sure. And you take three hundred convicts with
+two-thirds of them cussin' all at the same time, and the echoes all
+jumbled up--he might as well try to take the ocean up in his arms--they
+get them--sometimes. When a bull slips up and starts along the tier, he
+don't no more than get started, when the guys that he's already passed
+gives out the signal and you won't hear a peep until the bull's gone
+down again--then they'll all give him the merry ha-ha, and cuss him for
+sneaking up. It's the people you meet here that makes the criminals,
+Lutts. I hope you don't come back here. If you do, you're gone--not that
+you want to be gone, but the world 'll sizzle you to a frazzle--they
+will want none of you--it's me that knows."
+
+Lem was profoundly attentive. He pressed against the door and listened
+to the convict's words with growing interest. Last Time rolled another
+cigarette, manipulated the tinder-box, lighted up, and continued:
+
+"It makes my gizzard ache," he said, "every time I see a first-timer.
+Their stories are all the same. If you'll listen, Lutts, I'll tear off
+nine rods of my own life, right at the spot, where I first got in jail."
+
+"Once I had one of them good mothers--like everybody has or had. My
+daddy was killed in a mine, and my mother died three months later. They
+sent my little sister to an orphan asylum, and I went to work for a
+dairy-man for my board and clothes. I sure did sling the work--from four
+in the mornin' to eight at night, sometimes later. He fed me good
+enough, but the old stiff wouldn't give me a cent to spend--only two
+jits on Sunday to toss to the preacher. Course he didn't agree to give
+me any money, but if he had just a slipped me two bits on Saturday he
+could have squared my feelin'. I didn't kick out loud, and wouldn't a
+felt so bad at that if he had let me see my little sister once in a
+while. I begged him every month, but he turned me down cold."
+
+"Well, I got to wantin' to see my sister so damn bad after a year that I
+swiped a set of single harness from the old guy. I kept them hid for two
+weeks, then I dug them up, sold them, and skated. I left a note tellin'
+ole Storman that I had gone West to make my fortune, like they say in
+books. Well, I see now that I hadn't ought to a stole the harness--I
+hadn't ought to a throwed that trick. Anyhow, them two months was the
+happiest I've seen since.
+
+"When I left I meant to work for some one near the asylum who would pay
+me till I got money enough to pay for the harness and go back, as the
+old man had promised to pay me wages when I was eighteen, but I struck
+such luck that I forgot to go back; but I paid him for the harness--like
+a dub--and what did I get for it?
+
+"I was a husky lad and knew the dairy business. I got a job near the
+asylum--saw my sister every day--and got twenty-five bucks a month. The
+harness was my first bad break, and it worried me. The second month, I
+sent old Storman a postal order for twenty dollars and told him I took
+the harness and was sorry. He cashed the order and had me pinched the
+next day. They tried me and slammed me into the booby-hatch for six
+months; so I was on my way.
+
+"Lutts, I'll never forget that first night--not me. When I got out I
+went back to my last job and got the throw-down. He said it was good for
+me to confess and pay for the harness, but that every one knew I had
+been in jail, and he couldn't have me around. Then I went back to my own
+town like a fool--everybody gave me the go-by--even the church that I
+had carried money to every Sunday wouldn't have me. I saw then I was a
+dead one. I hiked out then. Every time I'd get a good grip on a job,
+long would come that convict-hunch, and I'd have to make my by-by. I
+ain't tellin' you how hard I tried for a year, Lutts--but I'm tellin'
+you now that I ain't tryin' any more, and don't mean to. I quit tryin'
+and hunted up a guy I met in jail, and when I found him in St. Louis I
+was hungry and ragged and ugly as a wet dog.
+
+"He was the whitest guy I ever met. He staked me and I stuck to him, and
+worked with him until he got shot dead the night I got this scar you
+see. Believe me, Kid, Morgan was the smoothest blower that ever lifted
+the front off a safe--and I want to tell you, Lutts, when I'm outside I
+ain't ragged and hungry any more--not me--and I don't mix with tin-horn
+trash like Blinky and this gang in here. I live right, Lutts, when I'm
+out. I got twenty-three hundred bucks planted right this minute, where
+no one will get it but me--at that, Lutts, I'd go back and work for five
+dollars a week if I could, but I know I can't--there's no turning back
+for an old-timer--he's gone.
+
+"I know as well as I know I'm talkin' now, that in the end they'll plant
+me in the potter's field, and the chances are that I won't die
+natural--they wouldn't even let a guy like me into a decent
+graveyard--the life has big draw-backs--and when you get out, Lutts, you
+remember the advice from a party that knows--you side-step anything that
+looks crooked--even if you do see ready money--you blow it--it's a
+boomerang--I'd rather die a beggar than a rich thief--blow it, Lutts--it
+ain't too late for you--if you don't come back. Say, Lutts, you must be
+hungry--I know you didn't eat anything downstairs--wait a minute----"
+
+Last Time broke off abruptly, and slipped into his cell. He returned
+with a paper sack which he thrust through the bars to Lem.
+
+"Here's some crackers and cream cheese--the bull gave it to me--you eat
+it all--I got all I want. Hello--there goes the quarter--the lights 'll
+go out in fifteen minutes. 'Creepin' Jesus' 'll wake up now. I got to
+bring the night bull's lunch from the kitchen and take the towels over
+to the Hospital, and turn the hot water off at the bath house, and a
+string of other old-woman stunts before they lock me up--so-long."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+RUBRIC DROPS
+
+
+Lem ate the cheese and crackers thrust upon him by the generous convict,
+more to assuage the acute pangs of hunger that now assailed him than to
+indulge his palate, the while he pondered over the convict's story.
+
+Suddenly the electric lights went out and left his cell in darkness save
+a glimmer across the corridor. The scores of obstreperous, profane
+tongues that had scathed the fetid atmosphere now subsided, and Lem sank
+on the side of his cot and gazed with empty eyes between the bars at the
+dim light across the stone hall, and the full force of his unlucky
+predicament rushed upon him again.
+
+This gas jet, which burned all night, was some fifteen feet from the
+corridor floor, bringing it up to a level with the tier porch. The jet
+flung a faint, orange-hued ray obliquely toward Lem's cell door.
+Although he was mentally worn out and weary of body, still he could not
+bring himself to lie down. Finally, he took the straw pillow from his
+cot, placed it on the cement floor close to the door, and sat down with
+his mind astray and his unseeing eyes fixed blankly upon the gas light.
+
+At this instant, he was suddenly blinded, as "Creeping Jesus" flashed
+his lamp in his face, turned a cold stare on him, and glided on like a
+ghost. Lem clutched the bars and tried to look after the apparition that
+seemed to be borne along on air. While he was pressing against the door,
+a sudden medley of noises disrupted the quiet. As it came nearer, it
+gathered volume, and the somber stillness was quickened with the discord
+of voices, and the shuffling of padded feet, accompanied by the baser
+scrape of a heavier tread. Seemingly, this confusion stopped and
+centralized directly over his cell, but what tier it was on he could
+form no conjecture.
+
+In a momentary lull came the rasping of a key; then the subtle roll of a
+cell door, followed instantly by a frightened voice that rang through
+the dead corridors with a jumble of protesting, begging utterances that
+rended the solemnity of the place.
+
+"Oh, no, no! Not in there! Not there! I--I----"
+
+"Shut up--you'll wake every dog in the place--get in."
+
+"I won't go in there! I won't! I can't go in there!"
+
+"Will you get in there? You get in there--you damn fool!"
+
+"Don't put me in there--don't--don't! I won't run away--how can I? I'll
+stay right here--but please don't put me in there."
+
+"Take hold of him, Sam--throw him in--get hold of his leg."
+
+"Wait--wait--wait--please listen just a minute--I'm not a
+criminal--don't put me in--my parents don't know where I am--let me stay
+out here--my father is rich--he will send for me--he will pay you--he
+will come for me--please don't put me in that place--I----"
+
+"Say, Kid--you're the limit! For the last time--are you goin' to get in
+there? If you don't--we'll throw you in."
+
+"I won't!--I can't!--I'll smother in there. I'll die there and my mother
+will never know--oh--oh--you're choking me--stop--you're
+chok--cho--ch----"
+
+For a scant minute there came the panting hiss of labored breaths,
+heaved through clinched teeth; a combat of footsteps, mingled with the
+sound of ripping garments. Then came a dull thud overhead, a slight
+rumble, the click of a cell door, followed by an agonizing groan, ending
+with the pang of a sob that impinged cruelly upon the awesome, dead
+solitude.
+
+While these hateful sounds still lingered hurtfully in Lem's ears, two
+feet and a pair of striped legs confronted him. He looked up from his
+position on the floor. It was Last Time.
+
+"Ain't you asleep yet, Lutts?" he whispered, then went on, "Did you hear
+them slam that first-timer in? He's right over you in 520. God, but he
+hated to go in there--but he went in. He's no mongrel--he's a swell
+looker--only a kid--the poor devil. It's eleven o'clock--there's the
+bull lookin' now--night."
+
+The convict stepped into his cell and slammed his door noisily as a
+signal to notify the guard, who stood waiting at the end of the tier,
+that he had closed the door tight. Then the big lever ground back into
+position, and Lem sat motionless with a horde of curious thoughts
+trailing across his benumbed brain. It seemed like an age that he sat
+there, throughout the pitiless hours like a distorted image; the
+deserted habitat of a soul with its tenant gone. He was only aroused
+momentarily when hour after hour "Creeping Jesus" hung at his door for
+an instant, like a great nocturnal humming-bird, then darted away like a
+winged phantom.
+
+The boy had the comforting, though fatuous notion, that the nearer to
+the door he managed to get, the nearer to freedom was he. Under an
+apathetic spell his thoughts fled back to the hills. With quick, wistful
+breaths, each a cry from a stifling soul, and his hot forehead pressed
+against the iron, he crouched there on the floor by the cell door. His
+body was imprisoned between these grim, impassable walls; but his soul
+was yet uncaged. For in spirit he was once again back amidst the
+beauteous wild hills of the Cumberland with the feel of his rifle,
+hunting and hunted in turn, but with the pungent aroma of odoriferous
+blossoms in his nostrils; the purl of crystal waters in his ears; and
+the illimitable arch of opalescent sky over him, and the free fraternal
+rocks beneath his feet.
+
+And in his vision, framed in blissful hours, his retrospection conjured
+a seraphic face--a luring, misty vision, with a bowed red spot for a
+mouth, and great black-fringed eyes--eyes tinted like robins' eggs--eyes
+that held an unworldly baby look; and curls--a riotous billow of satiny
+curls. Ah, even as he crouched here, he could see the little pale scar
+that crossed the part in her curls--his scar--his scar to kiss,--that
+little scarab-like mark that fascinated his lips.
+
+The longer he stared at the rufus halo that encircled the gas light, the
+wider it expanded; and as it grew, its burning gamut embraced a
+multiplicity of changing scenes representing hours of his life. Like
+cinematographic pictures, it held a stirring pantomime boldly up to his
+intent gaze.
+
+As he looked again, a beautiful nascent wraith slowly developed and
+occupied the nimbus of the buff light. Her meaning lips were slightly
+parted, her eyes saw him, and there was a specific message therein. He
+knew that if some sorceristic agency could put her down by him now in
+this black midnight hour, that she would put her hands in to him and
+would give her lips between these unbreakable iron bars. The price of
+her kiss to-night would be one look at his haggard, haunted face.
+
+In fancy, he took her in his arms and fled, galloping across the clouds
+to the Cumberlands, racing with the shadows that traversed the valleys
+like eagle wings. Once again his eyes were gladdened with the vast
+colored panorama that crowded in one limitless circle around Eagle
+Crown. Now the cascade in Hellsfork was beating in his ears, the
+soothing rhyme of its endless monotone, a cadence he loved so well. And
+now the sun had followed a shower, and he was sitting with Belle-Ann
+under the big magnolia tree on the spot that was ever dry, and they were
+holding out their hands and catching the crystal raindrops that rolled
+off the leaves overhead.
+
+Half consciously, he now thrust his hand out toward this scene his own
+imagery held before him. And even now the warm drops came down from
+overhead--dripping, dripping, dripping. He could feel them splash and
+burst now on the back of his outstretched hand, just as they did in the
+joysome days agone when the drops tickled their palms, and he could hear
+the music of the girl's dulcet laughter. Again he caught more of these
+drops.
+
+Suddenly and rudely, Lem was jerked out of this beatific reverie by the
+fearful howls of some convict, night-mare ridden. These hideous
+screeches aroused Lem's senses, and he blinked and rubbed his hands. His
+hands were wet. Instinctively he looked up and discerned the crack in
+the tier porch overhead from whence these warm drops trickled down and
+splashed in front of his cell. Wherefore, a shock of suspicion jerked
+him out of his rambling thoughts. He leaned close and stared at the back
+of his hand, getting to his feet at the same time. It was smeared with
+red. Even in the semi-darkness, Lem knew that the stain on the back of
+his hand was blood.
+
+In an under-tone he called repeatedly to Last Time in the adjoining
+cell, but the convict slept on and did not respond. Lem searched for
+something with which to knock on the wall to wake him. Failing in this,
+he backed up against the wall and hammered with the heel of his heavy
+boot. Presently, Last Time's voice awoke sleepily and from afar.
+
+"What's the matter--is that you, '20?"
+
+"Yes," returned Lem in a whisper. "Yo'-all come t' th' door."
+
+"What's the matter, Lutts?"
+
+"They's blood a comin' down overhaid."
+
+"Blood!"
+
+"Yes--hit's a drippin' down heah."
+
+"You sure it's blood?"
+
+"Yes," reassured Lem. "Hit's sho' blood--'cause I got some on my han'."
+
+"Wait a minute."
+
+Lem heard him rummaging around in his cell. The convict made a long,
+rigid roll out of a newspaper and thrusting this out and around at arm's
+length he said:
+
+"Here, Lutts, get the end of this--stick it in the blood and hand it
+back."
+
+Lem manipulated the paper. Reaching as far out as he could, he rubbed
+one end in the dark pool in front of his cell, and handed it back to the
+convict. Lem heard Last Time exclaim:
+
+"The hell--I thought that guy'd do something."
+
+The next minute the convict was scraping a tin cup across the bars of
+his door, a performance that sent metallic echoes from end to end of the
+corridor. A guard responded with surprising alacrity.
+
+"What's the rumpus here, Last Time?" he demanded.
+
+"That cul up in 520's croaked himself--pipe the blood in front of next
+door."
+
+The guard turned his reflector upon the pool, then hastily unlocked Last
+Time's cell.
+
+"Come along," he ordered.
+
+He then ran to the end of the tier, and pulled the lever to allow Last
+Time to open his door and follow. After that, Lem heard nothing overhead
+save subdued whispers, cautious steps, and guarded movements. He did not
+hear Last Time return to his cell.
+
+When the first gray light of dawn filtered through the high arched
+windows of the cell-house, and drove the gas light pallid, it found Lem
+still awake. Without, the English sparrows set up their garrulous
+chirpings, and like a draught of some blessed elixir, a faint breath of
+early morning, dew-damp air was wafted through the outer bars into the
+sodden cells. The bell on the prison tower rang, and there was a great
+stirring of convicts, mingled with a multitude of harsh jail noises.
+
+While the keys were grating on the tiers above, Last Time hustled up to
+Lem's cell with a bucket of water and a mop, and in silence washed every
+vestige of the blood-stain away. As he took up the bucket to go, he
+turned to Lem.
+
+"He's over in the dead-room now. Ain't it hell, though?--and him only a
+kid at that. He had a fine face, too,--he cut his throat with a broken
+pocket mirror. There comes the bull for the count--so-long."
+
+As the cracksman went, Lem saw a film of moisture glisten in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"THE ONLYEST LUTTS"
+
+
+Up on Eagle Crown, dim crest of his benighted world, Buddy Lutts' small
+shape made a vague shadow, fusing with the dawn-mists that dipped and
+lifted and swathed the peaks like a nun's veil. The boy crawled far out
+on this majestic point that divided night from day. On one side the sun
+had poised its jewelled lance against the east. On the other, the
+vanquished morning moon was hiding his pallid face amidst the naked
+peaks.
+
+Buddy crawled farther along the dew-chilled brink of the ledge like a
+young, lean catamount whelp. Here he sprawled at full length upon his
+stomach with his thin face propped up between his hands. Here, alone on
+the sanctum-rock of Eagle Crown, he lay, his moody eyes gazing beneath
+and across the limitless expanse of purple fog.
+
+There was a great ache in his heart, and he was lonelier than any boy
+could well be and live. By and by he discerned the top of the church
+belfry floating on the sea of fog like a buoy, and the mere sight of
+this replenished the fires of vengeance that had reduced his puerile
+being to a hard cinder of hate.
+
+No human foot had ventured across the door block of that death place
+since that serene Sabbath morning, more than a year since, when they had
+lifted the dead body of his father off the virgin altar and laid him on
+the pyramid of flowers built up in the clearing by the hundreds who had
+come to witness the dedication of the church. Although this deed stood
+foremost and fresh and even more vivid now in his memory, still, the
+calendar day of its enactment, seemingly, held a grim unforgettable spot
+on the apex of a grievous avalanche of immeasurable vengeance.
+
+The boy wearily withdrew his truculent gaze and his eyes softened with
+an unutterable sadness as he fixed them on the tops of the apple trees,
+behind the log barn, grouped about the two sodden graves of his father
+and mother--both dead at the hands of the despised law. His heart was
+dead to all else save one hope--to avenge the death of his parents and
+his brother Lem, whom he now believed to have been murdered by Sap
+McGill. He would not count his young life amiss with all its hardships
+and heart-aches, if only he could see the dawn of this triumphant day
+for which he lived. He was hoping and waiting and watching--waiting
+evermore.
+
+It seemed that the torturous days, weeks and months that he wandered
+through the hills furtively and alone, waiting and watching since his
+father's killing and since Lem and Belle-Ann had slipped away and out of
+his life, was time enough to make a decrepit, aged man. An insufferable
+loneliness had wrapped its tentacles around his being, and had, like a
+cruel tourniquet, crushed all the joy out of his soul. At times in
+retrospective indulgence he felt that his soul could not endure. Tears
+might have alleviated the misery within him, but Buddy's grievous
+repining and loneliness was of a tearless brand.
+
+Buddy Lutts was a boy in size and in years only, for it was with an
+adult stoicism that he valiantly fought this creeping madness. In his
+weaker moments this brooding would seize him and drag him back to the
+brink of utter hopelessness and despair; but always his purpose would
+fly to his rescue and beckon a renewed promise, and he would awake out
+of these lethargies armed with a buoyant sense of patience and inspired
+with a mighty will to wait and watch.
+
+In these periodical relapses it was his wont to humor his fevered fancy
+with lurid and extravagant sequences to his protracted term of
+espionage. Among these vagaries was a pet dream representing the
+revenuer and Sap McGill creeping upon him in single file; whereupon, he
+fired and his single ball tore both their hearts out and made him dance
+and clap his hands with sheer joy, and he was merrier than any orphan
+had ever been before him. His conscience acquitted him blithely, and his
+spirits soared skyward.
+
+Deprived of these monopolistic creations of reprisal to alleviate the
+tension of his hate, the bonds of his perverse reason would have burst
+asunder and left him bereft.
+
+But now again, there arose a cheering prophecy in the advent of spring.
+Since Lem Lutts had dropped out of the mountain so mysteriously, the
+bitter nights and days had rolled into weary months. And the brooding
+months had waxed into riotous winter tempests and had dragged in
+endless, eternal deluges of ice and snow, adding cold agony to Buddy's
+already misanthropic heart. But finally the crows rode up on the soft
+winds out of the South, and a benign sun broke the grip of these
+frost-bound hills, and gradually emptied their pockets of snow. The
+ridges and coves, and the emerald hulks of the mountains smiled
+gratefully back. And through this expanse of tangled scenic splendor,
+the rhododendrons and laurels wove a banner of multicolored tones. The
+sassafras and poplar and dogwood bloomed and the cascade sang a new ode.
+The calling of the lark came up from the lowland, mingled with the
+blatant scream of jay-birds in the orchard. And the warble of the
+blue-birds filled the odoriferous somnolent air.
+
+Buddy lay motionless out on the crag with his thoughts, and watched the
+sun unveil the spurs below him. Then he divided his gaze between the
+distant splash of water that marked Boon's Ford, shining back like the
+glint of a sun-perch, and the yellow length of trail across Hellsfork
+that marked the path to Sap McGill's stronghold. Then he twisted his
+head around unconsciously, and his eyes caressed the rifle that rested
+behind him--his father's rifle. And an inarticulate muttering answered
+the reiterated avowal in his heart, inspired each time he looked at
+this, his father's rifle--a sacred relic bequeathed to him and vested
+with a stupendous responsibility. He reasoned that now as he was the
+last of the Luttses, he was rightfully the Captain of the faction. In
+view of this heritage he argued that he should at least have a voice in
+the counsel of the clan.
+
+But Johnse Hatfield had a smooth, persuasive mien with him, and while he
+and all the men facetiously recognized young Buddy as their "Captain,"
+they had, through Johnse, kept Buddy artfully in the background. The
+disgruntled boy did not relish this lack of due recognition and these
+periods of inaction. He did not favor postponements. Time and again he
+had appealed to Johnse Hatfield to issue a call and muster every man and
+boy in the Moon mountains range, and cross Hellsfork and storm the
+McGills, win or lose. Ultimately, Johnse always twisted this sanguine
+project away from him, through flattery and cajolery; making amendments
+bit by bit, until Buddy's pet scheme had petered down to another
+postponement to which he readily acquiesced at the time. But always his
+truant acumen told him later that Johnse Hatfield did not consider him
+"fitten."
+
+This morning Buddy crawfished backward away from the brink of the
+overhanging rock. He threw the rifle-strap over his shoulder, and as he
+made the dangerous descent, there was etched on his grim little face the
+outlines of some new, inexorable resolution.
+
+The type of man who now stood as dictator and leader by proxy, of the
+Lutts' faction in the Moon mountain range, was an individual possessing
+a peculiarly complex and many-sided nature. In stature Johnse Hatfield
+was of medium height. He was deep-chested and thick of neck, but his
+legs were straight and incongruously slender in comparison with his
+shoulders. His face was a mask of black, close-cropped hair, save the
+complete exposure of the mouth.
+
+The hair growth halted below the lower lip and, from constant biting or
+use of the shears, the hair on his upper lip held aloof; hence, the
+mouth, thick-lipped and wide and tilted upward at the corners, bore the
+aspect of one perpetual smile. But, oddly enough, the eyes were a total
+and surprising antonym of this smiling mouth. They were markedly small,
+close set, and of a singular amber hue, glinting like needle points and
+carrying the fire of direct and instant demand. Thus, these closely
+coupled, unwinking eyes contradicted and specifically denied the
+smiling, placatory, diplomatic mouth so prominent across his black
+visage.
+
+It was said of Johnse Hatfield that at the moment marking his advent
+into the world he had interrupted his mother who was working a pump-gun
+from behind a grind-stone, in her will to help the men-folks repulse an
+attack upon their home cabin. She claimed that she "sho' wud a fetched
+thet 'onery Tod McCoy," whose head she was angling for behind a turnip
+mound, "ef little Johnsie hed a waited an' hadn't bin so all-fired
+anxious t' git hisse'f into th' rumpus."
+
+As a lad Johnse had carried arms with his notorious father and brothers
+against the McCoys. Then he had drifted up Hazard way and had, through
+blood relationship, become entangled in the French-Eversole war. Eight
+years since he had come up to Moon mountain to visit "Maw" Lutts, who
+was a blood cousin, and he never went back.
+
+While his life had been practically one prolonged fight, there was,
+nevertheless, a commiserating, gentle side to his nature. This
+incorruptible fealty and trustworthiness was an element that had
+attracted old Cap Lutts, and in time Johnse Hatfield had become the old
+man's first lieutenant. He had since served gallantly through many
+fierce sorties with the McGills and the revenuers.
+
+Johnse's friends pretended that he was a source of deep anxiety to them
+when near the water, because if he unfortunately fell in, there was
+enough lead in him to take him to the very bottom and keep him there.
+
+Hatfield had a smattering of education, and was reputed as upstanding as
+a mountain fighter could well be. Certainly, Johnse did not stand up and
+invite hot pellets of lead. He did not scorn a rock or a tree any more
+than did his opposing belligerents. But throughout his life the value of
+his given word was equal to a fulfillment. Those who bargained for this
+man's word felt that on the spot where Johnse defaulted they would find
+his dead body.
+
+When Lem Lutts had disappeared so inexplicably from the mountains,
+Hatfield had, after a hasty search, hied himself out and visited every
+calaboose and county jail in the surrounding country. He knew the
+cunning of Burton, the revenuer, well enough, but little did he
+anticipate such a flagrant irregularity as the transfer of a
+"moonshiner" to the capital of the State, with a dozen counties
+separating the place of offense. Such a procedure was depriving a
+defendant of all constitutional rights, and an effrontery to county
+jurisprudence, the enormity of which Hatfield could not ascribe to the
+power of even the wily, murderous revenuer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+BUDDY FORCES AN ISSUE
+
+
+After getting authentic information from the offices of the six Federal
+commissioners in the eastern district, and finding, to his deep chagrin,
+absolutely no trace of Lem Lutts, Johnse returned, and calling fifty
+men, he instituted a search that lasted for weeks. He beat every
+mountain side up to its crest. He scoured every cave and cove, and creek
+bottom. There was not a square yard of rock or earth or tangled brush
+that had escaped his search for Lem. But they did not find Lem's bones,
+and finally, Hatfield had resumed the regular routine amidst daily
+conjectures and prophecies, and dire maledictions from the men, directed
+toward the McGills.
+
+While Johnse made no outward preparations for hostilities, his mind was
+busy. This disappearance of Lem Lutts was not a closed incident to be
+relegated to forgetfulness. On the contrary, as the months passed, the
+temper of the Lutts' faction waxed to such a stage of suppressed fury
+that Hatfield knew it was only a matter of time, and a brief time at
+that, before he would be compelled to head a massacre over in Southpaw.
+It was while Johnse was making preparations after careful deliberations,
+to force a fight with the McGills and square for the supposed
+annihilation of Lem Lutts, that an unlooked-for incident occurred which
+hastened the conflict, but changed the site of battle.
+
+Prior to the death of old Cap Lutts, he had moved his distillery to a
+new site. Some fifty yards distant from the blind mouth of a cave he
+drilled a hole downward through forty feet of rock and earth and into a
+cave. Then he ran a channel pipe up through this hole and directly over
+the outlet he built a two-room cabin. This pipe was merged into the
+structure behind the fireplace in the cabin and continued upward some
+feet to where it opened out into the chimney proper; wherefore all the
+pungent odors and smoke from the distillery in the cave beneath the
+cabin followed this pipe and issued into the atmosphere through the
+chimney in a most natural manner.
+
+Nothing short of destruction of the cabin could have disclosed the
+presence of this ingenious device. Moreover, in the improbable event
+that prying eyes had been permitted to scrutinize these premises, it is
+highly doubtful that the mouth to the cave would have been discovered
+after the most minute and careful search. Because the entrance to this
+underground region was barely spacious enough to admit one man on his
+hands and knees.
+
+Furthermore, this entrance would be wholly and snugly closed by a huge
+boulder several tons in weight, or more than twenty men could displace.
+This great rock had the innocent appearance of a hundred other rocks all
+about it, and was so trussed up and balanced that one man could knock
+the prop out with a single blow, thereby releasing it and allowing it to
+drop back with its concave side fitting over the mouth of the cave in a
+manner that defied detection. When this precaution was resorted to, it
+required the labor of thirty men and two steers to truss it up again.
+
+It was here in this cabin that Johnse Hatfield kept "bachelor's hall"
+and maintained a "residence."
+
+When Buddy Lutts climbed down from his solitary reverie on Eagle Crown,
+he made for Johnse Hatfield's cabin as straight as crooked trails that
+"back tracked" themselves could take him.
+
+When he arrived at the "still," the "night force" was just crawling out
+of the cave to repair to their respective shacks. Buddy stepped within
+the cabin and cast about for Johnse. He stepped toward the adjoining
+room, but halted inquiringly, when he saw Hatfield's broad back and the
+profile of a man he did not know.
+
+Johnse looked behind him, got to his feet, and as he closed the door
+between, tossed a meaning gesture to Buddy, who rolled into a
+split-bottom chair to wait, opposite a row of ten Winchester rifles
+along the wall.
+
+The men from the cave now pushed into the cabin. They all wore holsters
+with twin Colts, but had stepped in to get their rifles. As they lagged
+about, got their guns, and straggled out again, they all in turn had an
+indulgent look or a playful nudge or respectful pleasantry for "little
+Cap Lutts." Their manner, however, made it plain that they did not
+expect any effervescent response from Buddy.
+
+Bud was known to be not a voluble lad. Some had ventured that "little
+Cap wus jest a pinch tuck in th' haid," but down in their rough hearts
+they pitied and loved him, for who knew better than they the train of
+barb-tipped circumstances that had crushed down upon this boy to harrow
+his young life with their eating misery?
+
+Hatfield soon appeared, followed by the strange man, who continued out
+the door without words. Johnse faced Buddy.
+
+"Howdy, little Cap--how's pickin's?"
+
+Buddy sat speechless with the newcomer in his mind, and questioning eyes
+upon Johnse's face, but Hatfield volunteered no enlightenment, and his
+hairy mask with its naked, smiling lips and frowning eyes was
+unreadable.
+
+"Foller me in, Buddy--I'm aimin' to kick up some breakfast 'bout
+now--maybe yo'll have a snack, eh?"
+
+Bud did not open his mouth, but his pale eyes followed Johnse as he
+began hacking at a raw shoulder of pork. Buddy knew Johnse, and Johnse
+knew Buddy, and the boy knew that there was something particular in
+Johnse's mind. And Hatfield knew just as well what Buddy would say as if
+the boy had already condescended to speak. After a minute's unbroken
+silence, Johnse said:
+
+"What ded yo' say, Buddy, eh? Ded yo' say yo'd have a hank o' corn
+bread, an' a slab o' po'k, eh?"
+
+"Naw," answered the boy sullenly.
+
+With the knife poised Johnse cast a covert look at Bud. Then he laid the
+knife down gently, threw his wide hat down on the red oil-cloth table
+cover, and sprawled down on a chair in front of the boy. With one hand
+he reached out and squeezed Buddy's shoulder solicitously, and
+pretending not to know what was coming, he inquired in his inimitable
+soft, smooth voice:
+
+"What ails yo', little Cap--hain't yo' feelin' peert like thes nice
+mornin', eh?"
+
+Buddy's lips were tightly compressed and his eyes, which had not
+wandered from Johnse's face, were now eloquent with reproach. Johnse
+waited.
+
+"I 'low yo' haint a treatin' me right, Johnse Hatfield."
+
+The man simulated a profound density.
+
+"Whut--whut--hain't a treatin' yo' right?--Why now, Buddy--now--come
+now." Johnse forced a soft placatory laugh. "Come now, little chap--whut
+hev I done t' yo'--eh?"
+
+Bud straightened up with a jerk and his mouth began to twitch with the
+heat of some vehement words that stood just behind his lips, but
+Hatfield quickly forestalled him as he intended to do.
+
+"Now--now--don't git riled, little Cap--why, haint I tuk th' best care
+uv yo' as I know how--an' every month after I've paid th' men, don't I
+bring yo'-all half o' whuts leftin'--every month since Lem's bin gone I
+han' over yore part reg'ler--an' last month wus better 'n any--why, I
+give yo' fifty-one dollars last month, Buddy--whut yo' got to pester
+yo'--eh?"
+
+At Hatfield's first words, the boy had settled back in his chair,
+plainly disgusted.
+
+"Whut do ail yo' anyways, Buddy--eh?"
+
+When Buddy straightened up again, Johnse relaxed in his seat and
+expressed a willingness to listen by plucking his beard with two fingers
+and a glint of amusement in his small eyes.
+
+"Johnse Hatfield," began the boy vigorously, "ef yo'-all wusn't honest,
+I 'low we-uns wouldn't a hed yo' heah--thet ain't whut I'm aimin'
+at--hit hain't--yo' alers treated me like pap ded--yo' alers ac'ed like
+a dad t' me--only one thing, Johnse Hatfield--jest one thing--I air a
+tellin' yo'."
+
+He had slid out of his chair and was now holding an admonitory finger up
+to Hatfield's face.
+
+"Only one thing, Johnse Hatfield--an' yo' done me pesky on thet, yo'
+ded."
+
+Hatfield regarded the end of Buddy's finger for a moment--then softly
+inquired:
+
+"How ded I do yo' pesky, Buddy?"
+
+"Hain't I th' onlyest Lutts?" he fairly yelled, falling back a step,
+with head tilted backward, and an unmistakable note of pride trembling
+through his piping voice.
+
+"Shore."
+
+"Warn't ole Cap Lutts my dad?" he demanded.
+
+"Shore."
+
+"Then who air leader by rights--who air th' head o' th' people--who air
+Cap'in heah in Moon?"
+
+[Illustration: "Who air th' head o' th' people--who air Cap'in heah in
+Moon?"]
+
+While Johnse was gathering response with slow deliberation, the boy held
+his ground with unswerving eyes, the while tapping his own little thin
+chest with his finger tips, and with an emphasis that boded no denial.
+
+Hatfield perceived that to argue with him now would be like taking a
+bone from a starved dog.
+
+"Why, Buddy!" placated Johnse, "ded I ever 'low yo' warn't?"
+
+"But yo' don't think I'm fittin'--yo' don't--yo' don't think I'm
+fittin'!" he shouted hotly.
+
+Mentally Johnse told himself that it was time to launch what he held in
+reserve and end Buddy's turbulent tirade, which was carrying the boy to
+the verge of distress. Hatfield's attachment to old Cap Lutts had been
+fused with a ligature of fealty little short of blind idolization, and
+it did his soul good to watch this outburst of virility and aggression
+that flamed up in the boy, reflecting the blood and stamina of the old
+man. And Hatfield loved this little human tiger that had come to-day to
+arraign him with the iron gusto of a born ruler and all the plenipotent
+fire of a vice king and despot.
+
+"I hain't fittin'--I hain't fittin'--be I?" he reiterated vociferously.
+
+"Shore, yo're fittin', Buddy. Course yo're a little feller yet,--shore
+yo're fittin'--ef ary hillbilly says yo' hain't--why, I'll turn his face
+down out o' these mountains, I will--yo' never heard me say yo' wusn't
+fittin', Buddy, eh?"
+
+"Naw, but leastways yo' ac' hit Johnse Hatfield--yo' ac' hit--yo' do.
+You won't listen t' me."
+
+"I alers listen t' yo', boy," contradicted Johnse quickly.
+
+"Well, yo' listen, but yo' don't heed--yo' don't," he stormed.
+
+"Whut do yo'-all want me to do?" petitioned Johnse naïvely.
+
+"Tear em up--tear em up--tear em up!" he cried, with an arm stretched
+toward the south. "Hain't I begged yo' t' tear em up--hain't I begged
+yo' fo' a yeer t' tear em up--hain't I prayed t' yo' t' wade in an' make
+em pay fer killin' Lem? Gawd'll Mighty----"
+
+Here the boy's fury broke all bounds of self-restraint and he tore up
+and down and across the puncheon floor, bandishing his two fists,
+distraught and choked with an avalanche of impassioned, inarticulate
+words. After a minute he went on.
+
+"Th' men won't foller me 'cause I air a boy--an' I hev begged yo' t' git
+em fo' killin' pore Lem. Don't I know they kilt Lem--don't I know they
+kilt Lem an' tuk em across Hellsfork an' made a hole fo' em in Southpaw?
+Efen yo' wus afeered I'd know whut t' do--but yo' hain't askeert, yo'
+hain't. Ef th' ole Scratch wus t' cum in thet door now t' git yo',
+Johnse Hatfield, yo'd smack em over and wring his neck--yo' hain't
+askeert--yo' got some tuther reason ahidin' out--yo' air--an' I don't
+'low t' swoller hit no longer! Whut ud my pore daid pap say--an'
+maw--an' pore Lem, whut Sap McGill kilt an' hid away?--we cyan't keech
+th' revenure--he's gone--but we kin keech Sap--Johnse Hatfield--efen yo'
+don't heed me now--so he'p me Gawd--I'll fire yo'--I'll fire
+yo'--karnsarn yo', I will--I'm a tellin' yo'--I hates t' do hit,--but
+I'll pay yo' anything I owes yo'--an' I'll fire yo' shor'n hell."
+
+The boy pulled his eyes slowly off Johnse's face and, sagging with
+passion, backed against the wall and turned his quivering face to the
+logs. Hatfield stood up and pulling his Colt gun twirled it lovingly and
+laughed like a man who had won something.
+
+Buddy started and twisted a look over his shoulder. Then he turned about
+and fairly crept back upon the man, and looked searchingly up into his
+face. There was a timbre in Johnse's laugh that told the boy something.
+There was a note in that laugh that mated with a solitary hope in his
+own heart. It sounded like a knock for which he had been listening for
+ages.
+
+"Whut--Johnse--whut?" The boy's whisper trembled and he laid two
+pleading hands on Johnse's sleeves and peered eagerly up into the man's
+eyes.
+
+Hatfield grabbed Buddy's wrist and dragged him outside the cabin. Still
+holding him, he pointed the gun down across Hellsfork and over to where
+the balmy, warm sunshine made soft, dreamful pictures in black and white
+amid the tinted spurs and ridges of Southpaw.
+
+"Buddy," he said, with profound, succinct accents, "yo' 'lowed I wus
+layin' back--but I wusn't, little Cap--I bin busy all th' time--an' now
+I got th' gates o' hell open fo' em--an' Tuesday when co't meets down at
+th' Junction, we'll drive em in with th' ole Scratch."
+
+Overwhelmed, Buddy stared open-mouthed at Johnse, but he could not
+mistake. He knew that Johnse spoke true, and not waiting for further
+details, he broke loose and capered in a circle. He tossed his hat up in
+an abandonment of joy and kicked it about when it came down. He grasped
+a big rock in his exuberance, and tossed it several feet, astounding
+Johnse with his strength, and he rung Johnse's hand, too overjoyed for
+words.
+
+Johnse returned to the kitchen, lighted a fire, and while the corn bread
+was warming he busied himself slicing the pork.
+
+"Ded yo' say yo'd hev a pinch o' breakfast, Buddy?" he invited.
+
+"Shore," answered Buddy. "I didn't 'low I was so hungry--lemme he'p yo'
+git th' snack, Johnse--I cud eat a bilt owl."
+
+When the corn bread and the cane-molasses and the pork and black coffee
+were all on the table, the two sat down to the repast together, and
+Johnse proceeded to take Buddy into his confidence.
+
+"Yo' hain't t' open yore haid, Buddy--nary a word, yo' heah?"
+
+With his mouth full, Bud nodded understandingly. "Yo' seed thet feller
+whut went out o' heah? Thet's Plunkett--he's bin a spyin' down at th'
+Junction fo' me, goin' on fo' months now. I brought em up from Hazard
+jest fo' thet purpose. I tol' em to git a job at Hank Eversole's store
+ef he hed to work fo' nothin'. Well--Eversole doddled along with em fo'
+two weeks--then th' old sore-eyed dog offered Plunkett twenty dollars a
+month an' Plunkett tuk hit, yo' bet--he'd a tuk ten dollars, 'cause I
+bin a payin' em twenty-five a month out o' my proceeds from thes works,
+Buddy. I'm a goin' t' tell yo' all frum th' start, an' 'fore I finish
+yo'll be surprised. Yo' see, Bud--I alers knowed thet some skunk traitor
+led th' revenure on to yore pap, an' I alers hed a mind who hit wus, but
+I never said nothin'. I wus so shore I wus right thet three times I hed
+my gun on em--then somethin' told me maybe I wus mistaken--an' I let em
+go--but I learnt this mornin' thet I'm right----"
+
+Buddy gulped, dropped his tin cup of coffee, and strained forward over
+the table.
+
+"Who--who, Johnse--who?" he blurted, straining his ears as though a
+river separated him from the answer.
+
+"Jest yo' set down an' eat yo' meal--yo' jest wait til I git to
+thet--I'm aimin' t' tell hit all as hit comes along--eat yo'
+breakfast'--I learnt thes mornin' thet I wus right," Johnse went on
+evenly. "Thet was Plunkett heah thes mornin'--I saved his life down at
+Hazard one night ten years ago, an' Plunkett 'ud take a message to hell
+fo' me an' git an answer--besides, I pay em--an' I don't want yo' to
+shoot em--he air apt to slip up here any time now, day or night--I give
+em the countersign and to' th' men to let em up--an' I want yo' to look
+sharp 'fore yo' go t' pullin'--yo' mought slide th' pork thes way,
+Buddy. Plunkett air worth all I pay em, an' more too--an' I'd starve
+myse'f fo' ten years jes t' git th' information he's brung me."
+
+Buddy had suspended eating, and, conscious that he dare not interrupt
+Hatfield now, he sat tight-lipped and listened like an image, with one
+hand gripping the other and holding it down under the table.
+
+Johnse proceeded with his recital with a deliberation that grated
+insufferably on the boy's nerves and made him shiver with impatience and
+excitement.
+
+"Maybe yo' rec'lect Buddy, when Don Perry wus laywayed on Pigeon Creek
+two months arter yo' pap wus kilt? Sap McGill an' Pete an' Stump Allen
+done thet job. An' now we cum t' th' main louse, Buddy. It was Jutt
+Orlick that led th' revenure t' th' church when yo' dad wus kilt, an'
+last night down at th' Junction, jest as Mart Harper started home, Sap
+McGill stepped out o' old Eversole's store an' Jutt Orlick out o' th'
+blacksmith shop opposite an' fired on Mart an' kilt him 'fore he could
+wink two eyes. An' down at old Eversole's Post-office ther's a passell
+of letters writ to Lem--old Eversole an' Sap an' Orlick tore th' letters
+open an' read 'em, an' Orlick hid 'em in th' store. Thet's bin mor'n
+three months ago. Plunkett learned that fo' sho', but hain't never heard
+one word 'bout Lem. Maybe McGill didn't git Lem, maybe Orlick done
+hit--but we'll charge 'em with hit, anyway; besides, hits more'n time to
+collect fo' their other divilment. Now yo' jest keep yo' haid
+shut--don't even peep, Buddy, 'cause ef th' men heer all thes news they
+won't wait--they'll bust out an' spile my plans. Jest keep quiet an'
+leave hit t' me, an' Mistah Hatfield 'll show yo', Buddy, whut cums o'
+laywayers an' traitors--an' yo'll hev a chanct t' see with yore own eyes
+how sich sinners crowds up t' git their crimes washed away with their
+own blood. I never kilt a man in my life lessen hit wus t' save my own
+life er some tuther body's life--I kilt 'em a fighten'--I never
+laywayed--thet's 'bout all I got t' say on th' subject--damn nigh
+enough, hain't hit?"
+
+Johnse pushed his tin plate away, settled back and wiped his mouth on
+the corner of a blue handkerchief he had knotted around his neck. He
+lifted his eyes to Buddy's chair, but the boy had left the table. Johnse
+looked around and beheld a solemn pantomime that he well understood and
+which he did not interrupt. Buddy had slipped noiselessly into the
+adjoining room, where he occupied the center of the floor. He stood
+there swaying, his lips moving mutely, and his two invoking hands lifted
+upward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE MURDER PARTNERS
+
+
+A bird's-eye view of Junction City would inspire even a jaded wayfarer
+to continue on and forfeit what measure of scruffy, uncouth hospitality
+its lazy, primitive confines might hold for him. On high, it looked,
+physically, like a monstrous spoiled egg, dropped from a great height,
+and halted in its desolation and turned back by a narrow, swift river
+that wrapped itself half around the town like a horseshoe. Its ill
+complexion was clay-yellow, and its adornments were pitted and streaked
+with a somber, sickly, worm-eaten gray. The very atmosphere that
+permeated this hole between the hills was at once forbidding, repellent
+and sinister. And up from the mad throat of the river, choked against
+the boulders in mid-stream, there issued a warning which never died.
+
+From eminences of the hills that crowded this town into a mere ragged
+plot, the most prominent institutions observable were the Courthouse and
+the graveyard, with the second look favoring the latter.
+
+One marvelled at the population of this habitat of the dead, sprawling
+on the side of a hill. Their countless pale hands thrust up out of the
+ground, seemed to have frightened the river, for here it turned sharply
+and dodged away between the mountains.
+
+The Courthouse was in the upper end of the town. It was framed and
+roofed with clapboards. In front, a crude attempt of hypostyle was
+visible in the two huge pillars of poplar logs that supported a balcony.
+The structure bellied out at the sides and oddly, at each corner of the
+roof, two mansard windows projected like ears, while above all a pigmy
+dome arose covered with unpainted tin. Withal, from afar the Courthouse
+looked like a decrepit bull dog squatting amidst a scattered litter of
+pups. The dome of this temple of justice looked up askew at the sun with
+the bluish-yellow glaze of a blind eye.
+
+Topographically, young Sap McGill and old Hank Eversole owned this town.
+Morally and spiritually they were paupers, and their souls were as
+pitted and yellow and gray as the town looked to be. Moreover, the
+McGills "said" they owned five thousand acres in the Southpaw range
+abutting Hellsfork, where they lived. Their verbal deed to these acres
+was sustained by a cavalcade of rifle men and a squad of wary, creeping
+bush-whackers.
+
+Old McGill and old Eversole had fought the Lutts faction for twenty
+years, but old Lutts had ever proved a most formidable antagonist, and
+when he brought the fearful Johnse Hatfield up to Moon mountain as aide,
+there was both renewed caution and consternation in the McGill camp.
+Then, when old Cap Lutts finally killed the elder Sap McGill on
+Hellsfork, one Sunday morning, they foresaw an eclipse that would bedim
+their day of power and their impotent chagrin and rage was unbounded.
+Where his father had left off, young Sap then took up the feud with a
+re-enforced vengeance.
+
+Then one day when the tidings came down to Junction City that the old
+King of Moon mountain had been killed by a revenuer, the exultation of
+the McGill faction was unconfined. Following closely upon this, a
+traitor sneaked down from Hellsfork and whispered to old Eversole the
+news of the arrest and spiriting away of Lem Lutts. The accrued glee of
+Eversole and young Sap with this opportune turn of affairs reached a
+stage that demanded expression. Wherefore, they celebrated with a public
+barbecue on the Courthouse lawn, and great rejoicing was mingled with
+sanguine prophecies, and the drunker Sap became the louder his avowals
+to annihilate the Lutts faction.
+
+Eversole and young Sap plotted, then, to waylay Lem Lutts as soon as he
+was released from prison, and during the interval they killed three of
+the Lutts' sympathizers, and took Jutt Orlick into the fold. But
+throughout this apparent upperhand in the war, Sap and Eversole had an
+apprehension that grew day by day, and of which they exchanged serious
+comments.
+
+The very silence of Hatfield, the man who now marshalled the Lutts
+faction, was significant and alarming. If old Cap Lutts' war-name was an
+awesome enunciation, the name of Johnse Hatfield was equally fearful.
+His name was scoffed at in public, but secretly he was a haunting
+bugbear to these murder partners.
+
+In one respect, Hatfield was unlike old Cap Lutts. Lutts would fight so
+long as the enemy was in sight and then quit. All the old man wanted was
+to be left alone and unmolested. But not so with this Hatfield. He had
+the reputation of following his enemy up, and he did it with a
+confidence and deliberation that was little short of uncanny. He had
+been literally shot to pieces in other family wars, but always survived
+and always followed. It was the shadow of this relentless Nemesis that
+filled Sap and Eversole with a nervous unrest. These two conspirators
+not only owned practically all the realty in Junction City, but they,
+moreover, owned and controlled the Judge of the Court, the County
+prosecutor, and the Sheriff, and through Sap McGill old Eversole was the
+dictator supreme in Junction City.
+
+He was postmaster and the post-office occupied one corner of his
+merchandise store. In the event that any citizen appeared lax or
+half-hearted in his partisanship, Eversole would accost him with a
+leering, soft-spoken reminder, which mild petition pounded more like the
+pungent echo of a gun-crack than a voice, and the delinquent always
+heeded.
+
+In a sense, old Hank Eversole was a philanthropist of no mean
+generosity. Anybody could get a tombstone out of old Hank. These
+ornaments were a sort of hobby of his. If the deceased's relatives could
+not pay cash, he procured one and took a mortgage on the stone. If they
+rejected all overtures on the pay plan, he furnished one and placed it
+at his own expense, and gave it gratis. He maintained that plain boards
+were a disgrace to a well-ordered graveyard, and not meant for Junction
+City.
+
+It was the second Tuesday in May, and the sun shone brightly and the air
+was scented with the mingled odors of spring. Junction City had taken on
+a sudden new life. The May term of circuit court was in session and the
+activity and life astir here was more animated than that which attended
+a court term for many a year, for the reason that there was a murder
+trial in progress.
+
+In this festering crime-stained town, where hired assassination brewed
+under contract by day, and was returnable at night with its toll of
+blood, a murder was not a sensational episode, but a real murder trial
+was. Here the chief conspirators, who had made the Judge and the
+Prosecutor and the Sheriff, had the law by the throat; and they dumped
+the offal of their deeds into subservient arms of the law, and burdened
+and shackled it with collusions it dare not drop. Wherefore, the law
+winked and connived with these murder lords in brazen malfeasance
+inflicted upon the commonwealth, and trials assumed all the aspects of a
+hurried laugh-provoking comedy, despite the grim fact that its elements
+involved human life. The swearing out of warrants had long since fallen
+obsolete. In times past, charges had been made and warrants issued, but
+when the day of trial arrived, there were no witnesses at hand, and the
+prosecuting witness was usually the farthest distant.
+
+Thus, it transpired that the trial which opened the circuit court at
+Junction City on this May day was to the denizens a memorable one.
+Although the trial itself, which was never finished, was not a factor in
+what followed, still, this trial was remembered as having opened a day
+that ended with a scrambled, tragic event which ground the
+McGill-Eversole combination to a pulp, and marked an era of new
+political and social ethics in Junction City.
+
+Three months since a young German named Daum, and hailing from below,
+made his optimistic appearance in the town. After alighting upon a
+four-room shack that seemingly suited his wife, he cast about to locate
+the landlord. As there was only one landlord in Junction City, Daum
+found his way into old Hank Eversole's store. Daum was even more than
+loquacious--he was effervescent, and in no time old Hank had pumped him
+dry. Daum claimed that he would receive ten thousand dollars from
+Germany six months hence,--that he wished to fish and hunt and live as
+cheaply as possible until his money arrived.
+
+Old Eversole finally decided that the newcomer was simply a harmless,
+dumb Dutchman, and before Daum left the store, old Hank had given him a
+receipt for six months' rent paid in advance. The German paid cash for
+his groceries at Eversole's store, and hunted and fished to his heart's
+content, while his young, round-faced wife made baby clothes on the
+porch.
+
+Withal, Daum was not an undesirable citizen until the end of the first
+month, when apparently tiring of fishing and looking at the hills and in
+response to his native thrift, he took to himself a quick notion to make
+some money. A week after this economic inspiration the energetic German
+had converted the front room of his shack into a general store.
+
+Notwithstanding that the display he scattered on his porch was a
+melancholy exhibit compared to that of old Eversole, it was sufficiently
+competitive to lead old Hank's footsteps directly to Daum's
+establishment. Old Eversole was not as irate as his temperament might
+suggest. He was, in truth, stirred with a deep amusement as he wended
+his way Daumward and pictured how this presuming German would leave the
+town in haste after this first interview.
+
+When Daum understood the purport of this un-neighborly call, he
+explained that he had never intended to remain in Junction City a day
+after he obtained his money from Germany, but protested that, insomuch
+as he had paid his rent for six months and being in a free land, he
+would do business until that time.
+
+The interview opened mildly enough, but ended with a mandate from old
+Hank, commanding Daum to close up his store within the limit of six
+hours. Whereupon Daum grew very angry, and as old Eversole swaggered
+out, Daum hurled his determination and sentiments after old Hank in a
+few wrathful, terse words.
+
+"Mit you I vont nuddings--I standt py mine piziness--to hell mit you
+also--ulch!"
+
+At daybreak the following morning Daum's wife was in her garden with a
+sprinkling can when she espied one Steve Barlow, a loafer around
+Eversole's store, sneaking out of her woodshed and slipping away along
+the picket fence hemming the potato patch. She pondered curiously upon
+the man's actions and, her suspicions giving way to fear, she returned
+to the house, but Daum had already gone after his usual morning fry of
+fish. The wife, then impelled by an apprehension that grew momentarily,
+followed after him; and found her husband stark dead at the end of the
+street.
+
+After the burial, the widow departed from Junction City, fully bent upon
+devoting her forthcoming estate to the trailing down of her husband's
+slayer. The day she left old Eversole sent word by Plunkett, his
+"clerk," that he would erect a tombstone for her husband, and that she
+could pay for it later or not, just as she chose. Ten days later, the
+widow Daum appeared in Junction City accompanied by a lawyer named
+Logan. Logan was a man with a state-wide reputation as a criminal
+practitioner, and old Hank Eversole pricked up both his ears.
+
+Logan proceeded to the Sheriff's office with his client and swore a
+warrant for Steve Barlow. The warrant was issued with reluctance; the
+entire court personnel being loud in their defense of Barlow. But there
+was a grim directness and aggression about this Blue-grass lawyer, that
+with his inconceivable temerity and a reputation which awed even their
+callow senses, they pretended at last to agree to catch and try Barlow.
+
+Logan visited the Courthouse the next day and found the Eversole-McGill
+faction had done just what he thought they would do, and precisely what
+he wanted them to do. Logan's youth had been spent in the hills, and he
+knew the proclivities of these mountain men. They had hedged Barlow with
+a formidable and insurmountable alibi.
+
+Logan then made a concession, and stated that while he meant to try the
+case, he would suggest that Barlow, if he be apprehended, be admitted to
+bail. He said that he realized that this procedure was a trifle
+irregular in such cases, but that if the townspeople were so morally
+certain that the alibi would stand, he did not wish to impose the
+hardship of several weeks in jail upon the defendant.
+
+To this generous proposition they agreed with pleasure and alacrity. And
+the next day Steve Barlow was "apprehended" and quickly released,
+pending trial the second Tuesday in May. Then the astute Logan took to
+hunting, and incidentally watching for a chance to catch Barlow alone.
+He had acquainted himself with Barlow's history and felt that he could
+wean him over. Barlow was an ignorant vagabond with no permanent home,
+living from hand to mouth, and a crinkling tool in the hands of old
+Eversole.
+
+After four days' prowling around the adjacent hills, Logan surprised
+Barlow in a by-path across the river. The lawyer opened the interview by
+handing Barlow a new twenty-dollar gold certificate, which the lout took
+eagerly with an idiotic grin, before he even inquired what it was for,
+and Logan knew he had him.
+
+At the end of an hour's persuasion Barlow confessed and agreed to make a
+clean breast of the affair in court. Logan in turn promised to give him
+one hundred dollars in money, and help him out of town.
+
+Barlow said that old Hank Eversole gave him ten dollars for killing
+Daum, and promised him a month's board beside. That night Logan left
+town and took Barlow with him. Just what became of Steve Barlow was a
+matter of divided conjecture to the idlers around Eversole's store. Some
+'lowed that Steve had just "mosied" off and would be on hand trial day.
+Others ventured that he had "done leapt his bail."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CIRCUIT COURT
+
+
+However, Barlow's disappearance was a matter of small concern to old
+Hank. If Steve did not show up, Hank knew that he would never pay the
+bond and would be a month's board in to boot. If he did show up, he
+would "cum cl'ar" with the alibi concocted for him.
+
+In the meantime, rumors of the determined stand taken in this case by
+the noted Blue-grass lawyer, Logan, had spread throughout the hills, and
+added to the usual interest of court days a morbid impetus that brought
+the people down to Junction City in droves. And be it said, that among
+these mountain folk, there were not a few who would hail with joy and
+secret plaudits any visitation of reprisal that would put a dent in the
+tyrannical reign of the Eversole-McGill combine, under which they had
+suffered and been coerced beneath an iron heel.
+
+The dent was delivered on this May day when the sun was bright and made
+pictures against the mountain sides, traced in pigments of emerald and
+white and carmine. And the buoyant air was charged with the stirring
+odors of spring and rife with rapturous bird voices. The town was agog
+with armed mountaineers of every age. They all arrived early and during
+the hours preceding the opening of court they swapped news that had
+accrued since last court week, while their dogs fought the hostile
+canines of Junction City, mingling snarls and yelps with the braying of
+mules and the neighing of horses.
+
+Old Hank Eversole was resplendent in a new pair of light store trousers
+and a maroon shirt, and his rubicund face was illuminated as he divided
+his smirks between the groups outside and the high festivities back in
+his noisome bar where Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick were the star,
+hilarious spirits.
+
+When the sheriff leaned out the Courthouse window and rang a blatant
+bell, all within earshot made for the Courthouse. In a remarkably short
+time the court room was filled to overflowing, leaving scores who had
+been less sprightly on the outside, unable to find standing room. Before
+anybody could get fairly settled the Court announced that Logan had sent
+word that he could not be in court until four o'clock, and that they
+would proceed with the minor business on docket and hold court until
+five o'clock.
+
+Whereupon the jury and more than half the eager spectators, who crowded
+the court room, having no interest other than the murder trial of
+Barlow, now straggled outside, disgruntled and thirsty. In the interval
+that followed many wagers were laid and hinged upon the appearance or
+non-appearance of Steve Barlow. The odds favored Barlow's absence, but
+promptly at four o'clock there was a great stir among this motley,
+impatient throng.
+
+A two-horse rockaway hove in sight, drew up and stopped at the outer
+limits of the Courthouse yard. The curtains of the vehicle were closely
+drawn and Logan, who was riding outside with the driver, alighted and
+opened the carriage door, whereupon three men climbed out, leaving a
+fourth man inside. Two were newspaper men from Frankfort, one from
+Lexington, and the fourth man was Steve Barlow.
+
+Logan exchanged a few brief words with Barlow, who sat back smoking a
+stogie as unconcerned as if he were simply waiting to kill somebody. His
+animal brain was of too low an order to know fear, or his senses too
+dull to impress him with the danger that imperiled his life in the
+forthcoming hour.
+
+The advent of Logan and the strangers was quickly passed around,
+followed by a wild pell-mell rush for the court room. When the Court
+rapped for order and the shuffling of feet and mumble of voices died
+down, the prosecutor directed the sheriff to call Steve Barlow, out on
+bail, and all the witnesses in the case, and in turning about, stole a
+covert, triumphant look at old Eversole, who stood near the Judge's
+bench with Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick at his elbow. Here some of the
+jurymen exchanged meaning looks. When the sheriff's joculatory
+utterances failed to produce Barlow, the prosecutor arose and, turning
+to Logan, said:
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Logan, that you got all your witnesses here for
+nuthin'--but I reckon Steve Barlow has done leapt his bail."
+
+Logan rose up with a slow, deliberate movement, and as he addressed the
+Court, his eyes were upon old Eversole.
+
+"I have little need for witnesses in this case," he began, "moreover,
+the man who is charged with the commission of this deed has not
+forfeited his bond, and I mean to show by his sworn confession that,
+while it was by his hand that Daum was deprived of his life, it was
+through bribery and threats imposed upon him by another man--a man whose
+deeds are black and numerous--that prompted him to do this murder. I
+mean to lay the burden of this crime upon this instigator who prevailed
+upon an illiterate, half-witted unfortunate, who had no grievance, to
+sneak out and do an inoffensive man to death--a wanton act from which
+his own coward's hands shrunk. Mr. Somber, bring Steve Barlow into the
+court room."
+
+The quiet of the next few moments was not unlike the stillness of a
+tomb. As the reporter started to crowd his way out in compliance with
+Logan's request to bring Barlow in, his footsteps echoed like a great
+noise. Old Eversole's face had lost its flush and he stared open-mouthed
+over the heads of the astonished jury, and the people, toward the front
+door. Jutt Orlick and Sap McGill then whispered to each other with
+scowling faces, which precipitated a general babble throughout the room.
+Midway to the door Plunkett, Eversole's "clerk," thrust a note into the
+reporter's hand, and the latter immediately turned back and handed the
+paper to Logan.
+
+The attorney glanced over the sheet, then stood up and addressed the
+Court, who was too dazed to rap for order. But at the sound of Logan's
+voice there was instant quiet.
+
+"I have just been handed a message, and while it is not addressed to me
+personally, it appears to concern all present. If the Court pleases, I
+will read it aloud."
+
+The judge, who had been gazing inanely about the room, nodded his
+acquiescence. Then Logan proceeded to read the note in loud, resonant
+tones:
+
+"I hereby warn all men who don't 'low to fight fer the McGills to clear
+out of town within five minutes--I hev arrive. Johnse Hatfield."
+
+Fire or an earthquake could not have precipitated greater confusion and
+consternation than ensued at the name of Johnse Hatfield. The McGill
+partisans shrank away from the windows with exclamations and curses,
+while scores of non-combatants fought to get out of the rear door.
+
+Old Eversole's face now was the hue of gray moss. The unprecedented
+nerve of Hatfield in sending a warning into a house of armed enemies was
+significant, and indicated that he held a strong hand. Above the
+disorder McGill was shouting some incoherent commands. Jutt Orlick
+forced his way to the end of the long room and thrust his head
+cautiously out of a side window. Then he jumped out the window and
+started on a run for Eversole's store. Before he had gone ten feet,
+there was a rifle crack and Orlick dashed back to the shelter of the
+Courthouse with his palm full of blood, streaming from his left ear.
+With the tail of his eye, he caught sight of Buddy Lutts in the door of
+the blacksmith's shop, jerking his rifle up for another shot. A hand
+reached out and jerked Buddy back out of the door just as a dozen shots
+fired from the Courthouse windows pierced the boards of the shop. Then
+Johnse Hatfield's face showed for the fraction of a second as he yelled
+across:
+
+"Cum on out--yo' wild hawgs!"
+
+This sally was answered by another volley from the Courthouse. Hatfield
+had knocked every sixth board off the north side of the old shop, which
+afforded ample firing space. No one dared reach out and close the
+shutters of the Courthouse, and he could now see them piling benches up
+on their ends in front of the windows.
+
+The blacksmith shop, being diagonally across, commanded both front and
+side view of the Courthouse. Before he sent his terse warning into the
+court room, Hatfield had detailed a dozen men to go around and get a
+position corresponding with that of the blacksmith shop, which would
+command the rear and north side of the building. But there had been
+delay in working their way to this position unseen. Suspecting this
+move, the McGills were cautious about showing themselves, but as time
+passed and as the attack came only from the south side and front, they
+decided to venture an attempt at flanking the shop that held their foes.
+
+It was at this juncture, when a handful of men had dropped out the north
+windows of the Courthouse, that the Hatfields gained a lumber pile a
+hundred yards distant and greeted the maneuvering enemy with a volley of
+lead. Two of the McGills dropped into the grass, and the remainder
+limped and scrambled back into the Courthouse, while those inside
+instantly sent fifty or more shots toward the lumber pile, killing one
+of the Hatfields.
+
+For three hours the McGills were bottled up in the Courthouse, save
+those who had not gained entrance and were on the outside when the
+attack began. Some of these were trying their hand at sharp-shooting
+now, while others disappeared with the non-combatants. The women of the
+town had dragged their children inside and fastened the shutters and
+barred the doors of their houses. From some of these houses a towel or
+white rag appeared hanging at the end of a stick thrust out the window.
+
+For the past hour the shots from the surrounded Courthouse had dwindled
+down to spasmodic outbursts and Hatfield knew that the McGills were
+saving their ammunition, as they had not anticipated a siege. But Johnse
+Hatfield had come into this fight with the forethought of a trained
+military man. Every Hatfield man had an extra bag tied to his belt
+crammed full of cartridges. Moreover, Hatfield had stationed two mule
+wagons just beyond the hill. One of these wagons was to transport his
+dead and the other the wounded. Furthermore, with these wagons there
+awaited, with all his paraphernalia, a surgeon whom Hatfield had brought
+up from Hazard.
+
+As night came on and a brief half-moon illuminated the South road, the
+crucial hour for which Hatfield had waited was at hand. He dispatched a
+messenger around to the detachment behind the lumber in the rear of the
+Courthouse, telling them to leave three men there and for the others to
+work their way back to the South road. And the envoy Hatfield chose to
+deliver this important message was none other than Buddy Lutts.
+
+Although the air-line distance through to the lumber pile from the shop
+was less than five hundred yards, it was a full hour before Buddy crept
+back between the old wagons in the yard and told Hatfield that the men
+were waiting. Then Hatfield left three men in the shop and with the
+others joined the waiting squad. Lining these men up, he now marched
+them openly up the moonlit road toward the Courthouse. When they came
+into view, they fired a volley simultaneously into the Courthouse, and
+Hatfield yelled out derisively:
+
+"I reckon yo' got enough--yo' pack o' laywayin' wild-hawgs!"
+
+Then he retreated down the road at a brisk trot, followed by his sixteen
+men, Buddy Lutts galloping at his heels. There was a great stir within
+the Courthouse now. They had plainly heard Hatfield's jeering words
+above the patter and echoes of his last string of shots, and had espied
+his men turn and start down the road on a run. There was a noisy
+scramble and commotion now, as the McGills made haste to avail
+themselves of this apparent chance to get outside and pursue and fight
+their enemy, but with due precaution they waited until several
+volunteers had slipped out and made a hasty reconnoiter of the lumber
+pile and the blacksmith shop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE GRAVEYARD MASSACRE
+
+
+The three Hatfield men had crawfished back into a dense dewberry patch,
+while the three in the shop had crawled into the loft and hidden among
+the miscellaneous rubbish. As there was no more shooting, and as the
+Hatfields could be seen in the moonshine fleeing down the white road,
+the McGills decided to overtake them and wipe them from the earth, and
+the Courthouse now quickly disgorged its mob of eager, infuriated
+militants.
+
+Regardless of ownership, men unhitched and mounted the first horse or
+mule they came upon. Old Eversole dashed across the street and banged on
+his store door for admittance. His women folks having barred and bolted
+the doors, he called loudly for his clerk, but Plunkett had disappeared.
+Presently a woman admitted him at the saloon door. He rushed into the
+bar and gulped down a glass of liquor--then, gathering all the
+cartridges he had in the place, he ran out and distributed them among
+the men.
+
+Sap McGill and Orlick were astride their own mounts, and McGill was
+crying for the men to make greater haste. McGill rode a light dun
+animal, and Orlick a powerful dappled gray with a bobbed tail. With
+thirty-odd horsemen and twoscore or more rifle men afoot, they now
+dashed after their fleeing opponents, who made a dark splotch in the
+moonlit road far ahead.
+
+This road ran straight until it reached the graveyard, where it made a
+short, sharp turn to the left, looping around the base of a hill that
+jutted outward. This abrupt turn in the road was directly opposite, and
+midway of the front length of the graveyard, which was elevated some
+fifteen feet above the road-bed and occupied the slope. Hatfield's
+horses were hitched just around the bend in the road. When the sixteen
+men were mounted, he ordered them back along the rail fence for a
+distance of fifty yards.
+
+Buddy Lutts, clinging to his ready rifle, was eternally at Hatfield's
+heels. Johnse had ordered him back three times; now he took him by the
+collar and fairly dragged the protesting boy back and told the men to
+keep him there. Buddy's peaked face was flushed with a look that
+partially expressed the wild exultation that obsessed him. Hatfield
+mounted his piebald mare and, advancing, drew in close to the clay bank
+that jutted into the road, and here he waited, tense and rigid.
+
+When he heard the clattering hoofbeats thundering down toward the
+graveyard, he urged his horse a few yards nearer the point, then with a
+Colt gun in either hand, his habitually smiling lips broke into a brutal
+grin, and his little reddish eyes snapped murderously.
+
+The stillness was quickened again, on the brink of this Waterloo, with
+the stuttering wail of a screech-owl watching from the dead yard. Always
+wary, the McGill cavalcade drew up short at the bend and waited for
+their panting horde behind. Then they pushed boldly around the bend.
+
+It was just then that the indescribable, tragic scene took place that
+stamped its grim memory ineffaceably in these mountains, and made a
+crimson stain on feudal history, known ever afterward, as the "graveyard
+massacre."
+
+When Johnse Hatfield saw the noses of the McGill horses, he uttered a
+wild yell of triumph that pierced the far-reaching hills, and called up
+an invocation to the mute tombs above.
+
+"Now drive 'em in, boys--drive th' wild hawgs in with th' old Scratch!"
+he yelled.
+
+And in a trice, Hatfield had turned that hillside graveyard into a
+seething crucible, whose moulten maw opened and sucked the living in
+with the impotent smothered dead. Seemingly, every soul tethered in the
+confines of that silent dead-plot came to quick ghostly life, and pushed
+up out of the ground into the moonlight, wielding a lance of darting,
+destructive lightning. Up from a hundred sodden graves, a hundred human
+forms sprang, and the tombstones belched out liquid death. And the May
+night was ruptured with a deluge of gun-shots, and harried with a chaos
+of curses, and death-groans, and the frenzied squealing of horses. And
+the air was rife with a pungent odor, not unlike brimstone, as over this
+seething disaster the powder vapor lifted and arose against the moon
+mist, studded and starred with spurting tongues of alternate flame, and
+twisted an ephemeral arch that, seemingly, framed the gates of hell.
+
+The McGills afoot had some show at seeking cover and retreat, but not so
+the horsemen. They became inextricably jammed into the narrow turn in
+the road, and the harder they struggled to turn about, or go forward,
+the more entangled they became. To jump from their mounts in this
+instant of turmoil and surprise meant sure death.
+
+Into this struggling, tangled mass of plunging, besmeared horses, and
+fighting, snarling, bleeding men, Johnse Hatfield had plunged his own
+horse, followed by his ferocious riders, now blind-mad with the lust of
+battle. And all the while the lead rained down from the graveyard
+without cessation.
+
+Hatfield had only one object in view now. He knew that the old coward,
+Eversole, was not there. He had seen the sheriff go down, and knew that
+he was under the horses. In the rise and fall of the conflict, he could
+not locate Sap McGill, but he did see Orlick, and Orlick saw him at the
+same time, and tried vainly and frantically to force his horse out of
+the mêlée.
+
+As Hatfield forged his way nearer and nearer, Orlick raised his pistol
+and fired at him. But at that instant a horse reared between them, and
+the animal received the ball in the head and fell back against Johnse's
+mount, knocking it to its knees. When Hatfield saw Orlick again, he was
+on the outer edge of the combat, and would have been away had not a man
+seized Orlick's bridle and held on. Johnse saw him fire in the man's
+face, and saw the man's head disappear.
+
+Free at last, Orlick turned and drove his horse up the road toward town
+like the wind. Hatfield now stabbed his horse cruelly, and forced it up,
+over and through the fighting mass, and followed Orlick, leaving the
+battle behind. But Orlick's horse was a swift and powerful animal, and
+Hatfield lost ground.
+
+All this while Buddy Lutts had been busy. He had climbed to the top of a
+clay bank, forty feet above, and was sharp-shooting with telling effect.
+Looking down in the moon mist upon the struggle, it was hard for him to
+distinguish the enemy from his own people, but every time he saw a man
+break away and run back toward the town, he knew it to be a McGill and
+he fired with careful aim.
+
+It was while thus engaged that the boy discerned Orlick's big gray leap
+out and gallop toward town. Buddy raised his rifle and pulled the
+trigger, but there was no report. His gun was empty. While he was
+fumbling nervously in his haste to reload, he saw the piebald break out
+and dash up the road, and he knew that Johnse was after Orlick. When
+Buddy had loaded the rifle, he crept along the brow of the hill and
+started to run after Hatfield. He had not gone far when he came
+unexpectedly upon four men. The boy, startled, jerked his rifle to his
+shoulder, when the men in his path threw up their hands, one holding a
+white handkerchief above his head and calling upon the boy not to shoot.
+
+Ignoring their friendly overtures, Buddy circled around them and ran
+onward at top speed toward town. The men were Logan and the three
+newspaper reporters, following the progress of the fight at the risk of
+their lives. Johnse Hatfield already had five bullets in his body and
+was bleeding profusely, but he spurred ahead unmindful of his wounds,
+keeping the fleeing gray in sight.
+
+When Orlick turned the corner and vanished, Johnse called upon his mare
+for all the speed that was in her. As he made the corner and swerved to
+the right past Eversole's store, old Hank jumped out and fired upon him.
+The ball broke Johnse's left arm and his pistol slipped from a nerveless
+hand to the ground.
+
+Undaunted, and without slacking his pace, Hatfield wheeled in the saddle
+and fired two quick shots with his right. He saw old Eversole pitch
+headlong into the horse-trough. Because of a line of trees that cast a
+black shadow along the main street, he could not now see Orlick's gray,
+but he could hear the tattoo of the horse's hoofs. Determined to
+overtake this traitor, Hatfield urged his mare to her utmost. In a few
+seconds the big gray came out into the moonlight again, and Hatfield saw
+that Orlick was headed for the river.
+
+As Hatfield divined Orlick's intentions, a savage joy stirred within him
+and mitigated the torture of a shattered arm and other bodily wounds. He
+knew that if Orlick attempted to ford that swift, roaring river that he
+(Hatfield) would get the shot for which he thirsted and, as he spurred
+his horse after Orlick and felt his strength fast failing him, he fought
+this weakness off with a mighty will, buoyed up with the thought of how
+he would at last take toll from this traitor for his part in the killing
+of old Captain Lutts.
+
+As Johnse flew along, he saw the gray disappear down the river bank. The
+next minute he was surprised to see the horse plunging back up into
+sight. Then the horse pivoted and went down again. Then back up the bank
+he lunged a second time, and Hatfield could hear Orlick cursing the
+animal, and he knew that for some reason the horse had balked and would
+not take to the water.
+
+A shock of delight instilled new strength into Hatfield, whose blood had
+been ebbing away for the past three-quarters of an hour. At this
+particular spot on the river bank there were no trees, and the rim of
+the river was destitute of rocks sufficiently large to offer protection
+for a man's form. But, standing back from the road and some four hundred
+feet distant from the river bank, there was a deserted old shack with
+sagging porch and dismantled windows. And just outside the broken picket
+fence at the near corner of the yard there stood a huge chestnut tree
+with a thick body.
+
+While Orlick was wrangling with his refractory horse, his actions made
+it plain to Hatfield that he had marked that tree. Then, evidently
+despairing of controlling the stubborn animal, he slid to the ground,
+obviously bent upon making the shelter of the chestnut. Hatfield now
+bore down upon him, swerving to the right of the road to thwart Orlick's
+attempt to reach the tree. Whereupon Orlick ran back and along the bank,
+and dropped in the high weeds.
+
+Hatfield, weak and totally exhausted from pain and loss of blood, now
+stopped his horse and fell out of the saddle. He gripped his Colt and
+tottered toward the spot where he had last seen Orlick, but he knew that
+Orlick would not be on that exact spot. He knew that the man was
+bellying away like a snake through the grass somewhere. Knowing that he
+would not last much longer, and desperate in his eagerness to flush
+Orlick, he stumbled recklessly about through high weeds with his gun out
+before him and his eyes darting here and there.
+
+Suddenly Orlick jumped up fifty feet to the right in the direction of
+the chestnut tree and fired. Hatfield also fired at the same time. The
+two reports seemed to consolidate and make a single echo that quivered
+across the river. Hatfield pulled the trigger again, but it only clicked
+emptily and did not respond. Orlick was still upright, but motionless.
+Hatfield wondered why he did not shoot. Orlick's shot had struck him in
+the arm that already hung useless and limp at his side. He stood
+watching him curiously. Then he saw Orlick thrust his gun in its holster
+and sit down on the ground, as if to rest. He held this position for
+several seconds--then lay back slowly, flat on his back.
+
+Hatfield suspected Orlick of treachery and hastily proceeded to break
+his gun with his good hand. This he contrived to do, and while he was
+fumbling for cartridges, of which he had a countless number, a blinding
+faintness seized him and, thinking that he was falling backward into the
+river, he threw up his good arm suddenly to catch his balance. The gun
+flew out of his grasp and rolled down the embankment.
+
+The next instant he fell forward and lay still on his face in the weeds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HATFIELD OVERTAKES THE TRAITOR
+
+
+By and by, Hatfield opened his eyes to find that his horse was nosing
+his face with his warm, rough lips as if bent on waking him up. Johnse
+lifted his aching eyes toward the moon. He calculated that he had lain
+there fully an hour or more. His left arm held him in an agony of
+torture. His whole body was racked with shooting pains traversing from
+his head down and back again. His smiling lips were now cracked and
+bloodless. Gladly he would have exchanged the life left in him for a cup
+of water. All the events of this night filtered back into his
+consciousness. He felt instinctively for his guns; then recalled what
+had become of them.
+
+Remembering where he had seen Orlick lie down in the weeds, he wondered
+if he was still there. Impelled by a consuming curiosity to know what
+had become of this hated enemy, he struggled up and, dragging his dead,
+limp arm along, he hobbled on his knees and one hand toward the chestnut
+trees. At the end of a few tortuous minutes, which seemed hours of
+suffering, he saw the bottom of Orlick's feet.
+
+Orlick must have heard this ominous, heavy breathing, for suddenly he
+raised on his elbow and looked.
+
+"Aw--hell!" gasped Hatfield. "I 'lowed yo' wus daid--yo' wild hawg."
+
+His voice carried a volume of reproach and disgust.
+
+"Where yo'-all bin--hain't I got ez much right to cum back ez yo' hev?"
+snarled his weak, wounded foe.
+
+"Naw, yo' hain't--yo' hain't never had no right on earth," growled
+Hatfield in tones that dwindled feebly to a malevolent hiss. "Traitors
+like yo' hain't hardly fittin' fo' hell--yo he'pt kill Cap Lutts, didn't
+yo'--eh?--didn't yo'--eh? An' yo' he'pt kill Mart Harper, didn't
+yo'--eh? An' yo' spied fer Sap and them fellers thet kilt Don Perry,
+didn't yo'--eh? An' thet hain't all, yo' bin a traitin' up Moonway fo'
+five year--I'm goin' t' finish yo' now--I'll finish yo'--jest wait til I
+git my breath an' I'll settle yo', shor'n hell."
+
+Hatfield's head dropped down in the grass and he lay panting.
+
+Orlick then struggled to his knees, impelled by some cryptic terror that
+imparted to him a measure of astounding vitality, and crawled away
+toward the deserted shack like a turtle. Hatfield, determined not to
+lose sight of him, crawled along tenaciously ten feet in the rear.
+
+The ground under the chestnut tree and along the picket fence of the old
+shack had been stamped and worn bare by roving stock. When Orlick
+reached this bare spot, he tumbled flat and inert. In a few minutes more
+Hatfield came up, spent and heaving and unable to go another foot. He
+fell prone with his good arm stretched out and his clutching fingers
+within twelve inches of Orlick's throat. Orlick's body was in the shadow
+of the chestnut tree, but his head and neck were plainly visible in the
+moonlight. He turned his face and looked wearily at the impotent hand
+that was reaching for him--then his dull eyes followed the arm down to
+the dark visage with its smiling marble-white lips, and he wagged his
+head indifferently. Hatfield spoke again between teeth that gritted down
+upon the agony of his wounds:
+
+"Coward--what yo' a runnin' fo'?"
+
+He got no response.
+
+"Wait 'til I rest a minute, an' I'll finish yo', shore--leastways, I
+plugged yo' gud--eh?"
+
+Orlick's bloodless lips moved now.
+
+"Yo' don't look so damn peert," he groaned back.
+
+"Yo' didn't do hit--by Gad--yo' hit me in th' arm, an' hit was already
+busted--ha!--ha!--I didn't feel what yo' done," Hatfield laughed weakly,
+but derisively. "Leastways, yo' won't be a traitin' up in Moon again so
+soon. I plugged yo' gud, eh?" he ended jeeringly, venting a sound that
+in health would have mounted to a loud laugh, but which was only a faint
+gurgle in his throat.
+
+"An' yo' 'lowed yo'd git Belle-Ann, eh? Yo' mouse-dog--yo' 'lowed
+Belle-Ann 'ud parley with sich as yo'--eh? Ef I wusn't so tired I'd
+laugh 'til I'd bust--say, skunk--yo' 'lowed I didn't know--but I knowed
+all 'long--I had my eye on yo'--yo' karnsarned wild hawg. I was a
+watchin' yo'--say--yo' 'member when yo' grabbed Belle-Ann in th' yard
+thet time--I was ahind th' corn crib, an' I hed a bead on yo'--I'd a
+kilt yo' then pint-blank ef Belle-Ann hadn't bin so clost--I started
+after yo', an' when yo' let her loose I got ahind the wagon-bed an'
+waited. Say--Belle-Ann give yo' the run, didn't she--eh? Didn't she run
+yo'--eh? Say, louse--Belle-Ann wouldn't spit on yo', she wouldn't--not
+her. Did she run yo'--eh? Gawd'll Moughty!--I wish I could laugh gud an'
+plenty--I'm aimin' to finish yo' in a minute--when I rest--then yo'
+he'pt kill her pap--an' I reckon yo' he'pt kill Lem--eh?"
+
+Orlick now seemed to be beyond all fear of the hand with its menacing
+fingers that wriggled toward him, and the malicious dying face below. A
+half grin touched Orlick's pallid lips and curled into the symbol of a
+pleasing memory as he said:
+
+"I--I--'low--peaches'll be 'round--'fore Lem air----"
+
+This amazing insult threw Johnse into a fit of rage. He mumbled curses,
+but could not budge. The fingers within a foot of Orlick's neck worked
+convulsively and rigorously. A siege of coughing choked his maledictions
+and blood issued from his mouth. His fingers clawed into the soil and
+closed and, with a mighty effort, he tossed the dirt into Orlick's face.
+Presently he again found breath and words.
+
+"I'm a cummin' after yo' now--now, I'm a cummin'--I'll guzzle yo'
+now----" but he did not move.
+
+"Why don't yo' shoot?" inquired Orlick, with no show of concern.
+
+"Why don't yo' shoot--skunk--coward?" wheezed Hatfield through clinched
+teeth.
+
+"Lend me a cart'age an' I'll shore 'commodate yo'," returned Orlick.
+
+"Yo' shove thet gun down an' I'll shore help yo' 'long a pinch,"
+suggested Johnse, struggling vainly to drag his body just a foot that
+his hand might close upon Orlick's throat.
+
+The facilities for wreaking final vengeance upon each other was a
+disjunctive irony divided equally between them. Neither had sufficient
+strength or vitality left for bodily combat, and Orlick possessed the
+gun, while Hatfield had the cartridges. Had fate favored one, at that
+instant, with the possession of both, he could not have possibly missed,
+with their faces less than four feet apart.
+
+"Say--skunk--we'll draw fo' em both--heer me?" suggested Hatfield. "I
+got th' cart'ages--we'll draw--I know yore a traitor--but I got t' take
+a chanct on yo'--we'll draw--heer me? Ef I win, yo' shove me the gun--ef
+yo' win, I'll shove yo' a cart'age--damn yo'--"
+
+"Damn yo'--I'll take yo' up," agreed Orlick thickly.
+
+While these two helpless belligerents lay in the moonlight, slowly
+bleeding to death and scowling at each other, Johnse, at length, laid
+his fingers on a twig which he broke into two parts, attended with
+infinite pain. Then where his hand lay he clawed up more dirt into a
+minute mound. Into this he stuck the long stick and beside it the short
+one. Then he pulled them out again and hissed a scathing reprimand at
+Orlick.
+
+"Yore a lookin'--traitor----!"
+
+Orlick slowly averted his face.
+
+A brief silence ensued, broken only by the roar of the river and the
+wheezing of their breaths. Again Johnse stammered:
+
+"Now draw--draw now, coward--take yore pick--heer me?--draw----"
+
+Over in the road a roving hound squatted his gaunt shape, and lifting
+his muzzle up to the moon, howled long and piteously.
+
+In the meantime Buddy Lutts had dodged along, avoiding the road until he
+reached a narrow plot of underbrush that separated him from the first
+row of frame houses. Here he lay and watched for a chance to proceed
+along the road. He could not see the road directly beneath him, but
+through an aperture he held a diagonal view of the highway for a
+distance of some fifty yards.
+
+Like projections of a cinematograph, he saw the forms of men flitting
+past this moonlit gap, running toward town. But he could not distinguish
+the pursued from the pursuers. He also saw some horses gallop past with
+empty saddles. One of these derelicts stopped short, framed in the light
+of the gap, and turned to cropping at the roadside with reins dragging
+about his hoofs. Far behind him the noise of the conflict echoed back in
+desultory, straggling shots. These reports emanated also from a remote
+quarter of the tobacco field opposite where Buddy lay, and from the
+direction of the Courthouse.
+
+The boy instinctively knew that the real battle was over; he knew that
+his people had crushed and annihilated the main body of the McGill
+forces in less than ten minutes, at the gate of the fated graveyard. He
+furthermore knew that the tail of this fight was backing toward the
+town, where it would quiver and stir, and would not die until sunrise.
+It had dwindled down to a "bush-whacking" contest. It was now a
+nocturnal game of hide-and-seek, with death lurking in the shadows and
+behind every object that offered refuge.
+
+As the boy lay concealed, watching and listening with his rifle beside
+him, his untaught soul was profoundly exercised with the triumph of this
+victory. In truth, he would have been almost happy had he not been
+assailed with a sudden, acute apprehension concerning Hatfield. He had
+seen Johnse's horse tear up the road after Orlick, but he had not, as
+yet, seen any signs of Hatfield's returning. At the rate the two were
+going, he deemed it time for Johnse to be on his way back.
+
+Buddy debated as to whether he should continue on beneath the shadows of
+the trees which skirted the rear gardens and out-buildings of the frame
+houses just ahead. He was now deeply perturbed about Hatfield. After a
+minute's deliberation, he quickly arrived at a determination to face the
+dangers presented at every turn and push onward and look for Johnse.
+
+With this quest firmly in mind, he reasoned that to pass behind the
+houses was, on that hand, taking a great risk. He knew that every house
+in Junction City was in darkness, barred and bolted, with shutters
+closed and blinds drawn, the inmates not daring so much as to peep out.
+But he did not know what these back yards held for him.
+
+In hours of strife, mountaineers can never be found in their houses with
+the women, but they are often found near their homes, hiding out.
+Besides, Buddy knew that he could not mislead the sagacious senses of
+the ever-present hounds. Growing more anxious momentarily, he at length
+decided that it was less perilous to take the open road, where he could
+at least see around him, and rely upon the wayside shadows for
+protection.
+
+To this end, the boy crept out of his concealment, making his way
+noiselessly down the slope through the brush tangle and saplings. He
+crept down to the corner of a house which had no enclosed front yard,
+and looked furtively up and down the street. The road was apparently
+clear now, save the vague outlines of a few wandering horses. Buddy
+slipped across the highway, to the vista of sable shadows that followed
+the rail fence and then, in a half-stooping posture, ran toward the main
+street as fast as his legs could propel him.
+
+As he hastened along with his eyes furtively ahead, a sow jumped out
+from the thistles in a fence corner and gave Buddy an awful fright. He
+finally reached the Courthouse square, and hiding behind a wagon, cast
+his eyes around in every direction. The Courthouse doors and windows
+were open, and the building was plainly deserted. A sepulchral stillness
+pervaded the square, and there was no visible sign of the conflict
+which, the boy knew, was still smouldering, for the night wind still
+carried the muffled sounds of rifle-shots from the South, and from the
+distant end of the street westward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY
+
+
+Buddy knew that Hatfield would be compelled to return southward by the
+same route he had gone. But here the boy was confronted with the problem
+of the route Orlick had led his pursuer, when the two had reached the
+square. It was gravely essential that he decide quickly upon some
+action, for the boy realized fully that his life was in jeopardy every
+moment he lingered here in the midst of the enemy.
+
+While he hoped vainly to catch sight of some of his own people, and
+appealed to his judgment to point out to him the direction Hatfield had
+taken, he suddenly discerned two men trotting down the middle of the
+road, running close together with rifles at ready position. Buddy fell
+down flat on the ground and watched through the spokes of the wagon
+wheels.
+
+The men halted at Eversole's store, and looked up at the windows
+overhead. Then they whistled softly. Then they went around to the front
+of the store, and Buddy heard them knock several times on the closed
+door. Evidently getting no response, they turned about, and the next
+instant Buddy heard a loud, profane exclamation and saw them pulling
+something out of the horse-trough. At this distance, in the
+semi-darkness, Buddy could not distinguish what the object was they
+labored over, and did not then know it was the dead body of old
+Eversole.
+
+As the boy was straining his eyes, now for the moment half forgetful of
+his perilous whereabouts, he was suddenly electrified by voices behind
+him. He shrank close to the ground, and casting a look in the rear,
+observed the forms of three men approaching along the South road. Now
+acutely alive to his danger, Buddy's eyes swept the shadows to the left,
+the only avenue open for retreat. His searching eyes lit upon a rockaway
+carriage, with the tongue propped up, standing at the roadside some two
+hundred feet distant. He crawfished cautiously toward this lone vehicle,
+dragging his rifle after him through the dust of the road. When the
+three men had advanced and were on a direct line ahead, bringing the
+wagon in between, and thereby screening him, the boy darted safely to
+the shadow of the carriage and peered out at the men, who now quickened
+their pace toward the two at the horse-trough.
+
+Thinking that the carriage would afford a reasonably safe hiding place
+for the moment, Buddy decided to climb inside, where he could peep out
+at the five men in front of Eversole's store, and at the same time watch
+the highway for Johnse Hatfield. The boy knew that, if he could remain
+unseen long enough, it was only a question of time ere some of his own
+faction would come upon the scene, affording him protection and
+assistance in seeking Hatfield.
+
+Now bent upon secreting himself inside the carriage until the way was
+clear, and, in the meantime, determine what was the most likely route
+Orlick had taken to escape Hatfield's vengeance, Buddy opened the
+carriage door, but fell back, amazed and startled, as the limp body of a
+dead man tumbled out upon him. Recovering quickly from this surprise,
+Buddy took a look at the face. The body lolled half out of the vehicle,
+one arm and the head hanging down between the wheels. Although the face
+was outward, it was at the same time downward past the step of the
+vehicle, and in this inverted position the boy could not have recognized
+his best friend in the wan moonlight.
+
+He shot a swift look around him and across toward Eversole's store--then
+laying his rifle on the ground, he lifted the dead man's head up and
+scrutinized it closely. As Buddy had never known Steve Barlow, the face
+was strange to him, and he was in the act of easing his gruesome burden
+down, when soft sounds like muffled footsteps startled him. They were
+close to him, seemingly coming from the opposite side of the carriage.
+
+Without waiting an instant or even looking a second time, Buddy jerked
+his hands free, grabbed his gun, and made a headlong dive across the
+plank-walk and sprawled against the picket fence, at bay, but with gun
+pointed toward the carriage and ready to die fighting and take a toll
+for his own life.
+
+His little heart beat wildly for the next few seconds. Affrighted, he
+had dropped his burden so suddenly that its weight had jerked the other
+arm outside, and now the inverted dead face swung to and fro, and
+gesticulated between the wheels in the moonlight. Then under and behind
+this grim pantomime, the boy could discern the vague outlines of legs in
+the dense shadow cast by the carriage.
+
+Buddy did not court shots from the front, but he had always dreaded a
+shot in the back, and he knew that the McGills would show no quarter,
+not even to a boy, much less a Lutts boy. In reality, it was less than
+fifteen seconds that Buddy lay with finger in the trigger-guard, staring
+at that veiled, menacing shadow stirring near at hand, but it seemed
+very much longer to the boy. He could not endure the suspense, and just
+as he began to crawfish stealthily along the fence, a riderless, unshod
+horse stepped leisurely from the gloom and walked noiselessly through
+the thick dust.
+
+Buddy heaved a long breath and leaned back against the fence. The horse
+was a light dun, with black mane and tail. He wore a saddle and the
+reins dragged. The animal stopped and pricked up his ears in Buddy's
+direction, then strolled over in the Courthouse yard, champing his bit
+noisily, a preface which Buddy thought the horse had previously omitted
+with mischievous intent.
+
+In an instant Buddy was all action. He slipped across to a tree and
+peered toward the store. The five men appeared to be carrying something,
+as nearly as Buddy could make out, into Eversole's side gate. Now was
+his time to leave this spot. Here he committed a very boyish and
+extremely indiscreet act. The dun horse stood idly by, waiting for some
+one to ride him. The empty saddle invited Buddy to mount, with an
+insistence that the boy could not resist, in the stress of the moment,
+and his earnest desire to get away quickly. The animal being unshod and
+the dust being dense, his chances of escape looked favorable, while the
+men were in Eversole's yard.
+
+Without another moment's deliberation, Buddy succumbed to this sudden
+impulse. Wherefore, he pulled his gun strap over his head and thrust his
+arms through, making the weapon fit snugly at his back, and in a jiffy
+he was in the saddle.
+
+He reached up to an overhanging bough and possessed himself of a keen
+switch and, wheeling the dun horse, was ready for a dash down the road.
+As a precaution, he urged the horse up close into the shadow of the
+Courthouse to make sure the men had disappeared. The horse, eager to be
+away, was prancing now and rattling his bit noisily. As Buddy leaned out
+from the saddle, with his eyes fixed intently on the store, a shot
+echoed up from the distant river, and oddly enough, Buddy determined in
+that instant to take toward the river, instead of the north road. But in
+that same instant a disastrous thing happened which sent Buddy afoot
+down that river road faster than he had intended to go, and sorely
+worsted.
+
+When he turned his head, a man was standing at the horse's head with a
+firm hold on the bridle. Without a word, the man led the horse out of
+the shadows into the moonlight. This man was hatless, and his head was
+swathed about with bandages, and his right arm was trussed up in a
+sling. When he lifted his face and scowled up at Buddy, a shiver
+traversed the boy's spine and made the perspiration start in his hair.
+
+Buddy could not mistake. It was the evil, murderous visage of Sap
+McGill. The boy was in the hands of the enemy at last. The hand that
+held the rein also clutched a pistol. Dropping the rein, McGill pulled
+Buddy off the horse.
+
+"So besides bein' a Lutts--yore a hoss thief t' boot, air
+ye?--well--by-damn!"
+
+Sap cursed Buddy eloquently and long. Buddy said not a word. He felt
+that his time had come. He only gazed fixedly at the ugly face over him,
+convulsed and working with passion. McGill jerked the boy around and
+called out loudly toward the store:
+
+"Hey--Stump--yo', Stump--cum out!"
+
+After calling several times, two men appeared in response, at the side
+gate, back of the store.
+
+"Cum on over, Stump--I keetched this fuzzy little Lutts runt a stealin'
+my hoss--hain't thet th' all-firedest beatenst nerve ye ever heerd tell
+on--cum git thes hoss while I ring thes little cuss's neck."
+
+Sap's left hand clutching Buddy's shoulder, also retained the pistol
+which encumbered his grip, and as the two men advanced, Buddy threw all
+his strength into a sudden twist, breaking loose, and fled down the road
+toward the river with all the might that was in his skinny legs.
+
+In his flight he stooped, and straightened, and ran azigzag; performing
+every trick known to him calculated to dodge a bullet. Buddy did
+artfully dodge two balls which Sap sent after him, but the third bullet
+tripped between his arm and his body, burning a furrow on both sides,
+and the fourth pinched a piece out of his shoulder. But these sensations
+only lent wings to Buddy's feet, and handicapped as he was, with his
+rifle double hitched over his shoulders, he fairly sailed.
+
+When he reached the black shadows of the line of trees that reached out
+toward the river, he ventured a look over his shoulder. Sap had stopped,
+but the other two men were in hot pursuit. Buddy could not possibly
+travel any faster than he was going then, but his pace soon distanced
+his pursuers. When the boy observed that they were losing ground, he
+darted across a vacant plot between the shacks and continued on,
+stumbling now along the darkened, unfamiliar paths back of the houses,
+leading toward the river. Finally he paused and stood panting and
+listening. Amid these shades it was too dark for him to see more than
+fifty feet distant. He could hear nothing but the barking of hounds and
+the beating of his own heart. The men who had started out after him had
+evidently given up the chase. But wishing to place a safe distance
+between himself and these prowling enemies, the boy ran onward, and did
+not stop until he was a quarter of a mile past the last house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"DRAW--NOW--COWARD!"
+
+
+Here he slackened to a walk and, turning over, crossed into the road. He
+felt of his shoulder gingerly. It did not appear to be bleeding much,
+but the wound under his arm stung and burned and he could feel the warm
+blood trickling down his side, and along his arm, also.
+
+As he stood in the road extricating himself from the unusual manner in
+which he had harnessed his rifle to his shoulders, he was startled by
+the rapid hoofbeats of an approaching horse. Believing that the McGills
+were coming after him again, Buddy ran across the road, then hurried
+toward the river under cover of the wayside brush. He came suddenly upon
+a broken-down shack, and as the sounds of the galloping hoofs grew more
+distinct, Buddy dropped to his knees and crawled through a rent in the
+dilapidated fence and lay down in the weeds with his face toward the
+road, and waited for a few seconds.
+
+Then he thrust his head between the broken pickets and looked up the
+road. A horse was coming onward at a fearful, breakneck pace, and behind
+him followed three or four other horsemen. In the moonlight, Buddy could
+plainly see the white cloths around the foremost rider's head. It was
+Sap McGill on the dun horse. Judging from the terrific rate at which the
+lead horse was leaping over the road, Buddy felt sure that they would
+pass him by. The boy drew his head in and waited, breathlessly. Then Sap
+McGill dashed past, and just as he did so two shots rang out, and McGill
+tumbled out of the saddle and sprawled in the middle of the road, where
+he lay still, while his horse continued on.
+
+At this unexpected turn, a great light broke in upon Buddy, and his
+heart went apatter with joy. He knew now that the men following McGill
+were his own people. He scurried through the aperture in the fence, but
+the men had wheeled about and were galloping back as swiftly as they had
+come.
+
+Buddy hallooed at the top of his lungs, but the noise of their horses'
+feet drowned his voice and they raced on and away. As Buddy reached back
+through the fence and pulled his rifle to him, preparatory to running
+after the men, he was arrested by the sound of a human voice. He stood
+puzzled and mystified. He could see nothing, but the voice was uncannily
+near; seemingly at his very feet.
+
+Buddy cast an awesome look toward the battered, deserted shack with its
+yawning, sinister windows, and a grave suspicion stole upon him, and
+mounted to a fear that embraced his soul, and set his knees atremble.
+The house was haunted!
+
+Buddy shrank away from the fence, moved by a fear that nothing else
+could inspire, and which has no kindred terror, but he only made two
+steps. The same voice held him rooted to the spot. This time there was a
+timbre in the inarticulate utterance that was strangely familiar to
+Buddy. Then the mysterious voice formed words that were clearly
+intelligible: "Now draw--draw now--coward--take yore pick--hear
+me?--draw----"
+
+Buddy knew that voice too well to question it further. He hurried around
+the corner of the fence, and out under the chestnut tree, where he
+stopped short for the space of a moment, spellbound and dismayed, mutely
+gazing at the two prostrate forms stretched eerily before him in the
+gleam of the moon. The next instant Buddy was on his knees beside
+Hatfield.
+
+"Johnse--Johnse--air yo' kilt--air yo' hurted bad----?"
+
+"Air thet yo'--little Cap?" inquired Johnse feebly.
+
+"Sho'--I bin a huntin' yo'--air yo' hit bad, Johnse?"
+
+"I'm scratched up some, boy; twixt us two, I don't feel as skeetish as I
+ded 'bout sun-down. Say, Buddy, th' coward won't draw--I knowed he
+wouldn't--I jest knowed he'd throw in some ornery trick. Say, Buddy,
+give me yore rifle-gun down heah--an' fix th' muzzle in his ear fo'
+me--I lost my Colts--hurry long--han' yore gun down, Buddy----"
+
+The boy had been making a hasty examination of the familiar form that
+lay inert beside Hatfield. He now leaned over Johnse again.
+
+"Orlick's daid," announced the boy.
+
+"Oh, air he?" said Johnse. "I 'low I'll scuse em then fo' not drawin'--I
+knowed I hit em hard--but I didn't think he 'lowed to die--th' way he
+jest naturally hung on--he air so karnsarned tricky. Say, Buddy--how is
+hit a goin'--air th' fellers at em yit?"
+
+"Sho'--we'uns licked 'em bully, Johnse--they's jest a playin' tag now up
+in town--Sap plugged me twict up by ole Hank's store, as I cum
+by--Johnse, I got t' rack out now an' git th' men to tote yo' to th'
+wagons--I reckon th' doc-man kin peert yo' up a pinch--does yo' hurt
+bad, Johnse?"
+
+"Ded Sap plug yo', Buddy?"
+
+"Yep--hit don't hurt powerful bad though--an' our men jest plugged Sap,
+jest now--didn't yo'-all heer th' shoots?"
+
+"I mought hev, Buddy,--but I wus powerful busy arguing with Orlick--yo'
+sho' they got Sap?"
+
+"Sho," reassured Buddy. "He air a layin' up on th' road yonder now--I
+got t' rack out an' git yo' away from heah now."
+
+"An' I got ole Hank--Gawd'll Moughty!--hain't we'uns in luck?"
+
+Hatfield's voice sunk now to a thin, lingering whisper.
+
+"Buddy," he muttered wearily, "'fore yo' go--kin yo' fetch me a speck o'
+water--jest a mouthful o' water somehow----"
+
+The boy hurried behind the old shack in quest of something that would
+hold water. He found an old tomato can, but there was a rent in its
+bottom. Presently, he caught sight of a rusty tin bucket hanging by a
+wire, against a rotting porch post. He dumped the earth and dried roots
+out of this and held the bucket up to the moon. Then he ran toward the
+river. When he returned a few minutes later with the water, he was
+trailing Hatfield's piebald mare after him. The wounded man gulped the
+water greedily and Buddy unknotted the handkerchief about his neck and
+bathed his head.
+
+"I air goin' now, Johnse," said Buddy. "Yo' jest lay easy like, an' I'll
+be back with somebuddy 'fore a goat kin wig his tail."
+
+Whereupon, Buddy mounted the mare and galloped toward the courthouse,
+unafraid. In less than half an hour, Buddy galloped back, accompanied by
+six horsemen. They lifted the maimed, unconscious Hatfield and bore him
+away. As the cortège moved slowly up the moonlit road bearing their
+wounded leader, little Buddy turned the mare back, and cantered down
+toward the river to the spot where he had seen Sap McGill tumble out of
+the saddle when the Lutts' had fired upon him. But the boy was acutely
+disappointed. McGill was gone. And three bony, starved dogs with
+ravenous, wolfish eyes that gleamed in the moonlight, wore licking at a
+pool of blood in the road.
+
+The immeasurable canopy above the hills was clear and pearly, save a
+narrow reef of low clouds that anchored over the serried peaks of
+Southpaw. Clouds frowning against the sun, grim and somber and splotched
+with a sable film that seemingly reflected a stratum of despair and
+gloom that tides of time could not erase.
+
+Down upon the Moon mountain range, the sun smiled with an affiliating
+mellowness that found grateful response in the hearts of the denizens,
+despite the fact that the coves were scarred with new-made mounds, and
+their cabins were not without the wounded.
+
+And dividing these two mighty ranges of victory and defeat, the frenzied
+waters of Hellsfork dinned a neutral warning, reiterating an idiom that
+boomed like the omen of a tom-tom.
+
+For the past three weeks the Lutts' cabin had been utilized as an
+improvised hospital. Three of the men who had lingered there had
+departed to their respective homes, leaving Johnse Hatfield propped up
+in the "four-poster" alone.
+
+Buddy Lutts' hurts, while painful and stubborn, were flesh wounds, and
+the boy had spurned the bed. Slab, the negro, was a willing and deft
+helper. And Buddy attended Johnse with the devotion born of idolization.
+In Buddy's boyish appreciation Johnse Hatfield was now a hero, seconded
+only by his dead father's memory. One bullet had gone entirely through
+Hatfield, leaving six lodged therein. The surgeon from Hazard had
+extracted every other one, leaving three inside of Johnse. The doctor
+did not advance any prophecies direct, because he was not interrogated,
+but he told the "Ridin' parson" who had been up to the Lutts' house,
+that in two weeks more Johnse would be up and out, a little heavier, but
+sound as a grind-stone.
+
+Just at dawn each day, Johnse would open his eyes, yawn and vent an
+observation he had repeated regularly for three weeks:
+
+"Well--I 'low I'll go up t' th' still long 'bout noontime, Buddy--air
+yo' a goin' long?--little Cap?"
+
+Whereupon, Buddy would bring in the breakfast which old Slab had ready
+for him. Then Buddy would go to the "what-not" and get the treasured
+newspaper, and without protest, Johnse would read it all over to the
+boy, just as he had done each day since the paper had arrived. Logan,
+the audacious lawyer from the Blue-Grass, who had bearded the McGill
+faction in their own courthouse, had, thoughtfully, sent Johnse Hatfield
+a Frankfort newspaper, as a significant token of some sort of respect.
+The front side of this daily bore a picture, gotten up from description,
+of Johnse Hatfield. And under this spurious representation were three
+full-length columns presenting a graphic description of the "Bloodiest
+Clash in the History of Feudal Warfare," followed by details of the
+"Graveyard Massacre" by an eye-witness.
+
+According to these reporters, out of some eighty-eight men, who dashed
+down the road on that fateful night to slaughter the Lutts clan,
+forty-two of them never got away alive from the graveyard facade.
+
+To Buddy Lutts' keen appreciation, the only flaw in this wholesome
+narrative was the printed rumor that Sap McGill had escaped and was
+slowly recuperating over in Southpaw.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE MISSION SCHOOL
+
+
+'Twas some days ere Belle-Ann fitted her mood to her strange
+environments. The Mission School at Proctor was a beautiful place--a
+great rambling structure on the apex of a hill overlooking the
+picturesque Kentucky River. The building was girded with a continuous,
+spacious porch, and hemmed about with flowers, the identity of which was
+unknown to her. The grounds behind were unstinting, and reached half a
+mile back to the mountain abutting it.
+
+Flanking the building proper, on the verdant esplanade, stood a superb
+statue of Daniel Boone, embellished with a gurgling fountain which the
+State had recently reared on this spot where Boone had built his
+historic fortress.
+
+Belle-Ann was allotted a cozy little room with white enamel furniture,
+and pretty curtains, and quaint Japanese matting, the like of which had
+never met her admiring eyes.
+
+Withal, Belle-Ann was deeply pleased with her new surroundings--with the
+other scholars and with the teachers. But so much had been crowded into
+her young life of late, coupled with the pang of parting from her home,
+that it was days before her mood aroused itself to the necessity of
+application.
+
+When she did begin her lessons, it was with an assiduous energy and
+receptive aptitude that not only attracted the teachers, but the other
+pupils likewise. From the outset, she developed an inordinate thirst for
+grammar. Indeed, a great part of the time out of study hours, she
+carried her grammar about with her, peeping into it anon, spelling,
+repeating, and pondering over its phrases--never tiring of its dawning
+mysteries and vast possibilities.
+
+The Mission School, familiarly designated as the Chapel, was not an
+academic institution of classics and national renown, but it was of
+State-wide repute and an oasis of preparatory learning amidst the barren
+lives of mountain youth, hitherto isolated and deprived of the
+advantages of his more fortunate Blue-Grass cousins.
+
+Miss Virginia Worth, in charge of the Chapel, was as agreeably impressed
+with Belle-Ann as the girl was pleased with the charming teacher. Miss
+Worth was a woman of thirty-seven, with an abundance of perfectly white
+hair and the fresh, smooth face of a girl of twenty. Upon this benign,
+wholesome countenance there dwelt an ever-present sympathy and love for
+mankind. In her gray eyes was a look of succor that beckoned suffering
+to her. Oddly enough, a woman of private wealth, she had made the uplift
+of the mountain folk her life work.
+
+Moreover, Miss Worth was a woman of deep and unerring penetration,--of
+careful and soothing diplomacy--she had made a life study of the ways of
+the human heart. With true divinity, she had stepped out into the world,
+smiling, amidst the trivialities and dissensions, and weaknesses that
+assail and tempt and twist and scar the lives of humanity.
+
+In the fountain of her spontaneous Christian soul, she had a lotion for
+them all. From the first, it was this benevolent woman's smile that drew
+Belle-Ann to her--a look that reminded the girl keenly of Maw Lutts'
+perennial smile, and spread an aftermath that carried her back to days
+of utter happiness.
+
+Ill things of the soul are oft concealed through the measures of a
+lifetime. Thus, when its tenancy is predestined,--but when a spirit is
+unmated to evil, its odious residue gravitates like cork to the surface
+and speedily floats in the eyes.
+
+From the beginning there was an indefinable underlying something
+permeating this sweet-faced girl that had come to her from out of the
+wilderness--a something that sorely puzzled the good Miss Worth. It was
+like a single elusive carbon spot hidden away in the core of an
+otherwise perfect diamond--a spot that reflected through the eyes in
+fleeting transitory glints--a mote-flash that could not be
+located--baffling discernment only under powerful, expert analysis.
+
+Miss Worth loved the girl. She loved her straightway from the minute
+that she had held her small, shapely hand, and listened to the timbre of
+that shy, dulcet voice. She had never seen eyes tinted like these. She
+marvelled at her curls. Her perfect delicate, Grecian features filled
+Miss Worth with a lasting wonder.
+
+Through the Reverend Peterson she heard the tragic history of the girl's
+comely mother, but she could not conceive a heredity sufficiently
+generous to give the beauty made adorably manifest in this girl of the
+hills. In every movement her natural artless grace was as a rhythm of
+poetry.
+
+Miss Worth then recognized an extraordinary character--the fibre of a
+beautiful, wonderful, lovable womanhood--a girl who could, with the
+embellishments of education and adornments of fashion, go into the
+sphere of any secular circle of society in any municipality and create a
+furore. She was quick to foresee an interesting future for her new
+protégée, if she could only discover the elusive defect that she could
+not name, but which was palpably present to her keen senses, versed in
+thought reading and the pathology of organic character ailments.
+
+Very many times, as the days slipped by, she observed flashes of that
+sober, mystifying light in Belle-Ann's eyes--a sudden quick, almost
+vindictive dropping of the sweet lips that showed, otherwise, a dimpled
+upturn. It followed that Miss Worth devoted extra care to Belle-Ann's
+tutorage--all the while bent upon deftly angling for that alien,
+shifting thing that a casual observer would have passed unnoticed.
+
+The second Sunday following Belle-Ann's arrival at the school, Miss
+Worth presented to her an elderly gentleman of distinguished mien and
+marked personality, and of whom the girl was destined to see much
+thereafter. This engaging personage was Colonel Amos Tennytown, who
+resided down Blue-Grass way, and who visited the school, sometimes
+during the week, but most generally on a Sunday.
+
+Belle-Ann ever remembered her first meeting with this man, whose
+deferential manner was rich with little original courtesies which were
+innate manifestations of gentility that were born with the man. And his
+voice, in particular, carried a charm that was soothing and totally
+irresistible.
+
+All this appealed to a certain latent delicacy that wove its hereditary
+fibre through this untaught mountain girl's being and stirred a response
+which had hitherto been dormant. She had known true hearts, honest and
+courageous, but she had never known polished mannerisms in men.
+
+She recalled the radiant face and the suppressed tremor in Miss Worth's
+voice when that lady glided into Belle-Ann's room and announced that she
+wished to introduce her to a gentleman friend. Belle-Ann remembered her
+poignant embarrassment as she stood before him on the porch, shyly and
+acutely conscious of her own glaring deficiencies and simple gown, and
+of her determination at that first instant to excuse herself quickly and
+slip away--and of the manner in which she was instantly reassured.
+
+Later, she recalled the keen interest he took in her at this first
+meeting, and how her case of blues vanished temporarily as she listened
+to his pleasing voice and was distracted by his courtly, cheery, easy
+manner. Her shyness forsook her straightway and she experienced a sense
+of having always known him. He came, ostensibly, to see Miss Worth, they
+being friends of long standing, and Belle-Ann remembered how he had
+gallantly bowed to Miss Worth, on leaving that first day, when he
+laughingly removed the nosegay from his lapel and stuck it into
+Belle-Ann's curls.
+
+She remembered that she was sorry when he departed, and stood on the
+porch with Miss Worth's arm around her, and helped her tutoress watch
+the tall, commanding figure of the Colonel receding down the sinuous
+path toward the ferry.
+
+Many months had elapsed since that day, and it had come to pass that now
+Belle-Ann looked forward to Colonel Tennytown's coming with an eagerness
+that rendered her almost wistful. This had grown upon her in a subtle
+way, and in these days he was seemingly a vital connecting link between
+herself and some indefinable but palpable mystery that hung over her
+life, veiled by the opaque future.
+
+Tom-John Benson had always, in his rough way, been thoughtful of his
+only child. Of late years, through necessity, he had been compelled to
+be away from her, working for a paltry wage. The Kentucky spirit, ever
+ready to give, is slow to take and, though sorely pressed, stands aloof
+from charity.
+
+Long since, the good Reverend Peterson of the Diocese of Lexington had
+volunteered to give Tom-John Benson a free scholarship for his girl--an
+offer influenced mainly by the Christian spirit of his true missionary
+heart, and partially because he was sympathetically familiar with the
+pathos that enveloped the life of Belle-Ann's beautiful mother, who had
+deserted a luxurious home in Lexington and immured herself in the
+cloister of the Cumberlands, never to emerge. But free scholarship did
+not appeal to Benson. His pride was less crude than his exterior. He
+bided his time, and by dint of saving from his meagre wage, paid in full
+for Belle-Ann's schooling.
+
+The fruits of Belle-Ann's close application to her studies were now made
+manifest in a way little short of marvelous. It was plain from the
+outset that she possessed a natural aptitude for the tasks set before
+her. She developed a love for books that grew into such ceaseless,
+indefatigable zeal that Miss Worth and Miss Ackerman, her under teacher,
+were often obliged to remonstrate with her. While the other girls were
+at tennis or some other diversion after hours, Belle-Ann was poring over
+her books with as deep absorption as if it were play. Very many times in
+the night Miss Worth, knowing her propensity for night study, would slip
+into her room and implore her to retire. She was fast winnowing out her
+mountain dialect, but there were some words that clung to her tongue
+tenaciously, despite her efforts to eliminate them.
+
+She was the recipient of a letter each month from her father, always
+containing a small sum of money, calculated to maintain her simple
+wardrobe. Then one day she was delighted to receive a postal order for
+fifty dollars from her father, who stated that the company for whom he
+worked had given him entire charge of the mill at Catletsburg, and had
+advanced his pay. He stated, furthermore, that he wished her to buy some
+nice clothes with the money accompanying the letter.
+
+Miss Worth, having three other schools to supervise in different
+sections of the county, was unable to spend more than two or three days
+at a time at Proctor. She being absent now, Miss Ackerman accompanied
+Belle-Ann across the river to Beattyville, where they purchased two very
+neat and becoming dresses for Belle-Ann, together with various other
+needful articles. And now being able to write an intelligent and
+commendably legible letter, Belle-Ann indited an epistle to her father
+which abounded with original expressions of love, and wherein she
+expressed her gratitude to him, describing at length the things she had
+purchased with the money he had so thoughtfully allowed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BELLE-ANN VISITS LEXINGTON
+
+
+One evening after class hours, Belle-Ann was in her room engrossed in
+the pages of her grammar when Miss Worth entered. As the girl leaned
+over her book, her black curls tumbled about her face, she did not look
+up until Miss Worth spoke.
+
+"Belle-Ann," said Miss Worth, with a twinkle in her clear eyes. "I see I
+shall be obliged to lock all your books up in the closet."
+
+"And I shan't complain if you-all allow me to carry the key," returned
+Belle-Ann.
+
+"But I would guard the key, dear," declared her teacher, pushing the
+grammar aside and drawing Belle-Ann over to a sofa.
+
+"But I can whittle--Lem taught me to whittle--I can make lots of funny
+things--and I would make a key with my pencil knife and open the door."
+
+"Then I would take away your wooden key and lock you, together with your
+books, in the closet."
+
+"Then I would pull the shortest hair from my crown and blow on both ends
+and make a wish and turn into an elf--no, a gnome,--no, that isn't it
+either--anyhow, I would turn into something very thin and flat and slide
+out under the door."
+
+"But you couldn't get your books out, dear--and it would be too lonesome
+and dark to study in the closet."
+
+"But I would catch some fire-flies out thah and slide back under the
+door--then I would have a light, and when I study I don't get lonesome."
+
+"Then a sad thing would happen, my dear--I would be compelled to switch
+you----"
+
+Belle-Ann vented a peal of pent-up glee and pulled the prematurely white
+head toward her.
+
+"Then I would kiss you thah and thah and thah--I would do what you
+always tell me--I would give good for evil--and I would not switch you
+back, and would only squeeze you hard--like this----"
+
+The woman in turn touched the dimpled, mischievous face fondly and
+kissed the red mouth, so temptingly close to her. Miss Worth the while
+had held a free hand behind her and in this hand she secreted something.
+
+"I really didn't come in to frolic, Belle-Ann," she said. "I came to
+tell you something--rather to ask you to do something for us."
+
+"Who's us, Miss Virginia?" quizzed Belle-Ann, her roguish, child-like
+curiosity superseding her levity.
+
+"I mean for me--of course, I have talked this matter over with Colonel
+Tennytown--in fact, we have had it in mind a long time. As you already
+know, I have private means and an income that accumulates until I hardly
+know at times where to place it."
+
+Miss Worth toyed with the ringlets of silky jet that crossed the girl's
+low brow.
+
+"I love all my pupils," she went on, "but your little self has taken a
+hold upon my affections in a way that no other pupil has ever done--and
+we feel--I feel that you have gifts and natural aptitudes that should
+not be neglected--and cultivation costs money, Belle-Ann, and I want you
+to borrow some money from me."
+
+Belle-Ann's round violet eyes had grown wider with wonder, as she
+studied the youthful countenance of the woman with the white hair.
+
+"But am I not at school heah?" she observed. "Besides, I don't need
+money--deah daddy sent me fifty dollars last month and I have lots of
+that left, and heah it is near the end of the month and he will send
+more, too. I thank you-all so much, Miss Virginia--but----"
+
+The teacher placed her hand over the ravishing mouth and left only the
+eloquent eyes protesting.
+
+"You don't seem to catch the import of my suggestion clearly,
+Belle-Ann," admonished Miss Worth. "Your kind father is not in a
+position to afford you the kind of training and education that your
+energy and latent talents warrant. At the rate of your present progress,
+you will soon outstrip the advantages which a school like this can offer
+you. In less than another year, you will know all that we have here. I
+well know that you are not the girl to grow vain--but your voice has
+always stirred me like a miracle. I should accuse my own conscience if
+your voice went amiss for want of culture. You plainly possess musical
+instincts that are suffering now. We think that you should go, very
+shortly now, down to Lexington to the Seminary, where the facilities for
+your musical training are sufficiently good for the beginning--and
+eventually you can go abroad--to Germany--and the means will be
+forthcoming!"
+
+"You mean--mean across the ocean?" cried Belle-Ann in amazement.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Alone--by myself?" she ejaculated.
+
+"Well, we can't tell--I may go with you," predicted Miss Worth with an
+amused smile.
+
+As the import of Miss Worth's proposition filtered into her
+comprehension, an efflux of joy and gratitude bubbled up from the girl's
+heart and tinged her dimples with carmine and overspread her cheeks. She
+sat for a minute beyond words. Her eyes strayed to the open window, and
+her gaze continued on over the pine tops, as though fixed intently upon
+a tiny mote that had bobbed about and gesticulated on the horizon of her
+child-dreams, but which was now resolved out of mythical vagueness into
+a poignant reality that was growing and speeding toward her with her own
+humble life for a goal, and with a pageantry of opportunity that dazzled
+and overwhelmed her senses.
+
+Slowly, very slowly, she turned her flushed face and fixed her eyes, now
+moist and brimming with love, gratitude and homage upon Miss Worth. Her
+bosom lifted as she looked mutely into the face that smiled down upon
+her. Then Belle-Ann's round chin lowered and her curls were on the
+woman's breast and her arms crept up and around and locked about the
+neck of her benefactress. Miss Worth patted her shoulder, and whispered
+words through her curls, and presently Belle-Ann whispered back to her.
+
+"But can I be worth it--could I ever--ever--be worth it? Besides, I
+could never, never, pay you-all back," she deplored tremulously.
+
+"Surely you can, sometime--you will have money of your own--that is, you
+may become a great prima-donna," she ended optimistically. Belle-Ann sat
+up straight.
+
+"Prima-donna," she repeated uncertainly.
+
+"Yes--you know, Belle-Ann, even in your simple old-timey song, 'Kitty
+Wells,' I have wondered at the volume and peculiar quality of your
+voice, and have compared the strength of that peculiar cadence to that
+of great singers I have heard. I believe that your voice holds all the
+fundamental requisites of an operatic singer. Anyhow, we are going to
+have your voice cultivated to its highest perfection--and who can
+tell--you may in time become a prima-donna."
+
+Belle-Ann hung upon Miss Worth's utterances with an intentness that lent
+to her an attitude of listening to some seductive melody coming from
+afar.
+
+"Prima-donna--prima-donna," she murmured softly and wonderingly.
+"Prima-donna--but don't tell me--let me find it, Miss Worth--I am not
+sure of its meaning." Whereupon, she skipped across the room and
+returning with her dictionary, flurried over its pages eagerly and
+swiftly.
+
+"P-r--p-r-i--prima--prima-donna--heah, I have it," she said.
+"'Prima-donna--the principal female singer in an opera;'--and do they
+make lots of money?" she inquired quickly.
+
+"They surely do," responded Miss Worth with growing amusement. Belle-Ann
+reflected for a moment.
+
+"Maybe--fifty dollars a month?" she ventured timidly.
+
+"That sum wouldn't interest a prima-donna, Belle-Ann. It is said that
+some of them enjoy salaries of one thousand dollars per week and more."
+
+"One thousand dollars!" she cried, aghast.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Belle-Ann slowly closed her dictionary and a look of deep disappointment
+touched her pretty oval features.
+
+"Oh, no, Miss Virginia," she sighed, clasping her little hands
+hopelessly. "I could never make one thousand dollars in one week--I just
+know I couldn't."
+
+Miss Worth laughed outright--then kissed her twice.
+
+"Let's talk about what we are to do to-morrow," suggested Miss Worth
+cheerily. "I have another pleasant surprise for you, dearest." Belle-Ann
+showed her winsome dimples and waited expectantly.
+
+"It is very necessary that you have some nice clothes and have them
+immediately. I mean some stylish apparel suitable to appear in city
+society, because you have some friends in Lexington who are anxious to
+have us visit them shortly, so to-morrow morning you and I are going to
+the city and I will take you to a modiste and have some pretty gowns
+made up for you. Here is the money." At this juncture, Miss Worth
+dropped five one hundred dollar bills into Belle-Ann's lap. The girl was
+utterly stupefied with a surging joy, and her exclamations of delight
+were varied and many as she tossed her curls in sheer exultation and
+rapture.
+
+The mere anticipation and the purpose of this intended sojourn filled
+Belle-Ann's untutored, pleasure-starved heart with ecstasy.
+
+She talked volubly along, her cheeks aflush, in a transport at the
+prospect of possessing herself of an assortment of pretty modern dresses
+for which her girl-heart now yearned,--particularly since she came to
+the school and observed the dainty, modish clothes of some of the girls
+who came over from Beattyville on Sunday to visit Miss Worth and Miss
+Ackerman.
+
+And thus it was that a new and alluring vista of probabilities opened up
+before her imagination that set her blood a-tingle and made her eyes
+sparkle with anticipation. The elusive dimples came and went, and she
+was very beautiful in this sudden, new happiness. Belle-Ann never forgot
+the joys of that shopping sojourn to Lexington.
+
+That night her mind teemed with processions of fantastic imaginings
+that, strive as she would, she could not dispel. Notwithstanding that
+her slumber had been scant, she arose earlier than usual fresh and
+bright and charged with an enthusiasm profuse and spontaneous. At
+eight-thirty the following morning, Belle-Ann and Miss Worth crossed the
+ferry to Beattyville. Here they took the train for Lexington and
+Belle-Ann had her first ride in a Pullman car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE GUEST OF A GRANDEE
+
+
+Arriving at Lexington, the girl was confronted with her first sight of a
+city. Belle-Ann was agreeably surprised to meet Colonel Tennytown, who
+had been awaiting their arrival at the station. The Colonel was plainly
+as pleased as was Belle-Ann, and helped the two into his big limousine
+with many courtesies and a radiant countenance. And here the girl whose
+head was a-whirl with child-like rapture, was treated to her first
+automobile ride.
+
+The Colonel's first thoughtful act was to present Miss Worth and
+Belle-Ann with a great cluster of roses he had in the car for them. He
+then directed the liveried chauffeur to drive out to his homestead, but
+in this he was artfully thwarted by Miss Worth, who hastily and firmly
+protested with a meaning look, declaring that their time was limited and
+that by complying with his kind invitation, the shopping would suffer.
+In lieu of that pleasure, the persistent Colonel, not to be denied, took
+the ladies to a big hotel where they had luncheon and spent an enlivened
+hour in his company, after which, Colonel Tennytown went his way,
+sending the ladies onward in his car to do their shopping.
+
+The wonder and mysteries of the big shops inspired Belle-Ann with
+amazement and delight unbounded, and her spontaneous and original
+comments and profuse inquiries concerning these sights kept her
+companion's face in one perpetual wreath of amused and happy smiles.
+
+After purchasing a number of suitable fabrics, Miss Worth took Belle-Ann
+to a modiste where they were detained for more than two hours. By the
+time they had completed their shopping, it was dusk and their automobile
+dashed up to the station barely in time to make the train. Colonel
+Tennytown was there to see them off, and had only time to bid them a
+hurried good-by.
+
+Miss Worth had arranged for all her minor purchases to be delivered to
+the school the same day that the gowns were sent. In the meantime,
+Belle-Ann had made three hurried trips with Miss Worth to the modiste in
+Lexington for fittings. Then, one memorable day, a horde of boxes
+arrived at the school for Belle-Ann. There were four exquisite dresses
+cut in the latest fashion. There were three beautiful imported hats.
+There were delicate veils and gloves and shoes and three dainty pairs of
+pumps embellished with oddly carved silver buckles. There were lingerie
+of the finest texture and stockings of many hues, so soft and fine that
+Belle-Ann marvelled at their resiliency. Also, there was a great
+brass-bound trunk, with compartments, with Belle-Ann's name stamped
+thereon, and a smart buff-leather traveling bag.
+
+There was everything calculated to inspire a girl-heart to the heights
+of inexpressible happiness,--particularly a girl who had never before
+known a luxurious life. Miss Worth and Belle-Ann spent half the night in
+the girl's room amid a deluge of tissue paper and boxes.
+
+The following Tuesday Miss Worth and Belle-Ann went to Lexington to
+visit Colonel Tennytown and his sister. The girl's figure had rounded
+and she had grown a head taller during the past winter. Her appearance
+in a city in her simple mountain garb would have challenged
+attention,--not because of the quaintness of the garb, but by merit of
+her natural grace and fresh, startling beauty. But to-day this wealth of
+beauty was enhanced a hundred fold. When she alighted at the station in
+Lexington, she presented a vision of loveliness that arrested the
+admiring eyes of people who had become inured to the sight of pretty
+girls, from the nearby newsboys, up to a group of loquacious old ladies
+who wore suffragist badges.
+
+Belle-Ann wore a dark blue creation that fell in clinging, Parisian
+grace about her supple form. The yoke and sleeves were trimmed with
+pleated lace of exquisite richness, and a jabot of lace fell down the
+front from the yoke midway to the waistline. On her feet were dark blue
+pumps with silver buckles and hose to match. She wore a large Panama hat
+caught up at one side, drooping at the other side and back and girded
+with a wide Persian ribbon knotted at the back and ending in a silk
+fringe that trailed toward the hair. Her mass of black, lustrous curls
+were caught up in the back in the embrace of a large Oriental clasp of
+unique design.
+
+In one hand she carried a beautiful Oriental purse suspended by a
+dragon-skin thong, which was hemmed with a camel's-hair braid. In the
+other hand, she balanced a long-stemmed white silk parasol. The apparel
+might have been duplicated; but the oval face under the Panama hat had
+no replica. There was no vestige of powder or cosmetics on the girl's
+complexion, which was left in all the rich purity that nature decreed to
+her.
+
+The chin was indescribably fascinating. A little mouth with curved
+carmine lips that turned upward at the corners flanked by dimples. A
+short, thin little nose, white like the soft white of a rose petal.
+Above that, a pair of round, wondrous eyes--eyes that harbored a depth
+of unfathomable eloquence--black-fringed, steadfast eyes, of a peculiar
+deep violet hue, merging into that matchless pigment that tones the blue
+of a robin's egg. Above that, were exquisitely penciled brows, and then
+the soft, shiny, raven-black ringlets that rippled beneath the hat.
+
+It was this beautiful Grecian countenance that inspired even the
+well-bred people about her in the station to pause for a second covert
+look. They had waited several minutes in the station when Colonel
+Tennytown's tall figure appeared coming toward them. He apologized
+contritely for his tardiness, stating that his car had suffered a
+"blow-out" which had delayed him.
+
+They were whirled along the shell road four miles outside of Lexington
+to the Colonel's magnificent homestead surrounded by acres of level
+pasturage and numerous modern out-buildings. As Belle-Ann learned
+afterward, this estate represented the highest type of a modern stock
+farm and was one of international repute. Colonel Tennytown's pedigreed
+horses were periodically shipped abroad.
+
+The Colonel was a gracious and fascinating host. He was a widower and
+had now in his household his maiden sister a few years his junior. There
+was no conceivable hospitality these two did not lavish upon their
+guests. Colonel Tennytown's proud prototype is met frequently throughout
+Kentucky.
+
+He was tall and of commanding carriage and manner and attired
+immaculately. He was a polished man whose courtesy was effervescent. He
+wore the regulation broad-brimmed hat, white moustache and goatee, and
+while his thin face was florid, it was at once refined and intellectual.
+His hobby was horses bred in the purple, but there was an utter absence
+of horsey vulgarism about him, his very presence irradiating breeding
+and culture.
+
+It was made convincingly clear, by every look and word and gesture, that
+the Colonel's stately maiden sister had fallen in love with Belle-Ann at
+first sight. The house was a great square structure and one could walk
+around its four sides on a broad, spacious porch. A wide hall ran
+through the center directly to the back. This roomy hall was appointed
+with massive, quaintly carved furniture of colonial design. The walls
+and ceilings throughout the house were paneled and frescoed in artistic
+and unique patterns and painted in harmonious tints that indicated taste
+of the highest order.
+
+In the center of the hall, midway, was stationed a great fountain, some
+six feet in diameter, where the crystal drops rained down upon myriad
+fishes and the moss and coral-built submarine castle. Magnificent
+paintings and various rare statuary subjects and huge palms and foreign
+plants and flowers abounded on every hand. And the sweet notes of an
+enraptured mocking-bird came from somewhere mingled with the silvery
+tinkling melody of unseen music.
+
+Profusely scattered about were pieces of odd furniture, strange
+bric-a-brac, curious pottery and miniature idols, relics collected from
+every quarter of the globe. Big Turkish couches and willow rockers and
+cane sofas with red and green velvet pads, and little upholstered stools
+and bamboo tables were everywhere. Mammoth gilt-framed mirrors reached
+from the floor to the ceiling, and the wide doors and windows were
+draped in various-colored portières and curtains of silk and velvet in
+gold brocade.
+
+The great dining room was a spot that awed Belle-Ann with its intrinsic
+resplendence. The mahogany and the dazzling array of silver and mirrors
+and prismed chandeliers and greenery held this demure mountain girl
+entranced. She caught herself wondering what Lem would say, if he could
+look in upon her at this moment, and behold her dressed in "Blue-grass
+style," being entertained in this mystic realm of a grandee, the
+opulence of which even her own active fancy had never pictured.
+
+After luncheon, the Colonel conducted his visitors to the stables where
+he pridefully exhibited a hundred or more blooded horses. Straggling
+groups of horses and colts were observable grazing in the rank pastures
+that stretched beyond as far as the eye could reach.
+
+While en route through the stables, Belle-Ann thoughtlessly gave the
+party a scare. Colonel Tennytown had directed a hostler who followed the
+party to bring out a sorrel gelding of which he was especially proud.
+All of the compartments for the animals on one side were box-stalls.
+Before the man had time to bring forth the gelding, Belle-Ann noted an
+extra-high compartment built of heavy oak boards with an iron gate.
+Attracted by this, she stepped away from the others to see what this
+strong box-stall contained.
+
+The girl beheld a most magnificent black stallion. An ardent lover of
+horses and naturally fearless, she was so delighted at sight of this
+proud, silken-coated animal, that she drew the iron pin and slipped
+inside with the horse. The animal stood for a moment as though deeply
+and curiously surprised at this effrontery. Then his fire-rimmed eyes
+flashed. His little ears lay flat to his head. With a snort, he started
+toward her. Belle-Ann advanced a step to meet him, and at sound of her
+voice the great beast paused and pricked up his ears. Talking to him the
+while, the girl walked unhesitatingly over to him and laid a hand gently
+upon his massive neck. The feel of his satiny body pulsing with salient
+power was a joy to Belle-Ann. The stallion nosed her clothing with mild
+little snorts. With soothing, coined horse-words, the girl ran her hand
+over him. She then lay one hand on his back and with the other slapped
+his side playfully. To this ticklish overture the horse responded
+instantly.
+
+He reared on his hind legs. He clashed his bared teeth, he plunged,
+pawed the straw, and kicked and squealed. Belle-Ann stood perfectly
+still and laughed outright at his antics. Then the animal threw his ears
+back and his fore feet in the air and lunged toward her, only to pluck
+at her sleeve with his rough lips and push her gently with his shoulder,
+taking care not to tread upon her feet.
+
+The sorrel gelding had been brought out and the Colonel was deeply
+engrossed in rehearsing his pedigree to Miss Worth and did not at the
+moment notice Belle-Ann's absence. The girl had her arms about the
+stallion's head and was smilingly engaged in scratching his ears, when
+Colonel Tennytown's white face appeared at the iron gate of the
+box-stall, together with that of the scared, shaky hostler.
+
+"Come out--come out!" importuned the Colonel in hoarse, unsteady tones.
+Through the thick boards Belle-Ann heard Miss Worth's appeal.
+
+"Belle-Ann! Belle-Ann! come out of there, dear--this instant--do,
+please."
+
+The horse, catching sight of the faces at the gate, jumped forward,
+wheeled like a flash, and lashed out with his heels, striking the gate a
+terrific whack with both feet. The gate, which opened inward, clashed
+against its iron sleeper with a frightful noise. The horse then returned
+to Belle-Ann's side and lowered his head for her to resume the
+scratching process.
+
+"For God's sake, Miss Benson, I beg of you to come out," called the
+distressed Colonel. Then Belle-Ann stepped safely and serenely without.
+
+Miss Worth, who knew the stallion's reputation, stood with hands
+gripping each other tensely and with averted, pallid face. The hostler
+was quaking visibly, and the Colonel seized her arm as though rescuing a
+drowning person.
+
+"Miss Benson," said the Colonel, "I implore you never to do that
+again,--please, never, never go near that gate."
+
+"My dear," spoke up Miss Worth, "I shall have to hold you by the hand
+until I get you out of here. Whatever prompted you to go in with that
+vicious horse?"
+
+The hostler mumbled to himself:
+
+"I'll sho' slap er padlock on dat hoss 'fore sun-down."
+
+"Why," said Belle-Ann laughingly, "you-all talk as though he were a big
+tiger instead of a big, beautiful horse--I love him."
+
+"Ponce is the meanest horse I have ever owned," interjected the Colonel.
+"I would not dare go in to him. If it were not for for his strain, I
+would have gotten rid of him long ago--he killed a hostler last summer.
+The men have to feed him through a trap door--the men could not be
+induced to go in to him as you did, Miss Benson. They have to rope him
+from both sides to lead him. He not only kicks, but he fights with his
+fore feet and bites like a dog. You have had a narrow escape, I assure
+you, dear Miss Benson. How happy I am that you were not hurt."
+
+"Why, Colonel Tennytown," interrupted the girl, "he was only playing
+with me--why I can go in thah now and make him walk around on his hind
+legs."
+
+"Tut-tut! No you can't, my dear," interposed the Colonel monitively,
+"not while we are here to watch you, I assure you."
+
+"Oh, I would love to ride him--may I ride him some time, Colonel?" she
+persisted laughingly.
+
+"It pains me deeply to refuse you any request--I have any number of
+others you may ride, but never Ponce," he declared emphatically.
+
+After dinner it developed that there was plainly a conspiracy afoot to
+have Belle-Ann sing. Without the slightest demur or embarrassment the
+girl took her stand beside the piano while Miss Worth played the
+accompaniment. She sang an excerpt from Il Trovatore which Miss Worth
+had taught her with infinite care. The voice held the listeners
+spellbound.
+
+When her last lingering notes had swelled and died away, the Colonel's
+sister hurried to her with profuse praises that were plainly sincere and
+kissed her cheek. The Colonel strode to her side and pressed her hand,
+and Miss Worth beamed upon her.
+
+As dusk approached, the visitors climbed into the big limousine en route
+to the train, and rolled through the richest plateau in the world,
+flooded with the erubescent splendor of a setting sun. At the station
+Colonel Tennytown carried the handbags into the Pullman, and here he
+lingered until he heard the hiss of the reservoir that released the car
+brakes. With his farewell, he lifted Belle-Ann's white soft hand, and
+slipped a ring on her finger. Concealing it under his own hand, he said:
+
+"It is there with a wish which I hope will come true," and he hurried
+out and away. As the train pulled out, the lights were turned on in the
+car, and Belle-Ann was holding one hand up before two pairs of admiring
+eyes. It was a marquis ring with an oval turquoise in the center, hemmed
+with eight rubies and bordered with ten beautifully cut diamonds. And as
+Belle-Ann gazed at this lovely present, her violet eyes emulated the
+sparkling lustre of the ring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+KNOW YE THE TRUTH
+
+
+That night Belle-Ann indited a letter to her father, dwelling upon the
+kindness of Miss Worth, who had proposed to give her a higher education.
+She told of her delightful visit to Lexington and of the beautiful
+present Colonel Tennytown had given to her. She asked again, as she
+always did, if he had heard anything from Lem.
+
+She also ventured another letter to Lem. During the past winter she had
+written several letters to him; as yet, she had received no answer to
+these. However, she supposed they were still uncalled for. She knew that
+Lem could write sufficiently legible for her to decipher it, but she
+also remembered the fact that the nearest post-office was thirty miles
+distant from Moon mountain. Moreover, she knew Lem was not accustomed to
+visiting Junction City, because he never received any mail, and because
+the denizens of Junction City were rank sympathizers with the McGill
+faction.
+
+And always she yearned for sight of Lem's honest face. Not a day passed
+but what she cherished thoughts of home. When she was apparently in her
+gayest mood, Lem's tall shadow stood in the background waiting for
+her--always waiting. While occupied in her tensest study hours, down in
+her subconsciousness lay a memory that stirred like a thing having life.
+And ever more overshadowing this dominating vision of Lem Lutts was the
+haunting presence of the revenuer. From her waking hours these thoughts
+trailed into the night to pollute her dreams and, not infrequently,
+pilfer her sleep away.
+
+Oft times, in the presence of others, she would abruptly lower her book
+or suspend anything at hand, only to come out of an ill reverie, to find
+her eyes fixed blankly at nothing, and her lip in the grip of her upper
+teeth. These uncontrollable abstractions had caused her many
+embarrassments and had grown upon her, as the months slipped by, instead
+of diminishing.
+
+Now that she stood on the threshold of a new life, a mystic, fascinating
+world, the vague dreams of which had gesticulated and beckoned to her
+childish fancy in the hills, foretelling its beautiful emoluments of
+which she now had dazzling, palpitating glimpses--she was dismayed at
+her own disquietude. She had made very many dear friends. She had an
+array of beautiful clothes. She was forgivably conscious, without
+vanity, that she was an unusually beautiful girl. The refinements of
+education for which she had an inbred craving were filtering into her
+brain with the mellow, rich residue of a rare wine. The whole atmosphere
+that enveloped her was charged with all the pedagogic influences and
+wholesome blithesomeness calculated to inspire a girl of her temperament
+to utter happiness.
+
+But Belle-Ann was not happy. The fear that had eroded its path into her
+being stood over her young life to menace and alloy every new-born
+pleasure. Her soul trembled now lest the revenuer had killed Lem
+instead. Then her life would not only be broken, but the revenuer would
+still live on to project his hated shadow across her heart, and her
+agony would go on and on with another and more potential impetus.
+
+When the human heart throbs against the barbs of an eating agony through
+a measure of years, there comes a time when the soul staggers and cries
+out.
+
+One night Miss Worth awoke and following a habit, she got up and slipped
+across the hall, bent on seeing if Belle-Ann were sitting up in bed with
+her books, as was her wont.
+
+She opened the door softly. As there was no light in the girl's room,
+she was about to close the door and go to bed when she caught a sound
+that half startled her. Quickly and noiselessly she stepped over the
+threshold. A shaft of moonlight fell athwart the bed. It was empty. She
+cast a searching glance about the room. At the window-seat she saw a
+mass of black curls above the white of a night robe.
+
+Crouching on the floor, her face buried in her arms, alone in this small
+hour, Belle-Ann was crying in the half gloom. Alone with some great
+grief that was undoing her. Her shoulders shook with its racking
+on-coming. Then again, its vortex of agony swept across her lips in
+piteous supplicatory sobs, vibrating in the stillness like the bleating
+of a dazed, lost creature enmeshed in the tentacles of some merciless
+destroyer.
+
+Motionless, Miss Worth stood for a minute, her mind divided by two
+opposing conjectures. One, a deplorable apprehension that this girl she
+had come to love so dearly was assailed by some new sudden visitation of
+suffering. The other, a keen, pungent joy that perhaps that for which
+she herself had striven and labored for months was coming to pass. Maybe
+after all the blighting soul-fistula she had so deftly and tirelessly
+probed for had burst and its poisonous feculence was now eddying away.
+
+Until a month ago Belle-Ann had, with the natural reluctance and
+reserved suspicion of the mountain-born, withstood and parried all of
+Miss Worth's gentle approaches to discover her secret woe. The mountain
+spirit nurtures a bitter antipathy for revelations. Then a day came when
+this dear friend broke through the barrier, and Belle-Ann poured out her
+whole life to Miss Worth. There was no detail or memory that she did not
+vividly picture before Miss Worth's understanding. Then Miss Worth,
+knowing where to look, reached out with all the potent power of her
+subjugating diplomacy to extirpate the roots of this melancholy plant
+that grew and threatened to overrun a beautiful soul.
+
+Miss Worth hurried across the room and spoke her name. With distress
+undisguised, Belle-Ann lifted her tear-wet face.
+
+"Oh!--I can't--I cannot endure it longer," she declared between the
+tremulous sobs that convulsed her.
+
+Miss Worth knelt beside the girl and with her arms around her, she
+talked in soothing undertones. For almost an hour the two sat clinging
+together. Not a minute had Miss Worth's voice ceased. As the girl
+huddled, listening tensely, the tears ceased and dried on her distressed
+face. Presently, she arose and walked aimlessly around the room.
+
+"But you-all don't believe as we do," she said. "Our people are shot
+down in their own yards, and when we call upon the law, the law only
+turns the assassin loose. Then the law itself comes to kill. Oh--Oh,
+dear Miss Worth--you can never understand--you can never know what this
+is. Only we up thah who suffer these things know its sting. Who could go
+on and live without redress and not strike back? If you had suffered
+this as I have--if you could see what I have--if you could see now--this
+minute--what I see--thah--thah----" she ended in stifling utterances, as
+she stared at a spot of moonlight that had strayed across the floor.
+
+Now, totally oblivious to her whereabouts, and utterly unconscious of
+Miss Worth's presence, she fell to her knees on the floor, stretching
+her arms out over the pallid beam, in benediction, and lowered her hands
+to fondle the face that her fevered fancy held there; and to touch the
+still, immobile bosom with its bullet-spot. And again her grief broke
+loose beyond restraint and she sobbed aloud. A great lump had brought an
+ache into Miss Worth's throat, and she, too, was crying. She lifted the
+girl up and led her back to the window-seat. Here she whispered solace
+to her for a time.
+
+Finally, Miss Worth arose and left Belle-Ann at the window. When she
+reached the door she turned back.
+
+"Remember, dearest," she said, "Know ye the truth and the truth shall
+make ye free. I'll be waiting up for you--I shall not retire until you
+come. If you see the light--come to me--I'll be waiting and praying,
+too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+BELLE-ANN HAS A VISION
+
+
+After a time Belle-Ann arose wearily to retire. Then she laid her
+troubled head on the pillow and closed her tear-wet eyes and finally
+dropped into a restive sleep. And in this furtive slumber a titanic,
+stirring dream came to her. The ethereal universe convulsed and burst
+asunder, and opened up to her startled vision a celestial theatre of
+glory that gripped her heart with its untold resplendence.
+
+And roundabout, leagues high, gloss-buffed walls of amethyst, and
+gleaming pillars of pearl girded this splendor. And above this
+scintillating heavenly realm an amphitheatre of sinuous clouds
+circulated, charged with pigments and prismed lustres; shot, lanced and
+plumed with a woof of multi-colors that no tongue could tell; and out
+from this spectacle of molten glory, a multitudinous horde emerged,
+trooping through its liquid opalescence.
+
+And the angels reveled, flapping their wings in the starlight to the
+throbbing rhythm of ten thousand silver lutes. And out beneath the
+proscenium arch of this fantastic gilded dream, an archangel rode and a
+beloved face looked down upon the girl. It was a chaste, smiling face; a
+sacrament of love, replete with amity and forgiveness.
+
+And the knowing eyes were diademed with a specific message. And the
+vision bore straight down to earth upon her; and she lifted up her arms
+to meet it. And the whir of its pinions awoke her. She slipped out of
+bed and stood erect, her bosom lifting and her eyes looking through the
+dark after this receding apparition.
+
+And there as she stood alone in that small hour of the night, a great
+Presence came into the room and an unseen hand reached out and touched
+her soul.
+
+Beside the little white bed Belle-Ann bent her knee and bowed down her
+head until the curls spread out on the coverlet. And lo! a sword of
+divine light dipped down and penetrated the cryptic catacomb hidden in
+her heart and pierced its gnawing, pillaging tenant, and killed her ill,
+uncouth creed; and drove her lingering sorrow out, purging her being
+free of the chaotic fires of revenge-thirst that was slowly but surely
+searing her soul.
+
+And when she rose up, a plenipotent strength of understanding had lifted
+her crying spirit out and up to a sanctuary of truth; and she stood in
+the early hour of coming day, serene and triumphant, with the lustre of
+a conquering light in her purposeful eyes, and faced a new world.
+
+It was dawn. Amid a theatre of opalescent clouds reefed in the east, the
+sun diffused its glory, and shaped rubescent coral columns, edging its
+facade with azure and gold. The air was rife with the musks of the
+blossomed mountain-sides, and a medley of bird-music emanated from a
+hundred species, flitting and flapping their wet wings in the morning
+dew.
+
+Belle-Ann tapped gently on Miss Worth's door. She stepped lightly into
+the room. Miss Worth was wide awake and paused, struck with the pure
+radiance of the girl's face.
+
+"At last!" ejaculated Miss Worth triumphantly. She kissed and hugged
+Belle-Ann in the exuberance of her joy and enthusiasm. Belle-Ann's eyes
+were clear and wide with a new light. The mote that had floated in their
+depths was gone for all time. And Miss Worth saw before her the most
+charming character and perfect specimen of young girlhood that fortune
+had ever led her to. "At last--you understand now, Belle-Ann?" she said,
+drawing her over to the edge of her bed.
+
+"Yes, I do understand, Miss Worth," answered the girl, her face dimpled
+with smiles that betokened the calm and serenity of a new-found peace
+and faith.
+
+"I understand, deahest Miss Worth," she repeated, "but I don't
+understand how I understand--it is all so deeply mysterious--so
+wonderful--to think of these wasted years! Oh!--if I could only see
+Lem!"
+
+"And now," observed Miss Worth, "is it right for Lem to kill the man?"
+pursued Miss Worth tentatively. Belle-Ann arose quickly from the bed,
+spurred by the thought that she now miraculously regarded as a two-edged
+wrong, and a direct offense against God.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed regretfully, "how could I ever have thought it
+right--how could I? It's ignorance--it's downright ignorance--I see it
+all plainly now, my deah, sweet, true friend. I see it all just as
+you-all promised me long ago that I would see it--instead of lightening
+Lem's sorrows I was adding to them--I was making his burden harder to
+endure--I was dragging him down to misery, not knowing any better--it's
+terrible, Miss Worth--it's pure blind ignorance--I can't believe now
+that I did that. I'm guilty--guilty--guilty--if Lem kills the revenuer,
+I, too, am guilty, for I will now tell you, Miss Worth, I not only asked
+Lem to kill the man, as I told you-all--but I demanded it against Lem's
+love for me--offered a prize--a reward for the revenuer's dead body. Lem
+begged to kiss me on parting--I wouldn't even kiss him good-by--he
+kissed my hair, not my lips--I can see him now standing up thah holding
+out his arms to me--I was mad for the sight of that officer, dead. If
+Lem kills him it will be I who helped to chain an anchor of crime to
+Lem's poor wretched life--to drag him down. I did nothing to uplift
+him,--nothing to incite him to look for bright things in the future--my
+whole heart was aflame with revenge. Oh! what a miserable thing it is! I
+was mad; weak-spirited; blind with ignorance--and to think that I
+boasted of it to you! As I stand heah now, I can't believe I did that
+monstrous thing. And Lem up thah, his eyes and thoughts fixed
+downward--down on the trail of revenge, a path that leads to eternal
+unhappiness. I can't wait, Miss Worth--I won't rest until I see Lem. I
+hope nothing has happened to him. I'll lead him out of it all. I'll show
+him the way to life as God meant us to live. I'll lead him out, just as
+you, my deahest, kindest friend--just as you have led me away from the
+pit around which I had beaten a path with all of my foolish years of
+life--you led me away from a seething pit of misery, Miss Worth; a
+cauldron into which I would surely have tumbled, soul and all, in time.
+Now--now--it's different; now--it's all changed--life looks like a
+beautiful picture to me now. But, oh!--how I pity the benighted
+sufferers up thah in the mountains--if there was only a way to show
+them--to show them the emoluments of life with the misery of feudal hate
+eliminated."
+
+Too much overcome with sheer joy to speak, Miss Worth listened to
+Belle-Ann's earnest declarations and watched her smiling, confident,
+beautiful features with a sense of having, just here, achieved one of
+the greatest conquests of her missionary life.
+
+Belle-Ann walked to the window, a new exquisite incarnation of girlhood.
+With a thankful, gracious heart, ready and primed for the wonders of
+which she now had a divine intuition, she gazed across to the mountain
+summits, touched with the iridescent vapors, figured by the rising sun.
+She watched the veil-like mist gradually rise over the river where it
+lingered like a film of bluish wood smoke. She listened to the clamorous
+carols of the birds, and there was a song in her heart and inwardly she
+was stirred with all the inspirations that accompany the placidity of a
+spirit untroubled and immaculate. The chapel chimes suddenly pealed out
+their morning anthems, and its music tinkled sweetly across the senses
+of the girl whose soul was throbbing in perfect attune.
+
+From the sublimity of her momentary reverie, Miss Worth's gentle voice
+aroused Belle-Ann.
+
+"Belle-Ann," she said, "would a bit of news before breakfast be
+distasteful?"
+
+The girl cast a quick, expectant look toward Miss Worth, whose face was
+symbolical of still another revelation.
+
+"I can bear anything," answered Belle-Ann. "I can now appreciate more
+than ever any glad news--life can hold no sorrow now that I cannot
+endure bravely--don't hesitate to tell me--I am unafraid."
+
+"Well--it is not by any means fearful news, my dear; on the contrary,
+it's the most delightful surprise imaginable--the only thing I fear is
+that you will not forgive us for what will doubtless present itself to
+your mind as a rank conspiracy."
+
+Belle-Ann laughed and squeezed the hand that crept into hers.
+
+"When you are concerned, you are forgiven anything in advance--you-all
+couldn't commit anything, Miss Worth, that I could hold against you a
+second," she assured, laughingly.
+
+The older woman fell pensive for a moment.
+
+"Belle-Ann--I have known this for a long time--Colonel Tennytown asked
+me to acquaint you with this when I thought fit--I think the proper time
+is now at hand--Colonel Tennytown was your mother's father, Belle-Ann."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+A GRANDFATHER
+
+
+"Oh!--Miss Worth!" ejaculated the girl with a noticeable catch in her
+voice. "My grandfather--you-all can't mean that Colonel Tennytown is my
+really grandfather?" she pressed hastily, overwhelmed by this
+unlooked-for surprise.
+
+"Yes, truly--Colonel Tennytown is your own grandfather, Belle-Ann, and I
+am happy and proud that you have such a man for your grandfather--he is
+going to come and claim you, my dear, and you are not to rebel when he
+tells you about your legacy--you have an inheritance--it is rightfully
+yours by every moral and legal tenure--it was your mother's--although
+her proud, relentless temperament spurned it while she lived. It now
+devolves upon you, Belle-Ann; you have been rich all along and did not
+know it--money matters need never trouble your dear little head. You
+recall that first visit to Lexington? Well, we took you out to the
+Colonel's home purposely for his maiden sister to see you. You know they
+wanted to be sure of you, Belle-Ann,--they wanted to feel certain, dear,
+that they would like you. And dear old Miss Malinda was more than
+charmed with your beauty and personality--she confided to me afterwards
+that she begged the Colonel to go directly and bring you there to live
+permanently. Belle-Ann, you look like you do not believe this good
+fortune," she ended abruptly.
+
+Out of a daze the girl awake, and impulsively threw her arms around Miss
+Worth and kissed her until she laughingly protested. As Belle-Ann
+dressed for breakfast, she pondered upon the ways of Providence and
+wondered what unseen happening would come next to take its place in her
+life. She moved about in a state of bewilderment. She struggled to
+compose herself; this great good luck thrust upon her so suddenly seemed
+visionary. She, whose life heretofore had been lonesome and isolated,
+and overshadowed with unhappiness.
+
+This abrupt intervention of a kind fate bore the atmosphere of a fairy
+romance. It was difficult to comprehend off-hand, that all this was
+meant for her. So that it was only gradually that she gathered the grace
+of its realization, and then her fancy waxed busy. A glamorous vista of
+possibilities were opened up to her. She saw before her salient,
+new-born contemplation, scores of day-dreams that had invaded her
+girlhood, resolve themselves now into a semblance of approaching
+tangible realities.
+
+With superb, delicate touches she added to these mental pictures with
+the prolific imagery and exquisite mastery that only a vivacious,
+high-spirited girl can conjure. And paramount above all these
+fantastic castles were the benefits set aside to be bestowed upon Lem
+and Buddy and her father and even poor old Slab--they who had been
+fellow-sufferers in a war of strife and aching misery that had seemed
+interminable.
+
+With the tail of her eye, Belle-Ann caught a parting glimpse of her
+profile in the mirror. She noted with a little laugh that her lips were
+moving. All unconsciously she was repeating over and over the phrase
+that drifted to and fro through her half-incredulous mind:
+
+"A grandfather--an inheritance--Belle-Ann Benson--with a legacy?"
+
+Colonel Tennytown, who had been called to New York on business, had now
+returned to Lexington. To-day, when Miss Worth returned to the school
+she imparted to Belle-Ann that she had received a message from the
+Colonel stating that he would be up to see them in the evening. He had
+been absent for two weeks and Belle-Ann had not seen him since she had
+learned that he was her grandfather.
+
+With a lingering, tender embrace, twilight untwined her nebulous arms
+from the sable-lustre mantle of night and parted with a promise.
+
+The tryst place had been the dim, infinite dome of the world.
+Plenipotent, majestic night settled on the throne of the supernal
+cosmos, diademed with a million twinkling jewels to dazzle his mundane
+subjects. His ancient serfs, patrolling the heavens at his behest, all
+a-glitter, trembled in his presence. And between the limits of these
+fire-touched planets, the milky-highroad developed like a mystic wand
+leading across a vast ethereal universe, and trailing adown into
+immeasurable cyclopic spaces, fading away between the gigantic
+vapor-tombs and ghost biers of a thousand dead centuries.
+
+And all the soul-stirring agencies of rapturous nature pulsed and glowed
+down upon the night-world of mankind. A neutral moon whose fixed face,
+young yet, unsmiled and uncreased with the joys and woes upheld by the
+supplicant ages, seemed now to soften with mellow sympathy upon a
+girl-heart below. Could even a stoic moon look upon this girl unmoved?
+Belle-Ann leaned listlessly against the bronze rail that girded the
+fountain, gazing with expectant eyes, along the moonlit path leading to
+the seminary.
+
+The Chapel bells chimed out their angelus across the fantasmal gloaming,
+tinkling through the girl's mood in utter harmony with the music of her
+soul, and the supernal smiles that lingered about her cupid lips.
+Beneath the enchanting rays of the moon, Belle-Ann's wraith-like,
+relaxed form looked even taller. Arrayed in a vision of delicate blue
+silk and lace, clinging to the pronounced curves of her subtle outlines,
+she presented an unforgettable picture; a rare hellenism of feminine
+beauty. A type to ravish the senses. The shimmering blackness of the
+girlish curls that crowded around her small features, contrasted
+adorably with her eburnean skin, natural as the purity of rose petals,
+soft and fine-textured, from which the mountain tan had long since
+vanished.
+
+A bouquet of great roses was pinned at her bosom, and the musk of
+calcanthus was in her curls. Her lips parted and she hummed a soft
+ditty. The sweet dulcet timbre of her voice was a mellowed sound wafted
+straight from the realms of Dixie. Her whole palpable self irradiated
+and pulsed with the subtle witchery and glamour of the South.
+
+As she stood in the half-shadow of the fountain gazing intently along
+the hedge-hemmed path, a sudden gladness stirred her as she discerned
+what her eyes had sought. Two vague forms descended from the porch,
+coupled perilously near together. Then, as they halted beneath the
+dappled shadows of the rose-tree, Belle-Ann fancied she saw a white
+sleeve against a sable shoulder. It may have been the trick of her
+imagination, but it seemed that the man stooped his head and lingered
+over the white-clad figure.
+
+She knew it was Colonel Tennytown and Miss Worth who tarried there.
+Belle-Ann had known all evening that he would seek her out. She had not
+laid eyes on him since the Sunday preceding that memorable dawn when
+Miss Worth had revealed his relationship. But now with a heart full to
+the brim with gratitude she awaited his coming, and to acknowledge her
+grandfather.
+
+Presently, the Colonel's tall figure emerged from the shadows and came
+toward her. With his broad hat in his hand he halted before her and
+smilingly bowed in courtly grace. As Belle-Ann looked straight into his
+eyes, her face was now all aflush with pleasure and the baffling dimples
+were at play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A CONFESSION
+
+
+"Belle-Ann," Colonel Tennytown began gently, with a strange new
+exultation noticeable in his tones, "I have come to ask you to do me a
+favor--a very great kindness--do you deem me deserving of a kindness in
+view of my grim shortcomings?"
+
+"Isn't it singular, Colonel Tennytown," interjected Belle-Ann
+laughingly, "that when I saw you coming down thah, I thought how happy
+I'd be if I had the power to do you-all some kindness?"
+
+"Ah!" rejoined the Colonel, "now we have it--happily, you possess a
+naturally charitable spirit, Belle-Ann," he said. He had never called
+her Belle-Ann before. His Southern chivalry had never permitted him to
+diverge from the prefix of Miss to her surname. "As you now know all,
+Belle-Ann," he continued, "I wish you, henceforth and onward, to call me
+grandfather--I beg you to forgive me for my seeming tardiness in coming
+to the front to acknowledge my granddaughter--my approach has doubtless
+appeared to you masked in a form of deception, and now that I am here to
+inflict the brazen audacity of a complete confession, you can plainly
+see, Belle-Ann, that I am in need of your uttermost indulgence. The
+truth is, I regret to say, that we never knew of your existence until
+you came here to school when my esteemed friend, Reverend Peterson, made
+me acquainted with the fact.
+
+"Then, the moment I laid eyes on you my heart melted and my soul went
+out to you--I instantly saw in you purity and beauty--indeed you are
+even more beautiful than your mother was, Belle-Ann--your mother whose
+sole offense was her stubborn refusal to marry the man whom we thought
+best fitted for her; and then she ran away and married a mountaineer far
+beneath her station, doubtless a good man--but practically a stranger,
+and one to whom she gave her life, and her duty, but not her heart.
+
+"We struggled for years to reconcile her, pledging absolute forgiveness,
+but her blood told, Belle-Ann--the blood of her father--her high-bred
+spirit met our pleadings with unbroken stoic silence. She lost herself
+completely--the grand young man who had just been elected to the state
+senate of Kentucky, and who loved her, declined from that day and died a
+broken man. The remorse that gnawed at my heart for years, Belle-Ann,
+has left its scars--is a skein of secret, silent woe, untold, my dear
+little girl--a blight across the old man's life that no language is
+sufficiently adequate to reveal.
+
+"Bah!--what an awful lesson I have had--and then I found you. You were
+sent by a kind Providence to assuage my great sorrow, Belle-Ann. You
+see--my daughter--we wished to be certain that you inherited your
+mother's lovable traits. I did not wish to take a step which might,
+perforce, have to be retraced later; to be plain, we sought to make sure
+that we liked you, and I can say to-night that we do like you,
+Belle-Ann--we do more than that, we all love you--we do more than love
+you; we idolize you; we worship you; we all adore you. Will you adopt
+us? Will you take me with all my arrant failings and use me as best you
+can for a grandfather?"
+
+He dropped his hat on the grass and stood erect before her in the
+moonlight the image of a southern nobleman, holding his hands out to
+her. All throughout his earnest words she had been deeply and happily
+moved. Her bosom rose and fell, riding the roses pinned over her heart.
+Her star-like eyes were misty, and there was pathos in her sweet treble
+utterance as she thrust her two hands into his waiting palms.
+
+"Col--grandpa," she corrected, "it is a proud distinction to claim you
+for my grandfather--I feel wholly unworthy. I feet almost like an
+interloper--I owe you so much--I shall struggle with all my heart to
+take and fill my mother's place."
+
+The Colonel stooped and pressed his lips to her forehead and kissed the
+curls near the little wreath of flowers.
+
+"Belle-Ann," he went on, a new line of serious thought suggested to him,
+"you must promise me one more thing--in fact, if you don't promise, it
+will disrupt my plan of years--it will--well--it will place me in a very
+unhappy position."
+
+"What is it, grandpa?" she quizzed through her smiles.
+
+"Well--you see--that is--of course it's a secret," he ended lamely, with
+a furtive look toward a dim white figure beneath the trees. "As I said
+before--it's like this----Oh!--plague--take it!--to-night I asked Miss
+Worth to marry me, and she said she would if she could; but that she
+couldn't unless you promised to come immediately with us to Lexington
+and make your home with us--so you see where the whole thing hinges.
+Will you do me this favor, Belle-Ann?" he pressed anxiously.
+
+Belle-Ann could not restrain herself and laughed outright.
+
+"Don't look so solemn, Grandpa--go tell Miss Worth I said to marry you
+by all means--I'll do my part."
+
+There was a boyish ring in the Colonel's laugh as he picked his hat up
+off the grass and with Belle-Ann's arm through his, started toward the
+porch.
+
+"But--Grandpa," protested Belle-Ann, as her lovely face suddenly
+sobered, and a grave note crept into her voice, "I must go up to Moon
+mountain before I think of anything else--some hearts up thah are
+beating against my return--but I'll promise to come back heah, in three
+days, Grandpa."
+
+Colonel Tennytown stopped short on the path.
+
+"Ah!--now we have it," he exclaimed. "I know all about those folks. Tell
+me, my dear, plainly--do you love that boy, Lem?"
+
+Belle-Ann's cheeks turned visibly crimson in the moonlight as she looked
+up quickly upon this unexpected query.
+
+"I might--might learn to--Grandpa," she murmured grudgingly.
+
+"Now," said the Colonel decisively, "you shall start up there Monday
+morning--and you tell that Lem Lutts for me that I want a good, steady,
+dependable man. I'll give him charge of my entire stock farm--seven
+hundred acres--and three hundred head of the best horse-blood on the
+face of the earth. I'll train Lem and make him manager. If he will, he
+can go to school and polish himself up first. And that little Buddy
+Lutts--you tell him I'll give him a pony all for his own, and keep him
+in clothes and spending money if he'll come down to Lexington and go to
+school once in awhile."
+
+"Now, I want to ask you, Belle-Ann--about that old negro chap, Slab. Is
+the lobe of his left ear missing?"
+
+"Oh, yes--yes!" exclaimed the mystified girl.
+
+"And is he a very long, narrow gentleman?"
+
+"Surely--he's quite tall----"
+
+"Did you ever hear him sing 'Kitty Wells'?"
+
+Belle-Ann clapped her hands in childish glee.
+
+"I've heard that song every night all my life, Grandpa; how did you-all
+know Slab, Grandpa?"
+
+"Ah! now we have it--when Miss Worth mentioned him, telling me things
+about him as you had told her, I would always say that he is the same
+old Slab--and I'll bet the best horse I've got that he is the same. He
+belonged to my uncle who lived on the plantation adjoining my father's.
+Slab was asleep in the shade of a porch one day when I, a boy of seven
+years, meaning to startle him, slipped up and held a snapping turtle
+close to his face. When I started to arouse him with one hand, the
+turtle suddenly shot his neck out and gabbed old Slab by the ear. Then
+Slab woke up. You ask him about that; and you ask him if he remembers
+the time old Hickamohawk ran away with him--and you bring him down here
+with you. Just tell him that Amos Tennytown wants him and he'll
+come--bring the whole family--there's room for us all, Belle-Ann."
+
+She had listened to his warm-hearted suggestions with growing enthusiasm
+that sent her blood bounding, as she pictured the surprise and gladness
+the Colonel's message would inspire in those lonely, isolated hearts up
+on Hellsfork.
+
+"Grandpa," observed the girl, out of her unutterable joy and gratitude,
+"God made your heart awful big."
+
+"And God made you the gentlest and most beautiful of all granddaughters,
+my dear," he answered gallantly. "Monday I will have here the best
+single-foot saddle beast in this country for you to ride, and I will
+send a man to escort you, who will guarantee your safety."
+
+"Oh, Grandpa! I don't wish him to go any further than Boon's Ford. He
+can turn back thah. I feel sure Lem and Buddy and Slab will come back
+with me."
+
+"Just as you will, Belle-Ann," he agreed, and the two mingled their
+mutual, uncontrollable outbursts of ecstasy as they joined the figure
+lingering amid the mystic vacillating shadows of the rose-tree.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE RED DEBT
+
+
+All through these wretched months, Lem Lutts had weltered in jail.
+During the first hideous weeks of his incarceration he thought his
+reason would not serve him longer. He felt that he would surely go mad.
+Night after night he stood with dull, hopeless eyes at his cell door,
+his fingers twined around the mercilessly cold iron bars, gazing across
+the dim corridor at the blank stone wall.
+
+When "Creeping Jesus" glided up to his cell door like a phantom, and
+flashed his lantern upon Lem, he found him hour after hour wide awake,
+his eyes burning and starry with the unquenchable fire of a throbbing,
+wild, mad unrest. The keepers wondered how he kept alive, considering
+the amount of food he took and the sleep he had.
+
+Belle-Ann's face was ever before him. Her beautiful vision floated
+evermore through the dark confines of his cell. Many times he had
+scribbled letters to Belle-Ann, with fond hopes that some word from her
+would come back to him, not knowing that these missives had never
+reached the outside of the jail.
+
+He had lolled upon the iron cot through the soul-wrenching hours of
+countless nights, staring up through the black toward the concrete
+ceiling. His groping mind saw no solution written in the dark. Merciless
+assumptions in default of proofs had opened the great loathsome cage
+whose maw had gulped his body.
+
+True--he had helped his father work the "still" that his
+great-grandfather had worked with a free conscience. That was all--the
+"still" that the despised law had never yet unearthed. The aspect of the
+law conformed with the teachings of his father. It fitted unto the
+sights that his own eyes had beheld. Where was its equity? He had seen
+his own relation shot down in cold, cruel blood. This law had never come
+forward to punish the wrong and champion the right. This law only
+hovered like a python above its prey, and struck when it had advantage.
+
+The law was a mangy, fanged reptile--a monster that bit the honest
+rights of the people out of their hearts; then clawed and rolled and
+mauled their bodies. He had heard that God inspired the wise men who
+made the law. Surely, the Almighty had not lent His seal to this curse.
+The God that Maw Lutts had told him about--He, who would some day make
+all things right in Kentucky--was not a party to this law that had
+finally taken the lives of his parents and had taken him. It was all the
+evil, godless work of men. It was the plot of a city faction. He was in
+the hands of a gang. In the last days of his jail life, the boy's
+philosophy had reduced the blame to a unit, until it fixed the whole
+responsibility upon a single man--"Big Pete" Burton--leader of the gang.
+
+The boy, who had never in his life before been outside the limits of the
+Cumberland, had gone to jail, on that eventful day, innocent. He came
+out guilty. The mountain tinge had long since deserted his cheek and
+left it jail-hued. The simple-souled eyes now shone with the flinty
+stare, the designing needle-glints, the relentless play from eye to eye
+that traverses the orbs of the jail-man. He came out guilty, not of that
+which he had knowingly already done, but guilty of the added thing now
+stored away in the core of his being that he meant to do.
+
+The heart-breaking midnight loneliness and the nerve-stabbing "third
+degree" had not sucked the fire from his feudal veins. His religion now
+measured by his capacity for revenge, Lem Lutts came out of prison, his
+young heart and soul and strength obsessed by a sacred quest. His
+suspicions ratified in jail, he came out tarnished and arrayed against
+the world. In the centre of this flaming theatre of vengeance there ever
+stalked one leading figure, one solitary actor--a huge animal-headed man
+flaunting a frayed precept, called law--the monster law-man reaching for
+the rights and the blood of the people--he of the shadow-built body and
+the charmed life--that fearless ghost-spawn who never backed away from
+the mouth of a gun--he who always plunged toward the flame and the smoke
+and fought in the open--he whose skin was tattooed by the Winchester
+stencil of the mountaineer; but who still lived, and pursued, and fought
+on--the man who forged always onward with uncanny precision, ever
+stalking the hillman, ever reaching for his sanctum with merciless,
+untiring law-biting fury.
+
+The vision of this supernatural man, who had killed his parents, stood
+in front of the boy's life and blocked his untamed spirit with taunts.
+Loyal to inherited instincts; guided by the influence of environment;
+handicapped by ignorance; fanatically brave in his peculiarly educated
+understanding of justice, and property rights--the boy saw only this
+man. This hated enemy had not deserted him in jail. "Big Pete" had
+visited him time and time again. He had coaxed, abused, threatened,
+cajoled. He had even "manhandled" Lem, but never an utterance had
+crossed the boy's lips to betray. Finally, they had put him in the
+dungeon. When he emerged from the "black hole of Calcutta," he was
+thinner, chalk-hued, and benumbed of brain, but unrelenting, and "Big
+Pete" knew there was a demerit across his record. He did not make an
+informer.
+
+To-day they had released Lem Lutts in disgust. The revenuer, Burton, was
+on hand with that same despicable stare, and followed him from the
+warden's office to the street.
+
+"I'll get you yet, Lutts," predicted the detective. "I'll bust that
+gang, and I'll send you to Atlanta the next time. I'll bust you, or I'll
+get you like I did your--your----" his temerity broke. "I'll get you all
+right--I'll be on your trail in a week." To this gentle benediction he
+added a gentle push as emphasis.
+
+Slight as the push was, Lem lost his balance and went to his knees, his
+hat falling to the walk. When he gained his feet and faced about, the
+officer stared in dumb amazement at the savage figure before him. Lem's
+stoicism had left him. His immobile features yielded to the volcanic
+hatred within. His light eyes glinted like full sockets of quicksilver.
+The froth fermented and bubbled off his twitching lip.
+
+"Yes--yes--yo' houn' dog!--yo' kilt my pap, an' my maw--yo' did!" he
+shrieked out in a riot of rage. "Yore 'lowing t' git hain't a gittin',
+hit hain't'--yo' kin 'low, an' 'low, an' 'low--thet hain't a
+gittin'--yore a pesky coward--yore a damn woman-killer--an' th' day'll
+cum when we'uns 'll run th' cow-brutes acrossin' yore snaky ole grave,
+we will! An' our'n hawgs'll root parsley offin' yore ole houn'-dawg
+grave, they will--yo' kilt my pap an' my maw, yo' did--an' hits we'uns
+what'll make a stinkin' hole fo' yore ole carcass,--what'll run the wild
+skunks out o' th' mountains--a hole what'll make th' buzzards puke.
+
+"Yo' kilt my pap an' my maw--yo' he-skunk!--an' ef they's a God up in
+th' clouds, He'll see yore ole bones a-burnin' up in hell 'fore long--He
+will."
+
+He bleated out his imprecations, his frothy, distraught utterances
+tumbling together and stifling his speech. His wrist-band became
+loosened, and he stretched a sleeveless, naked arm high over his bared
+head to solemnize an oath that had sealed itself in his tempestuous
+heart. The sullen officer scowled at him, speechless; then grimly,
+silently, turned his back upon the lava of this mountain boy's impotent
+frenzy.
+
+Panting and dazed, Lem walked in a circle around his hat, which lay on
+the walk. Finally picking it up, he backed away from some curious eyes
+that had gathered, and ambled off toward the Kentucky river. Near two
+hundred miles from Moon mountain, forlorn, soul-sick, friendless,
+moneyless, but free, with one steadfast, consuming purpose fixed in his
+heart,--an organic purpose which he kept protected with prayerful
+importunities to Providence that it might not go amiss!
+
+When Lem got his bearings, he started cross-country afoot. At the end of
+the ninth day he found himself on the skirts of the Big Sandy country.
+With that tireless wolf-gait, he put the rugged miles behind him. All
+through the moonless night he tramped with eager eyes fixed toward the
+east where the hills piled higher and higher, and penciled a sable,
+ragged border against the paling, myriad stars.
+
+At length the atmosphere grew heavy and a flume of languid clouds
+straggled up where they hung upon the distant mountain peaks, pregnant
+with pulsing heat lightning. When, in the loneliness of that weird hour,
+the darkest epoch between night and morning, Lem beheld, silhouetted
+against the incessant flashes of lightning, the sombre dome of Moon
+mountain--that sullen watch-dog of the Cumberland--he pushed ahead
+unmindful of fatigue, while out of the wreckage of his battered soul,
+and aggrieved senses, there rose up a semblance of his old self as he
+lessened the distance between him and his beloved home.
+
+Before the sun was up, and while the transparent jewels still trembled
+on the damp face of the wilderness, Lem was on the last half of his
+climb. He forged onward, his head aflutter with a multiplicity of
+anticipation that precedes the sight of a long absent home. Presently he
+espied a thin column of smoke aloft, which he knew issued from his own
+cherished habitat. He pulsed with a savage delight. With the pungent
+odors of a horde of familiar, endeared growing things in his nostrils,
+he throbbed with the salient, rabid joy of an escaped jungle animal back
+again to its own. In a vortex of ecstasy he viewed the wild, enchanting
+scenes developing through a film of early morning mist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE SHOOTING OF PETER BURTON
+
+
+When finally Lem reached the narrow twist where the trail jutted out and
+clung to the dew-damp breast of the mountain, he halted and dropping his
+torn shoes, which he had carried in his hand the past hour, he gazed
+along the ragged channel of a blind gulch that bit into the base of the
+mountain. The tree-fringed mouth of this gulch framed a picture below
+that entranced him. Upheld on the grass-grown palm of the distant
+clearing, he saw the squatty outlines of the meeting-house.
+
+Like a blow from a bludgeon the tragic details of that unforgettable
+tragedy hissed and rankled anew in his brain;--that red, accursed
+half-hour amid the naked shadows of a lugubrious dusk, with death at his
+elbow; the cry of the panther in his ears, and a ghost that breathed and
+scowled and cursed over him.
+
+Motionless, he looked at that wooden magnet below with a rapt,
+breathless stare. When he seized his damaged shoes and started onward,
+two stinging tears, hot with the acme of bitterness, fell off his chin,
+through his open shirt-front, and rolled across the white scars that
+dappled his breast.
+
+When he made the next turn he was in full view of the cabin. He saw the
+blue-black martins, swirling around and chattering over their box. He
+heard the crowing of the cocks, and the see-saw music of the guineas
+behind the log barn. He saw the red steers reluctant to leave their warm
+wallow in the be-dewed stable yard. He placed his fingers to his mouth
+and gave two shrill whistles. In an instant his father's spotted hound
+bounded from behind the cabin, followed by four other obstreperous dogs.
+While the dogs were yapping and mobbing him with their boisterous
+welcome, Slab appeared at the cabin door, followed by Bud half-dressed.
+
+"Hallaluyah! hallaluyah! hallaluyah!" shouted the old negro,
+gesticulating joyously and shambling pell-mell down the descent.
+
+On the backward path to the cabin there followed a noisy and gladsome
+reunion. Hanging to his brother's arm, Buddy kept crying crazily:
+
+"Lem hain't daid--Lem hain't daid--air yo', Lem?"
+
+While Lem ate his breakfast, he told his own sad story and, in turn, Bud
+and the negro poured into his ears the happenings of the past months.
+Nor did Buddy omit a single detail of these events. He began with the
+trapping of a brown bear, and ended with the rehearsal of that terrible
+fight at Junction City, as he exhibited the scars of that sanguine
+combat.
+
+"I air ole Cap Lutts' boy--hain't I, Lem?" he ended pridefully, probing
+for his brother's commendation.
+
+"Yo' sho' air, Buddy--an' I air powerful happy t' own yo' fo' my
+brother--yo' kin show pap's blood in yore veins any day--I 'low yo' kin
+hold th' mounting some day," lauded Lem, with an affectionate slap, "an'
+yore brother Lem'll git thet onery low-down Sap McGill fo' shootin' a
+boy--fo' shootin' my brother. He'll answer--same's th' revenuer. I was
+thinkin' o' leavin' fo' a spell, Buddy, but I'll not leave heah, as long
+as God Almoughty holds th' clouds over these hills, an' my heart
+beats--I'll not leave til' I kill 'em both--I won't--I won't leave."
+
+Worn and weary as he was, Lem did not wait to rest. He bathed his
+aching, swollen feet, and slipping on a pair of cow-hide moccasins, he
+hastened away with Buddy, to surprise Johnse Hatfield, and the faithful
+men at the still. And as he passed Eagle Crown, his eyes sought its
+lofty apex and his heart throbbed with a deep yearning. The vision of
+the absent girl who had gone out of his life and carried with her every
+fibre of joy that had hitherto woofed his existence--now stood before
+him with a vividness and insistency that eclipsed all previous
+visitations.
+
+In a measure, the surprise was turned upon himself, for they heard a
+shot and came suddenly upon Johnse Hatfield on the trail, crouching
+behind a boulder, his rifle still smoking, and peering keenly over into
+the laurel thicket below. When he looked up and beheld Lem, back again
+alive and well, he almost collapsed. Then the wild joy of Johnse's
+greeting merged swiftly into a grimmer enthusiasm as he said:
+
+"I plugged em at last, Lem."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Th' revenuer--I jest plugged em," enlightened Johnse.
+
+"Burton?" cried Lem, unwilling to believe the news.
+
+"Shore," returned Johnse, "I stopped 'em thes time--I did."
+
+"Air yo' sho' he's kilt?" eagerly, as the three crouched behind the
+boulder.
+
+"He air," assured Johnse emphatically. "I kin tell the way a feller
+flops his wings when he air kilt an' when he air jest hurted--he war a
+snakin' round--an' I 'low he war a spyin' on yore house--he looked up
+an' seen me a watchin'--then he pulled on me--but I fired quicker'n
+him--I got em shore thes time, Lem."
+
+"Gawd'll Moughty!" muttered Lem, under his breath, "air thet cuss back
+thes quick--a houndin' me agin, thes soon?--but he tol' me he'd do
+hit--he said he wouldn't parley any----"
+
+"Who tol' yo?"
+
+"Burton."
+
+"When--yo' hain't meanin' thet yo' talked to that devil?"
+
+"I been in his jail all thes time."
+
+For a moment Hatfield's face was a picture of dismay. He was dumb and
+plainly beyond any expression. Presently Johnse spoke.
+
+"I see thar game--course thar's a traitor, but I 'low it hain't
+Orlick--they wanted t' beat yo'-all back, thinkin' yo' wouldn't be a
+lookin' fer 'em so soon--an' he war a spyin' on yore house, aimin' t'
+foller yo'-all to th' still--then raid us--but I changed his tune."
+
+"I hope yo' hain't kilt em--'cause he belongs to Cap Lutts's boy--to
+me----"
+
+"I kilt em, Lem--I had t'."
+
+Lem still stared incredulously at Hatfield's grim, bearded face.
+
+"Come 'long, Johnse!" exclaimed Lem decisively. "I 'low yo' believe yo'
+kilt em--but yo' can't lead me t' his daid body--yo' can't," declared
+Lem dubiously. Gripping his Winchester, Lem started away down the trail
+on a run, with Hatfield and little Bud loping along after him.
+
+When they arrived within sight of the place indicated by Hatfield as the
+spot where he had seen the revenuer's head disappear, the trio fell upon
+their knees, and crept cautiously along, with rifles ready and eyes
+alert. In a dense clump of laurel brush between two great dun rocks,
+they came upon a tan felt hat lying in a wide circle of dark blood. A
+few paces away lay a silver-mounted Winchester rifle. Lem knew the gun;
+the instant he laid eyes on the piece, he knew it was the property of
+Pete Burton, the revenuer. The front of the hat, just above the band,
+was slit open for six inches or more, as if cut with a knife. Lem's eyes
+glowed like fire-balls, as he examined the gun and passing it to Bud to
+carry, he turned upon Hatfield, who stood speechless eyeing the blood.
+
+"Yo' said yo'd show me his daid body, Johnse--do yo' see hit?" Lem
+emitted a bitter, derisive laugh.
+
+Hatfield's hairy visage was the picture of dumb bewilderment.
+
+"Johnse Hatfield," began Lem solemnly, "could any man thet Gawd'll
+Moughty made human lose all thet blood and not stay heah, on thes
+spot?--eh? I kin tell from his hat yore bullet swiped em 'long th'
+forehead,--yo' hain't kilt em--yo'll never kill em--I'll never kill
+em--nobuddy'll ever kill em, Johnse Hatfield!--ef he wus a human bein'
+my pap would a got em 'long 'go--Johnse, when yo'-all kills a eagle yo'
+takes a bead on em pint-blank first, don't yo'?--sho'--yo' don't shoot
+at his shadder skimmin' along on th' ground under him, do yo'?--no. But
+when yo' shoot at this cussed revenuer yo' mought as well shoot at his
+shadder's fer's killin' him goes--he air a ghost. But I'll never stop
+tryin' t' git em anyways--I feel that I'll never git em--leastways hits
+soothin' t' be always a tryin'--cum 'long, Johnse."
+
+They twisted in and out through the laurel and rhododendrons, between
+bald rocks, mighty and pigmy, and over crumbling logs coated with
+liverwort. Through walls of tangled thorn brush; out and along paths
+beaten by the wild razorbacks, and down, always downward, the three
+followed the erratic zigzag trail of blood for four miles. Down to the
+very water's brink of Boon Creek, where they lost it.
+
+They traversed both sides of the creek up and down for miles with no
+signs of the lost trail. Hour after hour they searched until night came
+upon them, and they returned home, with the uncanny feeling that the
+wounded revenuer was likely to rise up out of the ground, or step out of
+the granite heart of some boulder at any moment.
+
+At dawn the following day, thirty armed men gathered at the cabin. Lem
+spread them out, beginning at the canyon of Hellsfork, and they beat the
+rugged country systematically, working upward. Each day at sunrise they
+resumed the search where they left off until the eighth day, when they
+left all growth and foliage behind and came high up amid the naked,
+forbidding peaks of the range; precincts to discourage a mountain goat,
+much more a wounded man. They were rewarded with no signs of the
+revenuer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+IN WHICH SLAB PROPHESIES
+
+
+They disbanded, and Lem Lutts returned to the cabin, melancholy and
+morose. This futile hunt for his elusive arch enemy was prophetic of
+some strange, dawning evolution. He felt the tang of it in his blood. He
+saw it lettered in the patchwork of the shadows that tried to wrap their
+arms about him. Amid the swaying branches of the trees the sympathetic
+night winds lisped incoherently, and tried to tell him something. The
+feral night-hawks dropped their shrill cries ominously down from the
+sky; utterances seemingly meant for him. From down in the jungle realms
+of the deserted church the faint whimpering of a panther whelp floated
+up to his attuned ears, like the sobbing of a tired child, carrying the
+warning of an oracular omen he could not deny.
+
+The tree-frogs piped the spirit of this premonition to him with a
+monotonous insistency that filled the boy's soul with an alien, restive
+turbulence not comprehensible. The katydid purled its mysterious
+cadence. To his keen interpretations all the subtle, nocturnal elements
+of nature united upon one portentous theme. A significant, adjuring
+symphony; the prelude of some miraculous happening that stood very close
+to his life; inspiring him with a wild, palpitating unrest that puzzled
+his reason and stirred him like the touch of an unseen hand.
+
+A week after his abandoned search for the ghost-like revenuer, Lem's
+haunting broodings resolved themselves into a quick, sudden action.
+
+One morning, when Bud and Slab justly supposed Lem was still asleep, he
+appeared at the witch-elm horse-block with Johnse Hatfield's piebald
+mare. He gave to the mystified Bud and Slab a few brief instructions,
+absolutely distinct from any inkling of his intentions, and rode away
+through the chill mist and disappeared westward. He came back at
+nightfall of the fourth day with a bulky package strapped to his saddle.
+When he carried this bundle inside the cabin and exhibited its contents,
+Bud and Slab looked on in open-mouthed wonderment.
+
+There was a fine blue-serge suit of store clothes, shirts, linen
+collars, ties, socks, underwear, tan shoes, and a direct insult to the
+etiquette of mountain head-gear--a slick derby hat, which Buddy regarded
+with open scorn; but which he speedily forgot when Lem unwrapped a
+lesser package and presented his brother with a pearl-gray, wide-brimmed
+Stetson hat for himself, and half dozen soft shirts, all of which were
+grotesquely over-sized. Lem also gave Slab a half dozen flannel shirts,
+two of which were a brilliant red, and which filled the old negro's
+mouth with a score of assorted exclamations that left small doubt of his
+gratitude and appreciation. Lem was non-communicative until after
+supper. Then it was that he called Buddy and Slab out to the horse-block
+and took them into his confidence, after Slab had sung "Kitty Wells."
+
+"Now--Buddy," Lem was saying with profound emphasis, "to-morry yo'll be
+th' man o' th' house, understan'?--an' yo' got t' be a man--and run
+things like a man--'cause yore brother Lem'll be gone away from heah
+to-morry, Buddy--do yo' 'low yore brother kin trust yo'-all, Buddy?--eh,
+kin he trust yo'?"
+
+Bud stood with a solemn, peaked face, into which had suddenly crept an
+apprehensive, wistful look. He had lost no time in donning his new
+things. Although his skinny little boy's figure was undersized, he had
+on a man's shirt; likewise a man's hat. He had in his grasp a man's
+rifle, a gun that had belonged to a very great man; undeniably the
+greatest man that had ever lived. That look of dull puerile doubt
+vanished instantly as the realization dawned upon him that his brother
+was now about to honor him with a man's commission. He straightened
+valiantly as he looked full into his brother's steadfast eyes and said:
+
+"I reckon ole Cap Lutts o' Moon mountain was my pap, Lem--same's he was
+yo'n."
+
+Lem bestowed a beaming look of pride upon him.
+
+"I jest hoped yo'd say thet, Buddy--yore a game lad, an' yo' kin show
+pap's blood in yore veins any day."
+
+"Air yo' a goin' fer off, Lem?" questioned Bud. Slab edged nearer, his
+old ears eager for the project.
+
+Lem reached out and laid a hand on his little brother's thin shoulder,
+as with a jerk he tossed his chestnut hair backward.
+
+"Buddy," he said in measured tones, "to-morry I'm a goin' away--I cyan't
+tell how fer--I mought be gone a week--I mought be gone a month--mebby a
+year--mebby ten years--I mought never cum back, Buddy--but when I do cum
+back--yo'll know thet I seed Belle-Ann."
+
+This intelligence jarred Buddy's hard, tight-lipped mouth ajar and fired
+his cold, misanthropic heart with a vibrant yearning. How he would love
+to see Belle-Ann! Slab slid gently off the witch-block like a turtle,
+and rubbed his gnarled old hands together in hearty approval.
+
+"When yo'-all see Lem agin, Buddy," repeated Lem, "yo'll know I seed
+Belle-Ann--I air agoin' below, an' I air agoin' t' find Belle-Ann ef th'
+trail leads aroun' th' worl'--I aim t' see her face onct mo'--jest onct
+mo' 'fore I die----
+
+"Ef I see her, I'll cum back heah t' Moon mountain, an' never leave 'til
+yo' all lay me down 'side maw an' pap--ef I don't cum back--yo'll know
+thet I'm still a lookin' fo' our'n deah little Belle-Ann--er I'm daid."
+
+"Mebby yo'll find her, Lem," predicted Buddy, "an' mebby she'll cum back
+home long o' yo'." An unwonted smile lingered on his countenance for a
+brief moment in this anticipation. Then Slab with deep solemnity
+advanced a sorceristic theory, drawn from his prognostic acumen.
+
+"Lemmy--Lemmy," he began in a confidential, sibilant, half-whisper,
+"las' night--las' night," he peered cautiously into the gloom, peopled
+with gesticulating shadows. "Las' night er han' recht out an' tech me on
+ma foot--an' I wake up--an' er li'lle voice say, 'Slab, git up'--an' I
+git up--an' th' li'lle voice say, awful soft an' low like, 'Slab,' it
+say, 'Slab look out'--an' I peek ma haid out--an' thar set Mr. Owl--not
+er onery li'lle screech owl, what snoops wif de debil--but er big,
+yaller, honest ole owl, whut de Obeah-spirit send t' tell Slab er
+message, whut de good Lord hev in mind whut's gwine t' happen. Dah set
+Mr. Owl up in de daid cedar, wif de big moon right ahind him--den I
+snuck out an' slip up t' de daid cedar, an' stand jist as still, an'
+wait t' see ef owl say somethin'--'cause ef owl say first--den dat means
+bad--but ef owl wait fo' me t' say first--den dat means good--so I stand
+jist as still--an' owl he don't say nuffin'--an' I wait agin, an' owl he
+don' open he mouf--den I fix my hands, an' I say--'hoo! hoo! hoo!' an'
+jist ez quick ez lighten' Mr. Owl he say 'hoo!--hoo! hoo!' Den I say
+'hoo! hoo! hoo!' seban times, an' ebery time Mr. Owl he answer me--den
+when I say 'hoo!--hoo!--hoo!' de las' time--Mr. Owl he flop his wings
+an' goed away--den I knowed shore dat somethin' gwine t' drap--den I
+looks 'round an' finds er li'lle bitty Obeah-stone--er li'lle white
+stone, wif er li'lle black speck on hit--an' I fetches hit heah an' lays
+hit down on de witch-block right heah--an' I turned 'round an' started
+back t' bed, when somethin' whispered ahind me--den I jump 'round--but I
+warn't skeert--an' dah she were--dah she were, Lemmie--dah she were
+settin' up on dis witch-block right whar I put de Obeah-stone,--dah set
+our li'lle Belle-Ann lookin' at Slab--I seed her just ez plain,
+Lemmie--jest ez plain ez I see you des minit--all dressed up white ez
+snow--an' all dem curls er hangin' down roun' her shoulders, an' her
+li'lle mouf wus er smilin' at me--an' her beau'ful eyes wus er lookin'
+right at me--an' I drap down on ma knees--right heah--right heah, whar I
+stan' now--an' I hollers out: 'Hallelujah!--I allers tol' dem dat yo'd
+cum back, li'lle gal'--an' she stretch her hands out ter me--an' I bust
+out er cryin'--I couldn't he'p hit--I bust out er cryin'--an' I heer her
+voice just ez plain ez I heer ma own now,--I heer her voice like er
+nightengale's voice,--she say, 'Whar's Lem--whar's Lem--whar's Lem?--yo'
+Slab--whar's Lem?--blow de horn fo' Lem,--yo' Slab--blow de horn fo'
+Lem'--an' I git up off ma knees an' go t' tech her han' an' she warn't
+dah--she goed away jist ez quick ez lighten'--an' I look an' de li'lle
+Obeah-stone I lay on dat witch-block wus goed away, too--Lemmie--dat
+means dat we's gwine t' see li'lle Belle-Ann 'fore a great spell--yore
+due t' find li'lle Belle-Ann, Lemmie,--yo'll sho' see her--Buddy'll see
+her--Slab's ole eyes'll see her--yo' know, Lemmie,--de good Lord hev His
+pertic'ler ways t' tell good folks 'bout all des things--He kindy tells
+dem 'forehand--so's dey hearts won't break--so's dey'll hev c'urage, an'
+trus' in Him--Slab knows He do--Slab knows."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE NEAR ASSASSIN
+
+
+The following day Lem Lutts arrayed himself in his newly purchased store
+clothes and prepared to face a strange, unfriendly world of which he
+knew little. Not a week, not a day, scarcely an hour had elapsed since
+Belle-Ann had gone to Proctor that thoughts of her were not uppermost in
+his mind. Indeed, it was the sustaining hope of seeing her that had held
+his unhappy being together. It was seemingly a wretched measure of years
+since that unforgettable day when he had kissed the little scar that
+crossed the part in her curls, when she had stood before him and crossed
+her heart, and pledged him that she would surely come back to him. But
+the day of her return, as he had marked it in his mind, a scintillating
+goal, promising an epoch of luxuriant life, had come, and long since
+passed. He had, while in prison, written half a dozen crude letters
+addressed to Belle-Ann at Beattyville. His credulous mind had always
+supposed that these missives had reached their destination. As he had
+never received any reply to his letters, he had deducted that either the
+subtle influence of education and society had taken hold of her, weaning
+her heart away from all thoughts of the mountains, or that some
+unforeseen circumstance beyond her will had kept her silent. If it
+developed that he could not find her at the school, he had determined,
+next, to go down into the Big Sandy camps and hunt up her father.
+
+In accordance with his sudden inception of this extended sojourn, he was
+quick to realize that to mingle with the proud inhabitants of the
+strange land, into which he sallied, he would be handicapped, and
+doubtless be put to a retarding disadvantage by appearing among them in
+the crude garb of a mountaineer. He had gleaned this bit of wisdom while
+in prison. A credulous, guileless spirit can learn more of the world in
+a city jail in one month, than he can learn in twenty years out on the
+Godhead, in the geodetic domains allotted him by Providence. Therefore,
+Lem had with rare forethought equipped himself in a manner not
+unpleasing, and calculated to ward off disdain and ridicule. However, he
+had postponed having his luxuriant locks shorn to the last minute,
+deciding to sacrifice them when he struck the first big town. So that
+now he looked a bit incongruous, his shining black derby contrasting
+oddly enough with his long, curling hair.
+
+Lem had bidden Slab farewell, and after spending a time up in the
+Orchard beside the two mounds, he climbed up to Eagle Crown, his
+favorite, endeared refuge, to take what might be his last survey of the
+wild kingdom he loved so well. When he reached that dizzy height, he sat
+down to gain his breath. As he did so, his eyes fell upon a small, round
+object at his feet.
+
+Instantly he picked it up, and with a reminiscent smile pressed it
+fondly to his lips. It was a button off Belle-Ann's gingham gown.
+
+Buddy in his impatience had wandered on down the trail toward the loop,
+where he had been waiting for Lem for well on to an hour, for he meant
+to accompany his brother as far as Boon's ford before taking leave. He
+had sauntered along idly and had reached a point opposite the gap in the
+spur, where he could look back and view the open trail, when a young
+badger suddenly ambled out in the path and stood regarding him
+curiously, with its pink snout working inquiringly. Buddy had no wish
+for the young badger, but, boy-like, he could not resist shying a rock
+at it, and at least inspire the creature with some sense of respect.
+
+With a grin, he stepped over toward a spruce log half hidden beneath the
+foliage of laurel and wild dewberry bushes. As he stooped down and took
+up a small rock, a sight met his eyes that electrified him, causing him
+to forget the little animal and to drop the stone as if it had been an
+ember. In an instant he had his rifle at readiness. The object upon
+which he had his eyes riveted would never have been detected by a lay
+mind. But Buddy's little greenish eyes, versed in woodcraft, knew
+instantly that the two round holes he had glimpsed meant the presence of
+a shotgun! If there is anything that the mountain-born hates worse than
+a revenuer, it is a shotgun. They regard this mongrel weapon with a
+deep, cordial loathing not to be reconciled. The sight of a shotgun in
+the mountains is always a forerunner of deviltry and treachery.
+
+Bud looked around furtively, then he leaned over and with infinite
+caution parted the laurel. He recoiled, stung with amazement.
+
+Sap McGill lay close up against the log, with an empty whiskey flask in
+his relaxed palm! The boy drew back and his brain began to work with
+great rapidity. The last time he had seen Sap he was tumbled in the road
+by a bullet at Junction City. McGill was now in ambush; hidden here,
+bent upon a killing, and had involuntarily fallen into a drunken
+slumber, overcome by liquor, as evidenced by the empty bottle. Then
+suddenly Buddy deducted a hypothesis that decided him irrevocably.
+McGill could be in waiting for no one other person than his (Buddy's)
+brother. McGill was hidden here waiting for Lem to come down the trail,
+when he would rise up and send two loads of buckshot into the back of
+Lem's head. Buddy's lips tightened fiercely. With a quick, deft movement
+he reached over and, taking the shotgun by the muzzle, drew it
+noiselessly out to him. Swiftly he broke the gun, extracted the two
+shells and placed them in his pocket. He then carefully replaced the gun
+in the position he had found it, and stealthily secreted himself behind
+a boulder less than thirty feet distant. Here he lay down on his stomach
+with his rifle trained through a crevice, over the spot where McGill
+lay.
+
+To Buddy's tense nerves the minutes seemed like long hours. He lay so
+long in this one position, not daring to move to another shelter, that a
+dull aching began to traverse his arm, which he feared would jeopardize
+his aim. This was the only position he could command here, where he
+could see the log held by McGill and at the same time hold a direct aim.
+From where Bud lay he could see the open trail through the gap for a
+distance of fifty yards without stirring.
+
+But for McGill to get a glimpse of the path it was necessary for him to
+thrust his head far out from his place of concealment. Just at a time
+when Bud thought that he must surely risk a change in his position, a
+half-dozen razorbacks trotted up from behind. When they saw Bud lying on
+the ground in plain view, they uttered a series of affrighted grunts,
+and dashed ahead, two of them swerved and jumped over the very log that
+hid McGill, and must have come perilously near to jumping squarely upon
+him. The next instant McGill's head was thrust stealthfully out of the
+laurel, his eyes fixed intently on the scrub cedars that jutted out into
+the trail leading down from the Lutts cabin. As McGill waited to waylay
+Lem, his life in these minutes hinged upon a seemingly irrelevant and
+insignificant act.
+
+The moment that McGill broke his gun and discovered that it had been
+tampered with, he would naturally replace the shells. And the instant
+that he replaced the shells, Buddy Lutts meant to send a rifle ball into
+his brain.
+
+On the eve of leaving his sequestered haunts in the hills, none but the
+omniscient Providence could tell for how long, Lem Lutts was loath to
+turn his eyes toward the blue-grass country. So it was that he lingered,
+feasting his gaze upon the panoramic view that lay beneath Eagle Crown,
+every spur and nook and cove and gulch of which he had been familiar
+with all his life. With a heaviness weighing his heart, but a
+determination unabated, he swept his eyes over the purple distance with
+one last farewell, and turning started his descent. His head had
+disappeared downward when suddenly, as if in response to a voice, he
+halted and, not knowing his own purpose precisely, he climbed back and
+stood up on the ledge, sending his gaze afar to the glistening patch of
+water that marked the Boon Creek ford; immortalized in his soul, with
+the last beckonings of her whom he adored with a flaming, compelling,
+deathless love that eclipsed and obliterated all else in life. His gaze
+dwelt here for a full minute. Then he turned half-way, then looked
+quickly back. Something there had attracted him. With his hand half
+raised, he pushed to the brink of the precipice. He now discerned the
+burnished coat of a blood-bay horse standing in the ford. Lem's mouth
+dropped ajar. As he strained his eyes downward, his breath paused with
+the miraculous thought that slowly filtered into his brain. From this
+vast, hazy height he could not determine whether the equestrian was male
+or female. But an exciting intuition seized his senses as he descried
+some object flashing methodically in the sunlight.
+
+Unmistakably the distant rider was waving to him!
+
+Then the signal changed to something white, flaunting against the azure
+space, and Lem's heart smote his ribs with a great bound of suffocating
+joy, as the influx of a scintillating realization obsessed him, and he
+started down that perilous descent faster than he had ever gone in his
+life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+BELLE-ANN COMES BACK
+
+
+When he reached the ground he dashed along the trail like a madman. On
+past the cabin he ran in great bounds; down the cypress cut, his speed
+increasing every second. As he rushed headlong down into the loop, a
+startling thing happened.
+
+As Lem shot around a clump of scrub cedars that marked a sharp twist in
+the trail, the form of a man confronted him with a shotgun leveled at
+his head. At the same time the ambuscader pulled the trigger with
+murderous intent. The gun snapped with no report, and the sheer impetus
+of Lem's body moving at terrific velocity bore him down in a trice. As
+Lem flashed past, unable to check his headlong speed on the moment, he
+struck the mystified face a stunning, crashing blow. The man tumbled
+backward--his head striking a rock with a crushing impact.
+
+It was only when Lem had turned back that he fully established the
+identity of his assailant, who had started to grow a beard. In his
+excitement and utter amazement, he had not heard the footsteps behind
+him. However, he received another shock when he saw Buddy run up to the
+prostrate McGill and thrust the muzzle of his rifle against the man's
+side. The infuriated Buddy was on the verge of pulling the trigger when
+Lem sprang forward and grabbed the rifle out of his brother's hands. The
+irate boy shot an inquiring look at Lem.
+
+"Warn't he layin' t' kill yo'--hain't I bin watchin' em fo' mo'n a
+hour?" protested Bud, plainly disgusted with his brother's interference.
+"Didn't I break his ole damn shotgun when he drinked hisse'f asleep, an'
+take his loads out--heah they air--now--now--see?--an' yo' hain't
+'lowin' t' kill em?--when he plugged me twict in Junction City?" Buddy
+shook his head savagely, and glared at the unconscious form lying prone
+and inert on its back.
+
+"Now yo' jest hol' yore han'," panted Lem. "Sho'--I'm aimin' to kill em,
+kill em?--I'll kill em twict er three times--I will----" He cast an
+anxious, wistful look behind him, then ran a dozen yards down the path,
+turned and plunged crazily back again, and acted like he had suddenly
+gone daft. He was mumbling muddled words that Buddy could not make out.
+Buddy had never before seen his brother in such a confused flurry.
+
+"Sho'--I'll kill em, Buddy," reiterated the flustrated Lem, "but I
+hain't 'lowin' to kill em thes minit--his haid air busted ag'in' that
+rock--he don't know nothin'--an' I want em to know who kilt em, I do--I
+want em to see me--I want em to know that Lem Lutts keetched em at
+last."
+
+"Whut yo' a runnin' roun' like a shot deer fo'?" interrupted Buddy in
+alarm.
+
+"I want em to know thet he air a payin' in to Lem Lutts fo' all his
+other divilmint--an' fo' shootin' a boy--yo'--all watch em, Buddy--keep
+your gun on em when he wakes up, an' don't yo' plug em--hold em 'til I
+git back--Gawd'll Moughty! I got to go----"
+
+The gravel scattered and there was a rush of feet. Buddy looked around
+and saw Lem tearing off down the trail like a being distraught, and even
+faster than he had appeared a few moments since. Nonplussed at his
+brother's conduct, amazed, he waited sulkily.
+
+With fiery, belligerent eyes Buddy regarded the motionless figure of
+McGill. The terrible, pitiless hate that seethed and flamed in Buddy's
+heart for the fallen foe lying on the ground before him had superseded a
+measure of his natural curiosity concerning his brother's frantic and
+lightning-like appearance and his sudden and frenzied departure. Lem, in
+his excitement, had carried Buddy's rifle away, leaving him weaponless.
+
+A thought brought a grim smile to the boy's lips, and a satanic light
+flitted across his eyes, like the shadow of a bird skimming the ground.
+He hurriedly withdrew one of the loaded shells from his pocket. He would
+surely now put an end to Sap McGill. A brute of his caliber should have
+died long, long ago. He would be dead and safely beyond all further
+deviltry in a few seconds. His eyes burning with the lust of this
+design, Bud reached down to take up McGill's shotgun to reload it, when
+he heard Lem's distant voice. His words startled Buddy, and arrested his
+hand.
+
+"Belle-Ann's a comin'--Belle-Ann's a comin'--Belle-Ann's come back,"
+echoed back to the boy.
+
+Then it was that the psychological impulse dashed upon little Bud,
+wrenching out of his mind his intent of manslaughter. His fingers never
+reached the shotgun. He dropped the loaded shell and, jerking his new
+hat off, he flung his head back and fairly flew after his brother. With
+all the might he could muster into his skinny legs, he left the scene of
+this bloodless encounter behind.
+
+McGill lay face upward. He had not moved a muscle since he fell. The
+sleepy stillness was broken only by the wild bird voices of the wood. A
+suspicious catbird dropped down on the end of a log near the silent
+figure and gave vent to his whining, petulant phrase.
+
+From under the rock upon which McGill's head had struck, the head of a
+live thing was thrust. Then a long, gorgeous body slid into view. Its
+sinuous length was embellished with beautiful pigments of gold and black
+and light canary. With the omnivorous curiosity of the reptile for all
+inanimate objects, the rattlesnake thrust his mouth, shaped like that of
+a catfish, up to Sap's ear. The two black rings circling his little
+incandescent eyes began to swell. The whole surface of his mottled head
+flattened out and pulsed. He seemed to be breathing through the top of
+his head. A peculiar half-sound, indescribable, issued forth when the
+dappled tip of the snake's tail quivered. Like a forked needle his
+tongue flashed in and out of his throat.
+
+As the rattlesnake's challenge met with utter immobility, he started a
+thorough inspection. He began at the ear and nosed on down to the feet.
+Then he came up on the other side of the unconscious man, back to the
+starting point. A cloud passed, and the sun fell straight down upon the
+man's face. With a snake's love for radiation the rattler, now
+apparently satisfied, glided up on McGill's breast. With no sign of life
+communicating, and finding warmth beneath him, and warmth above him, the
+rattler coiled himself in a jiffy and lay basking comfortably on
+McGill's bosom.
+
+At the glad sight that met his eyes, Lem Lutts checked his wild, joy-mad
+race down toward Boon's ford. He became suddenly and acutely conscious
+that such a helter-skelter approach did not compare favorably with the
+beautiful theme of sweet dignity presented ahead of him. Lem now walked
+moderately to recover his breath and to compose and regain his
+equipoise. What he saw was a magnificent blood-bay horse flashing like
+crimson satin in the sunlight, his black mane and tail rippling in the
+south breeze. The animal lifted his noble head and emitted a neigh,
+which utterance was a royal echo from the pasture realms of the
+Blue-grass. The horse stopped under a great sycamore tree, where still
+remained the quaint characters they had cut into its bark in childhood
+days, when they two were playfellows.
+
+Lem's amazed, staring eyes beheld a lovely girl dismount. She was tall
+and round, and withal more beautiful than any stretch of his imagination
+could picture a girl. She was attired in a handsome, modish riding
+costume, with dainty patent-leather riding boots. She stood now waving a
+silver-mounted whip as he approached.
+
+"Oh!--Lem!" she dropped her gauntlets, tossed back her mass of curls and
+held her hands out to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE REUNION
+
+
+"Belle-Ann!" His voice was husky and quavering. Her hands were closed
+within his mighty pressure.
+
+They were looking into each other's face. The boy with incredulous,
+wondering eyes, reflecting a heart full to the brim with adoration; she,
+palpitating, her dimples aflush, her bosom lifting, her delicious red
+mouth ajar. And in the exquisite domains of those azure-tinted orbs lay
+the lucid litany of a wondrous, beautiful parable. Those two
+violet-stained eyes were misty with the text of a miracle that nestled
+in her heart, the tendrils of which she meant to train with care around
+the boy's mountain soul. In wordless, panting silence they studied each
+other's happy face for a long minute.
+
+"I knew that was you-all up thah on Eagle Crown. Were you-all looking
+for me, Lem?" she questioned in a half-whisper, predicating an affection
+that had its inception back in the child days of yore.
+
+"I was up thah a lookin' fo' yo', Belle-Ann--th' same's I bin a lookin'
+every hour since yo'-all went away," he assured her, dropping her hands
+and with a movement to take her into his arms and kiss her bowed,
+smiling mouth.
+
+Belle-Ann quickly threw back, with a tolerant ripple of mirth, thwarting
+his intent with the guise of a half-coquettish, half-mischievous
+challenge. But her purpose in this denial was tenfold deeper than
+girlish byplay. Her motive was infinitely more profound than to
+tantalize. She meant to withhold that priceless first kiss as a leverage
+to undo that which she had done. She meant to hold that first embrace as
+a reward for the reversal of the godless compact, the tenure of which
+she had long since penitently recanted.
+
+Nevertheless, Lem was quick to divine the import of her act. He fell
+back a pace, abashed and crestfallen.
+
+"Thet's so," he said sorrowfully, "I hain't kilt th' revenuer yet,
+Belle-Ann--but I 'low I tried hard enough, Belle-Ann,--Johnse Hatfield
+shot em through th' haid three weeks back--but all we ever found o' him
+wus a hat, an' a rifle, an' a barrel o' blood--he must hev jest flopped
+his arms an' flew up in th' sky--daid er alive--he hain't on
+Hellsfork--he----"
+
+Here Buddy rushed up, perspiring and breathing hard. He seized the
+girl's hand and hung on with a tenacity that bade fair to incumber her
+forevermore. The boy was too full to speak. His lips only trembled as he
+gazed up at her. When with endearing terms she pressed his thin little
+form to her and kissed him, the tears welled up and obscured his hard
+little eyes. Although these were tributes of joy from his stormy,
+suspicious heart, it was the first signs of tears any one had seen him
+manifest since old Cap Lutts had lain white and still, amid the flowers
+on God's acre. Then while Buddy fondled and admired the salient, superb
+horse with his fire-rimmed eyes and slender legs, the other two sat down
+on a rectangular stone, all coated in liverwort, upon which they had
+lolled many times in days agone. And here they communed with happy,
+hurried words.
+
+"But Lem," Belle-Ann was saying, "you are all dressed up--but for your
+beautiful locks, you look really citified--perhaps you-all was on your
+way to visit some young lady--am I right?--come now,"--she laughed
+coyly.
+
+"Belle-Ann, ef yo' had come 'bout half hour later--yo' wouldn't a found
+me--I wus jest a startin' out on my way below t' look fo' yo',
+Belle-Ann.--I wus 'lowin' t' scour th' whole earth fo' yo'--I told Buddy
+an' Slab thet I'd never come back till I seed yore face jest onct,
+anyways--I wus goin' t' spend th' balance of my life lookin' fo' yo',
+Belle-Ann."
+
+"Lem--didn't I cross my heart that day and pledge you that I'd come
+back?"
+
+"Yes--but I wus afeerd thet somethin' had happened t' yo'-all,
+Belle-Ann,--then I togged myself up an' fixed to go below--then I
+thought I'd go up on th' Crown an' take a last look at the spot
+where I saw yo' last a wavin' at me, and pretty soon I seed
+somethin'--an'--an'--Gawd'll Moughty--thah yo' wus a wavin' right at
+me--then I sho' did make time a gettin' down off'n thah--an' as I run
+down th' trail--thet ornery Sap McGill jumped out an' tried t'
+shoot----"
+
+With a fear-fraught half-scream, Belle-Ann had bounded to her feet.
+
+"Sap McGill--McGill, here?" she cried out incredulously. Her bosom
+heaved with excitement, and her eyes were wide and starry with a sudden
+new-born terror. "Oh!--don't tell me that McGill is up heah--on this
+side of Hellsfork!"
+
+Then it was, with bated breath and hurried, fear-laden words, that she
+implored Lem to hide somewhere. When she finished, all the blithesome,
+pulsing happiness that had dwelt in her beautiful face a few moments
+previously had vanished.
+
+Lem got quickly to his feet and stood eyeing her bloodless countenance
+in a trance of blank incomprehension.
+
+"Tell me--tell me quick, where is McGill now?" she panted, her hat
+dropping from her nerveless hands and falling at her feet.
+
+"Why--Belle-Ann--I left em a layin' on his back up at th' loop."
+
+"Did you kill him?"
+
+"Naw--I didn't hev time--I wanted t' meet yo'-all--I left Buddy a
+guardin' em."
+
+There was pitiable, livid dread in her face now. Her pathetic mouth
+dropped woefully. She stood, with fingers interlocked helplessly, in the
+grip of a seething apprehension. Buddy, who did not understand the real
+cause of Belle-Ann's distress, stood with two clinched fists, and a look
+of awful destruction aglow in his eyes.
+
+"Didn't I say yo' oughter kilt em--didn't I tell yo'?" he cried in
+piping, admonishing tones. Lem had not moved a muscle, though the girl's
+whiteness was communicated to his mask-like visage. Now he frowned upon
+Buddy.
+
+"What ded yo' leave em fer?" he said.
+
+"McGill will kill you, Lem," muttered the girl, beside herself with the
+violence of this sudden new fear that overpowered her. "If he isn't dead
+now--I know that he is lurking along the trail to kill you, Lem!--Oh,
+it's awful!--It's so disheartening to live such lives--what can we
+do?--I--I----" With her hands to her face she burst into sudden tears,
+precluding all speech.
+
+Just as suddenly was Lem Lutts electrified with a quick determination.
+He grabbed Buddy's rifle.
+
+"I'll trail em down ef he's gone, Belle-Ann--I'll sho' kill em now."
+
+With a swift movement Belle-Ann clutched Lem's sleeve tenaciously to
+detain and dissuade him. But his eyes shone with a maniacal fire as he
+jerked away from her and ran back up the trail with strides that carried
+him far ahead of the nervous horse that had taken affright and had
+bolted and was now galloping up the rock-strewn path in Lem's wake. Deaf
+to Belle-Ann's appealing voice urging him to come back, Lem only yelled
+back over his shoulder:
+
+"I'll sho' kill em now!"
+
+The horse soon swerved off from the trail and plunged down toward the
+valley amidst the brush, with Buddy in pursuit. Belle-Ann ran now along
+after Lem as swiftly as her trembling, weak limbs would carry her.
+
+When Lem Lutts reached the loop he halted, struck dumb with the
+spectacle before his gaze. McGill lay just as he had left him more than
+an hour before. Apparently he had not moved a finger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE DOWNFALL OF SAP McGILL
+
+
+Thinking McGill dead, Lem made one step forward and stopped, attracted
+by a strange, quivering movement; then he beheld the rattlesnake coiled
+up on Sap's breast. Then a sudden revelation dawned upon Lem Lutts. He
+felt instinctively that Sap was not dead, although he could not have
+been whiter and more inert had he been so.
+
+To make certain Lem cautiously shrank back, and taking care not to make
+the slightest sound, he worked his way around to the opposite side and
+gained a position where he could see McGill's face. Like a shadow he
+stepped out from behind a boulder and looked at Sap.
+
+What he saw almost caused him to laugh outright. Sap was far from being
+dead. He was wholly conscious and wholly alive, but ludicrously quiet.
+His eyes were popping out of his head. They told that he would beg for
+his life if he dared so much as to speak. He hardly dared breathe. Great
+tears of terror were oozing out of his forehead and trickling in copious
+streams down across his death-like features. The only risk the dullard
+could take to express his agony was to roll his eyes.
+
+The rattlesnake's head was focused less than twelve inches from his
+chin, and he knew well that upon the slightest tremor of his body the
+rattler would stab him in the throat. He knew well that the lightning of
+the heavens could not emulate the fatal quickness and rapidity of that
+snake's poisonous blow. For well on to two hours McGill had suffered the
+agonies of a thousand hells. Lem now spoke to him.
+
+When Lem's words reached McGill's ears, his only sign of comprehension
+was an added bulge transmitted to his rolling eyes. Standing motionless
+and in even tones, to avoid startling the rattler, Lem said:
+
+"Well--so yo' got t' yore jest end at last, didn't yo'--egg-dog?
+Belle-Ann is a comin' up the trail in a short spell--an' I air a goin'
+t' kill yo' 'fore she gits heah, which is a mighty short spell t' live I
+'low--so ef a skunk like yo'-all knows a prayer, why now's yore time to
+think hit--but I advise yo' not t' git up on yore knees er stir roun'
+much." Here Lem chuckled tauntingly and gleefully.
+
+"Say--air thet a tame snake yo'-all got thah--eh? Ac's like he wus some
+kin to yo'-all--say, 'fore y'o go away--just glance yore mind over all
+th' pesky, onery divilmint yore folks has been a doin' fo' twenty years.
+'Member th' day yore old pap shot my dad under th' truce flag thet my
+maw held up, 'cause we'uns wanted t' have peace--but yore old pap didn't
+git away, did he?--he was kindy slow-like. Say--yo' know a feller in
+these mountains named Johnse Hatfield--eh? Did yo'-all ever hern tell on
+em--eh? Ha-ha-ha! Hit wus a good dance, wusn't hit? Pears like Johnse
+sort a put a crimp in yore folks down at Junction City thet night--eh?
+Say--yo' ugly groun'-dawg--I hain't a killin' yo' exactly fo' all
+thet--I air only aimin' t' kill yo' onct fer thet--but I air goin' t'
+kill yo' twict fo' shootin' a boy--yo' shot a little boy, dedn't
+yo'--eh? Yo' shot my boy brother twict an' tried t' kill em--didn't
+yo'--eh? Now I air goin' t' blow yore brains out----"
+
+With his last taunts a dull rush of red rage overspread Lem's
+countenance, as with a quick, decisive movement he jerked his rifle to
+his shoulder and fell upon one knee. A groan of despair escaped McGill's
+bloodless lips now, and the rattlesnake instantly made that fatal loop
+at the narrow of its neck. Evidently Sap preferred a bullet in the head
+to a stab in the throat from the yellow monster that was flashing its
+pronged tongue in his face.
+
+"Now I'll show Belle-Ann whut ugly brains yo'-all got," muttered Lem,
+sighting along the glistening gun barrel.
+
+A piercing shriek of horror rent the air. Belle-Ann was not a hundred
+feet away. A vivid terror stood in her eyes. She struggled for breath to
+thwart the tragedy that filled that instant.
+
+"For God's sake--oh!--for my sake--don't shoot--Lem--Lem--Lem!" she
+screamed out, terrified, in begging, forbidding, distraught utterances,
+and collapsed in the path.
+
+But Lem, unheeding, quickly pressed the trigger. There was a pungent
+crack. The rifle spat out a long, slender tongue of flame. A ragged wisp
+of blue-white smoke spread out, separated and floated languidly upward.
+There was an acrid odor of burnt powder in the air. Across the tenseness
+of that long, awful moment the soft trill of a catbird grated like the
+harsh blasphemy of a parrot. The gentle barking of a squirrel impinged
+like a nerve-shattering noise.
+
+Belle-Ann was on her knees in the trail--her face averted and her hands
+over her eyes to hide them from what lay before her. Her curls were
+shaking and trembling with the chill that swept over her body. She,
+Belle-Ann Benson, who could, in days gone by, have watched with interest
+and pleasure the killing of an enemy, and smile. But now the subtle
+crack of that gun-shot rived into her senses like a withering scourge.
+Had the bullet pierced her own vitals she could not have suffered thus.
+All through the after years of her life the reverberation of that sharp,
+little gun-noise hung about her ears, and she could never think of this
+scene without a shudder.
+
+She heard a loud, strained laugh, carrying a volume of contempt and
+scorn. She peeped through her fingers fearfully. McGill was standing
+upright, wiping his wet, pallid face with his shaking, naked hand.
+Belle-Ann's hands came away from her eyes as she regained her feet,
+dumfounded, and stared as if a ghost confronted her. She doubted her
+senses.
+
+"Belle-Ann," shouted Lem, "cum an' take a look at th' live coward!"
+
+With a sudden influx of gladness she ran forward, a thankful heart
+beating color back into her dimpled face. She looked at Lem, dazed,
+nonplussed. Then she gazed at McGill and at a rattlesnake, whose bloody
+head hung to its neck by a slender ligature of skin as it lashed the
+rocks with its dying tail. Not once did McGill look in Belle-Ann's
+direction; nor indeed did he meet Lem's truculent gaze. He stood abject,
+with downcast eyes, and the dull apathy of a sick ox. On his depraved
+features was a lettering of criminal sullenness; on his twitching lips
+the curse of cowardice. Beneath this avenging stroke of Fate his big,
+sinister hulk lopped down, and he stood stupidly licking his cracked
+lips like a spiritless dog.
+
+Belle-Ann still stood awed, nearby, trying to solve this strange
+phenomenon. McGill's guilty heart plainly dreaded this fair girl's
+presence. He did not look up, nor did he essay to utter a word of
+defense. His shallow eyes only roved at his feet. He presented the
+picture of the crestfallen criminal cornered on the premises of his last
+losing stand.
+
+"Pears like yo' hain't a carin' t' say much--eh?" taunted Lem, as with a
+sudden rising fury he stooped down and grabbed up McGill's shotgun from
+the ground, and with a series of terrific blows upon a nearby boulder he
+reduced the weapon to a broken, twisted wreck in no time. Flinging what
+was left of it out into the rhododendrons, he advanced and stood before
+his erstwhile dangerous enemy.
+
+"Sap," he began, "how did yo'-all ever git out o' hell in th' first
+place--eh? 'Cause I know thet Gawd'll Moughty never made sich as yo' to
+be born--I don't 'low yo' wus ever born, an' I believe yo' wus too mean
+and pesky and treacherous t' live in hell--I 'low th' devil drove yo'
+out." He aimed a finger within an inch of McGill's nose.
+
+"Looky heah--yo' owe yore dirty life t' Belle-Ann thah--not t' Lem
+Lutts--'cause ef she hadn't come, yo'd be powerful daid against
+now--hit's a shame t' take thet pore snake's life away t' save sich as
+yores--now git away from heah--git out'n my sight 'fore I do kill yo'.
+Git out o' heah--an' ef I ever lay an eye on yo' agin on thes side o'
+Hellsfork--Belle-Ann and Gawd'll Moughty together won't keep me from
+killin' yo' on sight--yo' heer? Go, skunk--hit's ole Cap Lutts' boy a
+talkin' t' yo'--Lem Lutts."
+
+In the tenseness and absorbing excitement of the moment, they had not
+heard the hurried clatter of hoofs, like the tattoo of a cavalcade
+coming up the trail. They did not see Buddy ride up on Belle-Ann's
+charging blood-bay--nor the other three horsemen that crowded along
+close behind him. 'Twas only when the three men rushed in upon them and
+arrested and shackled McGill that they fully realized what had really
+taken place.
+
+The officer removed his hat and bowed in respectful admiration to
+Belle-Ann, with a smiling light of recognition in his eyes. He was the
+deputy sheriff who had spent a night at the Lutts cabin before Belle-Ann
+went away to school.
+
+"With the charges against him at Junction City, I don't think this
+gentleman will bother you for a long time. You know the McGills don't
+own Junction City any more," he said, obviously wondering at the pretty
+up-to-date picture presented by the girl before him. The last time he
+saw Belle-Ann she wore moccasins, was bare-legged, and dressed in a
+gingham gown; but he had never forgotten her beauty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+BELLE-ANN'S RECANTED CREED
+
+
+In mutual contented silence they stood looking after the three officers
+leading their sullen prisoner down the mountain trail toward Boon's
+Ford. With the first wholesome grin that had touched his face for nearly
+two years, Buddy rode on toward the cabin astride Belle-Ann's splendid
+horse. Presently Belle-Ann looked up into the pensive face behind her.
+
+"Why didn't you kill Sap, Lem?" she probed, though its answer had been
+happily divined.
+
+"I hed a bead on his ear when I heered yore voice, Belle-Ann--I heered
+yore voice a callin' 'fo' my sake'--an' I jest couldn't do hit--then I
+shot th' snake's haid off."
+
+Knowing Lem as thoroughly as she did, she knew that this humane, gallant
+act had been to him a real sacrifice. They sat down upon the log behind
+which McGill had hidden. She was waiting for him to speak. With covert,
+abashed glance, he was regarding her handsome costume. She knew that he
+was puzzled and wondering at this astounding exposition of wealth.
+Presently he spoke up:
+
+"Yo'-all look powerful beautiful, Belle-Ann--I never 'lowed they wus
+sich fine things in th' worl'."
+
+Her merry, sweet laugh rippled out now as she laid a white hand on his
+arm and looked up into his face with a challenge in her eyes. He did not
+press her for an explanation. Then with a toss of her curls, she
+launched forth and poured her fairy-like tale into his amazed ears, all
+about her wondrous discovery of a lovable, priceless grandfather.
+
+Then in wretched contrast to Belle-Ann's glittering conquest below, Lem
+recounted his capture by the revenuer, and his tortuous measure of
+months in prison. He told of how he had written letter after letter to
+her, hoping, always hoping, hourly, daily, monthly, to hear from her.
+And the girl's eyes grew misty and her heart went out to him. The very
+recital of this experience cast a gloom over him now. Wherefore she
+sought to introduce a pleasanter theme and cheer him with prospects of
+the future.
+
+"And, Lem," she was saying, "I have ever so much money--oh!--I don't
+know how many thousands of dollars--all my own, grandpa says."
+
+Lem had not digested the story of her opulence as enthusiastically as
+Belle-Ann had anticipated.
+
+"But I hain't kilt th' revenuer yet--so--so--I 'low----"
+
+"No words can tell you how glad I am, Lem--that you have not succeeded
+in killing the revenuer. God will surely lead him to his retribution,
+but it is not for you to exact, and I now take back all I said--and you
+must promise me not to kill him if you get the chance, and I can't ever
+promise you-all anything until you make me this pledge."
+
+Lem rose slowly up off the log and looked curiously down upon her. At
+the end of a long minute he spoke:
+
+"Belle-Ann," he said, "I can't understan' yo'--'fore yo' went away t'
+school I axed yo' t' promise t' marry me. Yo' wouldn't promise--yo'
+wouldn't even 'low me t' kiss yore face then--yo' said thet yo'd never
+'low nobuddy t' kiss yo'--thet yo'd never promise t' marry me--lessen I
+kilt th' revenuer--an' Gawd knows I been a tryin' t' kill em! Now
+yo'-all comes back an' tells me thet yo' don't 'low t' promise me
+anythin' ef I _do_ kill th' revenuer--I can't understand thet,
+Belle-Ann--I 'low yo'-all is hankerin' t' git shut o' me, Belle-Ann," he
+ended despairingly, passing his hand over his eyes as if to brush away
+this strange philosophy that had skeined itself in his brain in one
+insoluable tangle.
+
+She did not respond straightway. She fully understood the magnitude of
+the task she had before her. To convert Lem to her new creed would
+enlist all of the gentle diplomacy at her command.
+
+"Belle-Ann, I hev always loved yo'," he resumed solemnly. "I love yo'
+now--I love yo' mor'n I love my life--my life hain't as much as thet
+daid snake 'sides th' way I love yo'--I'd stand on Henhawk's Knob an'
+jump into Hellsfork ef yo'd ax me t'--but, Belle-Ann, I owe th' blood o'
+thet revenuer t' pap and t' maw--th' two graves up in th' orchard air a
+cryin' out fer th' revenuer's blood. I saved Sap's blood--saved him
+'cause yo' called t' me not t' shoot--I let em go, much as I hate th'
+pizon mad-dog--saved em as bad as he oughter be daid--but, Belle-Ann,
+much as I love yo', yo' can't take th' revenuer 'way from me ef he's
+alive yit."
+
+She was appalled at the terrible wave of pain and passion that now swept
+his countenance. He poised a clinched fist above his head, as he removed
+his derby hat, and casting his eyes upward he added:
+
+"I'll kill thet revenuer--I'll kill thet revenuer, I will, ef lead'll
+kill em--I'll have his blood ef I git th' chanct--I'll kill em with my
+last lick o' lead--ef I go t' hell th' next minit."
+
+She responded to this volcanic outburst with a soothing pressure on his
+arm, as she thrust her arm through his and they walked up the trail
+toward the cabin, her mind busily occupied, groping for a mode of
+procedure whereby she could convey to him the great divine law of
+universal love and charity, prescribing the return of good where evil is
+given--a practice not only to shame his erring enemies and brim their
+thoughts with penitence; but in its doing to enrich his own soul with a
+mollient peace, and clothe his life in a spiritual raiment rarer than
+gems and bullion of kings.
+
+When they reached the old honeybee tree, they saw Slab cavorting down to
+meet them. His head was back-flung, his arms akimbo, and he showed a
+hock action, despite his age, that would have inspired a coach horse
+with bitter envy. As he neared them he began yelling:
+
+"Hallalujah--hallalujah--hallalujah!"
+
+He wrung Belle-Ann's hand, tears of joy following the creases in his old
+face. He circled around and around her, chanting various adages filched
+from the tenets of his sorceristic faith, all of which compared happily
+with Belle-Ann's presence. All the way to the cabin Slab's utterances
+and antics were effervescent.
+
+"I done tol' dem yo'-all sho'd cum back," he said stoutly. "Den when
+yore deah li'lle spirrut cum dat night an' tuck er way dat li'lle
+Obeah-stone--den I shore knowed yo' war due--an' ma heart war a shoutin'
+all night so hard dat hit keep me wake--an' heah yo' be li'lle gal--heah
+yo' be--hits Slab dat knows--Slab he knows."
+
+"Slab," projected Belle-Ann, without the slightest prelude, "Amos
+Tennytown wants you."
+
+These words halted Slab with one foot raised. He cautiously let the one
+foot down. The smiles that had wreathed his visage when Belle-Ann spoke
+were frozen there.
+
+"Come on, Slab," urged Belle-Ann. "Surely you are not scared. Colonel
+Amos Tennytown sent you-all a kind message. He wants you to drop in and
+see him at Lexington, Slab. Do you remember when that cruel snapping
+turtle woke you up?"
+
+Slab was now stumbling along open-mouthed, blinking down at the girl,
+his dim eyes shot with a smoldering fire of endeared reminiscences; a
+cherished theme that had hovered in his memory since the distant day
+when the blue and the gray had dueled,--scenes mellowed by time, but
+sweetly mated with "Kitty Wells." Unbelieving and in faltering tones of
+half reproach, he said:
+
+"Li'lle gal, don' pesticate de ole man,--I's er ole man, li'lle
+gal,--yo' orter be good t' de ole man now--don' fool de ole
+man--no--don' fool Slab, li'lle gal--he--he--"
+
+"Slab, I am not fooling you. How could I know about the turtle and old
+Hickamohawk if I had not seen Colonel Tennytown? And he wants you down
+thah, Slab."
+
+"Li'lle Amos--li'lle Amos?" he repeated, measuring the imaginary height
+of a boy with his hand. "Li'lle Amos--he want Slab?"
+
+All doubt vanished.
+
+"Hallalujah--hallalujah--hallalujah!"
+
+Intermittently, Slab advanced stout volumes of oral matter to
+demonstrate that the long-looked-for millennium had arrived at last.
+
+At the witch-elm block the old blind hound staggered exultantly about.
+Obeying the instinct of his lonely dog-heart, he yelped and yelped with
+joy at the vision his senses pictured for him, though which his blank,
+sightless eyes could not behold. Belle-Ann fell on her knees and took
+his old head to her, stroking his gray face and kissing his ears.
+
+One of the girl's first acts was to gather two great sheaves of
+forget-me-nots. These she carried to the orchard. Lem walked beside her,
+and now they both fell silent. Dividing the flowers equally, Belle-Ann
+knelt down and arranged them with infinite care.
+
+"Maw loved these," she whispered. "Maw loved these best of all, didn't
+she, Lem?" She looked up through a film of mist. Their eyes met, and Lem
+turned his back and walked slowly away and did not answer.
+
+For half an hour the girl lingered there between these two graves with
+her memories. When she finally got to her feet and lifted her swollen
+eyes, she saw Slab standing looking at her. The tears were streaming
+down his ancient, creased visage. His lips moved helplessly, but no
+words crossed them. He could only point to numberless withered flowers,
+and seared wreaths scattered hard by, which he had discarded to replace
+with fresh ones.
+
+"Yes, Slab--you-all did not forget, did you?" she managed to say.
+
+The old negro shook his white head, too overcome to respond.
+
+Belle-Ann and Lem then made the rounds of the place, followed by little
+Buddy, lugging his father's rifle. They walked out beneath the
+magnolias, and the giant pines, and visited their old haunts, each of
+which stirred memories of hours agone.
+
+When they returned to the house, Slab had a most tasteful meal prepared
+for them. The menu consisted of two kinds of bread, hoe-cake, and hot
+butter-milk biscuits with honey. It also embraced baked yams with fresh
+butter, fried spring chicken, poached eggs, rich, fresh milk, and
+blackberries and cream.
+
+As Belle-Ann lingered over this repast, she felt that she had not,
+during her absence, tasted anything quite so delicious. Near dusk, Slab
+took up his hybrid banjo and repaired to the witch-elm block, followed
+by the others. There, with the blind hound's aged head in her lap,
+Belle-Ann joined in the chorus of "Kitty Wells." And as the shadows
+stole down and put their arms about them, the day lifted, and the
+thread-like note of the mock-thrush ebbed away from the blossomed sides
+of the mountain. The plaintive callings of the Bob White ceased, and the
+forest birds folded their wings. And another choir of voices awoke to
+cross and re-cross the void of twilight.
+
+The katydids began to purl. A symphony of crickets trilled away in the
+darkling rhododendron thickets. The tree-frogs piped an avalanche of
+pleading notes amid the ruby-throated magnolias. The silvery treble of
+the nightingale floated down from afar, and the hilarious killdeers,
+king of all-night revelers, screamed aloft and flapped their speckled
+wings in the early starlight. And above this, in soughing, alternate
+waves of sound, a titanic rhythm trailed into this medley of wilderness
+voices--the savage, deathless music of the cascade ranting in the
+rock-barbed throat of Hellsfork, dying, swelling, reverberating like the
+barbaric boom of a tom-tom.
+
+That night Belle-Ann occupied her own little crude apartment in the
+four-room cabin. She slept soundly and sweetly in this little wooden
+bed, which Slab had reverently preserved unaltered for her coming. And
+the night air drifted in upon her face, pungent with the scent of pine,
+and the old sweet odors that summoned a hundred memories to vivid life.
+There were the self-same multiplicity of night enunciations,
+consolidated and merged into a soothing litany, harping a pulsing
+consonance that lured the girl's senses away to the fantastic shoals of
+dreamdom. And betimes, the same great, friendly moon that had followed
+her abroad, came now and stood at her window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+THE GHOST-MAN
+
+
+Lem had said little, but upon his honest, pleasing face there was now
+etched the momentous outlines of the most serious, profound problem that
+had ever confronted his tempestuous life. With the sober, solemn
+realization of this vital issue that had come upon him, he found himself
+mentally reaching out for sustenance. Seemingly he stood upon the
+pinnacle of an epochal summit, with all the threads governing his life,
+past and future, dangling limply beneath him. It was the tensest hour of
+his existence.
+
+They sat in the moonshine on the witch-elm block, and the whip-poor-will
+was calling. They came here in the whispering gloaming ere twilight and
+night had parted. They still sat there; the girl talking incessantly.
+Time galloped by unheeded with the flight of an affrighted Pegasus.
+Phantom shadows grew and gesticulated and stretched their wraith-like
+arms out toward them. And the moon slipped over the spur and laved them
+with an effulgent benediction. Lem sat non-committal and stoic.
+
+Belle-Ann's curls bobbed in the moonlight as she tossed them back
+restlessly. For more than an hour she had been pouring into his ears all
+the things that lay in her heart which had been re-cast in a new mould
+of understanding and burnished with ethics of education. The titanic
+moment she had anticipated had arrived. The dawn of the morrow was to
+part them forevermore, or it was to bind their lives together
+irrevocably. He had again begged her to promise to marry him, and this
+was her answer. Her low, dulcet tones rippled on and on. Her little
+hands fluttered appealingly in their flights of emphasis. Her violet
+orbs were starry with the truths that hurried across her lips, and her
+whole being throbbed with the vibrant force of this conquest. He spoke
+for the first time.
+
+"Ef yo' keep on a talkin' thet away, Belle-Ann,--yo'll make me lie t'
+yo'," he predicted dolefully, casting yearning eyes upon her. As yet not
+once had he kissed that red-mouthed, dimpled face. Not yet had he
+clasped that withy, supple form to him. The price now of that treasured
+kiss, and that longed-for embrace, and her priceless love, was his whole
+and complete repudiation of his bloody creed of feudalism.
+
+"I am not afraid of your deceiving me, Lem--you have never lied to me in
+the past, and I'll trust you-all in the future. I mean to lift you up,"
+she went on earnestly,--"to show you a worthy goal that I know is thah
+awaiting your acknowledgment. As I have said over and over, Lem, I do
+not expect you to understand it all now, but I hoped that you would
+believe me, who have gone through it all with its blighting misery. Your
+whole life is now and always will be made furtive and fear-ridden, while
+you cling to this blood-dogma of revenge--always looking for the blood
+of your enemies, and when at last you get that blood and delude yourself
+into the thought that you are satisfied, you find springing out of that
+very act other enemies waiting in your path. It is an endless chain of
+fight and flight and blood that is harrowing. I saw an example of it
+yesterday before my very eyes, because I know you would have killed Sap
+McGill had I not been thah. It is all fundamentally wicked. Oh, Lem! It
+is all hideously wrong. Now that I am rid of that awful sting, I cannot
+and will not link my life to one who harbors these awful things to drag
+us both down.
+
+"Won't you put this life behind you, Lem, and come down where God has
+granted a paradise--a paradise of peace? Down where nature has unfurled
+a grassy, level land and men walk in the open and can see each other's
+faces? Down thah, Lem, where hearts beat uncontaminated beyond the
+maelstrom of feudal hate, and where all men are brothers--down in the
+land of hope--hope that makes a song of life--in the land of hope,
+Lem,--a cloudless, sunshiny fairy world--where dreams come true?
+
+"You said you would love to go to Lexington to my grandfather, but you
+won't leave the mountains until you have killed the revenuer and Sap
+McGill. Is that evidence that you love me, Lem? To-morrow morning I'll
+ride Rajah back alone. I don't believe that you love me, Lem--I can't
+believe it----"
+
+Lem got to his feet. He was very white in the moonlight now. He picked
+up a stick off the ground. He rested the butt of his rifle against the
+block and, placing the muzzle of the gun against his breast, he reached
+down and touched the trigger with the end of the stick before Belle-Ann
+realized what he was up to.
+
+"Belle-Ann, say that I don't love yo' agin an' I'll blow my heart out."
+Gently and quickly she took the stick out of his hand in alarm.
+
+"Lem, there is a way out for you--there is a sustaining power that will
+help you, if you will only have faith," she pleaded. "'Know ye the truth
+and the truth shall make ye free.'"
+
+"But he kilt my old pap,--an' my good old maw, Belle-Ann. I'd alers heer
+their spirits a cryin' ef I went away an' didn't git th' revenuer's
+blood," he protested for the twentieth time. "An' didn't McGill try t'
+kill me jest yisterday?"
+
+"Lem," she said, "I tell you what we'll do. We'll go down to the
+church--we'll go down thah--you and me and Buddy--down thah by the altar
+where your father died. God won't deny you thah. We will offer up a
+little prayer for pap and maw, and you will ask God to show you the
+truth of my words--that it is wrong for you to hang back and sacrifice
+your future for the blood of your enemies. Take my word for it, Lem--God
+will surely lay His hand on those who have harmed you. Will you go,
+Lem--come now--will you go with Belle-Ann?"
+
+For the first time Lem's face lost a measure of its despair. His eyes
+lighted up with the advent of an emollient hope, and a half-smile
+touched his lips.
+
+"Come 'long, Belle-Ann," he agreed, "let's do thet." And a prayer
+mounted in Belle-Ann's breast as she called to Buddy to come along and
+bring a lantern. Then hand in hand they wound their way down the moonlit
+mountain-side toward the deserted church. And up from the girl's heart a
+spa of hope was abubble. The joy of life was again strong upon her.
+There was a song in her soul and the blithesome days of yore were
+rippling in her veins.
+
+The forsaken church stood out big and white, magnified in a pool of
+moonlight, like a runic tomb guarding the memory of a martyr. With a
+ruthless swish, the laurel wall that hemmed the clearing suddenly
+parted, and the next instant the scathed, battered semblance of a
+man-being crawled out into the silver moonshine.
+
+A wound-burnt, sinister shape, half naked. The revengeful way-path rocks
+had bitten into his inflamed knees. The vicious thorns had torn and
+stabbed maledictions into his hands. The clawing underbrush had stripped
+his clothing away, and the poison ivy and skunk-viper had sprung upon
+and spat their gangrene acid against his nakedness. There was misery in
+each lift of knees and hands, as though weighted with ball and chain. In
+his zigzag wake there was a lesion of nauseous mocking horror. This
+thing panted like a spent buffalo, as with popped, blood-rimmed eyes it
+stared at the church.
+
+It was the revenuer come back in the hour of his extremity.
+
+With wabbling head, he focused his blighted face upon the church--a
+shrine all in white beckoning to him, insistently. Foot by foot he
+forged his tortuous way across the open and onward. His corporal being,
+ruined, ravished and wrecked, his derelict spirit was blindly
+upstanding. Excruciatingly and piteously he moved across the sea of wild
+honey clover and foxtail with the slowness of a shore-viewed water
+craft, stationary only while the eye held it, but with a trick to move
+when the gaze is lifted.
+
+When this odious, strange apparition had gained a point midway to the
+church, then it was that a lithe, agile, uncertain shape, a spawn from
+the matrix of the shadowless gulch below, slid up out of the dark,
+halted on the verge of the shades and then as lightly as air sprung its
+haunches upward to a great spruce stump. It was the male panther who
+owned a mate and cubs, and who patrolled the darkling hours with a
+dare-all note in his minor night-squall; who dominated the animal
+kingdom and held in subservient fear all the lesser pantomimic pirates
+of the forest.
+
+At first his eyes widened curiously as they settled upon the audacious
+trespasser in the clearing. Had this thing under his quizzical gaze
+walked upright, he could have understood and would have skulked hastily
+away, but now a quick challenge crowded into his feline breast, as he
+realized that an alien, hairy creature, that stalked on four legs, had
+dared to invade the night that belonged to him and the province that was
+his.
+
+Straightway a keen and malignant resentment seized and traversed his
+bristling spine, and his long tail began to lash the ground menacingly.
+It wagged him into a great fury. As noiselessly as a moccasin slides
+into the water, he dropped from the dark spruce stump into the velvet
+mullein leaves, and skirted the whiteness of the moon. He leaped lightly
+through the space and landed in the shade of the church. With a sudden
+wary flash, he darted forward. Then, boldly and ready, he turned sharply
+and advanced in the forefront of this new enemy that now was his prey.
+Stealth was in his padded paws as he lowered his ermine belly to the
+ground and crept sneakingly to meet the newcomer.
+
+When a mere six feet separated the two, the panther's hairy, spotted
+lips parted thirstily. He choked back the growl of savage exultation
+that welled up in his chest, his yellow eyes all afire with lust. He
+gathered his steel-like thews under him with a mighty tenseness to
+spring. His wagging tail stopped and stiffened. As he made to leave the
+ground, the thing before him jerked its gory head suddenly upward,
+looked, and thrust a laugh in the brute's face.
+
+Such a laugh! The splintering, squawking reiterations of petered-out
+echoes, bubbling up into a mundane night from the precincts of the
+eternally damned. That laugh splashed upon the serene night like the
+plunge of a boulder into a placid pool. It drove the pith out of the
+panther's militant cat-heart. It curdled the will to kill that had
+blazed from the beast's agate eyes. Instantly the brute, dazed with
+terror, wrenched his round head askew, to shut from his tan eyes and
+black ears the sight and the sound of this monstrous, unknown
+antagonist.
+
+The brute's tail went limp as he hurtled obliquely through the air,
+landed in the bull-grass, plunged into the inky shadows and fled away
+from this moonlit spot with its hideous blot of terror, and hurried
+toward the pitchy brakes that hemmed the river, with panic curdling his
+jungle blood.
+
+The maimed, bedraggled hulk careened; then at the end of a panting
+struggle fell over the door block and tumbled heavily against the church
+portal. The dilapidated, weather-scarred door gave way unresistingly to
+him and his bedlam cry as though it had boded this unholy visitation. He
+stopped on the threshold, sprawling half in, half without. The uncouth
+noise of his breathing hissing through a ragged ruin of teeth, cut the
+sepulchral stillness of the church room with the portent of some awful
+prediction. His haggled, bleeding hand stamped its red curse upon the
+door panel. Then, with a mad, mighty will, he lashed his flagging spirit
+to another effort and broke into a pitiable, wabbling, four-legged trot.
+
+When his swollen, bleeding feet disappeared, the church door swung back
+and engulfed the revenuer's racked, gaunt bones within the ostracised
+temple of death. With stark eyes upward and ahead, he stared through the
+dark to the spot where a single lance of moonlight stabbed obliquely
+through the dismantled window, revealing a cross done in blood that lay
+prone athwart the untrodden pulpit floor.
+
+Without, a white virgin mantle of peace and purity enveloped the haunted
+church. The honey clover, foxtail, mullein, and dill-poppies had closed
+over the horrible path-way leading to the church door-block. The panther
+was gone. A seductive south wind rippled across the blossomed clearing
+and a hundred families of unnamed flowers raised their heads and nodded
+to the stars. The far-off, drowsy baying of a hound drifted down from
+the ridge and trailed plaintively into the night. And from somewhere the
+sweet love-tale of the elusive nightingale was told over and over again.
+There was utter papal peace without for several moments. Then suddenly
+this magic spell was startlingly burst asunder with a rising tempo of
+sounds issuing from within the church. It grew into a horrific, guttural
+clash. The noise of contending demons dead-locked. The riotous commotion
+of a thousand struggling, distraught fiends told of some terrible
+enactment inside the church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+THE HAUNTED CHURCH
+
+
+As the trio approached the church, Buddy hung back reluctantly. He did
+not relish this nocturnal invasion of the gospel-house where no human
+foot had trod since the killing of his father. In truth, Lem shared this
+apprehension also, but was valiantly cautious not to betray this
+aversion in Belle-Ann's presence. With this cryptic timidity, both the
+boys marveled at the voluble mirth and bold blithesome advance of the
+girl; not understanding that Belle-Ann's education had burned away all
+barriers of superstition.
+
+The denizens on Hellsfork had long given this lonely, desolate structure
+a wide berth. Many a bold and audacious spirit, knowing no other fear,
+quaked with the thought of entering that dilapidated storm-battered
+sepulchre. Not because a man had been killed therein, but there was a
+ghostly phenomenon connected with that musty, bat-haunted altar,
+uniquely horrible.
+
+That rubric cross had cut its ragged blight into the senses of the
+mountaineers to a degree that forbade all thoughts of approach. There
+was something at once subtle and strange and unspeakably terrifying in
+the remembrance of that red picture, something that inspired them with a
+lasting, superstitious dread.
+
+Indeed, a treasure trove could have reposed upon the dank floor of this
+haunted church within easy sight without fear of molestation. Weird and
+creepy tales were rife outlining amazing visitations here. It was told
+with conviction by some whose ears had heard, and whose eyes had seen,
+that on each moonlight night a screech-owl would flutter to the broken
+window of the church and call. Whereupon the red, ragged picture on the
+altar would stir and move and sit up; then gather itself into human
+semblance and stalk to the window. And old Captain Lutts' ghost would
+commune with the little feathered creature. Then the screech-owl would
+hurtle away, and the phantom would stalk back and lie down, and resolve
+itself again into that fearsome, crimson death-splotch that naught save
+fire could ever obliterate.
+
+Belle-Ann was in the lead when the three reached the door-block of the
+church. Then, with a self-conscious lack of chivalry which inspired him
+with a sudden spurt of courage, Lem stepped in front of her, where he
+stood lighting the lantern, when Buddy, who had halted at the corner of
+the building, suddenly hissed softly and motioned for them to join him.
+Bud stood pointing ominously amid the skeleton limbs of a dead sycamore
+tree. Belle-Ann laughed amusedly.
+
+"Why, Buddy," she reassured, "that's only a pretty, harmless little
+owl."
+
+"But hits a scrutch-owl," frowned the boy, shrinking away.
+
+"Oh, come on, Buddy!--I really believe you are afraid of ghosts,"
+returned Belle-Ann, taking him protectingly by the hand.
+
+Re-enforced by the girl's utter absence of fear, Lem pushed the door
+open, and stepping within led the way, lantern in hand. Upon their
+approach to the altar, the bull-bats flapped their bony wings amongst
+the rafters. There was in the fetid gloom of the place a permeating musk
+of things seemingly not of this earth. Lem hung up the lantern on the
+hook at the end of the dingy rope suspended near the pulpit. The rope,
+which great spiders had converted into a swing, now felt soft and snaky
+beneath his touch. He turned the light up as high as he could without
+smoking and faced Belle-Ann. He saw at a glance that a measure of her
+temerity had vanished.
+
+A smothered exclamation fell from Lem's lips. He pointed through the
+buff halo cast from the lantern. There against the south wall of the
+room some of the benches could be dimly discerned overturned,--others
+twisted and broken and scattered in a mass of wreckage--while one
+balanced perilously on the casement as though a hand had sought to take
+it out through the window.
+
+"Who yo' 'low done thet?" inquired Buddy in a tremulous whisper,
+clinging timorously to Belle-Ann's skirts.
+
+"I don't 'low any human bein' done hit," predicted Lem in faint
+undertones that faltered with a creeping, choking apprehension. A queer
+brain-numbing apathy settled upon them that seemed to deprive them
+suddenly of the use of their tongues and limbs.
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" discredited Belle-Ann bravely. "Some mean boys perhaps."
+
+Disbelieving, the brothers stood rigid and shook their now pale faces in
+denial. Belle-Ann did not fear ghosts, but there was undeniably some
+strange mortal influence circulating the eery atmosphere of this place
+like the proximity of some menacing presence close at hand, but unseen.
+She fought hard to repel this unknown fear that was stealing upon her,
+but, despite her valiant struggle, it was fast seizing upon her nerves
+and permeating her whole being with singular insistency.
+
+With an effort she gathered herself together.
+
+"Now hurry on, boys," she directed briskly in a voice that sounded
+unnaturally furtive and low. "Buddy, you get in here between Lem and
+I--there--that's it. Now, boys, we are going to say a little prayer for
+pap and maw, and you, Lem, remember."
+
+At a slight sound the three impulsively and unconsciously took hold of
+each other and turned blanched faces toward the window opposite the
+altar. At the same instant, a screech-owl closed his wings on the window
+casement and sat immobile, like a creature without life, while a
+slender, livid finger of moonlight crossed its speckled back and,
+continuing on, pointed specifically to the bloody cross athwart the
+altar.
+
+Little Bud faltered weakly and shook like a boy with the ague. His lips
+worked mutely and tried to whisper something, but his tongue cleft,
+paralyzed with a prickly dread that stole over him, and his teeth began
+a forbidding tattoo. He cast an appealing look at Lem; wherefore the
+mere sight of Lem's white face accentuated his own fleeting courage. The
+grim lethargy of this subtle, contagious dread had communicated its
+blight to Lem's senses with equal virulence.
+
+A pall of lethal fear deprived Belle-Ann of words and action. What with
+the awful thick dark, made pitchy beyond the buff circle of the
+flickering lantern; a fetid, curdy, musty, stifling blackness which, she
+now felt instinctively, held screened just there, some hidden horror
+reaching out to wrap its smothering terror about her.
+
+The fan-like hiss of the hybrid bats that blundered aloft, their vicious
+unearthly squeaks, stabbing the dead stillness, added to her cryptic
+dread. Upon a sudden current of vagrant air a handful of fire-flies were
+driven through one of the sundered windows, whereupon they bobbed and
+swayed about evilly against the haunting gloom of the church like
+ghastly corpse candles. Together with the unblinking stare of the
+screech-owl from the moon-touched window casement, all these menacing
+influences combined and laid hold of Belle-Ann's will like overpowering
+hands of living agencies crowding her remorselessly to the verge of
+panic.
+
+She stood rigid, listening with a natant, sickening consciousness that
+something terrible hung at her back. Then, ashamed of her exposition of
+timid indecision and fear, she valiantly strove to disguise with action
+the sudden racking shudder that compassed and rippled over her being,
+like the chill of an icy current.
+
+Belle-Ann summoned all her failing faculties and levied upon her will to
+proceed with the ceremony of the sacred mission that had led them to
+this Godless place. But she only stood fixedly, rigid and helpless,
+growing paler with each succeeding moment, and gazed blankly at Bud and
+Lem alternately. Their nerves were as yielding as jelly strings. Other
+than the silky rustle aloft, punctuated occasionally with the thin
+needle-like anathemas of the bull-bats, there was now not the slightest
+sound within to disrupt the death-hush of this place. Nevertheless, Lem
+craned his neck, edging closer to the other two, and whispered
+portentously:
+
+"Ded yo'-all heer anything?"
+
+"No," returned Belle-Ann faintly and uncertainly.
+
+Buddy could only shake his head. Then sharply and, oddly enough, in
+unison, impelled by a sudden common instinct, the trio wheeled about,
+facing the wrecked benches. What they saw in that instant congealed the
+warm flow in their veins to currents of ice and drove their very breaths
+away.
+
+Three hearts smote their ribs a single whack; then seemingly, melted
+away and sank downward and out of their bodies, leaving a trio of
+lifeless, inanimate mummies, frozen into horrified, stony attitudes. An
+awful thing hung there on the edge of the grommet of light. A blurred,
+half-naked, grisly monster sprawled on its loathsome haunches before
+them,--a thing topped with a blood-mottled, hideous head, made frightful
+by two luridly igneous, horrible eyes. Eyes girded and shot with a
+bloody film bulged fixedly up at them, glaring through the flickering
+orange light. The eyes--the eyes!
+
+Divided by the part in the middle, one half of the wiry hair stuck up,
+the dead white hue of chalk, admitting its stains of red. The other half
+bristled, an ebon black blighted with its share of gore. At once it gave
+the startling impression of separate semi-faces filched from two
+different rawheads and slapped together thus, in smeared, mismated
+makeshift, that was hideous. Had only its fearful Nemesis stayed his
+devil-genius and spared the torrid eyes,--monstrous ember eyes that
+flamed like live coals against the dark,--mad-red eyes that burned and
+sparkled and sputtered up from their dancing depths, emitting and
+vomiting over the brims, a changing luster, blended with all the fevered
+fires of hell--eyes that eroded a nauseous path with their abhorrent
+stare. The accursed thing crouched there as immobile as the owl. A limp,
+blood-oozing tongue protruded from an addled, unspeakable mouth,
+distended and heinous with jagged teeth askew. Girding the besmeared
+forehead at the hispid white and black hair line of this festering
+scourge-scathed visage, just where the scalp separated and curled apart,
+a revolting ribbon of pure skull shone,--a strip of skull drained dry
+and clear and white as polished ivory; shimmering out like the badge of
+a death-head from some grim grot of perdition.
+
+The three tried to flee from the awful, withering presence of this
+nameless thing. They tried vainly to cry out; to vent the horror that
+was upon them, depriving them of all utterance and action.
+
+They only clutched each other nervelessly and stared insanely.
+Thereupon, in an unlooked-for instant before their livid faces, this
+ghastly misshapen thing struggled to its naked feet and lurched past
+them toward the altar, with the faltering wabble of a foundered ox. Up
+across the corner of the pulpit it clambered, and, reeling too near the
+edge, tumbled off the other side and struck the floor with a heavy,
+resounding thud, where, amidst jerky groans that were not human
+enunciations, it panted and floundered and arose once more.
+
+Up again with a mighty torturous effort, the hulk mounted the platform a
+second time, and with head dangling at the end of a limp neck, crawled
+to the ragged cross, etched out with the blood of old Cap Lutts. Here it
+mumbled gutturally and labored crazily to gather up the crimson
+altar-piece into its seared, torn arms. Then again up to its feet it
+reared, and, standing thus with arms upflung, the stillness was
+shattered with frantic echoes of a broken word-spluttering, hell-twisted
+cackle, carrying a faint gleam of coherency and culminating in ravings
+that made the night hideous.
+
+"I say--I say--I say--" gathering stress, louder and louder it shrieked
+until the very air curdled with these eery cries. "I say--you there, you
+there--you God--you God--I say the law's here--the law's here--the law,
+the law, the law I say--hear me?--hiding, hiding?--no, no, no, I have
+never hidden from men--I'll not hide now from my God--I'm here now,
+God--'Thou shalt not kill--thou shalt not kill'--but I done it--I done
+this--these hands done it--see, God? They are wet with this deed--but I
+swear the law drove me to it--the law saddled a hundred offenses to my
+life--but I'm here now, God--I bring these offenses here--I done it--I
+done it--these hands done it--these two blood-stained hands--the law
+made me--I swear it--listen--you can't get me--you can't rend me--you
+starved heathens--stand back--stand back, you dungeon-dogs--stand away
+there, you ratty jail-birds--you can't get at me, ha, ha, ha!--gnaw your
+iron cuffs apart first--bite your cuffs in two--gnaw them until your
+teeth shatter, and your gums flood your felon throats--ha, ha, ha!--Oh,
+my head, my head--Christ, the world's afire--the world's burning
+up--listen--listen----!"
+
+Hereupon the screech-owl awoke to quick animation. With trembling wings
+slightly lifted, it thrust its head through the broken window-pane and
+uttered a scathing arraignment--a long-drawn, graduating, derisive
+titter that raked the ghoulish solitude of the church like
+perdition-music--a mockery medley wafted from a cortège of the doomed.
+
+As the last prickly notes dropped down and trailed like a thread of sin
+back into the owl's speckled breast, the gory raw-head blundered around
+and fixed that mawkish, ghastly hell-mask full upon the girl and two
+boys, whose feet were locked immovably to the floor with terror. Then in
+emulation, seemingly, of the owl's tittering, it belched its awful laugh
+into their faces. Such a laugh--its chilling, unhallowed screech
+launched a petrific measure of untold vocal wickedness, an awesome,
+direful gamut of echoes that gathered volume, scattered and split,
+crossed and recrossed; reverberating through the death-still atmosphere
+like the hysterical chattering of a band of stricken, tortured souls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE FLIGHT
+
+
+Human senses could not withstand such an onslaught. It startled the
+three to instant action. The tide of self-preservation ebbed back into
+their bodies; with one accord they reared their arms upward across their
+faces to ward off the shock of that accursed sound, as though its very
+effluvium scorched its scar into their flesh. There was an utterance of
+mingled gasps. There was a sudden rush of jumbled, panic-stricken
+footsteps. A tumbling, scrapping, frantic confusion. A groan--a half
+scream--a sob and the door banged.
+
+The church was empty, save for the mumbling, croaking, mad lazar.
+
+In getting out Lem had stumbled in the door and fallen heavily over his
+rifle. When he scrambled to his feet again, he beheld Belle-Ann and
+Buddy fleeing across the moonlit clearing. He started to follow, but
+checked himself and stopped short; he stood combating the superstitious
+fear that had dropped into his senses and sapped away his equanimity.
+
+"Gawd'll Moughty," he muttered audibly, "air this ole Cap Lutts' boy
+runnin' away. Not by a dern sight--I'll go back an' finish em." Then he
+hallooed lustily after Buddy.
+
+"Hey, Buddy--Buddy--Buddy--cum back heah--cum back heah, I tell yo'--cum
+back!"
+
+Buddy came back reluctantly, his thin countenance still grim with pallor
+and an inquiring look in his wild eyes.
+
+"Whut ails yo', Lem?" he panted.
+
+Lem regarded him a second with an admonishing stare, forgetful of his
+own conduct.
+
+"I'm ashamed o' yo'," he said.
+
+"Whut, Lem?"
+
+"Whut yo'-all a runnin' fo'--eh?" demanded Lem.
+
+Bud jammed one hand into his pocket, abashed, and cast a fearful glance
+toward the church door.
+
+"Don't yo' know hit's the revenoor?"
+
+"Yes, course I do, Lem--but--but they's a hant in em."
+
+"Hant er no hant, we'uns air agoin' in, an' ef he hain't daid----"
+
+"Yo' darsn't, Lem--no--no," protested Buddy in alarm. "Yo' darsn't kill
+hit, Lem--yo' darsn't kill a hant--th' witches 'll spell-tuk we'uns an'
+foller we'uns alers, alers. Slab says so--Slab knows."
+
+"Well," returned Lem, "leastways we'uns 'll go back an' see."
+
+Whereupon he strode to the church door resolutely and pushed it half
+open. Buddy still hung back undecided.
+
+"Hain't yo' ole Cap Lutts' boy?" rebuked his brother severely. "An'
+hain't that the revenuer?"
+
+"Sho'," agreed Buddy, now plainly embarrassed, and followed with
+determined alacrity. Howbeit, the same ghostly dread hung at Lem's
+elbow, but his mighty will whipped his body into subservience and he
+boldly re-entered the church, and made his way toward the lantern that
+shrouded the altar with its yellow glow. Buddy followed closely and
+tremblingly at his heels.
+
+The soft, irregular, rapid pad of bare feet met their ears, punctuated
+by a prodigious breathing that might have issued from the bellows of a
+blown horse. They caught alternate glimpses of the bestial thing, as its
+lengthy, starved shadow hove around the near corner of the altar and
+struck the far rim of light. It flitted past like a gesticulating, dying
+toad, glued to the tire of a wagon wheel. It was galloping madly in a
+circle--milling around and around and around the platform as if ridden
+and spurred by an incubus, bent on the reward of a trophy hell-cup.
+
+And each time it came round to the dark blood-picture on the floor, it
+cleared this with a mighty leap into the air, as a horse makes a wide,
+dangerous ditch. The rustling wings of the eery creatures amidst the
+rafters aloft were hushed. The lance of moonlight had faded from the
+window casement and the owl was gone. The Lutts boys halted; gripped and
+raised their rifles mechanically for a shot. Each time the tattered
+apparition flashed into the light on its desperate circuit around, their
+fingers would curve spasmodically about the triggers for the pull, but
+each time that opportune fraction of a second eluded them and the
+ghastly spectre sped onward.
+
+The astounding manner in which this careening, wavering scarehead held
+the narrow limits of its course without plunging off the stage was
+acutely awesome, and little short of a phenomenon. Every downward lunge
+was checked as if jerked by an invisible cord. Verily, it seemed to be
+held to its path by the influence of a powerful magnet. As the boys
+stood thus agap, in firing attitude, undoubtedly the subtle agency of a
+deep-seated plenipotent superstition which so thoroughly saturates the
+mountain-born had now risen up and cast its obfuscating shade between
+the quarry and their intent to kill.
+
+With mutual glances they peered at each other irresolutely. At this
+juncture, the pattering of naked feet suddenly ceased. Again they fixed
+their eyes on the pulpit and its gloomed blasphemy. It tottered on the
+brink of the platform a second; inclined perilously forward; started on
+its headlong plunge outward, then miraculously checked its descent and
+straightened. Then, backing away, it paused, stiffened and fell backward
+with the rigidity of a board.
+
+Lem and Buddy, collecting their befuddled senses, made their way
+forward. The hideous mass of bones and blood and rags now lay quite
+still on the altar. Through a short interval the two watched it for
+signs of life. Presently, Lem prodded it with his rifle. It gave way,
+yielding and inert, and now Lem took the lantern down from the hook at
+the rope's end and, advancing dubiously, he held the lantern over the
+awful spectacle and dared a look. That look sufficed. What had once been
+the revenuer lay sprawled athwart the bloody cross--dead.
+
+Outside the church door Lem halted and wiped his face absently. A look
+of deep perturbation was plainly perceptible on his countenance. A
+gulch-scented wind rode the plaintive sobs of the she-panther up from
+the darksome thicket below, and Lem harkened attentively, as though he
+had never heard these faltering, familiar notes before.
+
+"Leastways," he projected presently, "he got part o' what's due him,
+Buddy."
+
+"But he'll cum back, Lem--he will," predicted Bud stoutly. "They's a
+hant in em--he'll cum back sho'--yo' see--hants alers ac's like
+thet--then they sneaks back agin."
+
+Lem had started dejectedly across the clearing and did not appear to
+hear his brother's apprehensions.
+
+"Yo' go ahead, Buddy," advised Lem, "an' catch up with Belle-Ann--I'll
+be 'long directly."
+
+Buddy's thin, colt-like legs struck a trot, and Lem followed slowly up
+the mountain side, deeply absorbed in thought and obviously disgruntled.
+Altogether, the whole untoward events of the night had conspired to
+cheat him out of his revenge. This was the strangest night he had ever
+known, the happenings of which seemingly, derided his own reality. A
+night divided into ecstasy and torture, and above the chaos of his soul,
+the voice of Belle-Ann ever rippled with the monotone and insistency of
+running water.
+
+When finally Lem reached the cabin he found Belle-Ann huddled on the
+horse-block, her face pallid and distressed from the effects of the
+terrible, revolting scene she had witnessed in the church. Buddy sat
+beside her saying things, which she heard vaguely and to which she made
+distrait response.
+
+Lem put his rifle and the lantern down and stood before her.
+
+"I air sorry, Belle-Ann, thet yo'-all had t' see sich a sight," he said
+slowly. "He's daid."
+
+She arose quickly to her feet and looked searchingly into his face.
+
+"You--you--you didn't----"
+
+"No, Belle-Ann--I didin't kill em. We'uns went back after yo'-all left
+an' he were up on th' altar daid."
+
+"Oh--how awful--how terrible it all is! Oh, I wish it were morning--that
+I could ride away from heah! Even a day of this awful life is more than
+I can bear. Are you satisfied now, Lem?" she ended sadly.
+
+"No, I hain't," he returned hotly. "I wus cheated out'n his blood. Pap
+an' maw wanted em t' die at my hands--they ded. Belle-Ann, air yo'
+'lowin' t' go way in th' mornin' an' never cum back?" he finished, with
+a look of despair settling on his features.
+
+"I am going in the morning, Lem," she answered decisively, though a note
+of utter sorrow crept into her gentle tones. "You have had your
+opportunity. You told me Johnse Hatfteld offered you five hundred
+dollars for your interests heah. Surely you could have gone down to
+Blue-grass with my grandpa and taken Buddy and Slab along,
+and--I--I--could then--but you want to stay here and feed your soul on
+blood. Could you ask a more bitter punishment for the revenuer than what
+you saw to-night? I implore for the last time, Lem--put that evil life
+behind you, Lem. Ask God to help you, and take my heart and hand on it
+that He will not forsake you. You will come through as I did. Will you
+try, Lem?" she pleaded softly, with a toss of curls and a tender,
+compelling light in her sweet, sad eyes. "Let me lead you, Lem," she
+whispered.
+
+The boy's face paled suddenly. It was the advent of a terrible upheaval
+coming upon him. Belle-Ann saw and divined his intent.
+
+With no backward word, only a look that embraced an untold, profound
+meaning, he hurried from her, spiritless and disconsolate and
+tumultuous. Her eyes followed him, enthralled. She knew where he was
+bound! She prayed devoutly that the web, traced by destiny, wrapping
+their two lives into a unit, would not now, at this crisis, burst its
+ligatures asunder. She prayed with all the fervent strength of her young
+heart that Lem would come down from Eagle Crown and take her in his
+arms,--take her willing life to him irrevocably, with a new precept
+written in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+HIS ROCK OF AGES
+
+
+But as Lem climbed upward, a withering despair mounted abreast with him,
+like the shadow cast by evil. By the time he had reached the giddy apex
+of the cliff, he was staggering amidst the chaos of a battle with
+himself that was slowly outdoing his soul.
+
+His mind had come, miraculously, to nurture the holy dogma that
+Belle-Ann had brought back to him. He could see its wonderful sequence
+plain in Belle-Ann's beautiful face. In her angelic violet eyes he
+beheld its wholesome, serene pictures. He could hear it, vocal, in the
+anthem-music of her soft, new speech. Her very sweet, divine presence
+irradiated its palpable truths. All that was good in him was calling out
+for her.
+
+But in the under-tide of some indefinable, contending, compelling
+element he was drifting apart. While his mind opened its portals to all
+the logic so earnestly tendered and tutored by Belle-Ann, his
+back-standing, immutable mountain heart fought it off like a
+destroyer,--repelled its invasion with a titanic force that his willing
+energies could not subjugate. The tentacles of his father's creed
+promptly admonished and enmeshed his rebellious heart, protecting its
+odium, cleaving to its tenancy of "eye for an eye and tooth for a
+tooth." Which adjuration only lent impetus to an endless cycle of strife
+and distress, rolling his feverish soul back amidst bones that curse the
+dead years--that warp the souls of men, and bow down hearts that God
+made to beat through life upstanding, radiant with harmony and hope and
+buoyancy.
+
+In the growing vortex of this tumult of mind and heart, Lem stood like
+one distraught, circling the limits of the table rock, caged by empty
+space,--scarce knowing that his feet lifted, oblivious to his
+whereabouts. Through this seething, tangled skein, his thoughts seeped
+for an instant and fled backward. He viewed the past. He saw only two
+sodden graves side by side. His beset pilgrim mind then turned toward
+the future, and groped out into the years to come in a vain quest for
+succor and some element of honest hope.
+
+The boy's thoughts rushed back upon him with a picture that forbade
+contemplation--a barren, dismal prospect--a measure of life that did not
+embrace Belle-Ann. He would choose death, he told himself, rather than
+gain and mislead her. Even had he sought to, he knew he could not
+withstand his own lie to her. She whose limpid, steadfast, child-eyes
+could read every line that crossed his soul--every thought that passed
+his eyes. He knew a lie would sheathe itself in its own being.
+
+In his extremity, he stalked madly about the confines of this
+moon-touched mount. His perturbation waxed to a volcanic upheaval that
+now inflicted a physical pain. To him it was as if these two conflicting
+forces had confiscated his corporal structure for a ravaging mêlée,
+augmented by two combative rivals struggling in his own heart. His mad
+love for Belle-Ann--his blind adherence and faith in the code-honor of
+his hillman lineage. That there was something amiss in this faith his
+mind could not deny but, oddly enough, his heart hotly rejected it all,
+stirring him to mad, reckless action. Belle-Ann filled up the whole of
+Lem's wild, humble life. Without her the future held no hope. Without
+hope he wanted to die. His vain effort to dislodge the scourge within
+his soul, goaded him to maniacal thoughts.
+
+Then, in an unlooked-for instant, an awful wrong shaped itself to a
+determination. He would hurl his tortured self over the cliff. He told
+himself that he was not fearful of the fall. In proof thereof, he rushed
+to the jagged brink of the ledge and looked down into hazy moonlit space
+and was unafraid.
+
+With a desperate movement he snatched his hat off and cast it down at
+his feet. His toes inched over the abyss in his aberration. He gathered
+a long breath. His knees bent to the leap. His heels raised slowly under
+him; when in this instant a memory dashed upon him, and he straightened
+and stiffened, electrified.
+
+The thought of Caleb Peevy rived into his muddled, benumbed mind. Caleb
+Peevy, who had jumped wilfully off Henhawk's Knob into Hellsfork three
+years since, and had gone to hell, so they said. A check of repugnance
+swept him as he recalled the lasting scorn and contempt of the mountain
+folk, and the epithet of coward--coward that followed Peevy past the
+grave with its two-edged stigma that linked, inseparably, to his memory
+to-night.
+
+Lem drew back, stung with self-shame. A hope drifted back into his
+distraught breast. He looked upward into the astral sky for God's
+guiding star that Maw Lutts had shown to him. All a-quiver, he watched
+for the flambeau of Belle-Ann's pious prophecy: "Know ye the truth and
+the truth shall make ye free!" A divine revelation ebbed across his
+chaotic senses.
+
+With a sudden replenished faith he looked to God, as he recalled the
+despised, loathsome dead man now lying on the altar of the
+church--asleep now, across the crimson picture that his, now dead, hand
+had shaped with the blood of Lem's father. Surely none but God's hand
+had wrought this retribution. Verily, this Omnipotent Being would not
+forsake him now?
+
+He was now sensible to the God-sent monitor that had saved him from
+McGill. He was sensible to the Providential agency that saved him from
+the Judas, Orlick.
+
+With praises, he remembered Belle-Ann's escape from this vampire. Surely
+this self-same God would not deny him now. Lem did not mumble
+disjointedly now. He did not whisper incoherent, aimless pleas.
+
+Now, from the crest of the world, his aching breast heaving, and his
+erring feet firm upon his ancestral Rock of Ages, he lifted his face up
+to the trembling stars, as with outstretched, pleading arms he cried out
+vociferously to God for Him to come to him--called out, in ringing,
+fulsome words that carried afar, for Him to hasten, lest he perish in
+the conflict that made blind agony within him.
+
+And ere his wet, quivering lips had closed, and while still his eyes
+were upward, and his two arms imploring Heaven, the two forces that had,
+like live combatants, met midway of his soul for supremacy, did
+separate.
+
+The white purity of Righteousness had come into his evil heart, and the
+blackness dropped away and out of his life! And all the old poisonous
+venom, festering soul sores and gnawing misery ebbed out of the boy's
+being and left it receptive to the influx of harmony and heart-peace
+that he saw in Belle-Ann and which he so ardently craved.
+
+Panting like a spent man at the end of a long run, Lem now fell down on
+his knees in his copious gratitude.
+
+On his knees, his head on his arm, in a divine lethargy, he rested. With
+prayerful, oft-said words he pondered vaguely upon this miracle. So
+engrossed in his felicitude and deep thanksgiving was he that he did not
+see the gruesome spectacle at his back.
+
+Belle-Ann sat upon the witch-elm block and strained her eager eyes
+upward. Aloft there on Eagle Crown she could see Lem against the
+moon-laved night. Now she could discern his figure full--now his upper
+half. Again his head only would make a blot. Moving--always moving. She
+divined the terrible struggle going on in his breast, in his will to
+renounce the hurtful creed that heredity had written in his blood, and
+she realized that the conflict was all for her own sake. She measured
+the boy's love and honor with ample adoration. He would not come to her
+with a lie on his lips to disguise the heritage of murder coiled in his
+heart.
+
+As Belle-Ann waited and watched tensely, a pulsing anxiety swept her
+heart, like recurring waves gale-driven. Suddenly she leaped with a
+bound from the witch-elm block, her eyes full of a startling picture.
+The moon on the descent had caught Eagle Crown rock in its mystic grip,
+holding it out like a mighty bauble adorning the breast of the mountain.
+
+Lem's full figure, framed within the moon's disk, was etched in magical
+proportions, like the portrayal of a powerful night glass.
+
+Enraptured, she looked and saw Lem on the brink of the cliff, seemingly
+so near that she instinctively stretched out a hand to attract him. As
+she looked she saw him stretch his two arms outward and upward, and she
+understood their pantomimic plea.
+
+The next instant the sound of his voice, faintly audible, reached her
+ear. She heard his inarticulate utterance, as with a fervent cry he
+called out to God, from his dire distraught heart.
+
+Belle-Ann's white bosom heaved and caught a sob of salient joy as she
+darted up the trail toward Eagle Crown. She would fly to his side now.
+Lem needed her now. He needed her, who was a part of his life, there to
+succor him in this the blackest bereft hour of his existence. She knew
+that God had heard his abandoned supplications. She knew that God was
+reaching down to him a staff of righteous strength. She would hurry to
+his side, with the re-enforcement of her own great love while God was
+there helping him.
+
+Belle-Ann darted to the rock-runged ladder that led the jagged, perilous
+way up to Eagle Crown. She climbed and climbed and climbed. Many times
+did she pause for breath. Then she climbed again and turned and twisted
+and clung on and pulled herself upward, always upward, insensible to
+fatigue. At last her eyes reached the level of the great jutting boulder
+and her gaze fell off into moonlit space. She drew her lithe self up
+and, half turning, beheld Lem's recumbent form bowed down beside a dun
+indenture in the table rock. He was unconscious of her presence. There
+was pathos in his crouching, still form.
+
+There was dazed, mute ecstasy in the dark violet of Belle-Ann's eyes
+which never lifted from this penitent figure. She stood, to still her
+pounding heart, and waited for him to feel her nearness, or turn his
+face to her. The satin lustre of her curls was moist and her bosom
+lifted, palpitating with the advent of the new, great joyous thing that
+stood upon the threshold of her life to enter and spread its felicity
+and untold bliss.
+
+All oblivious, Lem was kneeling amidst this new-found grace, and the
+quiet of a peace that cometh only to the righteous. Belle-Ann had
+suffered its pangs. She had reaped its peace. She knew the pathology of
+the pestilent revenge-sore that blights the lives of men. And she
+experienced all that Lem felt.
+
+With her eyes still upon him, Belle-Ann took one quick, short step
+forward. She spoke his name, low and soft and vibrant with adoration.
+
+As though he expected her, he looked up, smiling and tranquil, and his
+every radiant feature told of the triumph that compassed his renovated
+soul, purged now and wholly clean of its vindictive lust.
+
+His apostasy was full and complete. He rose up strong now and bigger and
+taller than she had noted an hour since. And there was plain in his face
+at that instant a certain nobility and greatness.
+
+He stretched his eager, long arms out to her.
+
+"I'll let yo' lead me,--I'll let yo' lead me now, Belle-Ann!" he cried
+out, his happy eyes aglow with emotion and untold, deathless love.
+
+She tossed the curls back from her lovely be-dimpled features, all
+aflush now. With a finger upon her bowed lips she answered:
+
+"Kiss me heah--Lem," and walked into his waiting arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+IN WHICH PROVIDENCE TAKES A HAND
+
+
+He crushed her to him with a passion that bade fair to stop her breath.
+He poured out his kisses upon her lips, and face, and eyes. He kissed
+the little scar that crossed the part in her hair. And there he held her
+for long, lingering minutes, loath to untwine his arms. Her hot breath
+was on his neck, and he surfeited his senses upon the incense of her
+curls.
+
+"We'll all go down to Blue-Grass together now, won't we, Lem?" she said.
+
+"Sho'--I'm done a warrin' now--I'm done fo' always--an', Belle-Ann, my
+darlin'--I want t' git a edication like yo'-all--eh?--I want t' make
+myself fittin' fo' yo'. I sho' will do hit, with Gawd's help--an'
+yore'n. I aimed to ax yo' again to marry me pint-blank--but I don't want
+yo' to jest now--'til I'm fittin'--I air a goin' to study th' books by
+day an' by night--I know I kin learn--I'll do hit er bust--then when
+yore sure I'm fittin'--an' kin talk nice like yo'--an' look
+decent-like--then--then----"
+
+He drew her to him and buried his face in her curls.
+
+"Little Belle-Ann," he muttered, his joy crowding his words, "little
+gal, whut I knowed would come back----"
+
+"Did I not cross my heart, Lem?" she said, and as her lips parted to
+tell to him all that lay in her heart for the future, a swift, blighting
+look of horror dashed into the girl's face, leaving it whiter than
+moon-pallor. A half-screamed, incoherent outcry burst from her lips as
+with outstretched arm she pointed behind him. Responding instantly to
+her alarm, Lem flung himself around.
+
+Together, transfixed and agape, they stared. A startling sight stood in
+front of their eyes--a spectacle that filled the sensitive girl with a
+panting, sickening horror. She stood all a-quiver, her two little hands
+clutching her breast and her violet eyes swimming in terror. For a tense
+long minute they could neither speak nor move.
+
+Then Belle-Ann's one hand shot out and grasped Lem's sleeve imploringly.
+
+"Oh, Lem--Lem!" she cried, "can't we get it out--oh! can't we hurry and
+take it out, Lem?" but even as she talked she knew the hopelessness of
+the intent in her mind.
+
+"I 'low hits too late now, Belle-Ann," returned he, in tones a trifle
+unsteady. "Hit air God's buryin' now," he added, with no trace of venom
+in his tones.
+
+[Illustration: "Hit air God's buryin' now."]
+
+"Oh!--Lem, it's too awful--too terrible to watch and think about,"
+pursued Belle-Ann in half whispers broken with emotion. She dropped her
+lids and placed her hands over her eyes.
+
+The night wind carried an ominous groan. A dully grinding, crepitating
+sound came up to the lofty heights of Eagle Crown.
+
+Even now there was a tremendous gutting upheaval below them; then with a
+dynamitic cough of concussion the entire roof of the church belched
+upward and fell in and a wide black flight of smoke hurried up to the
+high heavens and blotted the scintillant stars. Then a measureless,
+flanged blanket of blood-hued flame followed, propelling still higher
+the ebon clouds above it.
+
+Here the flame turned to orange and split, and dropped back into a
+seething pit, where it gathered another and greater force. Then a
+lance-like turret of pure fire spurted straight upward, struggling and
+twisting and stabbing its lurid path through the pitchy volumes of smoke
+that rolled and plunged and tumbled infernally; filching with edacious
+swirls, great amber flakes of tinder, delivering them up in spiral gusts
+to the whining wilderness wind, which in turn hurtled its meteoric
+salvage, red and alive, out over the rampant waters of Hellsfork.
+
+The clearing was transformed into an oscillating arena of lurid light
+that eclipsed the stars and drove the moon pallid. The front wall
+supporting the belfry was last to go. Its superstructure half devoured,
+the belfry itself clung on fearfully askew, like a man skidded from a
+high cliff, hanging by a single root awaiting his strength to ebb. The
+pitiless flames duelled, raged and fought ferociously over their prey of
+fire-bitten logs that strove vainly to rise, only to be stricken, again
+to fall back, casting groans to the spectral night. They turned and
+stirred and crawled in agony, like the maimed half dead.
+
+Suddenly the sheet of flame scathing the front wall fell back again for
+another assault and, taking it thrice with blasting, mighty tongues,
+took the key-log to the belfry for its own. And as it went the belfry
+trembled and quaked on the threshold of its doom. For a minute it hung
+there like a mortal thing, having eyes to see down into the white-hot
+pit--fearing something there that this grim-hell clasped to its red
+breast, vauntingly and gloatingly. Something more scathing, more
+horrifying, more contaminating than the mere scourge of molten
+annihilation.
+
+The fire gnawed its trembling support away, and the belfry staggered,
+tottered and succumbed.
+
+As it hurtled headlong downward, the bell shrieked out across the
+night,--a throttled, frenzied medley of fear-stricken mad utterances,
+and tumbled over and over, and went screaming into the ghost-man's
+casket of destruction. And roundabout them fluted leaves of flame grew.
+And the fire made flowers that covered them over.
+
+Incessantly the lurid lustre of the embers died down, only to leap
+pulsing up anew, like the rhyming flush of heat lightning playing behind
+pearly clouds. As the dull red flung its cycle outward from the
+vermilion pyre of the doomed church, it caught in bold, startling
+relief, the mask of a human visage. The russet of the dancing, dying
+flames touched this pale, marcid face with a florid, sanguine flush.
+Only his peaked, lupine features were visible against the purple green
+of the laurel. He was there in the beginning, and he meant to stay there
+to the end. He meant to keep his adder-like eyes charm-fixed and unmoved
+upon this death pile, until its face was gray and cold. He meant to see
+that no treacherous, human skeleton pushed up out of the yielding ashes
+and stalked abroad. There was reverence and infinite tenderness in his
+fondling of the rifle Buddy now hugged in his lap.
+
+His dead father's gun. His heritage that naught would part, until the
+epoch, that came to still his little hardened heart, stepped between
+them. As the fire smouldered, thus did the boy's eyes smoulder, while he
+watched audaciously and fixedly; for deep down in his warped, puerile
+soul the curtained joy of revenge was a-sputter. Now his weazened
+countenance broke with a satanic grin, ill to behold, the while he
+mumbled things to himself.
+
+"I 'low th' ol' Scratch ez a pickin' em, an' a spearin' em, an' a
+humpin' em 'roun' down below 'bout now--leastways I'll see his bones
+burn up, I will," he muttered in sibilant, soul-deep glee.
+
+Like a luscious, esculent morsel he rolled the words over and over. The
+sound of these disjointed phrases spelled happiness to his soul.
+
+"I'll see his bones burn--he cyan't cum back ef I burn his bones all
+up--th' ol' Scratch'll have t' keep em, ef I burn his bones up--he'll
+have t' keep em." The jungled hills, a-hush, were ominously empty of
+night voices.
+
+And all the soft-footed creatures of the wild crouched fear-crazed in
+their lairs, and peered tremblingly out at this fire-swept, fearful
+night. A furtive, fleeing wind, ocean-bound, whipped the slatternly dawn
+clouds away from the wan face of a vigilant moon. Its haggard visage
+looked pityingly down upon a boy-heart clasping a rifle to his breast
+like a brother, his dream-dizzied head, pillowed upon the soughing bosom
+of a wilderness world--fast asleep.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+    GOLIATH'S BRIDE
+    THE APOSTLE ON HELLSFORK
+    A GHOST'S VENGEANCE
+    THE REDEMPTION OF ZACK McCOY
+    MR. HARTEM'S SPECULATION
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED DEBT***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 36047-8.txt or 36047-8.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/0/4/36047
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/36047-8.zip b/36047-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..08398b8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-8.zip
diff --git a/36047-h.zip b/36047-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fbb297c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-h.zip
diff --git a/36047-h/36047-h.htm b/36047-h/36047-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fece016
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-h/36047-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,10329 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Red Debt, by Everett MacDonald</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+    text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+p {
+    margin-top: .75em;
+    text-align: justify;
+    margin-bottom: .75em;
+}
+
+hr {
+    width: 33%;
+    margin-top: 2em;
+    margin-bottom: 2em;
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+}
+
+.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+    /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+    position: absolute;
+    left: 92%;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-align: right;
+} /* page numbers */
+
+.linenum {
+    position: absolute;
+    top: auto;
+    left: 4%;
+} /* poetry number */
+
+.blockquot {
+    margin-left: 5%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+.sidenote {
+    width: 20%;
+    padding-bottom: .5em;
+    padding-top: .5em;
+    padding-left: .5em;
+    padding-right: .5em;
+    margin-left: 1em;
+    float: right;
+    clear: right;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    color: black;
+    background: #eeeeee;
+    border: dashed 1px;
+}
+
+.bb       {border-bottom: solid 2px;}
+
+.bl       {border-left: solid 2px;}
+
+.bt       {border-top: solid 2px;}
+
+.br       {border-right: solid 2px;}
+
+.bbox     {border: solid 2px;}
+
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+
+.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
+
+.caption  {font-weight: bold;}
+
+/* Images */
+.figcenter   {
+    margin: auto;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+.figleft {
+    float: left;
+    clear: left;
+    margin-left: 0;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-right: 1em;
+    padding: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+.figright {
+    float: right;
+    clear: right;
+    margin-left: 1em;
+    margin-bottom:
+    1em;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-right: 0;
+    padding: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+/* Footnotes */
+.footnotes        {border: dashed 1px;}
+
+.footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+
+.footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+
+.fnanchor {
+    vertical-align: super;
+    font-size: .8em;
+    text-decoration:
+    none;
+}
+
+/* Poetry */
+.poem {
+    margin-left:10%;
+    margin-right:10%;
+    text-align: left;
+}
+
+.poem br {display: none;}
+
+.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+
+.poem span.i0 {
+    display: block;
+    margin-left: 0em;
+    padding-left: 3em;
+    text-indent: -3em;
+}
+
+.poem span.i2 {
+    display: block;
+    margin-left: 2em;
+    padding-left: 3em;
+    text-indent: -3em;
+}
+
+.poem span.i4 {
+    display: block;
+    margin-left: 4em;
+    padding-left: 3em;
+    text-indent: -3em;
+}
+
+    hr.full { width: 100%;
+              margin-top: 3em;
+              margin-bottom: 0em;
+              margin-left: auto;
+              margin-right: auto;
+              height: 4px;
+              border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */
+              border-style: solid;
+              border-color: #000000;
+              clear: both; }
+    pre      {font-size: 85%;}
+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Red Debt, by Everett MacDonald,
+Illustrated by William Oberhardt</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Red Debt</p>
+<p>       Echoes from Kentucky</p>
+<p>Author: Everett MacDonald</p>
+<p>Release Date: May 6, 2011  [eBook #36047]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED DEBT***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>E-text prepared by David Garcia, Mary Meehan,<br />
+    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
+    from page images generously made available by<br />
+    Kentuckiana Digital Library<br />
+    (<a href="http://kdl.kyvl.org/">http://kdl.kyvl.org/</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Kentuckiana Digital Library. See
+      <a href="http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;view=toc;idno=b92-232-31280811">
+      http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;view=toc;idno=b92-232-31280811</a>
+	</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/tp.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h1>THE RED DEBT</h1>
+
+<h3>ECHOES FROM KENTUCKY</h3>
+
+<h2>By Everett MacDonald</h2>
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS<br />
+OF WILLIAM OBERHARDT</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3><i>G. W. DILLINGHAM CO.<br />
+NEW YORK</i></h3>
+
+<h3><i>The Red Debt</i></h3>
+
+<h3><i>COPYRIGHT, 1916,<br />
+BY G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY</i></h3>
+
+<h3>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h3>
+
+<h3>PUBLISHED APRIL, 1916</h3>
+
+<h3>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br />
+LINOTYPE COMPOSITION, ELECTROTYPES, PRESSWORK AND BINDING<br />
+BY The J. J. Little &amp; Ives Company<br />
+425-435 East 24th Street<br />
+New York City<br />
+N. Y.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>WITH UNUTTERABLE LOVE I DEDICATE<br />
+THIS VOLUME TO<br />
+My Mother<br />
+<i>THE AUTHOR</i></h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a>
+<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"... use me as best you can for a grandfather?"</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. A Mighty Man</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. Belle-Ann Benson</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. The Traitor</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. An Ultimatum</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. Orlick's money Spurned</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. Upon the Altar</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. Dedicated with his Blood</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. "Lessen he kills the Revenuer"</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. Orlick works Evil</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. In Prison</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. A Friend in Need</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. The Stigma</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. Rubric Drops</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. "The onlyest Lutts"</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. Buddy forces an Issue</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. The Murder Partners</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. Circuit Court</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. The Graveyard Massacre</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. Hatfield overtakes the Traitor</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. In the Hands of the Enemy</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. "Draw&mdash;now&mdash;Coward!"</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. The Mission School</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. Belle-Ann visits Lexington</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. The Guest of a Grandee</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. Know Ye the Truth</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI. Belle-Ann has a Vision</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII. A Grandfather</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII. A Confession</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX. The Red Debt</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX. The Shooting of Peter Burton</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI. In which Slab prophesies</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII. The Near Assassin</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII. Belle-Ann comes back</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV. The Reunion</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV. The Downfall of Sap McGill</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI. Belle-Ann's Recanted Creed</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII. The Ghost-Man</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Haunted Church</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX. The Flight</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL. His Rock of Ages</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI. In which Providence takes a Hand</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+<p><a href="#illus1">"... use me as best you can for a grandfather?"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus2">"Yo' know where <i>they</i> be"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus3">"He kilt my maw&mdash;he ded&mdash;an' he kilt my pap"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus4">"Who air th' head o' th' people&mdash;who air Cap'in heah in Moon?"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus5">"Hit air God's buryin' now"</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE RED DEBT</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>A MIGHTY MAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>No imagery can adequately picture the profound grandeur and wide wild
+beauty of these Kentucky highlands. At the age when its purity was
+whitest, a great moon hung midway between Southpaw peak and Moon
+mountain. Its divine splendor, unalloyed with any tithe of partisanship,
+laved with a mystic luster these two primeval ranges that had scowled
+impenitently at each other, behind their mask of flowers and tinseled
+verdure, across the lethal gulch separating them, for fifty
+blood-touched, feudal years.</p>
+
+<p>This wondrous effulgence purged every exposed crevice, naked rock and
+open cove with its chastity. On the ground underneath the patch-quilt of
+virgin petals and emerald leafage, it peopled a theatre of animated
+pictures. And the coppice pooled the shadows, creating a hippodrome of
+transitory caricatures, fanciful, grotesque and fearful. Each sullen
+moss-hooded boulder flung its distorted, exaggerated image down and
+fixed a creeping mummy hard by.</p>
+
+<p>Still another white beacon leaned over the hills where, like a stellar
+flambeau, the lead-star trembled and sputtered, kindled just on the apex
+of Henhawk's knob. The chasm that furrowed between and, topographically,
+held these two warring communities apart, sunk its rock-lined bed sheer
+two hundred feet below. Through this sinuous adamantine artery the head
+waters of Hellsfork dashed in rampant flight, beating themselves into a
+madness against a troup of gigantic, orange-tinctured boulders polished
+glassy by the torrents Nature had unloosed at the beginning of time.</p>
+
+<p>The onrushing wavelets leaped like furious creatures at these menacing
+things which evermore preyed upon their foaming, impotent wrath; shaping
+crystal goblets that bubbled over and burst, and flung showers of
+magical frothy flowers aloft. From across the silvery expanse of
+spectral mist that overhung the mountains, near and afar, a hundred
+voices of the wilderness night were calling.</p>
+
+<p>That this barnacle of blood-lust should leech itself upon the fair face
+of a modern civilization; that in this nineteen hundred and twelve epoch
+of obeisant civism, hedged about with emollient Christian culture&mdash;such
+a vast stratum of malignant strife should coil here, hidden amidst a
+congress of Nature's sublime artistry, is an irony at once awesome and
+hopelessly insoluble. Nevertheless, immured upon natural ramifications
+on the shoulder of Moon mountain, old Cap Lutts, a strategist and
+mountain despot of kingly renown, dominated as the head of an implacable
+dynasty that boded ill to inimical invaders; be it agents of the
+government or spies of the shaggy Southpaw clan where Sap McGill, who
+had stepped into his father's war shoes at the end of their last fatal
+encounter with Cap Lutts, now marshalled his horde of bush-whackers,
+bent upon the speedy annihilation of the Lutts folk, kith and kin.</p>
+
+<p>Supported on a platform-like plot projecting from the hip of Moon
+mountain, the domicile of old Lutts stood out in the moonlight, traced
+in silver brocade against a somber ribbon of scrub timber that girded
+the waist of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>From the Lutts abode the eye traveled for miles along the gorge to the
+right. To the left the chasm cut deeper into the hills, until it ended
+in the valley where Boon Creek and Hellsfork intersected; where the
+paw-paws and the ferns, the weeping willows and the familiar, unnamed
+flowers were luxuriant.</p>
+
+<p>Straight ahead, traversing the dry bed of a blind gulch, a train of
+pigmy peaks, left dun and naked by a river dead a thousand years, rose
+up and bared their serried spurs like hound's teeth.</p>
+
+<p>On the opposite side of Hellsfork, lifted the stupendous Southpaw
+range&mdash;the stronghold of the enemy&mdash;rearing its savage peaks higher and
+higher, piling upward and onward until they pierced the myriad stars;
+then tumbled downward into the russet realms of lilac mist.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the Lutts cabin and towering above it, a single monster boulder
+jutted outward from the perpendicular wall of granite and hung
+perilously over sheer space. This freakish rock, known as Eagle Crown,
+looked like a ragged punctuation pause in a folk-lore story; a relic
+tossed on high by some legendary, boastful giant.</p>
+
+<p>The wonder was how Cap Lutts gained its forbidding lofty platform, for
+surely there was no visible means of ascent. Howbeit, Eagle Crown had
+been the old man's retreat for sixty-odd years. This imperishable shelf
+of granite offered him sanctuary when travail and sorrow, that weighted
+his life, pressed hard upon him. There he had spent his moody hours
+since boyhood. There his father and his great-grandfather had gone to be
+alone. And there to-night, high up and alone, his majestic form was
+silhouetted plainly against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>A mighty man, this Lutts. At seventy-six he stood six feet seven
+inches&mdash;straight as an arrow; a seasoned ball-bearing pyramid of big
+bones, mounted with iron-fibered muscles; and a drop of chilled steel
+for a fighting heart. In the premises of peace, this same heart swelled
+up to proportions of compassion and generosity that named him father of
+all the community north of Hellsfork&mdash;a man who never failed his people;
+one to whom they hurried with their woes when they needed material help,
+succor, sympathy and protection.</p>
+
+<p>From this height, the old man fondly turned his eyes downward toward the
+clearing that now held his sacred treasure&mdash;a log church. There, high up
+toward heaven, in the profundity of his loneness, only God knew this
+somber, silent man's thoughts&mdash;this feud-hunted, law-hounded man whose
+soul brimmed with his own religion; whose being was wrapped about with
+that which he took for the right; whose heart spurned all that he
+thought wrong.</p>
+
+<p>His so-called bandit-spirit was insulated with the convictions of his
+own peculiar faith. His every utterance and deed were tempered with the
+tenets of a unique creed handed down by his mountain fore-fathers. In
+his heart there murmured a runic cadence, the language of which was only
+interpreted by the omnipotent, all-merciful Over-soul.</p>
+
+<p>Why the menacing hand of an outer world was lifted against him was a
+problem he had long since despaired of solving. Fondly now he gazed down
+toward the spot where the new cedar clapboards of the meeting-house
+shimmered like a disk of true gold beneath the moon's whiteness;
+beckoning to him with an insistence that stirred his stoic heart to its
+depths.</p>
+
+<p>A tender look softened the old man's opaque mask-like features, as
+fumbling in his shirt-pocket and bringing forth a worn tintype picture
+of a woman, swathed in buckskin, he held it to the moon's rays and for a
+full minute peered tenderly at the kindly pictured eyes and smiling
+lips. Then, clasping the tintype reverently between his two mighty
+hands, he leaned against the natural buttress at his back, and his great
+head, crowned with its hoary white mane, was bowed down.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morry&mdash;to-morry," he whispered, and he knew that the picture smiled
+forgivingly and happily back to him.</p>
+
+<p>With the proceeds of moonshine whiskey, backed by the brawn of heredity
+and a righteous purpose, old Cap Lutts had at last realized the dream of
+two lives&mdash;his own and that of his dead wife, Maw Lutts. Although
+grievously late, he had now moulded this double dream into a tangible
+reality; for now before him, in the center of the clearing at the
+frowsy, feudal base of Moon mountain, and just where the rabid waters of
+Hellsfork leaped like live, wild things in their down-grade race across
+forty-odd rugged miles of Kentucky, this grizzled hillman viewed in
+sober, pious exultation, the product of his log church, all but
+finished.</p>
+
+<p>A church is an acquisition strangely alien to this mountain-piled
+country, where the strategy of family wars and illicit distilling is
+religiously pursued. Nevertheless, he and Maw Lutts had dreamed in
+unison for years and had longed for the culmination of this extravagant,
+divine purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Formerly, it had appeared to him that the propitious hour in their
+furtive existence had not arrived, although daily he had clearly
+foreseen it in the rising sun of the morrow. Always with the firm
+intention to do, he had added postponement to delay, and another broken
+promise on the creased brow of Maw Lutts and another prayer in her
+sorrowing heart.</p>
+
+<p>However, the belated church was finally upon the perilous premises. Then
+with the poignant achings that many desirable citizens had felt before
+him, the old man had gone to the orchard like a penitent truce-breaker,
+where on his knees in supplicant whispers he had unfolded his tardy
+atonement and laid it like a tarnished sceptre at the woman's mute,
+unseeing grave-side.</p>
+
+<p>Since the majority of native adults were babies, the magic name of Cap
+Lutts was mouthed in every cabin on the border range. He held the novel
+status where popularity was abreast with notoriety. Long since the
+populace had heard of his intention to build a church. Looking across
+the epitome of delay, they told themselves that this was the first
+pledge the old man had ever made, which he had not kept, so now the
+redeeming news of Cap Lutts' finished meeting-house and the day of
+dedication had penetrated the remotest habitants of the mountains. This
+intelligence had gone hither to friend and enemy, pious and wicked
+alike, with the same mysterious agency and puzzling rapidity that
+characterizes winged warnings of the on-coming revenuer.</p>
+
+<p>Every man and woman in the district, big enough to pull a trigger, knew
+that he held a certain latent stock in this meeting-house. It came like
+an unknown heritage suddenly delivered. While some would,
+surreptitiously, have exchanged their interest for a mustard plaster,
+they knew that it was not negotiable. They lied aloud, but in their
+hearts they knew that sooner or later they would follow that magnetic
+spark Luttsward. They knew that they would either cross the hypnotic
+threshold of that sanctuary into the halo of sacred enlightenment, or
+halt without in the darkness of superstition and feudal malice and spend
+their ammunition to help crush it.</p>
+
+<p>There was no intermediate platform. There was no neutral grand-stand
+wherein the indifferent could take refuge. The populace stood either for
+or against. Even the lethargic, voteless clay-eaters sat up and took
+notice like a nest of snakes in the sunshine. The relatives and friendly
+factions representing the prospective congregation, did homage to Cap
+Lutts and clamored to make the church a success. The enemy over in
+Southpaw had already advanced the prophecy that they would take the
+meeting-house. But the flapping of feudal wings did not perturb this
+veteran hawk of the hills. His one apprehension was of the common enemy,
+the "revenuer."</p>
+
+<p>There was now but one day between the new church and its dedication. In
+secret service circles, down in Frankfort, it had long been mooted that
+the pet aim of Peter H. Burton was to capture old Cap Lutts.</p>
+
+<p>Burton had, during his service, previously captured many members of the
+Lutts faction. The commissioners were ready enough to bind them over,
+but trials never carried a conviction. Burton had even juggled cases,
+alternately, on venue writs, between the six Federal Courts in the
+Eastern District, but the Lutts blood invariably cropped up, stealthful
+and rich in sympathy, in the precincts of the petit jury room. Acquittal
+followed acquittal.</p>
+
+<p>But now Burton, feeling himself close upon the heels of the King of
+Moonshiners, altered his procedure and, armed with a premature change of
+venue to Frankfort, he hunted Lutts with a renewed zeal, keen and
+pleasurable.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the younger attachés of the office regarded Cap Lutts as an
+historic myth. In jest, knowing Burton's affinity for wildcat skins,
+they hinted that the Lutts in question was merely a wraith-pilot
+pointing toward new skins&mdash;a favorite platitude upon which to stage
+another hunting vacation. But to Chief Burton, the subject of this jest
+was far removed from joking premises; mainly for the adequate reason
+that he himself, like many of his predecessors, had eyed old Cap Lutts
+more than once. His corporeal being had felt Lutts' lead.</p>
+
+<p>Although the astute Burton had toiled a part of each season for eleven
+consecutive years on the border trail of this subtle law-breaker, Lutts
+had as yet never seen the county calaboose, or the barriers of a
+blue-grass jail. Burton had surprised him time and again, but inventory
+of these encounters always told the same trite story&mdash;the moonshiner had
+simply melted into absence.</p>
+
+<p>After the smoke of some of these sorties, Burton had either limped or
+loped away with hopes mounting over a trail of blood. But these red
+splotches never led to the man. This feud leader and distilling
+chieftain of the range still reigned and the stereotyped report to
+headquarters was simply dated and signed with open blanks, a form to
+apprise headquarters that the officer was still alive.</p>
+
+<p>Under pressure the county authorities periodically sought old Lutts. The
+times when they did find him, they merely flirted mutually with the
+faction and subsided harmlessly.</p>
+
+<p>With the completion of the meeting-house, Cap Lutts had attained his
+goal; nor had he suffered the neighboring denizens of the foothills to
+raise an axe, or donate a single clapboard toward the erection of this
+infantile sanctuary. It was an enshrined monument to Maw Lutts. It was a
+mural hanging against Moon mountain, the place of her birth and the
+scene of her death. It was her own cherished endowment to the
+rifle-toting, tobacco-swallowing, snuff-chewing community. It was Maw
+Lutts's and his individual, holy triumph. All Cap Lutts expected of the
+people was, he told them:</p>
+
+<p>"T' cum when th' ridin' pahson rid up t' ded'cate th' gawspel-house; an'
+tote thar sins t' th' altar, an' donate 'em at th' cross t' be wyshed
+'way with th' blood uv Calv'ry&mdash;an' keep on a comin' thet they mought be
+clean an' onspotted an'&mdash;Gawd an' my gun'll damn ary hillbilly what
+darst lift a han' to hender."</p>
+
+<p>The church represented months of hard toil, interrupted only when Cap
+Lutts fled up to the rock-ribbed pockets of the mountain or down into
+some untrodden ravine to escape Burton, the revenuer. Even in such
+intervals, the old man had sallied out into the night like the
+crag-panther, when the moon had turned white; and climbed high, with
+rifle ready and the hollow-flanked hound at his heels, to visit the
+clearing and gloat in solitude beneath the trembling stars over the
+progress of his sacred enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>The church itself stood on "squatted" soil. Crowned with rhododendrons
+and laurel blossoms, it reared its exotic head in defiant challenge to
+Satan, like a single star upon the horizon of feudal gloom.</p>
+
+<p>The level space had cost Lutts nothing but labor. The logs had cost him
+nothing but work. With his own hands and crude appliances of the back
+forests he had split, shaped and trimmed eleven thousand cedar
+clapboards; but when it came to interior finish he was extravagant and
+fastidious.</p>
+
+<p>The white-pine tongue-and-grooved boards that he used to make the
+platform and the altar, the window and door plates; and the wide, smooth
+planks turned into benches, all represented cash&mdash;and cash was a rarity
+in the sterile Moon mountain district. And, too, the new gold-hued bell,
+which now nestled in its cotlike belfry, about to utter its virgin
+exhortation across those Godless hills, cost money.</p>
+
+<p>Cap Lutts had paid this money ungrudgingly, for it was his own. Had he
+not, together with his son Lem, and Slab, the negro, and the two red
+steers, plowed the slanting plot that hung on the hip of the mountain
+and sown the grain, and tilled it, and reaped it, and carried it to the
+hidden still, where he had brewed it into money?</p>
+
+<p>It was Lutts's own scant, hard-earned dollars that had bought the
+boards, the nails, and the bell.</p>
+
+<p>True, it was not a regular church bell; but it was the largest farm bell
+he could procure and it had taken the steers five hot days to go to Flat
+Gap Junction and haul back the bell, and the nails, and the polished
+boards and glass.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>BELLE-ANN BENSON</h3>
+
+
+<p>Beneath Eagle Crown the four-room cabin reposed in a shelter of
+spruce-pine, hemlock and cedar. Its plot was covered with countless
+quaint flowers and its rock-hemmed path to the horse-block in front was
+lined with pink wild roses and forget-me-nots. Here the creeping ivy and
+honeysuckle ran wild.</p>
+
+<p>Although the mound of Maw Lutts, in the scrub orchard behind the log
+barn, was green again for the third time, her beloved flowers had come
+back to earth each year with reassuring, tender messages for Belle-Ann
+Benson, who had adopted them and had nourished and tended and cherished
+them with a pathetic devotion.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann knew their language well. And when they died&mdash;more than at any
+other season&mdash;the kindly, smiling face of old Maw Lutts followed the
+girl all through the chilly fall days.</p>
+
+<p>It was Belle-Ann who had folded Maw Lutts's two hands, one upon the
+other, back on that terrible day. It was Belle-Ann whom the men found
+after the battle, crouching in despair over the dear, still form lying
+in the yard, and crying out to God for Him to make the mute lips speak
+back to her.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann had never known her own mother, but she had found a mother in
+Maw Lutts. So it was Belle-Ann who fed the martins, and encouraged the
+wild birds, and the tame squirrels Maw Lutts had loved.</p>
+
+<p>The Lutts family now consisted of the old man, two boys, the adopted
+girl and an old negro who had fled from Lexington when a boy, in the
+first days of the Rebellion, and who subsequently had found sanctuary at
+the Lutts abode. He had been permitted to remain because no form of
+persuasion could induce him to leave the premises, once fed, and had the
+distinction of being the only negro on Hellsfork.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann was a daughter by proxy, since her own mother had died in her
+babyhood and Maw Lutts had opened her heart and home to the child.
+Belle-Ann was now some months past sixteen and her unusual physical
+beauty was noted throughout the mountain community and wondered at by
+the few strangers who chanced to reach the isolated cabin on Moon
+mountain.</p>
+
+<p>To-night the girl dropped a wooden bucket and gourd after watering the
+plants, and walked briskly over the carpet of shadows, stepped out under
+the radiant moon and stood gazing intently up to Eagle Crown, where she
+saw the magnified outlines of Cap Lutts against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Near by a huge witch-elm butt, sawed into three steps, shaped a
+horse-block. Upon the topmost step of the block she seated herself. Her
+brow puckered slightly and she waited with an expectant air. Even the
+pale moonlight revealed her marked loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>Her form was tall for sixteen, with that subtle grace wholly
+undefinable. Clinging about her head and mantling her shoulders, a mass
+of natural curls clustered in riotous abundance, shimmering like
+polished ebony in the moon's rays.</p>
+
+<p>Her features were chiseled with a delicate, hellenic touch, and sweetly
+oval. Her thin nose was straight and short and small; and her red mouth
+told of unfathomable depths of emotion. Her wide, limpid eyes were like
+two blue patches of early June sky.</p>
+
+<p>Her sleeves were short of her dimpled elbows, and her skirt reached
+scarce below her knees. Her graceful legs were bare, but her little feet
+were incased in neat, cow-hide moccasins with the hair on, laced and
+thonged about her round ankles.</p>
+
+<p>A great measure of the girl's physical beauty had been transmitted by
+her mother, who had been a gentle blue-grass woman, of noted beauty and
+lineage, and who had in a fit of pique, married the picturesque trapper
+of the Cumberlands and buried herself in her unloved husband's
+wilderness existence.</p>
+
+<p>Many pathetic tales were told of the great-hearted Tom-John Benson's
+patient struggle to make his wife happy; but the most beautiful woman
+the mountain people had ever seen had pined away and had gone to an
+early end.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann's father now worked for a lumber company, down on the Big
+Sandy. It was only now that he had saved sufficient money to send
+Belle-Ann to the mission school at Proctor, and so fulfil his wife's
+last request.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann had heard the news only three hours ago.</p>
+
+<p>Jutt Orlick, returning from one of his mysterious, periodical visits
+abroad, had stopped to say that her father had sent word that he would
+come for her the following week and take her to the school at Proctor.
+And Orlick, whom the girl distrusted, had not departed without the usual
+flattery she always half resented.</p>
+
+<p>As Belle-Ann sat on the horse-block her little heart was prey to many
+emotions, and she was well-nigh reduced to tears.</p>
+
+<p>Impatient to tell the tidings, she was waiting for the boys, who had
+been away since early morning, and for the old man to come down from his
+lofty station. From the cabin door a vague, lank shape came toward her
+through the shadows.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo', Slab!" she called.</p>
+
+<p>"Heah me!" responded an old treble voice from the dappled path.</p>
+
+<p>When Slab reached the horse-block, although he said nothing to the girl,
+he took a posture that indicated pointedly that he expected something of
+her; and she slipped from the horse-block and sat down on the big
+grapevine family bench a few feet distant.</p>
+
+<p>Here a blind hound appeared and, feeling his way slowly and uncertainly,
+laid his old muzzle in the girl's lap and raised his sightless eyes to
+where he knew her face must be.</p>
+
+<p>Then Slab took Belle-Ann's place on the witch-elm block and produced his
+beloved instrument&mdash;a cross between guitar and banjo, self-made of gut
+and a gourd. Just as he had done every fair night for years, he was
+ready to sing his favorite song.</p>
+
+<p>He maintained vigorously that if he sat elsewhere than on the
+horse-block the banjo fell bewitched and refused to answer its master's
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>Tentatively, he plucked the strings; then launched abruptly into the
+song he had rendered for years&mdash;a sad and stirring melody, telling the
+early love-story that had been his before the days of emancipation:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You ask what makes this darky weep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Why he, like others, is not gay?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What makes the tears roll down his cheek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From early morn till close of day?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My story, darkies, you shall hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For in my memory fresh it dwells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twill cause you then to drop a tear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On the grave of my sweet Kitty Wells."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When the notes had died away Belle-Ann spoke up:</p>
+
+<p>"Slab, ef pap er th' boys don't cum short now, I'll blow th' horn, I
+reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no, honey; doan yo' blow dat horn. Yo' let dat horn blow itse'f if
+it's got t' blow; but doan you blow it, honey. Yo' jist let pap
+be&mdash;he'll cum heah soon. 'Sides, ain't Slab heah wif yo', honey&mdash;ain't
+Slab heah?"</p>
+
+<p>The old negro picked the strings with a preface to the second verse of
+"Kitty Wells," his condolence being entirely lost on Belle-Ann.</p>
+
+<p>As he gathered a solemn breath to begin, the disconsolate girl, sitting
+on the vine-bench in the moonlight, raised a protesting hand and stopped
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Slab, ef I don't blow th' horn I jest got t' cry."</p>
+
+<p>Slab settled the banjo jerkily between his long, thin legs and rolled
+indulgent eyes upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, looky heah, honey; yo' ain't gwine t' take on so, is you? Yo'
+oughter be tickled inter a keniption fit, yo' ought, 'stead of actin'
+up. Why, honey, jist give praise to de good Lord dat yo' at las' got de
+chanst! Yo'll cum back home powerful smart an' edicated, like my missus
+wus 'fore de war.</p>
+
+<p>"An' when a li'le gal gits edication, she naturally gits purttier; an'
+if yo' gits purttier dan yo' is now&mdash;why, honey, yo'll shore cum back er
+angel! Now, doan be pesticatin'. Smile up, smile up! Gwine t' school
+ain't gwine t' kill nobudy."</p>
+
+<p>As Slab concluded these cheering words, he poised his banjo again and as
+his lips parted the girl stopped him with a gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Slab, air thes my heart heah&mdash;right heah?" she queried, pressing a hand
+upon her breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Sho', honey!" Slab assured her testily, striving to disguise his own
+impatience. "Now, tell me why yo' ax dat&mdash;jist tell Slab what fer yo' ax
+sich er sorry question noways?"</p>
+
+<p>"Slab, I 'low my heart'll burst in two when I got t' go 'way!" she
+returned unsteadily, her black-fringed lids blinking bravely to keep
+back the mist that would creep across the violet of her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Slab gazed at her speechless, and heaved a hopeless sigh.</p>
+
+<p>Tenderly, Belle-Ann lifted the blind hound's reluctant head from her
+lap, stepped nearer to the old negro, and held a profound, exacting
+finger close to his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Slab, will yo' promise me somethin'? I kin trust yo'-all, Slab, ef yo'
+promise ag'inst the witch. Will yo' promise Belle-Ann somethin', Slab?"
+urged the girl, and her sweet bell-voice fell subdued and imploring.</p>
+
+<p>Slab's mouth opened slowly and he hesitated. He would have died for
+Belle-Ann; but he was much opposed to dragging in the witch, because he
+feared to make his sacred witch a party to any contract that carried the
+slightest chance of rupture, and thereby hold him to eternal reprisal.</p>
+
+<p>"Will yo' promise thes, Slab?" the girl urged solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"Air yo' sho' I kin do it, honey?" he probed, loose-lipped and with eyes
+that rolled wider.</p>
+
+<p>"Sho' yo' kin!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ez yo' say I kin do it, me promises," he assented dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Cross yo' heart on th' witch-block!" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>He solemnized the pledge with a gnarled and bony hand, and the girl's
+eyes welled full and her throat pained.</p>
+
+<p>"Slab, yo' must promise to be good to ol' Ben heah&mdash;feed em an' bed em
+reg'lar, but don't give em no cracklin's. An', Slab, yo' must promise to
+pick the flowers every Sabbath, jest like I alers do&mdash;yo' knows the ones
+well's I do&mdash;pertic'lar th' for-get-me-nots over yon by th' grind-stone.
+Yo' must pick 'em in th' mornin' early, Slab&mdash;every Sabbath&mdash;an' put 'em
+on Maw Lutts's grave. Will yo' fergit?"</p>
+
+<p>A deep breath relieved Slab's tenseness as he agreed effusively.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, goodness! Yo' jist leave it t' Slab, honey! He do dat ebry single
+Sabbaf!"</p>
+
+<p>"An', Slab, when hit gits cold an' th' leaves air gone an' th' flowers
+air all daid, yo' must pick th' geraniums outer th' boxes inside an' put
+'em on Maw's grave&mdash;an' when hit gits powerful cold an' snows hard an'
+th' snow gits piled up on Maw's grave&mdash;would yo' care&mdash;would yo' go,
+Slab, an'&mdash;an'&mdash;an'&mdash;push hit off&mdash;an'&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her petitions thickened, tumbled together in her aching throat, and
+refused to cross her trembling lips.</p>
+
+<p>She turned away quickly. At the log bench she sank slowly down with her
+black head in her arm. The heavy curls clustered around her face and
+caressed her neck. She sobbed in soft, whimpering outbursts.</p>
+
+<p>The blind hound thrust his nose questioningly into her lap, licking her
+free hand, and caught the tears from her young heart warm upon his gray
+face. He whined aloud and reached for her wet cheek.</p>
+
+<p>The old negro fumbled at random and did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>Turning, he looked upward to where Cap Lutts sat in the flood of
+moonlight on the palm of rock; as silent and motionless as the inanimate
+pillar of granite under him. Slab's eyes wandered down to the trail and
+he spoke hastily to the distressed girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Honey, heah cum de boys!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TRAITOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>Belle-Ann jumped instantly to her feet, looked, brushed her eyes with
+her hand, and hastened to meet them, her curls bobbing and her bare legs
+and arms gleaming in the moon's luster.</p>
+
+<p>Little Bud turned off toward the cabin, but Lem's tall figure came
+straight ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Lem," she cried excitedly, "I got t' go&mdash;dad sent word by Orlick. Dad's
+a comin' heah t' take me t' th' mission school. Air yo' sorry, Lem?"</p>
+
+<p>Lem halted as if struck. Then, recovering from the surprise, he took her
+hand and they continued toward the witch-elm block. Slab had
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Sho', I'm sorry, Belle-Ann," Lem answered. "Yo'-all don't 'low I'd be
+tickled t' lose yo', do yo'? But I 'low hit's fer th' best, an' yo' know
+Maw wanted hit, too," he ended, with a touch of sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Lem," she agreed, "thet's why I'll try t' be brave, 'cause Maw
+Lutts alers talked t' me 'bout my schoolin' same's she did 'bout th'
+church. Lem, I do wish Maw could jest see th' new church now thet pap's
+got hit finished! Hit looks jest like she said, Lem. I 'low she'd jest
+cry fer gladness, wouldn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>Lem nodded absently and quickly put a question that had been waiting
+from the instant he heard of Orlick's visit.</p>
+
+<p>"What time ded Orlick cum?"</p>
+
+<p>"He cum short past sun-down," returned Belle-Ann as the two sat down on
+the bench.</p>
+
+<p>"Ded he parley 'bout long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jest a short spell. I wouldn't talk t' em much."</p>
+
+<p>Lem stood up. He was long and lank, but broad of shoulder for a boy of
+eighteen. He had a pleasing, intelligent countenance, with light,
+steadfast eyes that never looked askance. He removed his wide, soft hat
+and gazed up to Eagle Crown.</p>
+
+<p>"Ded pap see Orlick?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann shook her curls in the negative.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann, ef yo' takes pertic'lar notice, every time Jutt Orlick cums
+t' Moon mountain somethin' alers happens&mdash;somethin' goes wrong. 'Peers
+like things starts back'ards."</p>
+
+<p>"I 'low he air a hoodoo," observed Belle-Ann: "but he do look
+soldierfied, don't he, Lem?" she added, with a subtle regard for
+Orlick's military aspect and his bombastic airs.</p>
+
+<p>Lem shot a jealous, reproachful look at the girl, turning sharply as she
+rose, and pointed down to a gap in the scrub timber, which was half
+lighted by the moon. They caught the fleeting shadow of a horseman
+mounting the trail to the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"Hit's Orlick!" Lem announced.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of metallic hoof-strokes came rapid and distinct. When the
+rider had looped the spur they beheld the front of Orlick's horse coming
+head on up the moon-path, his hocks now in the air. As always, Orlick
+had flank-spurred his mount on the last lap, and the animal plunged,
+panting, to the horse-block, and brought up stiff-legged, with
+red-rimmed nostrils and distended jaws, fighting a cruel Spanish bit.</p>
+
+<p>Orlick rolled out of the Mexican saddle, laughed shortly, and drawled:</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, yo'-all?" and smirked as he always did. "I hain't seen yo'-all
+in a coon's age, Lem," he added cordially, though his evil eyes were
+upon the girl as he extended his hand in greeting.</p>
+
+<p>Lem Lutts touched the outstretched hand briefly.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann stood aloof with a look of suspicious admiration on her lovely
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"I hain't seen yo'-all 'bout much nuther," answered Lem, with a
+contemptuous scrutiny of Orlick's brave trappings. Orlick chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I'm gittin' over th' country a little nowadays. But, say, Lem, I
+cum up to tell ye thar's a stranger down at th' cypress cut what wants
+to come up. He's down yonder now a waitin'. He's got some business with
+the cap'n."</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann shrank away, shuddering.</p>
+
+<p>"I rec'on hit's Burton, th' ghost-man," she muttered under her breath.</p>
+
+<p>Always since that memorable day when she had knelt beside Maw Lutts'
+dead body in the yard did the coming of a stranger thrill her with a
+great fear&mdash;a fear that stirred the venom that already tenanted her
+heart; a vivific thing, spawned at the killing of Maw Lutts. Time had
+never healed this wound. Time had only nurtured its corrosive, growing
+poison. Time that came to others of mankind to succor and heal, had
+never assuaged Belle-Ann's heart-hurt.</p>
+
+<p>Struggle as she would to forget, she only remembered that she had
+struggled, and the aching grew on. It was a silent, self-contained
+suffering,&mdash;a hatred for the law that sneaked into their home and dealt
+death. This supernatural hulk, Burton, embodied the law. Burton, this
+lupine, leering lover of blood&mdash;this killer of women.</p>
+
+<p>When Orlick announced that a stranger had business with the old man, the
+revenuer's ugly visage popped before the girl more vividly than ever.
+That grim hated shadow of prey darted upon her tensioned senses and made
+her shiver, sending a-scutter and a-scurry all the innate righteous
+instincts whose home had been her heart; leaving in its void a well of
+hate that congealed and turned into a live thing, that squirmed,
+burrowed, and crawled to and fro in her soul; armed with a hundred claws
+to goad and agonize and spread a misery through her young life. All this
+warped the girl's spiritual being and imperiled the beauty of her
+countenance, for at times it mingled the lettering of its presence with
+the charms of her face.</p>
+
+<p>Without a word, but with a significant look at Belle-Ann, Lem took the
+cow-horn suspended over his shoulder by a rawhide, pointed it upward
+toward the lone figure on the cliff and gave a long, sonorous blast.
+Instantly the solitary figure on high moved and disappeared from view.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann drew apart, while the two men stood together, Orlick doing the
+talking, and watched for the old man to come out into the trail.</p>
+
+<p>There came a slight sound behind and, like a shadow, old Cap Lutts
+stepped forth under the trees and confronted them, his polished rifle
+gleaming in the moonlight, and a big, spotted hound hugging his heels.</p>
+
+<p>His straight, powerful form rose to giant proportions. His very presence
+pulsed keen discernment, subtle alertness, an agile, seemingly
+implacable strength and aggressive tenacity.</p>
+
+<p>He listened in silence as Orlick told his mission and then said quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Lem, you an' Orlick go down yonder an' lead th' party up heah ef he's
+alone; if he ain't yo'-all blow the horn. An' yo', Orlick," the old man
+added, with eyes that bored into Orlick's smirking face, "what air thes
+I heered about your trapesin' around over yon in Southpaw?"</p>
+
+<p>Orlick shifted his weight to the other foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo'-all ain't 'lowin' to fix nothin' on Jutt Orlick&mdash;on a Orlick,
+cap'n?" he cried huskily. "Where's my pap an' four brothers&mdash;where's
+Hank an' Bill an' Tom Orlick, an' Tod an' old Elijah Lutts Orlick?</p>
+
+<p>"Shot to pieces heah on Hellsfork, fightin' the revenuers an' th'
+McGills! I kin lead yo' to their bones down yonder!" He pointed his
+trooper's hat trembling in his outstretched hand.</p>
+
+<p>"An' whut air I heah fer t'-night? Yo'-all ain't 'lowin' to fix nothin'
+on the onlyst Orlick left, cap'n?"</p>
+
+<p>Throughout this fervent defense not for one instant did the piercing,
+chill eyes of old Lutts leave the boy's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Orlick," he began slowly, "I hain't studyin' 'bout the past. Hit's the
+time a comin'. I jest axed yo', have yo' been over in Southpaw?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, I hain't!" declared Orlick, flushing slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Have yo' snooked with the revenuers below?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not by er damn sight!"</p>
+
+<p>"Leastways," observed the old man as he drew back, "I 'low yo're in bad
+company, son; but ef yo' ever cross Hellsfork er I know plumb sho' thet
+yo' snook with th' revenuers below, don't never 'low me t' git eyes on
+ye', Orlick."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't force th' old man t' lift a hand agin' yo' pint-blank, git out o'
+th' mountings first. Now, yo' boys go an' fetch th' stranger party up.
+Ef hit's thet infernal ghost-dog revenuer, don't skeer em off&mdash;bring em
+up, quick! Ef hit's a sheriff, don't hurt his feelin's&mdash;bring em up,
+cose I'm lonesome like."</p>
+
+<p>Orlick fully understood the import of Cap Lutts' parting words, and,
+casting a covert look toward the cabin where he knew Belle-Ann lingered
+in the shadows, he swaggered along after Lem, leading his horse. And the
+while a bold design shaped itself in his perfidious heart as he
+pretended loyal friendship to the silent boy trudging beside him.</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of dark suspicion hung over the head of Jutt Orlick.</p>
+
+<p>Things had happened in the mountains the past two years which
+subsequently pointed accusing fingers in his direction. Unless he was
+present no one ever knew just where Orlick was.</p>
+
+<p>Two years since he had disappeared and come back after nine months,
+wearing soldier's garb, which he had affected ever since.</p>
+
+<p>He told lurid tales of his conquests and adventures with the Mexican
+revolutionists. He elaborated on the gilded splendor and the beautiful
+things that the big cities held.</p>
+
+<p>He recounted deeds of heroism abroad in which he was sole hero and he
+poured these fabulous tales into Belle-Ann's ears at every opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of his periodical migrations he always returned with a new
+horse, and sums of money that astounded the humble mountaineers.</p>
+
+<p>For more than two years, Orlick had been determined to possess himself
+of Belle-Ann Benson. But he resolved first to free himself of Lem Lutts.</p>
+
+<p>He had noted of late the subtle little courtesies exchanged between
+Belle-Ann and Lem, and he knew that they had arrived at the realization
+that they were not brother and sister. Was it not reasonable to conclude
+that, in view of the girl's beauty, it was only a matter of time before
+Lem would take Belle-Ann for his own?</p>
+
+<p>The mere thought stirred Orlick's hot blood to a fury, as with a scowl
+he fixed his eyes upon the figure leading the downward trail and he was
+seized with a mad impulse to shoot Lem in the back.</p>
+
+<p>His hand crept downward. The cool contact of steel in his holster woke
+him to his folly and he trailed along, curbing his impatience, resolved
+to follow to the letter the plan he had worked out to get Belle-Ann out
+of the mountains and away, or bring ruin down on the whole Lutts family.</p>
+
+<p>When Lem Lutts returned to the cabin an hour later, with a large, tired
+man and a fagged-out horse, Orlick was not with them.</p>
+
+<p>Old Lutts was pacing to and fro in the moonlight. He was occupied mainly
+with thoughts of his new church and the dedication on Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger below was to him a matter of secondary concern. He had been
+a hunted man all his life. Therefore, there was neither novelty nor
+consternation in the reflection.</p>
+
+<p>The old man stalked up to the horse-block and greeted the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy? Sort o' warmish t'-night. Whut mought be yo'-all's business
+seein' me?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is Mr. Lutts, I take it?" ventured the newcomer.</p>
+
+<p>"Thes air ol' Cap Lutts, o' Moon mountain," corrected the old man in a
+precise tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, certainly," continued the man hastily. "Well, captain, I'm a
+deputy sheriff. I was despatched to see you and deliver a message from
+the sheriff."</p>
+
+<p>Here he revealed his shield, then unbuckled his belt, containing a pair
+of pistols, and hung them over the saddle-tree.</p>
+
+<p>"And, captain," he pursued wearily but genially, "I'm dog tired. I've
+been five hours coming up the last five miles. Can I talk with you a
+bit, captain?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man, who had listened intently, spoke up now, and there was a
+touch of sarcasm in his drawl.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' air a new deputy, I 'low&mdash;hain't yo', sheriff?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are right. I was appointed two weeks ago, and I'll get even with
+somebody for sending me on this Godless trail&mdash;I smell some spite
+somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Wal, set down heah, sheriff, an' perceed," invited Lutts, with a
+generous gesture toward the bench.</p>
+
+<p>"I can state my position and my errand, captain, in very few words,"
+began the new deputy, who had plainly lost a measure of his official
+zeal along the almost impassable trail, and now appeared disgruntled.</p>
+
+<p>"The sheriff, the district attorney, and the collector of this district
+have gotten together and have drafted an ultimatum and I was chosen to
+deliver it to you and get your answer. They propose to quash all the
+various indictments now against you for illicit distilling and for
+shootings alleged through warrants by some of the McGill faction."</p>
+
+<p>"Both the Commonwealth, the civil and Federal authorities stand as a
+unit to clear the dockets of these charges, providing that you come down
+and sign an agreement to cease all further operations pertaining to feud
+wars and the illicit distilling of liquor and turn over all your present
+distilling property to the government. That's it in a nutshell. I just
+want your answer&mdash;yes or no, captain&mdash;and my work is done."</p>
+
+<p>The sheriff looked up into the inscrutable face for answer. The old man
+smiled good-humoredly and tossed his long hair backward.</p>
+
+<p>"I air all-fired sorry, sheriff," he responded calmly, "thet yo'-all hit
+heah so late. I want t' show yo' th' gawspel-house. I built hit all
+myself&mdash;every dang lick an' cut, sheriff; an' I air a givin' hit t'
+Kaintucky, pertic'lar these parts whar hit's needed bad like. Lem, tote
+thes hoss back an' rub em an' fresh em an' fill em an' stir thet Slab
+roun'. Tell em t' step like a catamount an' hash up a hot snack fo' th'
+sheriff. Pull a yaller young pullet offen the south limb o' th' burnt
+cedar over yon. An', Lem-boy, yo'-all tell Belle-Ann t' jog thet Slab up
+a pinch. Sheriff, yo' hain't a goin' 'way from heah, leastways till
+mornin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Ez I wus a sayin', sheriff, we-uns air bin a needin' a gawspel-house
+hyarbouts fo' a hundred yeers&mdash;now hit's arriv'. Thar's some powerful
+pesky folks hyarbouts, sheriff," with a deprecating gesture towards
+Southpaw.</p>
+
+<p>"Th' McGills mought hev j'ined in ef they'd ac'ed right. Maw wus fo'
+peace&mdash;Maw Lutts wus&mdash;Maw alers hankered fo' peace. She air up yon in
+th' groun' now. Thet damn ghost-man, Burton, kilt her!"</p>
+
+<p>Lutts turned his face quickly away and was silent. A huge hand slid
+coaxingly over the gleaming surface of the rifle-barrel between his
+legs.</p>
+
+<p>"Sheriff, hit hain't thes rifle-gun's fault&mdash;hit hain't my eye ner my
+hand, I'll swear. Sheriff, I've hit thet damn ghost-revenuer ez many
+times ez yo' see rocks at yore feet thar. He air holler inside, sheriff.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' know outside shoots hain't a hurtin' nobuddy&mdash;hit's when th'
+bullets gits down in a buddy's in'ards an' gits tangled up with his
+insides thet counts. Thet revenuer hain't got no insides. He air holler,
+sheriff."</p>
+
+<p>The old man paused in silence, his auditor pondering the manner of man
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ez I wus a sayin', sheriff, th' McGills mought 'a' j'ined my
+gawspel-house ef they had ac'ed half right. One Sabbath mornin', 'fore I
+built th' gawspel-house, I follered Maw Lutts down t' th' brink of
+Hellsfork, Maw a totin' a truce-flag.</p>
+
+<p>"I hollers across t' ol' Sap McGill; an' I says, 'Sap McGill,' I
+says&mdash;'seein' thet we-all air even up now on th' killin', ef yo'-all
+lays down I lays down.' An' Maw Lutts up an' hollers across, too, an'
+says: 'Sap McGill, ef yo'-all lays down yo' kin jine th' gawspel-house
+pap 'lows t' built on Hellsfork, an' we-uns 'll all have our sins wyshed
+away an' stop a fightin'.'</p>
+
+<p>"Sheriff, ol' Sap, he hollers back, quick like, an' onery ez a varmint,
+an' says: 'To hell with yore gawspel-house on Hellsfork! Hyars yo'
+answer.' An' he shot me twice 'fore I could believe he wus so low-down
+onery an' pesky as to do hit, an' Maw a holdin' up th' truce-flag! So I
+had t' kill em."</p>
+
+<p>The old man's eyes swept the moonlit distance that embraced the church
+as he went on.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'low we-uns 'll show yo' th' gawspel-house early in th' mornin',
+sheriff. Ef yo' don't 'low t' go I'll pick yo' up in my arms an' tote
+yo' down thar. Yo' got t' see hit. Thar hain't no purttier gawspel-house
+down Blue-grass."</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann stood before them.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'low yo'-all kin be comin' along now, pap, 'fore th' snack gits
+cold," she said shyly in her low, sweet drawl.</p>
+
+<p>As the men rose the sheriff caught himself ogling. Following the
+gliding, moccasined feet, he noted the grace and loveliness of her
+lithe, round form. He assured himself that he had never beheld such
+artless, unusual, natural beauty in a girl.</p>
+
+<p>And he pondered soberly upon a lineage of blue blood manifest in her
+face, her form, her voice, and manner.</p>
+
+<p>A restless murmur rippled through the cool cedars where the birds had
+gone to sleep. Cautiously a small shape with wizened face slid from out
+the mystic shadows, lugging a rifle twice his length. Even for his
+eleven years, Buddy Lutts was undersized.</p>
+
+<p>His body was thin and small. His reasoning was little. But his heart was
+big with hate for that devil-thing, the law. He vanished as noiselessly
+and furtively as he had come. Little Bud had overheard every word the
+sheriff had uttered.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ULTIMATUM</h3>
+
+
+<p>A veil of azure morning mist lingered at the apex of Henhawk's knob. A
+young eagle&mdash;aggressively bold in his youth&mdash;sallied forth into the
+mystic dawn, setting himself high on Eagle Crown rock, and surveyed the
+dim world with a challenge in his blinkless agate eye. The air was
+fragrant with the perfume of a thousand blossoms.</p>
+
+<p>Splashes of crimson and gold dappled the east, and a great sun shot its
+lances of molten glory beyond the mountain-tops.</p>
+
+<p>Before the sun showed half its russet disk the deputy sheriff sat his
+horse at the witch-elm block in front of the Lutts cabin, preparatory to
+departure.</p>
+
+<p>The Lutts household, including Slab, was on hand with hospitable
+farewells&mdash;though little Bud hung back suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>At no time during the sheriff's stop had Cap Lutts uttered a word of
+reference to the business that had brought the officer to his door. Nor
+had the sheriff broached the subject again. With keen understanding and
+quick insight he waited patiently for the answer to his mission.</p>
+
+<p>But now, as he sat his horse on the verge of departure, he looked at old
+Lutts expectantly and with direct inquiry in his eyes. Lutts caught the
+import, and answered with small concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! Yo' jest tell th' sheriff an' them revenuers down below thet
+ef they want th' ole man bad 'nough, t' cum up an' root em out."</p>
+
+<p>The deputy knew this was final, and as the old moonshiner's great hand
+closed over his in parting the officer secretly hoped that the arm of
+the law would fall short of the Lutts domicile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, captain, I'm afraid they'll start something below&mdash;especially
+that man over from Frankfort&mdash;that Burton. He's awful determined, and he
+blames us some. Good-by!"</p>
+
+<p>A short distance away the officer pulled up short and, turning in his
+saddle, beckoned to the old man.</p>
+
+<p>The deputy leaned over and spoke in undertones, as though the rocks and
+trees had ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain," he asked significantly, "is that fellow, Jutt Orlick, a
+friend of yours? Remember, I haven't said a word, captain; not a word!"</p>
+
+<p>For a full minute the old man stood looking after the rider. Then a new
+light was added to his fixed suspicion of Jutt Orlick.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>High noon of the following day found Orlick riding slowly, with loose
+rein, up the twisted trail toward the Lutts cabin. His horse was
+lathered and blown.</p>
+
+<p>He had covered the rugged distance from the junction since dawn, where
+he had held all-night counsel with Peter Burton, the revenuer.</p>
+
+<p>With astuteness and cunning Orlick had instigated a conspiracy that
+would have done credit to a city-bred malefactor, and for which Burton
+praised him extravagantly and, incidentally, liquorously.</p>
+
+<p>Burton had offered to secure Orlick an appointment as deputy marshal in
+the eighth district at Danville as recompense for his espionage and
+treason against his people. But even Orlick's audacious spirit cast the
+thought of this honor out of his mind decisively, and not without a
+shudder.</p>
+
+<p>Providing the raid succeeded, upon the plea that Orlick feared the
+Luttses, Burton had pledged himself to keep Lem and old Captain Lutts in
+jail to the last technical hour. He further promised to frustrate any
+attempt at communication with the Lutts faction and intercept any
+messages that they might attempt to launch from the prison.</p>
+
+<p>Burton confided to Orlick that his chief aim now was to capture and take
+the Luttses to Frankfort, out of the jurisdiction of the county, and
+isolate them from the subtle influences that had always favored them in
+the surrounding counties.</p>
+
+<p>The revenuer admitted that he entertained grave doubts as to taking old
+Captain Lutts alive; but he hoped to capture Lem Lutts, at any rate, and
+break the boy's stoic spirit and coerce him into disclosing the
+whereabouts of the old still that had flooded Hellsfork with moonshine
+for two decades.</p>
+
+<p>But Burton did not know Lem as Orlick knew him, and to Orlick the
+prospect of a long term of confinement for Lem Lutts was very pleasing.
+Notwithstanding, Orlick knew that Lem would get out of jail
+subsequently, and that he&mdash;Orlick&mdash;might by then be a marked man.</p>
+
+<p>Orlick was fully aware that when the suspicions already against him on
+Hellsfork had shaped themselves into convincing proofs of treason, his
+life would be worth nothing in Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>The Lutts faction would follow him even into the blue-grass precincts.
+They would dog him to the very threshold of the sheriff's office. His
+undoing would be swift and certain&mdash;and pitiless.</p>
+
+<p>But all this was now a remote contingency in the face of his unbridled
+passion for Belle-Ann, and it was with a sense of bravado that he
+realized it was a mere matter of time before the calamity of exposure
+would overtake him.</p>
+
+<p>But against the advent of this unerring nemesis, he banked on at least a
+few weeks, and probably a few months, during which, he told himself, he
+might win out and have Belle-Ann ensconced safely in some big city, far
+removed from the arm of the law and the limits of Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>After that he did not care.</p>
+
+<p>He had cast the die, and had staked his life upon the outcome. If by any
+ill luck the outcome demanded his life, he stood ready to pay the toll.
+That Lem Lutts should never get Belle-Ann he had fully determined.</p>
+
+<p>He regretted that Peter Burton had not killed Lem long ago, as he had
+always hoped.</p>
+
+<p>He would have risked the chance and steered Burton up to the Lutts
+still, but he could not do so for the ample reason that he did not know
+where it was. He had known, so long as he had remained a mountaineer in
+good standing; but old Captain Lutts had moved the still in the early
+stages of Orlick's mysterious sojourns, and the faction had not since
+volunteered to tell him its whereabouts, and he was loath to jeopardize
+his own skin in looking for it.</p>
+
+<p>However, while Orlick was serving Burton, he had served himself doubly.
+The smooth, unruffled manner in which his plans were unfolding up to
+date filled him with high glee, and his spirits soared to the skies.</p>
+
+<p>Wild and desolate as this wilderness country is, it is nevertheless
+almost impossible for an outsider to invade its precincts without his
+presence being mysteriously communicated to the denizens of the hills.
+Whenever an invasion is accomplished secretly it is invariably
+engineered by some traitor who knows every nook and cranny in the
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>But Orlick had determined to double-cross Burton and circumvent his
+plan, if Belle-Ann manifested any substantial symptom of requiting his
+suit for her hand or yielded to his persuasions.</p>
+
+<p>To-day as Orlick halted in the shade of a poplar to rest his spent
+horse, he rolled a cigarette contemplatively with a half smile on his
+lips. If Belle-Ann favored him, he told himself that he would remove
+every seeming obstacle that promised to come between them. This was a
+compact ratified with himself when he rolled the cigarette and smiled;
+and if he could not win her, he would at least deprive her of Lem Lutts,
+through the medium of a quick, desperate coup, the details of which he
+had already confided to Burton.</p>
+
+<p>As Orlick lit his cigarette, cast the match away, and hooked his right
+leg over the saddle-horn, he gave himself up to the favorite meditation
+upon which his fancy had fed for months. With a vain-glorious grunt he
+regarded his new trooper's outfit.</p>
+
+<p>He was exuberantly conscious of the great roll of bank-notes bulging in
+his pocket. And, too, it was all easy money. He confessed this as he
+muttered above his breath:</p>
+
+<p>"Dead easy&mdash;easier 'n easy!"</p>
+
+<p>In truth, he had never imagined that one man could get hold of so much
+money so easily as he had done since his lucky affiliations with a
+certain one-eyed gentleman known as Red Herron, who engineered a
+nocturnal business in Louisville.</p>
+
+<p>Money was a necessary adjunct, especially to a lover, and lent an
+atmosphere of reality to this lover's stock of artifices.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, Orlick nurtured a robust desire to see Belle-Ann's physical
+beauty adorned and enhanced with smart attire in emulation of the
+handsome girls that met his admiring eyes in the streets of Louisville.
+Orlick's fancy, furthermore, had the hardihood to picture his wedding
+tour, with Belle-Ann as his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Their trip on a luxurious Pullman train to Omaha! Ah, how the people
+would stare at this lovely, stylish girl&mdash;his wife! And he had the money
+in his pocket at this moment, and knew where to get more.</p>
+
+<p>So excited was he by this scintillating dream of requited love that, as
+if to hasten to its glorious reality, he threw his foot suddenly into
+the stirrup, rolled the spur against the horse's ribs, and proceeded
+toward the Lutts abode, flushed with a mighty confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Nearing the cabin, Orlick's brow grew black as he thought that Lem
+Lutts's possible presence at home might thwart his conquest.</p>
+
+<p>A young hound, with a fore-leg bandaged in splints, lay in the shade
+near the horse-block. The dog, emitting barks of alarm, sidled up on
+three legs and sniffed suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>The Lutts' dogs knew Orlick well enough, but they had always met him
+with growls of distrust, and had never become reconciled to his
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>Orlick cast his eyes about, but he saw no signs of the family. He
+stripped the horse; and, picking up a cob, made shift to clean the
+animal's hind quarters, where the lather had congealed into hard, salty
+cakes, while his eyes were searching the premises for the object of his
+visit.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the horse to follow his own will, Orlick sat down on the bench
+and waited.</p>
+
+<p>He remained there for a full half-hour, in compliance with ethics of the
+mountains, which prescribes that a caller shall wait at a distance,
+especially where there are womenfolk, until invited to advance.</p>
+
+<p>When the dogs bark and the inmates fail to appear there is all the more
+reason why he should wait.</p>
+
+<p>With the peculiar instinct a horse has for locating water, Orlick's
+animal had taken himself off at a brisk trot toward the log stable.</p>
+
+<p>Missing his horse, Orlick looked about and caught a fleeting glimpse of
+him through the vista of trees, and, knowing that if he got to the water
+in his heated condition he would founder, Orlick dashed away in pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it happened that he came unexpectedly upon Belle-Ann, who stood at
+the horse-trough, urging Orlick's animal away from the water. Orlick
+stopped short, regarded her confusedly; then, removing his trooper's
+hat, executed a bow and smirked copiously.</p>
+
+<p>His heart thumped wildly in that instant. Each time he saw Belle-Ann he
+vowed mentally that she was more beautiful than before. The sight of her
+invariably threw him into a state of nervous flurry, and drove from his
+mind the pretty things he had previously decided to say to her.</p>
+
+<p>Small wonder then that he stood abashed before her. Never in all his
+travels had he seen her equal.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' wusn't jest a lookin' fo' me&mdash;eh&mdash;Belle-Ann?" he managed to say
+awkwardly. She scanned him deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I jest wusn't," she agreed. "Th' boys hain't home, Orlick," she
+added pointedly, seating herself upon an inverted wagon-bed near by.</p>
+
+<p>Orlick sauntered over and sat down, too, now regaining his poise.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know I wus comin', either&mdash;till a short spell 'fore I
+started," he said tentatively.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann eyed the horse, now standing under a poplar, too tired to
+crop.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' must hev started frum th' ocean, didn't yo'?" she asked, with a
+gesture toward the animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw&mdash;he's soft, Belle-Ann. I 'lowed I'd rest em up a bit&mdash;till th' boys
+cum," he ended lamely.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't yo'-all buy a mountain hoss? Thes hoss wasn't cut out fo'
+thes country," observed Belle-Ann.</p>
+
+<p>"Mabby hit's 'cause I hain't aimin' t' stay in thes country, Belle-Ann."</p>
+
+<p>She shot a quick look at him. He met her eyes and noted a glint of
+suspicion in them, so he hurried to forestall any utterance in reference
+to his mysterious sojourns the past two years.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' see, I'm layin' off t' git married, Belle-Ann," he explained,
+watching her oval features narrowly; "an' when I do, I 'low t' settle
+down below, whar th' folks stan's t' give a honest man a chanst."</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann turned wondering eyes upon him.</p>
+
+<p>She had never before heard anything coming from Orlick but arrogant
+self-praise; hence she marveled at his meek voice and doleful aspect.</p>
+
+<p>"Whut makes yo' look so sorry&mdash;air yo're gal so powerful ugly?" Try as
+she would, she could not restrain a sudden burst of mirth, and she
+laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if Belle-Ann's accents were soothing and captivating in speech,
+verily, her laugh rivaled the rippling sweetness of the lute. It trailed
+across Orlick's mood like a tonic and fired his face with a hot flush of
+anticipation.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugly!" he ejaculated&mdash;"ugly&mdash;no, Belle-Ann. She air th' all-fired'st
+purttiest gal in all Kentucky&mdash;an' she hain't fer away, either, I 'low!"</p>
+
+<p>Saying this, he came perilously near to overrunning the ethics of the
+mountains and seizing her in his arms and smothering her with his
+kisses.</p>
+
+<p>With an effort he restrained himself.</p>
+
+<p>His vehement words had startled her. She scrutinized his countenance
+keenly. What she saw brought the hot blood to her cheeks and left no
+doubt in her mind as to the significance of his eulogy and his
+impassioned eyes.</p>
+
+<p>His look was an insult. She rose and tossed the elf-curls back from her
+dimpled face. Orlick sat a moment speechless, his mouth open, and
+studied the graceful length of her back.</p>
+
+<p>Now she faced him again and spoke, and her words carried a volume of
+reproach.</p>
+
+<p>"Orlick," she began, "why do yo'-all cum t' see th' boys fo'&mdash;when
+you're a drinkin'?"</p>
+
+<p>By way of denial he suddenly gave vent to a raucous guffaw and whipped
+his knee with his hat, which artifice he calculated would enhance his
+prestige off-hand. On the contrary, his strident laugh grated strangely
+upon the girl's mood.</p>
+
+<p>"Drinkin'&mdash;drinkin'!" he cried out, amazed. "Why, Belle-Ann, I hain't
+teched a drap o' liquor fo' six months! An' what's a heap sight mo',
+Belle-Ann, I hain't never a goin' t'!"</p>
+
+<p>Here he stood up and raised his hand high over his head. "An' I hope
+Gawd'll paralyze me daid ef I ever touch th' stuff agin!" he declared
+with a profound, solemn flourish, calculated to emphasize a pledge.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden look of pity grew in the girl's eyes as she studied his face, a
+look which Orlick mistook for interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' hain't a gittin' down on me like th' tuther fools, air yo',
+Belle-Ann?"</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann smiled ambiguously, lifted her pretty arched brows, and
+centered her azure eyes upon a red-head which at that instant was
+hammering a hole into a dead sycamore hard by. Orlick sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' orten t' git down on a feller lessen he's done somethin' pesky," he
+resumed tentatively. "What hev I done more'n cum an' go peaceable&mdash;an'
+make more money than any of 'em? Yo' see, Belle-Ann, our people hain't
+got no use fer a feller whut's got spunk enough t' git out o' th'
+mountains an' make money. Hit's hard draggin' when a feller's tryin' t'
+do right an' everybuddy ag'in em."</p>
+
+<p>His words stopped. Belle-Ann gazed his way. Orlick looked like a martyr,
+the very picture of persecuted righteousness. The left corner of his
+mouth, usually tilted, descended in emulation of its mate.</p>
+
+<p>His woebegone eyes followed the sky-line, and he appeared to be on the
+verge of an oral prayer.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann's tender, unsophisticated heart was momentarily swayed with
+compassion. She glanced covertly at his averted, forlorn face, and her
+frigidity thawed a trifle as she was cognizant of an element of truth in
+Orlick's claims.</p>
+
+<p>She knew that a mountaineer was respected and eligible only while he
+stayed closely in the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Orlick sat rigid, immobile, with eyes afar and apparently utterly
+oblivious of Belle-Ann's presence at that moment. She walked back to the
+wagon-bed.</p>
+
+<p>Her low, dulcet voice roused him out of his lethargy.</p>
+
+<p>"Orlick," she said, "why don't yo'-all stop traipsin' round an' snookin'
+below&mdash;an' cum Sabbath an' jine pap's church? Don't yo'-all want t' be a
+Christian?"</p>
+
+<p>If all the sins of Orlick's past had taken life and come up out of the
+ground at his feet to confront him he would have been less shocked. He
+flushed guiltily.</p>
+
+<p>He started perceptibly and squirmed in speechless discomfort.
+Belle-Ann's wide, clear eyes were upon him, and as he hesitated her lips
+parted to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he gurgled.</p>
+
+<p>"I say&mdash;don't yo'-all&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>As though not daring to hear that seductive voice repeat its query, he
+spoke up hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sho', Belle-Ann!" he blurted in confusion. "O' course, I'd like t'
+be a Christian&mdash;an' I'll sho' be at th' ded'cation Sabbath. Belle-Ann,
+air yo' down on me 'cose I go below t' make money what I can't make th'
+likes of hyarbouts?"</p>
+
+<p>Orlick suddenly produced the roll of bank-notes, and, shuffling them up,
+rained them down in one greenish, crisp pile of opulence upon the
+wagon-bed.</p>
+
+<p>This unexpected spectacle staggered the girl's senses for the moment.
+She had never seen so much money in all her life before. Her eyes grew
+round with astonishment.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>ORLICK'S MONEY SPURNED</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Oh, Orlick!" she breathed in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>Unconsciously she sat down on the wagon-bed, with the pile of money
+beside her; and thus, wholly enthralled, she muttered faint
+exclamations. Orlick's eyes glittered in their devouring scrutiny, fixed
+upon Belle-Ann's beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Orlick," she reiterated, "is thes all yore money? Where did yo' git
+all thes money, Orlick?"</p>
+
+<p>For an instant he fumbled blindly for words; then found them at the end
+of his short, ingratiating laugh. He lied with a gusto that reddened his
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Git hit!" he echoed blatantly. "Why, Belle-Ann, I worked fo' hit! I'm
+trainin' hosses below, I git a hundred a month, Belle-Ann; an' I don't
+drink, an' I 'low t' save my money, I do, 'cose yo' know I 'low t' git
+married, Belle-Ann; an' hit takes a powerful sight o' money t' keep a
+wife like I'm aimin' t' do.</p>
+
+<p>"I hain't aimin' t' keep my wife in these mountains. She'll dry up an'
+blow away 'fore a buddy kin git to her to bury her. I air a goin' t' buy
+a nice house in Louisville an' fill hit up with fancy fixin's, an', talk
+about fine, fancy clothes&mdash;well, mebby my wife won't hev some fine
+things, 'cose I got th' money t' git 'em with, Belle-Ann!"</p>
+
+<p>"Orlick," she said, "how much do yo' 'low is heah?"</p>
+
+<p>So engrossed was she in lifting the bills one by one out of the tangled
+heap, examining both sides minutely, and laying them in one smooth
+stack, that she had heard little of Orlick's discourse, being vaguely
+conscious only that he was talking.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Belle-Ann," said he, "hit's fo' hundred dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>He chuckled immoderately and pressed his cowlick down, which defiant
+tuft popped instantly back to its position of attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he went on, noting every look that crossed her lovely face as she
+proceeded, deeply absorbed in handling this dazzling pile of wealth.
+"Yes&mdash;an' a hundred a month comin' long all th' time. Thet hain't
+powerful bad fo' a boy like me&mdash;air hit, Belle-Ann?"</p>
+
+<p>Orlick rubbed his hands in the throes of self-exaltation and added a
+laugh that grated upon the girl's senses, inspiring her with a sudden
+impulse to end this conversation without delay.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon I'll be a goin'. Slab'll cum soon from th' mill, an' I got
+some bakin' t' do."</p>
+
+<p>She made as if to rise. With a swift stride Orlick stood close to her,
+defeating this move. The money lay in one even, smooth pyramid on the
+wagon-bed.</p>
+
+<p>With one hand he snatched up the bills and laid them in Belle-Ann's lap.</p>
+
+<p>She tossed her curls, lifted her face, and fixed an inquiring look upon
+him. Above her his face had changed to something evil. His features were
+shot with a dull red from chin to brow. His lips were a-quiver with the
+words that clamored in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann, thet money 'is all yo'ren," he blurted out, "an' all I
+make's yo'ren, Belle-Ann; an' I want yo' t' run away with me an' marry
+me, eh? I want yo' t' go now!"</p>
+
+<p>This effrontery brought her to her feet, and the money spilled out on
+the ground. He stepped quickly in front of her and held up a restraining
+hand, blocking her intent to move away.</p>
+
+<p>"I bin a lovin' yo', Belle-Ann, I hev. I bin a lovin' yo'-all fo' mo'
+than two year gone. I'm a goin' t' keep on a lovin' yo', I air, an' I
+hain't 'lowin' t' let any man take yo' away from me. I make mo' money in
+a month than Lem makes in six, Belle-Ann. Yo'-all hain't got no business
+in these mountains noways.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' belong down below where th' worl' kin see yo'&mdash;down in Louisville,
+er Lexington, among th' fine folks where yo' maw wus born, an' all
+dressed up like I'm lovin' t' dress yo', with a diamond ring, an' a
+watch, an' a gold bracelet; an' a trap with a cob-hoss which has a hock
+fling t' em&mdash;an' a fine house full o' fixin's."</p>
+
+<p>"Thet's the place yo'-all belongs by rights, an' thet's th' place I'm a
+goin' t' take yo'. I bin in all th' big towns below, an' in Mexico, an'
+I'll swear t' Gawd I hain't never seen a gal with yore purtiness! They
+hain't no gal a livin' with curls fixed aroun' a face like yo'ren! Gawd
+only made one pair o' blue eyes&mdash;yo' got 'em! Heah, Belle-Ann, I want
+yo' t' marry me, eh? Cap an' th' boys air gone, an' Slab's away. Let's
+hurry off now, eh, Belle-Ann?" he urged in breathless tremor, his eyes
+afire with the quest that trumpeted in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout this impassioned discourse Belle-Ann had covertly maneuvered
+inch by inch toward the cabin. But Orlick had hedged in front, and they
+now stood scarce twenty feet from the wagon-bed.</p>
+
+<p>His words stirred her to a resentment that at first suffused her neck
+and face with a flood of crimson indignation; a humiliation that ebbed
+slowly away before the chill of a fear that now crept into her
+countenance, leaving her sweet, bowed lips a trifle pallid.</p>
+
+<p>"What ails yo', Belle-Ann&mdash;don't yo' 'low t' go?" he blurted out
+fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>She pointed toward the wagon-bed. In his voice she had sensed a note
+that boded ill.</p>
+
+<p>"Pick up yore money, Orlick; yo' mought need hit," she advised with calm
+dignity, while he stooped and gathered up the bills in a flurry of
+haste, stuffing them in a tangled mass into his pocket. When he turned
+about Belle-Ann was walking leisurely, but directly toward the cabin. He
+was at her side in a trice.</p>
+
+<p>He kept pace with her, dinning into her ears an avalanche of torrid
+appeals, urging her to flee with him. To his onslaught of frantic words
+she maintained a stoic silence.</p>
+
+<p>This apparent indifference seemed to enrage him beyond all
+self-restraint. At a point near the open door of the kitchen, he
+suddenly grasped her wrist and pulled her toward him. With a dexterous
+turn she put her back to him, twisting her arm so a cry of pain rose to
+her throat, though she closed her teeth hard upon it.</p>
+
+<p>He held on, and she felt the wheeze of his hot, fierce breath beating
+against her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>She could not alter her position without throwing herself face to face
+with him, so she leaned outward, and then slowly turned her head and
+their eyes met; and in that instant Orlick loosened his grip as though a
+hot bar had been laid across his two hands.</p>
+
+<p>Sin had long been Orlick's adopted brother. Since early boyhood odious
+temptings and wild deeds had been his running-mates. When a soul has
+known naught but abasement and evil the sight of good is appalling. He
+stood away now, puzzled at first and strangely disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>She still stood half smiling. It was a pitying smile. Orlick was
+dismayed and crestfallen, and in that minute he knew that he had
+jeopardized his last hope.</p>
+
+<p>With a tenacious persistence, born to the breed of his kind, he ventured
+a lame apology. With his perfunctory laugh he suddenly stammered the
+fragments of words, confused and inarticulate.</p>
+
+<p>"Sho'," he was muttering. "I wus jest a funnin', Belle-Ann. Yo' thought
+I wus a goin' t' kiss yo'. I warn't. Ha! ha! ha!&mdash;thet's one on yo'-all!
+Yo' thought I wus a meanin' thet. I wus jest a funnin', Belle-Ann," he
+ended in a faltering attempt at vindication.</p>
+
+<p>"I air powerful sorry," she breathed in her soft tones, "I've hearn lots
+th' folks says, Orlick; but I wusn't a believin' thet yo'-all'd hurt a
+gurl thet-away."</p>
+
+<p>Her mild reproach stirred him to a vehement defense. He sprang forward.
+In two strides he was beside her.</p>
+
+<p>With a hand that shook perceptibly he strove gently to touch her hand.
+But she deftly raised her hands and locked them safely behind her head;
+a posture which seemed to fix the crucifixion of his one last, fleeting
+hope.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Gawd, Belle-Ann," he cried, "yo' hain't hurted! I wus only
+foolin'. I wouldn't darst kiss yo', Belle-Ann, lessen yo' let me. I'd
+die daid ten times 'fore I'd hurt yo'-all! Don't be mad, Belle-Ann," he
+pleaded guiltily.</p>
+
+<p>"I air powerful sorry&mdash;sorrier than I kin say&mdash;thet I ever knowed a
+man's name whut'd hurt a gurl. I don't know what pap an' Lem 'll say."</p>
+
+<p>The terrible look that flamed up into Orlick's face stopped her words.
+The mention of Lem's name had a galvanic effect upon him.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to rake across all the rampant, violent passions of his
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>He was transformed instantly from a penitent subject to a dangerous
+animal-thing that knew naught but the power of its own brute strength. A
+scowl of jealous rage distorted his features. He stepped near to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I want yo' t' marry me, Belle-Ann," he panted. "Air yo' a goin' t' run
+away an' marry me? Jest say yes or no."</p>
+
+<p>The desperate, unbridled fury in his eyes sent a chill to her heart.
+Notwithstanding this, she preserved her outward calm and smiled back
+serenely upon his menacing grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;yo' better saddle up. See, yore hoss is at th' trough. I'll wait
+at th' block."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he stood nonplused. His shifting eyes lighted with the back
+tide of hope that had all but ebbed away.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo're a meanun' t' go?" he cried out in a voice husky with new
+exultation.</p>
+
+<p>"I said fo' you'-all t' saddle an' I'll meet yo' at th' block," she
+repeated.</p>
+
+<p>He started away, then jerked about and looked searchingly into her face,
+the light of a sudden suspicion a-glitter in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo're aimin' t' run in an' shet th' door on me, hain't yo'?"</p>
+
+<p>Indignation was now in her eyes as she tossed her mass of curls and
+regarded him with a sense of outraged veracity.</p>
+
+<p>"I said I'd wait fo' you'-all at th' witch-block," she said once more.</p>
+
+<p>He turned quickly and hurried after his horse.</p>
+
+<p>True to her word, Belle-Ann was waiting for Orlick at the horse-block.
+She sat serenely, watching his advance. At the ends of a rawhide thong a
+cow-horn dangled at her side, and there was no longer any fear in her
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>When Orlick caught sight of the cow-horn he stopped as though a gun was
+leveled at him. A flash of fury swept his face. Then she raised the horn
+to her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" he ejaculated; "don't blow, Belle-Ann. They hain't no need&mdash;I'm
+a ridin' now."</p>
+
+<p>His rage had instantly given place to a sudden meekness, and he came on,
+his twitching features the hue of chalk and the gloom of utter defeat in
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann slowly swung the horn to her side. She leaned against the
+horse-block and watched him saddle. Her look was neither triumphant nor
+scathing. Orlick did not glance at her, nor did he speak, being
+strenuously engaged with the horse which, having recovered its spirits,
+fought the bit determinedly. The saddle was double-cinched, and when
+Orlick tightened the flank girth the animal revolved, kicking in a
+circle like a bucker.</p>
+
+<p>When he had leaped into the saddle Orlick wheeled about facing the girl,
+grinning, arrogant, and bombastic. The only sign of his thoughts was a
+peculiar glitter playing in the depths of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll say good-day t' yo'-all, Miss Benson," he said, with mockery in
+his tone and giving vent to a laugh, though it carried a threatening
+note.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'low yo'-all'd be happier, Orlick," ventured Belle-Ann, "ef yo'd
+change a bit an' jine pap's church thes Sabbath a comin', an' settle
+down in th' mountains an' marry some gurl thet's better matched t'
+yo'-all."</p>
+
+<p>His vibrant laugh cut into her words.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann Benson," he cried, glowering down upon her placid face, with
+one arm pointing downward across the sunlit valley, "yo' know where
+<i>they</i> be. My pap an' my fo' brothers air asleep down yander under th'
+willers on Pigeon Creek. They died fo' the Luttses, they ded&mdash;shot t'
+pieces a fightin' fo' yo'-all!</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows hit better 'n yo'? An' this day yo'-all run th' last Orlick
+off en yore place. Whut fer&mdash;'cause I'm a lovin' yo'? Whut fer air
+yo'-all so stuck up? 'Cose yore beaut'f'l, an' 'cose yore mother wus a
+blue-grasser, an' 'cose yore a goin' below t' school?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I reckon yo' an' Lem Lutts 'll be satisfied now&mdash;yo'-all run th'
+last Orlick offen yore place."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a>
+<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"Yo' know where <i>they</i> be."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>With a vicious jerk he turned the horse's head around and spurred the
+animal so cruelly that it reared and plunged away down the steep, rocky
+trail at a gallop that threatened disaster to both horse and rider. And
+above the jumbled clatter of the horse's shod hoofs the echoes of
+Orlick's wild, defeated laugh came back to Belle-Ann's ears.</p>
+
+<p>She lingered a while at the horse-block, and pondered soberly upon the
+advisability of acquainting the old man and Lem with Orlick's visit.
+There could be only one consequence if she did this.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she decided humanely to keep her own counsel, and, slipping to
+the ground, she walked slowly toward the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>She walked slowly to allow the two unfortunate dogs tagging at her heels
+to keep pace with her. One was old Ben, the blind hound, the other a pup
+with a broken fore-leg which Belle-Ann had bolstered up with splints. As
+she approached the kitchen door, she beheld Slab standing in the yard,
+rigid, and looking at her with a beaming countenance. Slab, always an
+optimist, ever presented a hopeful face. But at this moment when she
+noted his presence with the tail of her eye, she glimpsed something so
+extraordinarily illuminating as straightway to pique her curiosity, and
+she stopped short and regarded him inquiringly. A prodigious grin now
+lured the corners of his mouth beyond sight; inspiring the freakish
+suspicion that they met at the back of his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Lan's sake'&mdash;what ails yo'&mdash;Slab?" she interrogated.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of her voice seemed to fuse some combustible deposit of
+exultation cached within him. Instantly he began leaping up and down in
+a most frantic and alarming manner, yelling in loud outbursts, causing
+the girl mentally to question his sanity.</p>
+
+<p>"I tol' ye so&mdash;I tol' ye so&mdash;I tol' ye so&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What ails yo'-all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Halliluja'&mdash;halliluja'&mdash;&mdash;" he answered, keeping time with a grotesque
+dance.</p>
+
+<p>"Slab&mdash;have yo' gone plum offin' yore haid?"</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann watched his antics curiously. Presently he ceased this
+puzzling exposition as abruptly as he had startled her, and advanced,
+smearing the sweat over his seamed face with one gnarled hand, and she
+noticed that he kept the other hand concealed behind his back. His
+unique plaudits having subsided, he stood before her. He screwed his
+head around and looked furtively about, his sable features now drawn
+into a visage of deep and profound solemnity. He spoke in low,
+mysterious accents.</p>
+
+<p>"Lil'le gal," he began softly, "lil'le gal,&mdash;sompin' hev drap&mdash;some
+mammon hev drap&mdash;some mammon, lil'le gal&mdash;drap plunk inter de ole man's
+han's. I got sompin' heah ter show yo'-all,&mdash;sompin' whut makes dis ole
+man nigh bus' wif gratatudness an' praise fo' de good Lo'd,&mdash;no&mdash;no&mdash;now
+yo' jest wait, honey&mdash;Slab'll show yo'&mdash;I mos' bus' when dis mammon drap
+down ter de ole man&mdash;drap down ter Slab, lil'le gal,&mdash;jest like olen
+times when de good Lo'd drap mammon down ter his starvin' chillens&mdash;de
+good Lo'd do sho' love dis ole niggah man, same ez he do good white
+folks. Belle-Ann&mdash;fo' seben nights Slab, he pray jes' ez hard&mdash;he pray
+de good Lo'd fo' wharwithal ter buy some flannel shirts wif. I done pray
+fo' seben nights, lil'le gal&mdash;den las' night, er big ole owl he sot on
+dat sycamore, an' he call me outen ma sleep&mdash;den I snuck down dar by dat
+wagon-bed, an' I wait, an' when Mr. Owl say 'hoo-ho' I say 'hoo-hoo'
+back&mdash;den when owl say 'hoo-ho' seben times, he goed away&mdash;Slab, he know
+zacly what dat mean&mdash;den I look roun' an' fine er lil'le bitty
+obeah-stone, an' lay it on de wagon-bed. Den dis morn'n' 'fore I goed
+ter de mill, I tuk er peek&mdash;but de obeah-stone war jes' zacly whar I lay
+him&mdash;den on ma way back jes' now, I tuk er nudder peek&mdash;obeah wus goed
+away. Den I look all roun' an' ma eyes see sompin' layin' clost up ter
+de wagon-bed&mdash;den ma han' reches down an' picks it up&mdash;an', lil'le gal,
+I mos' bus' wif happiness&mdash;whut yo' think I pluck, lil'le
+gal?&mdash;looky&mdash;looky&mdash;jes' look at dat bull, feedin' on dat green."</p>
+
+<p>A triumphant, gloating grin broke over his face again, as he exhibited
+to the impatient girl a crisp, new five-dollar bill, with a buffalo
+engraved thereon.</p>
+
+<p>As Belle-Ann took a bucket and gourd, and proceeded to water the flowers
+on the shady side of the house, a knowing smile lingered at the
+up-turned corners of her little red mouth. Again she was holding her own
+counsel.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>UPON THE ALTAR</h3>
+
+
+<p>The following morning, being Saturday, Cap Lutts held a conclave in the
+cavern that concealed the illicit still. When the conference was over
+half a dozen men were scattered about the mountain to watch for the
+approach of the law, which now seemed likely.</p>
+
+<p>Not until late in the day did Lutts and the boys reach the clearing and
+the gospel-house. By the time they had placed the last window casement
+and hung the church door nightfall was near at hand.</p>
+
+<p>As the old man sat rigid on a log in the clearing, at an angle where he
+could view the church&mdash;front, side, and bell-crowned roof&mdash;he was filled
+with a profound, soul-satisfying joy.</p>
+
+<p>Beside him sat Lem and little Bud; and the family of three regarded the
+church in silent admiration, for all was now ready for the great
+dedication to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had turned from yellow to a crimson glory as it made for a niche
+in the haze-shrouded peaks. The billows of emerald, capped with frothy
+banks of blossoms that tumbled down from the savage heights above, grew
+somber as the shadows reached out and wrapped their arms about Moon
+mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Silhouetted across the clearing, the little church contributed a quaint
+design.</p>
+
+<p>In the cool laurel thickets a hidden chorus arose. A redbird dipped
+through space from across the creek, and his florid wings shed a flash
+of blood as he forded a shaft of fleeting sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>The long-drawn cry of a she-panther echoed up from the shaggy maw of the
+ravine, answered straightway by the quick, broken squall of her mate,
+betraying an early forage plot. With magic minstrelsy issuing from the
+thickets the wilderness evening drifted in.</p>
+
+<p>With common impulse the two boys awoke from their reverie and looked up
+at their father.</p>
+
+<p>The joy of a moment since had gone from his eyes. As he stared in blank
+pathos at the church a face rose up and blotted out the vision of the
+belfry&mdash;the smiling face of his dead wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef Maw had lived t' see thes, Lem!" deplored the old man in a faint
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ef Maw had lived, pap!" echoed Lem.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef Maw had lived!" repeated the small voice at the end of the log.</p>
+
+<p>"Leastways, Maw's better off 'n we-uns, boys," consoled Cap Lutts,
+"'cause she air up thar whar they hain't no sorry&mdash;ner pain&mdash;ner
+fightin' an' killin'&mdash;an' I 'low as how Maw air a lookin' down on hit
+all now&mdash;on th' gawspel-house an' on we-uns, boys. An' say, boys, mebby
+yo' pore good Maw hain't glad like&mdash;eh? Why, I kin jest see her now&mdash;I
+kin see Maw now jest as plain&mdash;a smilin' an' a smilin'&mdash;an' whar&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;so kin I," interrupted Lem reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"I kin see Maw now," supplemented little Bud.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a look shot into the old man's eyes like the florid tongue of
+flame at the muzzle of a gun. Instantly it was communicated to the two
+brothers. If the volcanic fires reflected in the eyes of the men were
+terrible, the molten, satanic hatred that crossed the countenance of
+little Bud was appalling because of his tender years. Each knew of what
+the other was thinking. Each recalled that hillside fight when Big Pete
+Burton had again struggled to do his duty and a misdirected bullet had
+killed Maw Lutts.</p>
+
+<p>The old man kicked viciously at a root, then pointed to the belfry.</p>
+
+<p>"I kin see Maw jest this minnut," he resumed, "a smilin' an' a smilin'
+an' a walkin' 'mong th' folks an' a shakin' han's like she done down
+Sandy thet air time th' ridin' pahson stuck fo' two weeks. I kin jest
+heer her now a tellin' 'em as how Gawd an' we-uns walcums every pizen
+sinnah in thes end o' Kaintucky&mdash;an' as how th' spurrut o' Gawd 'll he'p
+we-uns an' stop all th' fightin' an' killin' an' cheatin' an' lyin' an'
+cussin' an' chawin' 'mong th' weemanfolk.</p>
+
+<p>"Jes' wait till Sabbath day&mdash;an' thet's to-morry; jest wait till th'
+ridin' pahson cum t' ded'cate th' gawspel-house&mdash;I bets yo'll see a
+rousin', whoppin', boostin', prayin' 'vival&mdash;yo' sho' will, boys,"
+promised the old man in the heat of growing anticipation as he wafted
+the rebellious hair backward with a jerk of his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw&mdash;my soul!" ejaculated little Bud.</p>
+
+<p>"An' I kin tell yo' a heap sight more, boys; I kin," promised the old
+man, rubbing his huge hands together gloatingly. "One day nigh yo'll see
+th' steers a pullin' a real slappin' new organ machine into th'
+clearin'&mdash;yo'll see th' steers cum jest in 'twix' yon two spruces an'
+pull jest roun' thar, an' stop jest a frontin' th' do'r!"</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the long, ominous blast of a cow-horn echoed across the
+ravine with startling import, and the utterance failed and died in the
+old man's throat.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately the faint note of a bell reached their ears, followed by a
+second horn-call, strong and clear, farther up the gulch. The three rose
+to their feet simultaneously, and the old man felt instinctively about
+him for something that was not there. For the first time in his career
+his groping hands encountered neither stock nor steel. The rifle was
+absent!</p>
+
+<p>A pallor overspread his face. With head reared like a bull elk he
+listened to the portentous sounds of mountain warfare that floated into
+his brain.</p>
+
+<p>The pallor was not from fear. It was the mantle of chagrin&mdash;he had
+forgotten for the moment where he had rested the rifle. He stood
+befuddled, but alert.</p>
+
+<p>His gun gone, he felt that a part of his big body had suddenly been
+dismembered. The thought that he had been such a fool seemed to lock his
+two feet to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Again the blare of the horn followed the notes of the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Sompin's sho' bust loose, boys!" growled the old man as the three
+listened through several tense seconds. In his extremity he wondered if
+he could coax the lost information out of the lad behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Han' hit heah, Lem! han' me hit!" Without turning his head he thrust
+both hands behind him, his working fingers begging for the gun.</p>
+
+<p>The boy, as innocent of the whereabouts of the weapon as his father,
+only muttered and pointed toward the rim of the clearing. The next
+second came the crackling noise of dead brush, then the sound of a rush
+to the left.</p>
+
+<p>The old man clenched his teeth as a horse mouths the bit, and his
+birdlike eyes snapped when he saw the disheveled figure of a girl burst
+through the wall of laurel that bordered the clearing. She halted for an
+instant, then dashed toward them.</p>
+
+<p>"Hit's Belle-Ann!" cried the awe-stricken Bud.</p>
+
+<p>The girl fairly leaped over the space that intervened. Her black curls
+streamed in the wind. She was wild-eyed and panting. Her bare legs were
+bleeding from brush scratches, and the tatters of her torn skirt were
+weighted with burs.</p>
+
+<p>"He's cum! He's got through, he air! He's a cumin' now! Go! Go! Run,
+Lem! Run away!" she cried in a choking riot of fear, throwing her body
+against Lem and fairly pushing him before her.</p>
+
+<p>"Whar's yo' gun, pap? Whar's yo' gun? Run, Lem! Fo' Gawd's sake, run
+away! He's follerin' right ahin' o' me&mdash;thah! thah! thah!" she screamed
+in her terror, pointing, heaving, gazing with charmed stare at the spot
+where she had emerged from the thicket.</p>
+
+<p>Despairing, horrified at the stunned inactivity of the Lutts men, the
+frantic girl grabbed little Bud by one arm and half dragged, half
+carried him across the clearing. Together they disappeared into the
+undergrowth.</p>
+
+<p>Then, rousing suddenly, stung to action, the old man remembered his gun
+and started for the church, while Lem fell prostrate and lay close
+behind the log on which they had been seated.</p>
+
+<p>Old Lutts had no more than gained the threshold of the sanctuary when a
+giant figure, with heaving chest, sprang into the open behind the church
+and just to the right. It was Peter Burton, and the surprise was full
+and complete, for his rifle was leveled at the old man's blue
+shirt-front as he called:</p>
+
+<p>"None of your damned nonsense now, Lutts! I've got you at last, and I
+want you alive! Stand where you are!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice rang triumphantly as he hurried nearer, and he leered and
+cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I'll take you down Blue Grass this time, eh? Well, I guess yes!"</p>
+
+<p>Cap Lutts hesitated for just the fraction of a second.</p>
+
+<p>In that fleeting time a horde of impossibilities raced through his
+brain. The downfall that had haunted him for years was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Fear of death was beyond his comprehension, but the sting of defeat was
+agonizing.</p>
+
+<p>Then, glaring defiance and hatred, he whirled about and fled into the
+church, and there he leaped toward the altar. With a feline bound the
+big revenue detective was through the door and into the church after
+him.</p>
+
+<p>And now the old man had gained the pulpit itself, and was reaching for
+the rifle he had left leaning against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Through the little church an ear-splitting crash rang out that fairly
+rocked the walls!</p>
+
+<p>In the pulpit the war-scarred moonshiner drew gently, deliberately
+backward, leaving the rifle untouched. Straightening up with strange
+majesty, he turned half around, and the malevolence melted away and left
+his face empty of all hatred.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes grew very soft, gazing upward at something beyond this world;
+his lips moved in soundless speech.</p>
+
+<p>Then, abruptly, his legs crumpled beneath him. He sagged and swayed for
+an instant; there was a ghastly, ragged, spongy gap between his
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with a crash, the mighty form sank to the altar, and lay there
+motionless upon its back, legs close together, the arms stretched
+straight outward from the body.</p>
+
+<p>Burton mopped his wet features and eyed his awful work without emotion.</p>
+
+<p>A little the hard-breathing man-hunter pondered. Then, having taken a
+fresh quid of tobacco, he levied upon his strength and lifted the body
+from the pulpit, and placed it upon a bench. He wiped the blood from his
+clothes and shoes and, rolling his handkerchief into a ball, tossed it
+away.</p>
+
+<p>He stared at the pulpit for a time.</p>
+
+<p>The red blood had crawled upward and touched the old man's hoary crown.
+It had traveled downward toward his heavy boots. It had followed the
+coat-sleeves of his two sprawling arms.</p>
+
+<p>And now that the body had been taken away, the vermilion imprint of a
+ragged, dripping cross was clearly etched upon the smooth pine of the
+unpainted altar.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>When the crash of the gun had died away, Lem raised his head and peered
+over the log toward the church, expecting to see his father emerge. He
+waited several seconds. He wondered why the old man did not call. He
+yearned for his own gun now, inside the church.</p>
+
+<p>Then he lay down behind the log again with a sober fear creeping upon
+him. Then he remembered whose son he was, and almost snickered aloud at
+his fears. The boy could not conceive any odds that his father, Cap
+Lutts, could not vanquish. His thoughts flew backward to the valorous
+achievements of his parent.</p>
+
+<p>Now he crawled to the end of the log and peered again toward the church
+door. He told himself that the old man would come out of that door where
+he had gone in. He knew that the old man would come out of the church
+dragging the revenuer after him&mdash;hauling the thing as he had seen him
+haul a half-dead, struggling bear.</p>
+
+<p>Lem lay on his stomach and waited.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he spied a yellowish-white vapor trailing out of the church
+door into the lifeless air. Instinct told him that it was not his
+father's gun that had spoken. He started to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>A terrible, sickening apprehension filtered into his numbed senses.
+Then, weaponless and forgetful of the prowess of the uncanny man-tiger
+within, the boy grabbed a huge wooden mallet near by and rushed inside.</p>
+
+<p>As he ran toward the altar his fire-shot eyes swept the church for the
+old man. He saw only the towering hulk of the hated Burton standing
+erect, with hands in his trousers-pockets, calmly eyeing his approach.</p>
+
+<p>When Lem reached the altar he halted short, dumb, fear-stricken,
+trembling. He stared at the bloody cross. He whirled around.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes fell upon the still form on the bench, and he knew. With an
+inarticulate scream he fell one step backward and aimed a terrific,
+deadly blow at the unblinking, fishy eyes of the animal-headed thing
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>Some minutes later Lem Lutts crouched upon a bench, hunched up, naked to
+the waist, broken, bleeding, panting, heaving, piteously weeping, his
+chin down till it touched his bare, lacerated breast.</p>
+
+<p>Without, amidst the darkling shades of night, the she-panther crept from
+the gloomy haunting depths of the ravine, up to the very rim of the
+clearing. Up-reared, with her bowed fore-legs upon a scrub cedar stump,
+the big cat's spotted lips parted and she cried out a tremulous
+portentous wail across the dusk. Then came the sound of the pattering of
+padded jungle feet as she skulked back to her lair down in the bristling
+bowels of the shadow-peopled gulch.</p>
+
+<p>The man of iron who stood scowling over the conquered, broken youth,
+felt a compelling loneliness picking upon his steely nerves.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Lutts! Let's hike out of here," ordered the detective as he
+pulled the stupefied boy to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>He half dragged Lem to the door of the church, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'll take you down to Frankfort. Mebby when you're there a
+while you'll tell where that damn whisky shop is you've been running up
+here the last hundred years."</p>
+
+<p>Near to the door in the dim light, a few scant feet to one side, the boy
+caught sight of a long, vertical streak of yellow rope crossing the dark
+background of the gloom. Then it was that, with a lightning-like
+quickness, Lem lunged sidewise and fastened his fingers like dog's teeth
+upon the length of hemp suspended from the belfry. With a growl of rage
+Burton sprung upon him.</p>
+
+<p>He rained blow after blow down upon the boy's head and body, torrents of
+resounding smashes, awful, crushing, killing blows.</p>
+
+<p>The terrific struggle, with the bell-rope for a prize, set the new bell
+ringing, and the reverberations carried for miles up and down Hellsfork.
+Its frantic utterances resounded across the hills like the screams of a
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>In despair the revenuer ceased his beating, and his fingers, reeking
+with the boy's blood, found Lem's neck.</p>
+
+<p>His terrible hands garroted Lem's throat flat and stopped his breath.
+With all his mighty strength, the revenuer choked him until the lad's
+face blackened and his tongue and eyes started.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with a great heave upward, he shook his victim as a terrier shakes
+an old boot, and cast him away and stood panting in the dark and cursing
+breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>The damage was done. The revenuer knew that he could count himself lucky
+to get away alive now, far less drag a prisoner; even at that moment
+desperate men were hurrying to answer the call of that church-bell.</p>
+
+<p>Burton fled into the night toward the spot where he knew that Jutt
+Orlick awaited him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>DEDICATED WITH HIS BLOOD</h3>
+
+
+<p>Out into that troublous, tempestuous night a hundred alarmed militant
+mountaineers rushed down through the jungle shadows, over a score of
+savage, rugged trails. Onward they hastened, down toward the startling
+night-cry of the bell which they knew emanated from the new church on
+Hellsfork. That choking, desperate bell-scream had raked across their
+senses like the cracking of a hundred rifles. To them its importunities
+had resolved into the sanguine roar of a fusillade. It had aroused in
+them an audacious, desperate quickness to kill. They rushed hither,
+prepared to sprinkle the white-clover with their blood, and die there in
+the churchyard, or vanquish whatever the menace might be.</p>
+
+<p>They pictured an assault on the church by the McGills or the revenuers,
+and in their fancy saw old Cap Lutts, his great figure in the forefront,
+spouting soft-nosed bullets from his hot rifle! The ringing of the bell
+inspired those on-coming loyal mountain hearts with a red-eyed animal
+fierceness, and lent a lightness to their heavy feet that brought them
+to the church within the hour.</p>
+
+<p>Men and boys, and indeed a few women, with weapons of all sorts,
+descended on the church, wild and panting with the lust of conflict.</p>
+
+<p>When Lem Lutts opened his dazed eyes the place was half filled with
+frenzied people. Belle-Ann knelt beside him, bathing his wounds and
+uttering in her soothing, low drawl, little phrases of encouragement and
+condolence.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy's hard little visage protruded out of the lantern light like a
+ghostly mask done in white marble.</p>
+
+<p>Lem finally got to his feet and staggered toward the altar. A dozen
+lanterns were scattered about the church. The shaggy band stood around
+gazing at their dead leader. Crazed with rage, they stood and wept,
+walked aimlessly and cursed, or knelt and prayed.</p>
+
+<p>To a man they were for beating the mountains for the revenuers; but Lem
+held them back. He climbed upon the altar, and little Bud scrambled up
+beside him, hugging his father's rifle which he had hungrily recovered.</p>
+
+<p>With the realization that Lem was now their leader, the Moon mountain
+men crowded up toward the pulpit, eager for his words.</p>
+
+<p>Lem pointed one unsteady hand to the bloody cross at his feet, and the
+other to the dead form of his father stretched on the first bench. He
+raised his bruised, torn face upward; then, in a voice that was terrible
+in its calmness, he said the only prayer he knew, while the grief torn
+host fixed their eyes upon him and drank in every word:</p>
+
+<p>"God Almoughty, plead thou my cose with them thet strive agin we-uns.
+Lay a han' on yore shiel' an' buckler an' stan' up t' he'p we-uns. Let
+'em be confound' an' put t' shame, fo' they hev privily laid thar net t'
+destroy me withouten a cose&mdash;even withouten a cose hev they made a pit
+fo' my soul. Let th' sudden destruction cum on our'n enemy onawares, an'
+his net thet he hev laid privily keech hisse'f, thet he mought fall int'
+his own mischief his ownse'f. Ahmen!"</p>
+
+<p>And a great volume of vibrant amens rose from the hot hearts present.</p>
+
+<p>Lem talked from the altar for an hour; exhorting the clan to stick
+together and cleave to the tenets of his dead father. All through the
+discourse little Bud kept close to his brother on the pulpit, steadying
+the long rifle with one caressing hand and not once did a word escape
+him; his eyes were glued to his brother's face.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Lem wound up his appeal with a stern adjuration. His calmness
+deserted him at the end, and his voice soared to a frenzied pitch that
+carried it through the open windows, far out into the brooding night.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo'-all heer me? Yo'-all heer me?" he shouted in vibrant tones. "Not a
+bein' o' yo'-all darst lift a han' t' harm the revenuer&mdash;not a han', yo'
+heer? He air my houn'-dog t' kill.</p>
+
+<p>"He belongs t' me, an' ef yo'-all ketch em, yore t' han' him t' me, ole
+Cap Lutts's boy whut stan's heah frontin' his pap's daid body, a callin'
+on yo'-all t' see jestus done! I'll bring th' skunk heah, my men, an'
+kill em heah&mdash;heah whar he kilt my pap!"</p>
+
+<p>His mouth fairly frothed as with both clenched fists he beat his breast.
+Bud beat his own thin chest and wrenched his peaked face into a terrible
+grimace, but said never a word.</p>
+
+<p>The watchers relapsed into dumb, stunned silence and waited with their
+dead&mdash;waited for the saddest of all days; a day crowned with a grievous
+memory that followed them through life.</p>
+
+<p>No Sabbath born to the mountains had ever dawned as this one. The early
+morning was charged with a sepulchral mist, impinging upon the senses
+like sounds vocal, telling of some great sorrow hanging on the crest of
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>The first chill light saw the gospel-house holding its dead to its
+breast&mdash;the venerable sire that begot it. The dawn-breath floated down
+from the blue-wooded ridges to the clearing and stooped to kiss the
+pallid belfry.</p>
+
+<p>And all the blossoms bowed down their tremulous heads and shed their
+dew-tears amidst the chanting of spirit-voices. The tumultuous cry of
+the cascade, wont to rant in the ragged throat of Hellsfork, was now
+hushed to a repining monotone.</p>
+
+<p>The first beam of sunlight, pallid as a candle ray, parted the vapor
+shroud enveloping the gospel-house, and a dolorous ring-dove mourning on
+the pinnacle of a dead sycamore tolled her triple-noted angelus across
+the clearing in measured, solemn accents.</p>
+
+<p>Before the day had fairly broken, an exodus of humanity had begun, bound
+for Hellsfork. For weeks and months the day of dedication had been
+discussed throughout the mountains. Hour after hour the rock-strewn
+highways of the hills were traversed by travel-worn crusaders. This
+stream of human souls converged at the church clearing, filling it up
+like the gradual rise of a tide.</p>
+
+<p>They came on mule-back, on horse-back, in buck-boards. They came singly
+and in twos and threes.</p>
+
+<p>Bed-ridden cripples were borne hither by their loved ones, that the
+great preacher might lay hands upon their infirmities and implore the
+merciful God to alleviate their sufferings. The halt and the maimed were
+come to sue for absolution and to be made whole again.</p>
+
+<p>One misshapen hunchback&mdash;a veritable Quasimodo&mdash;with stubby bowed legs,
+abnormal arms, and ape-like visage, carried his helpless offspring
+eighteen miles to this sanctuary; begging prayers to relieve the
+creature's torture.</p>
+
+<p>Every man and boy of them was armed in some fashion, and by high noon
+the clearing was filled with a multitude of people, sorrow-torn, racked
+with abject grief.</p>
+
+<p>Over in Southpaw the enemy gazed down from the heights upon this
+spectacle in amazement. As young Sap McGill stood on a crag and watched,
+his eyes met a sight unlike any which the ranges of Kentucky had ever
+witnessed.</p>
+
+<p>His old arch enemy's strength in death was a force that appalled him. It
+was only now that he fully realized the peculiar far-reaching power
+wielded by old Cap Lutts throughout his lifetime. The dead monarch had
+always ruled his followers through strength and love. Fear had never
+been a dictator. He repelled his enemies through a will and courage that
+never flinched, and elicited from them a meed of awesome respect.</p>
+
+<p>The church was wofully inadequate and would not hold a twentieth of the
+mass. A great abundance of live laurel was cut and piled beneath a tree
+in the church clearing. And hundreds of eager hands hurried into the
+byways of the vale and returned with arms heaped with blossoms. These
+tender tributes were carefully placed on the couch of laurel until it
+rose to a great bier of fragrant petals.</p>
+
+<p>Tender hands removed the old man's body from the church and laid him in
+this laurel-thatched casket of many-hued flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Later, a great yellow mule paced out of the west, bearing a tall figure
+garbed in black, and the voices were hushed to a murmur and the
+church-bell began its tolling.</p>
+
+<p>When the circuit rider reached the clearing the mass of awed humanity
+parted and opened an aisle leading to the mammoth bier, where smiling
+death reposed, cradled amidst billows of blossoms. The parson had been a
+lifelong friend of old Cap Lutts.</p>
+
+<p>His towering figure moved on toward the bier and his clean-shaven
+features were drawn in a terrible sorrow. When his anguished eyes rested
+upon the still form, a great sob convulsed him; and like an echo the
+pent-up achings burst in a horde of throats; subdued, piteous weeping
+ebbed and rolled over the dead hero of the host.</p>
+
+<p>Two benches had been carried from the church and placed near the dead
+man. One was for the parson; on the other sat Lem and Bud and Belle-Ann.
+Little Bud crouched like a shrunken, lifeless thing. Belle-Ann's
+beautiful eyes were swollen and her heart wrung dry of tears.</p>
+
+<p>Lem's eyes, too, were dry as bone; not a single tear had he shed. For
+hours he sat staring over the heads of the people, and on his bruised
+and swollen face was stamped a grief more soul-searing than words or
+tears could tell.</p>
+
+<p>At eventide a cortège reaching from the church to the cabin bore the old
+man to the barren orchard, and there they laid him beside Maw Lutts. Old
+Cap Lutts, monarch of Moon mountain, had passed out of feudal history,
+and beyond Federal jurisdiction; his church on Hellsfork had been
+dedicated with his blood!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>"LESSEN HE KILLS THE REVENUER"</h3>
+
+
+<p>Tom-John Benson did not come up to Moon mountain the following week, nor
+the next. But at the end of the third week he appeared to take Belle-Ann
+below to Beattyville and across the Kentucky River to the mission school
+at Proctor.</p>
+
+<p>He came riding a strong, mountain horse and leading another for
+Belle-Ann. He unwrapped a huge bundle, and displayed an entire new
+outfit for the girl&mdash;two blue sailor dresses with white collars, shoes,
+hat, and kindred articles of apparel.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann dressed herself in these store things; and while Slab prepared
+a lunch for Benson, she walked out and down toward the spring, where she
+thought Lem was lingering. But Lem was not there, and she continued on
+to the old honeybee tree, where he sat on a log in deep meditation.</p>
+
+<p>He wished to see her alone. He knew she would find him.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up with a smile when he saw her trim, round figure approach,
+beautiful even in the cheap clothes.</p>
+
+<p>She tossed the black curls from her oval face, smiled back at him, and
+stood demurely waiting his approval of her apparel.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' sho' do look purty, Belle-Ann," he observed. "Air yore pap ready
+yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. When he's done his snack, I 'low we-uns 'll be goin', Lem," she
+answered, with an assumed cheerfulness she was far from feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Although her heart ached, she had determined before she came to meet Lem
+that she would not cry. She had been steeling herself for days for the
+ordeal of this parting. Down in the depth of her heart she held fast to
+one great purpose; and if she gave way to her feelings and cried, she
+knew that it would be shattered.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'lowed yo'-all wanted t' say good-by, Lem," she said presently. He
+aroused himself and stood up before her, his eyes full of a meaning she
+had never seen there before.</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, Belle-Ann, I hain't wantin' t' say good-by; but I 'low I hev t'.
+But thar air one thing I air wantin' yo' t' promise me, Belle-Ann," he
+said soberly as he reached down and took her small, tanned hand.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann's heart was throbbing wildly now. This was the crucial moment
+she had foreseen, and now was the time to summon all the forces at her
+command.</p>
+
+<p>"Mebby I cayn't promise hit, Lem," she rejoined almost inaudibly, with
+violet eyes that wandered guiltily away from his face.</p>
+
+<p>He stared at her. There was a timbre in her tone that startled him. He
+saw and felt instinctively that she had discerned what he held in his
+mind. The fact that she had divined correctly, and answered in this way,
+filled him with a sudden, sinking apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>Her words shocked him into a stupor. He thought that he knew her very
+soul as he knew his own soul. Had the years that had unfolded her young
+life before him, betrayed him and withheld deep things from his
+understanding? Things that would join in the pursuit with other searing
+grievances to sting and urge his being onward toward desperation? There
+was, in truth, a depth to this girl, whom he had known all her life,
+that his cursory penetration had failed utterly to fathom. When Lem's
+parents had been killed by the revenuer, then it was that an inexorable
+avowal had resolved itself in the soul of Belle-Ann. An inviolable
+thing, the evulsion of which could never obtain save at the shrine of
+death&mdash;the death of the hated Ghost-man. Lem had only a general and
+superficial conception of the intrinsic intensity of this thing that had
+taken hold of the girl. Little did he know of the doleful hours she had
+brooded away over this theme of vengeance. Long, brain-dulling hours
+during her waking time. Haunting, troublous hours during her dream-time.
+And always in the imaginings of her girl-heart she nurtured and built up
+an ideal, who would kill the revenuer. A hero who would hasten to her
+with the affiliating tribute, and lay the crimson laurels of the deed at
+her feet. She well knew that Lem thirsted for the life of this uncanny
+man, who had come and deprived him of his beloved mother and father. She
+knew that day and night as he traversed the hills he was ever waiting
+and watching for him. She was keen, and appreciatively sensible to this,
+and ever prayed that Lem would succeed. But all this was not the deed.
+Theoretically, it occupied the tenure of a debt. A premise that looked
+for no advancement save payment. Until this thing was done they would
+both suffer. She told herself over and over again that she would never
+betray her true feelings to Lem until he had killed Burton, and appeased
+her vengeance. Love him as she thought she did, some vital element was
+poignantly amiss. However unwarranted, and fatuous, an indefinable
+barrier would stand between them until the culmination of the yearning
+that had made ugly crosses in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Never could she forget the past. As she stood now before Lem, with
+downcast eyes, the past rushed upon her more vividly than ever. That
+sun-smitten day, made dark and dreadful, when she had hovered over the
+still form of Maw Lutts in the yard. Maw Lutts, who from Belle-Ann's
+baby-days to the woman's last minute in the yard, had never uttered to
+the girl a cross word, or cast her an impatient look. Her parting smile
+was rooted in Belle-Ann's soul, climbing and wrapping its tendrils
+around her heart like an evergreen.</p>
+
+<p>Even at this instant in her gloomy retrospection, she could put her
+finger on her own bosom, precisely where the bullet had struck. That
+reddish-purple spot that did not bleed. Very often the vision of that
+small, round death-sore multiplied and floated in one gesticulating
+mirage before her eyes. Often they consolidated into one compact darkish
+background, against which would develop the satanic, puffed visage of
+the revenuer who had done this thing. When old Cap Lutts' spirit went
+out by the same hand, the girl's soul had sickened to a distortion of
+mingled fear and hate, which at times bade fair to drive her primitive
+mind bereft.</p>
+
+<p>A devouring monitor of revenge had skulked into her life, following her
+better self relentlessly, as a panther stalks a spent beast. To her it
+was all like the happening of the past hour. Three weeks only had
+elapsed since she had witnessed the last withering stroke of this evil
+creature bent upon their destruction. Across her every mood the
+prickling echoes of that frantic bell-scream raked. It filled her ears
+when she strove to shut it out, and projected its curse into her
+slumbering hours.</p>
+
+<p>She felt that unhallowed hour upon her&mdash;the moonlit night when the very
+trees shuddered as she and little Buddy, clinging to each other, had
+crept through the ghastly shadows back to the meeting-house after the
+mad bell's appeal had died and the demon had gone.</p>
+
+<p>Never, while reason held its throne, could she obliterate from her eyes
+what they two saw in the church that night. So it was that Belle-Ann had
+long since, secretly, reared a citadel within her, and down in a remote
+grotto therein, had locked away her love; isolated it from her impulses
+and fealty.</p>
+
+<p>With valiant, tender delicacy, she always tried not to sully and
+overshadow Lem's life with this that she knew was in her. She knew that
+Lem had a cross of his own to bear. Although she fancied, as humans are
+prone to do, that his burden did not parallel her own. But she would not
+contaminate the boy's love with the presence of this red-rare oath
+sticking like a projectile in her being. This rubric, monastic avowal of
+vengeance that now hung in her soul like a garnet etching. But always
+she prayed that God might direct Lem to avenge her, and thus tear down
+this phantom picture that overshadowed her life, and thereby redeem her
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>Like animated photography, all this dashed through the girl's mind in a
+trice when Lem expressed a wish that she would promise him something.
+And with it her cryptic avowal centralized and surged up strong within
+her. Taking a firm hold on her will, she raised her eyes full upon his
+supplicant figure suing before her. Lem looked, and acted like a man who
+had been stunned by a blow. He was confronted with a new and unexpected
+phase of her nature. As his own gaze met her eyes, he discerned the
+indelible lettering of some palpable, deep purpose. What strange alien
+agency had laid hold of her? Was this the call of her blue-grass blood
+asserting itself in this, the hour of parting? The celerity of the
+transition, from his romping, hilarious play-fellow, to this serious,
+solemn, sudden incarnation, who denied him so unexpectedly, the pledge
+upon which he had staked his future, was a cyclonic blow that left his
+faculties bereft and numbed. Belle-Ann was looking fixedly at him. His
+lips were palsied. His mouth moved mutely to form words. Suddenly he
+found his voice and launched forth out of a daze.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Belle-Ann, yo' kin sho' promise me thes, cyan't yo' now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' hain't tol' me whut hit air yet, Lem," she protested faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann," he blurted out huskily, "I air pizen sho' yo'-all knows
+whut I air a firin' at."</p>
+
+<p>She shook the silken mass of black curls that would insist in tumbling
+down on her small face, and elevated her pretty brows negatively. But
+beneath her drooping lids a flicker of tell-tale light was playing.</p>
+
+<p>"Looky heah, Belle-Ann,"&mdash;his voice dropped to pleading tones&mdash;"Lem
+wants thet yo' should promise em sompin' 'fore yo'-all goes away. I want
+yo' t' promise, Belle-Ann," he went on earnestly, recovering the hand he
+had dropped in his amazement. "I want yo' t' promise thet when yo'-all
+cums back t' home thet yo'll marry me&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Not rudely, but reverently and slowly she drew her hand away from him.
+With eyes averted, her bosom stirred and she struggled with the choking
+in her throat.</p>
+
+<p>She removed her sun-hat, and stood swinging it in her perturbation. With
+a great will she steadied her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I cyan't promise thet, Lem&mdash;leastways not now," she answered slowly,
+without looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>He fell back, crestfallen and hurt.</p>
+
+<p>For a minute silence stood between them. Never before had he seen her so
+bewitching.</p>
+
+<p>Then she turned her matchless violet eyes upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"I hain't a spitin' yo', Lem," she explained hurriedly. "I hain't a
+spitin' you, cose yo' air a good boy an'&mdash;an' I like yo', Lem. But I
+jest cyant promise whut yo' want me t' now."</p>
+
+<p>Astounded, he stood fumbling for words. Then he suddenly tossed his long
+hair back with a jerk of his head&mdash;a gesture that had characterized his
+father.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann," he cried hotly, "whut ails yo', little gal; air hit some
+tuther bein' yo' love? Air thet Jutt Orlick bin a pesterin' yo' an'
+yo're afeerd t' tell me? Belle-Ann, little gal, do yo'-all love Orlick?
+Air hit em whut yo' love, an' afeerd t' own on hit? Air ye 'lowin' t'
+get shut o' me, Belle-Ann?" he pursued vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>She faced about and fixed her liquid eyes upon him. Her heart hurt and
+she turned away again. And he was instantly sorry that he had accused
+her.</p>
+
+<p>She stepped over and sat on the spruce-log, dangling her hat and
+regarding her tan shoes.</p>
+
+<p>"Looky heah," he burst out fervently, "cum, deah little Belle-Ann; cum
+kiss me."</p>
+
+<p>Very slowly she shook her raven curls.</p>
+
+<p>"I cyant, Lem," she said; "not now." At this refusal from her a pallor
+swept his features. Utterly crushed, he walked to and fro, a prey to
+conflicting emotions.</p>
+
+<p>Her mysterious mien and unaccountable frigidity drove the chill of
+another fear into his being. Could it be that this was the first bud of
+a fruit that had already started to thrive in Belle-Ann's heart, before
+she had even reached the school?</p>
+
+<p>She was going out into a new world away from him. Did she already regard
+herself exalted above the things that made up his humble life?</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her sitting on the log, silent, beautiful,
+mysterious&mdash;another girl from the one he had known all his life.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly he halted before her. Her eyes sought his face. He fell back a
+few paces, now white to the lips with feelings that tore him. He
+stretched his two arms toward her beseechingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Looky heah, Belle-Ann! Look t' me now, little gal!" he cried out in
+words that tumbled over each other, "Hain't I fittin'? Gawd cyan't find
+th' bein' thet loves yo'-all like me, Belle-Ann! Hain't I honest? Hain't
+I knowed yo' all yore little life, Belle-Ann? Whut would maw say, seein'
+yo'-all driftin' away from me like thes? Do yo' 'low t' go below an'
+never cum back, Belle-Ann? Hain't I alers fit fo' yo'-all, Belle-Ann?
+Hain't I fit for yo' all my life?"</p>
+
+<p>He took a step nearer, and with his two strong hands ruthlessly ripped
+his flannel shirt open and exposed his naked breast to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Transfixed, the girl stared at the twenty wide, white scars that
+criss-crossed his bosom. At sight of this, with sheer will and gallant
+courage she fought back the tears into her aching heart&mdash;fought them
+back desperately, just as he had fought off the she-bear that had made
+those marks when they two were children&mdash;fought her off single-handed
+with a club, and saved Belle-Ann's life.</p>
+
+<p>With wide eyes she regarded him as he reached out for her.</p>
+
+<p>His impassioned words penetrated to her very soul. She heard him on
+vaguely, struggling to control herself. The tide of emotion past, his
+petitions came now in low, entreating accents.</p>
+
+<p>"Gawd 'lows I air honest, Belle-Ann. I hain't pesky, Gawd 'll tell; I
+hain't sneakin', Gawd 'll tell. Lem wus rise up 'long side o' yo', deah
+little gal; an' he loves yo' now, same as alers. Why, I'd stan', ef yo'd
+say th' word, with a laff on my face an' let yo'-all fire on me, an' die
+a grinnin'&mdash;cose I knowed yo' done hit, Belle-Ann.</p>
+
+<p>"I air jest pore regular Lem, little gal, whut has loved yo' all yore
+life&mdash;frum a little bitty gal up t' now. An' my heart's jest heah whar
+hit alers was&mdash;jest heah fo' yo', Belle-Ann, with nothin' hidin' out!"</p>
+
+<p>With back-flung head he paused, his pleading eyes still upon her.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout this, Belle-Ann did not meet his eyes directly. She dared
+not. She prayed he would stop.</p>
+
+<p>She could no longer withstand his pleadings. She rose up from the log
+and, in her turn, though more slowly, her little feet trod where Lem had
+walked.</p>
+
+<p>Unconsciously, her hat dropped to the ground as her fingers relaxed and
+she placed her two hands upon her bosom. She looked full into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Lem," she breathed, the carmine leaving her cheeks, "yo' axed me t'
+marry yo' when I cum back. I cyant promise. Yo' axed t' kiss me, Lem;
+oh, please, please don't kiss me. I&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She shut her teeth tightly, and pressed hard upon her turbulent bosom.
+Alarmed, he sprang up to catch her. With a quick gesture she held him
+off.</p>
+
+<p>"Lem, I took a vow&mdash;I did," she panted. "I took a vow on th'
+witch-block. I took hit t' myself&mdash;nobuddy but Gawd knows. Now, I got t'
+tell yo' all, Lem. <i>I took a vow that no livin' bein' 's gain' t' kiss
+my face lessen he kills th' revenuer!</i> I took a vow thet I'll
+never&mdash;never&mdash;<i>never</i>&mdash;marry nobuddy, till th' revenuer's daid; I vowed
+on hit, Lem!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>ORLICK WORKS EVIL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lem listened in awe to her panting, hurried words, looking down into her
+pain-swept features, struck dumb with the earnest vehemence of her
+avowal. The girl went on:</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't bust my vow, Lem. Hit air jest heah in my breast by day an'
+by night. Hit follers me alers, Lem&mdash;follers me like a hant. I don't lay
+no store by nuthin' till hit air gone away&mdash;an' hit'll never go away
+till th' ghost-man's daid."</p>
+
+<p>Lem lunged forth out of a stupor.</p>
+
+<p>"Gawd'llmoughty, Belle-Ann, yo'-all hain't a-lowin' thet I don't want t'
+kill em, air yo'?" he cried, in a tempest of chagrin and amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!" she interposed hastily. "I know thet yore a-watchin' an'
+a-waitin' an' a-lookin' fo' em."</p>
+
+<p>She took the hat Lem picked up from the ground, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Yo'll do somethin' perticlar like, Lem, when yo' do kill em. Keep
+a-watchin', an' a-tryin', Lem, but don't 'low em t' git first bead on
+yo', Lem. He air a hant."</p>
+
+<p>"Ef I air lucky, an' kill em&mdash;will yo'-all promise then, Belle-Ann?"
+implored the boy in low, yearning tones. Side by side they were walking
+now.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' jest ax me when th' revenuer's daid, Lem," she returned, looking
+up, the dimples playing and her small Grecian face aflush with the
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>He could not mistake the light that flickered between her fluttering
+lids. There was an answer hovering about the red, bowed lips. Her
+enhanced loveliness in the new sailor dress ravished his senses.</p>
+
+<p>Such a girl! She had always been his, he told himself. He knew she would
+come back to him. Then a sober fear assailed him again, that
+contradicted his faith.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann," he queried, "when yo'-all git yore deah little haid stuffed
+with th' larnin', an' th' high-tucked ways at th' school&mdash;an' know all
+'bout books an' sich, mebby yo'-all won't never 'low t' cum back heah
+agin? Mebby I won't never see yo'-all agin, deah little gal, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped and stood rigid.</p>
+
+<p>"I kin promise thet, Lem. Heah, watch me, I cross my heart thesaway,
+Lem&mdash;see? Now kiss my han'. I'll sho' cum back some day, Lem&mdash;I
+promise."</p>
+
+<p>Eagerly, ravenously, he grasped her small hand, brown, but
+fine-textured. A dozen times he kissed it hotly, fervently, wrung with
+sorrow. So much might happen before he saw her again!</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture, a cow-horn sounded, and they knew that Belle-Ann's
+father was waiting. The time of parting was at hand. That vibrant
+horn-call sank deep into Lem's smarting soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Kiss me heah, Lem," the girl said, showing the top of her head. He well
+knew what she meant.</p>
+
+<p>He placed his hands on her soft curls and pressed his lips to the little
+white scar that crossed the part in her hair. He had kissed it before.
+Many times now, did he press it.</p>
+
+<p>His throat pained terribly as he poured his fervent kisses of adoration
+upon this tiny scar that he had accidentally inflicted years ago, in the
+excitement of a sham battle.</p>
+
+<p>She suddenly tore away from him and ran ahead. She dared not trust
+herself to linger longer. He followed, a tribute of grief in his
+resigned, dull eyes, like a man with flowers to put on a mound.</p>
+
+<p>When Lem left the spot, Orlick ducked sneakingly out of a dense clump of
+laurel where he had watched the love scene with burning eyes&mdash;eyes
+glittering with hate and jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>Unheard and unobserved, he slunk away through the pawpaw thicket into
+the impenetrable rhododendrons. For hours he had followed Lem that
+morning. But he had been too far away to overhear anything that passed
+between him and the girl.</p>
+
+<p>Now that old Cap Lutts was gone, Orlick had hidden here with the
+intention of killing Lem. He had worked his way up on his stomach and
+was just inching his rifle into position, when the girl appeared, and he
+desisted for some remote reason of his own. However, he slunk away, his
+foul heart beating high with hate.</p>
+
+<p>If he could not have Belle-Ann, he would make sure that Lem would not.
+As she neared the horse-block, Belle-Ann turned and waited for Lem.</p>
+
+<p>"Will yo' sho' kill th' ghost-man, Lem?" she reminded him in parting.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded apathetically. He was beyond the heat of any enthusiasm in
+this tense minute. He only knew that she was going away from him.</p>
+
+<p>In her drawling, sweet voice she continued as they proceeded toward the
+horse-block where they could see Benson and the horses ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef yo' do, Lem, hit'll smoke all th' sorry outen my heart, an' I'll be
+glad agin, like 'fore maw an' pap wus kilt&mdash;gladness th' kind whut
+hain't a-carin' ef hit rains, or ef hit suns. Don't be sad, Lem,"
+glancing into his woful, tragic eyes. "Belle-Ann'll be a-prayin' fo'
+yo'-all. An', Lem, when I cum back, mebby yo'll kiss me heah," she ended
+with a finger on her puckered, red lips.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy and Slab and the dogs were mingling with the restive horses in the
+sunshine. Benson had already mounted.</p>
+
+<p>Forgetful of her precious dress, Belle-Ann dropped on her knees in the
+dirt beside old Ben and, with her arms around the blind hound's neck,
+she hugged the old dog to her and kissed his soft ears. Buddy hung on to
+her with appeals for her early return. Old Slab shuffled around her with
+a medley of adjurations.</p>
+
+<p>She turned in the saddle and called back:</p>
+
+<p>"Keep a-watchin' an' a-tryin', Lem&mdash;an' yo', Slab&mdash;don't yo' fergit whut
+yo' promised against th' witch."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was unsteady now.</p>
+
+<p>Benson was leading the way a few rods ahead. As they looped the spur and
+headed down the trail toward the cypress cut, Belle-Ann could no longer
+combat her feelings. Bending low over the saddle horn, she wept
+inconsolably.</p>
+
+<p>At the gap below she looked back. Lem stood up on the horse-block waving
+to her. Through dim eyes she looked and flourished her wet handkerchief
+above her head.</p>
+
+<p>Far down in the valley, where they struck the faint wagon trail and the
+horses came out to the ford at Boon Creek, Belle-Ann turned her eager
+eyes up toward Moon mountain and there, as she had expected, she
+discerned Lem's outline high up on the apex of Eagle Crown.</p>
+
+<p>And as the horses paused in mid-stream to drink, she caught flashes in
+the sunlight, and she knew that Lem was waving his hat to her, and she
+knew he was straining his eyes and his heart for her.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In these troublesome times, gray and somber with woe, the Lutts cabin on
+Moon mountain was a dismal and cheerless abode.</p>
+
+<p>Lem and little Buddy were inconsolable, and the monotonous days
+following Belle-Ann's departure were sad and long&mdash;and very lonely.</p>
+
+<p>Slab was tireless in his efforts to keep the boys cheered up.</p>
+
+<p>On pleasant nights he would sit on the witch-elm block before the cabin
+and sing "Kitty Wells." This sacred duty over, he would turn his talent
+to enlivening negro melodies, interspersed with doubtful tales, well put
+together, dealing with war times in general, and the wonders of
+Lexington in particular.</p>
+
+<p>And when the storms came, and the lightning crackled, and the cascade in
+Hellsfork raged, and the lashing trees soughed in the rain and tempest,
+Slab would render the same musical program in the big front room, but
+vary his plots of fiction woven about his beloved Lexington. In case Lem
+and Buddy glanced at each other approvingly, or applauded his comics
+with even a half smile, his old face showed plainly that he was amply
+repaid.</p>
+
+<p>Lem had eight trusty men working "The Worm" up in the secret cave, but
+spent most of the time each day, after counting the demijohns to be
+turned over to the bootleggers, in wandering aimlessly over the
+mountains. He was always alert and watchful.</p>
+
+<p>Over in Southpaw there were evidences of unrest, and Lem looked for an
+attack from the revenuers at any hour.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, so furtive had this habit of vigilance become, that in these
+days he rarely traveled the trails, but moved under cover parallel with
+the paths.</p>
+
+<p>One day he stepped out in the open trail and picked up a fledgling hawk
+that had tumbled out of its nest. Ahead was a group of boulders, one of
+which was immediately under a spruce sapling.</p>
+
+<p>To these he walked leisurely and, resting his rifle against the first
+rock, he climbed up to put the youngster beyond reach of the badgers and
+razorbacks.</p>
+
+<p>He was in the act of reaching up when, at a slight sound, he turned and
+looked straight into the round, black end of a rifle, less than six feet
+from his chest!</p>
+
+<p>Down at the stock was the big bull-dog face of the ghost-man, leering at
+him triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>The peculiar, erratic impulses of the psychological moment are ever
+puzzling and insoluble. Lem gazed calmly, almost unconcernedly, down
+upon Peter Burton. Indeed, at this instant, there was no more evidence
+of excitement in Lem's face and mien, than had the revenuer been a
+venturesome fox squirrel gamboling about.</p>
+
+<p>Lem almost grinned pleasantly, as he turned and reaching up, placed the
+young hawk safely on a low branch.</p>
+
+<p>The little creature threw out his wings. Lem steadied it with careful
+deliberation, then leaped down from the boulder. The instant his feet
+struck the ground it seemed to shock his very blood into icy currents
+that congealed and left him befuddled and shivering.</p>
+
+<p>As he stared into the revenuer's insolent face, the earth looked like a
+pinwheel.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the film lifted from his brain and he was conscious for the
+first time that the revenuer had taken his rifle. The man's thick lips
+were moving. He was talking to him. Lem's poise came back. Fully
+aroused, his face went livid with rage. The revenuer perceived this and
+thrust the rifle muzzle closer.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't doubt that I'll shoot, do you?" he inquired, with his eyes
+fixed savagely upon Lem.</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, houn'-dog," returned the boy in low, quavering tones. "Yo'd kill a
+female baby."</p>
+
+<p>The revenuer laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know when I first saw you on that rock training that hawk to
+sit up, you kind of scared me?" He expelled a volume of tobacco juice.
+"You scared me some, Mr. Lutts. I thought you was fixing to ring a
+church bell on me."</p>
+
+<p>He let loose of Lem's rifle and it fell behind him. He held his own,
+pistol-fashion, under his arm, with his finger in the guard, as he
+stepped nearer and shook a huge menacing fist in the boy's pallid face.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have a swell chance ringing anything on me again unless you've
+got a church bell in your pocket. You pulled a swell trick on me that
+night, didn't ye? You thought the bunch that galloped down to your
+dog-house would get me that night, didn't ye? Young man, I'm going to
+bust this gang of thieves up here, or I'll drink Hellsfork dry! And
+you&mdash;you&mdash;you're not only carrying on your daddy's business&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A blinding, reckless fury that fired Lem with the strength and savagery
+of a tiger propelled his body through the air like a catapult. He landed
+on the revenuer's neck and with his naked hands he tried to kill him.</p>
+
+<p>He learned speedily why Burton had not fired, for a second man who had
+been concealed behind the boulders, together with Jutt Orlick, sprang
+out and upon him. These two heavyweights soon overpowered and handcuffed
+the boy, while Orlick lay with gloating eyes, peering out at the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Burton rolled Lem over on his back, and left him to exhaust the
+maledictions he was heaping upon their heads.</p>
+
+<p>As Lem scrambled to his feet, Burton launched forth as he deftly cut the
+leather thong and relieved Lem of his cow-horn.</p>
+
+<p>"Lutts&mdash;your family owes the government a million dollars and then some.
+And you're going to pay in some shape or form&mdash;you're in the hands of
+the law now. You ain't monkeyin' with these county people. You're on
+your way to Frankfort now&mdash;and I think I'll be able to send you to
+Atlanta for a while. Eh, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>Burton turned to his perspiring companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure&mdash;they say the punk tastes like cake down there, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Lutts," resumed the revenuer with his bullying insolence, "you've
+got one chance, and if you could see what's ahead of you, you'd take it
+quick! You lead us to that layout of yours and you're free. Otherwise,
+you're going to jail for a year anyway. I got the evidence all right.
+What you going to do about it?"</p>
+
+<p>Lem's brain was busy.</p>
+
+<p>If he had been sure that there were only the two of them he would have
+been only too eager to comply with Burton's proposition&mdash;because he knew
+that these two men would never again report for duty. But how was he to
+know how many men Burton had hiding to trail them.</p>
+
+<p>Upon second thought Lem declined to put his own people in jeopardy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," growled Burton, "don't be afraid to talk. Are you going to lead
+me to that liquor hole?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' kin blow my brains out first," replied Lem scornfully and
+emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, fool, you're on your way. Tom, let's get busy. Bring his gun."</p>
+
+<p>The revenuer produced a length of strap and, tying one end to the short
+chain connecting the iron cuffs, he motioned Tom ahead.</p>
+
+<p>The iron cut into Lem's flesh at the slightest pressure, and acted like
+a bull-ring. In their desire to get the prisoner away with as much
+secrecy as possible they avoided the trails, traveling cautiously under
+cover.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes after the revenuer and their captive had departed, Orlick
+crept out from the rocks like a reptile, and warily dodged along in
+their wake.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>IN PRISON</h3>
+
+
+<p>At high-noon the next day Lem Lutts was landed at Frankfort, a United
+States prisoner. This dismal trip represented the first ride Lem had
+ever made on a railroad. The terrible chagrin and consternation that
+obsessed him, and the bullying presence of his furiously hated arch
+enemy made it one that lingered long in his memory.</p>
+
+<p>In the early hours of the trip the revenue officer and his deputy had
+plied the boy with a torrent of questions in their vain attempt to break
+him down. This cross-fire finally wearied Burton, as Lem acted like a
+man deaf, dumb, and blind; and the surly officer desisted with a series
+of dire predictions, mingled with some exquisite punctuations of choice
+profanity.</p>
+
+<p>A pall of far-stretching clouds obscured the sky and a film of drizzling
+rain veiled the atmosphere. Through this thin downpour Burton walked his
+shackled prisoner to the Federal Building.</p>
+
+<p>After a wait of almost an hour&mdash;which added nervous agony to Lem's grim
+speculations&mdash;he was led into the austere presence of the commissioner.</p>
+
+<p>A row of ornate heavy chairs was lined up against the east wall of the
+high-ceilinged room. Across the room on the west side, the commissioner
+sat at a long claw-footed table, hemmed about with various other pieces
+of massive office furniture, while to the left of him a pale, icy blonde
+woman hammered a typewriter.</p>
+
+<p>On the walls were the portraits of five men, presumably former
+commissioners.</p>
+
+<p>The whole atmosphere of the chamber was charged with a chill that went
+to the heart of the prisoner. When they first entered the room the two
+officers escorted Lem to one of the chairs against the wall. While the
+deputy remained seated here with Lem, Burton swaggered his damp hulk
+across the room and halted before the commissioner, his big shoulders
+slumping awkwardly. Here he stood mopping his sweaty, heavy features.</p>
+
+<p>Lem's eyes were fastened upon his blunt profile. When the commissioner
+threw his pen down and looked up, Burton met his gaze with a leering
+grin, the while wetting his thick lips with his tongue and jerking his
+thumb toward Lem and the deputy with some words that were inaudible.</p>
+
+<p>As Burton grinned now, Lem had seen his own dog grin, and, at this tense
+moment, the analogy almost coaxed a smile to Lem's tight lips. Lem had
+seen his own hound lay a limp, dead rabbit at his feet and look up, and
+lick his lips with his tongue, and grin just as Burton grinned now.</p>
+
+<p>A subdued and lengthy conversation followed between the commissioner and
+Burton. From their expressions and gestures it was apparent that Burton
+was describing the killing of old Cap Lutts. Finally Burton beckoned the
+deputy, who led Lem across the great room and stood him before the
+commissioner.</p>
+
+<p>The latter leaned backward and slightly to one side, while with
+curiously wrinkled brow he started at Lem's boots and glanced slowly and
+critically up Lem's corduroy trousers, past his heavy belt, across his
+gray flannel shirt front, and finally rested his keen eyes upon Lem's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>He did not see a hang-dog criminal.</p>
+
+<p>He saw before him a young mountaineer, in height a good six feet; spare
+of flesh, but with back-flung shoulders that promised to develop at
+maturity into the frame of a mighty man. He saw a candid, open
+countenance, though now a trifle pale, little short of handsome, and
+absolutely free from any indications of dissipation.</p>
+
+<p>He noted a well-shaped, firm mouth above a square chin; a thin, hawklike
+nose leading to a wide vertical forehead.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout this acute examination Lem's steady gray eyes never wandered
+from the commissioner's face. He focused his own gaze upon the
+commissioner's eye as intently as he would have watched a groundhog hole
+in the hills. Then the commissioner leaned forward and, taking up his
+pen, spoke softly:</p>
+
+<p>"So you are old Lutts's boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a dangerous man, Cap'n," interposed Burton. "He ain't no boozer.
+He makes the stuff, but he don't drink it himself so you can notice it;
+and that makes him more dangerous. I can hook seventeen rummy-shiners
+before I can get half-way to a sober one. Then again, he's got the nerve
+of the old man, and that helps some, I reckon. He's the old man over and
+over&mdash;he's fixin' to lead us a dog's life, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>The commissioner studied Lem again.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew your father, Lutts," he said. "In fact, I have a small piece of
+lead inside me yet that your father put there." He paused again and,
+oddly enough, the severe frown with which he had raked the prisoner at
+first now vanished. He continued evenly:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see those portraits along the wall? They are men who worked
+themselves up in the service during the thirty-five years that I can
+remember. They all looked for your father; they all found him. But none
+of them ever brought him in."</p>
+
+<p>The commissioner shifted his eyes to Burton.</p>
+
+<p>"So it was left to you, eh? Well&mdash;well, of course, I rather
+expected&mdash;that is, I hoped to get old Lutts alive, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off abruptly and added his signature to the blue printed blank
+he had filled in, then handed the slip to Burton with:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll continue the hearing for further evidence&mdash;take him over to the
+jail, Burton."</p>
+
+<p>He now looked at Lem.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you anything to say for yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>Throughout all this the boy had stood straight and unflinching. His
+features were pale but his jaws were hard set. Friendless and moneyless,
+he knew his chances were small. He knew that he stood on the perilous
+brink of some dire happening. He understood the import of the
+commissioner's order to hold him for additional evidence, and while he
+was not wholly unafraid, he stood tense and determined, boding no
+retreat, like a brave horse taking a deep, wide ditch in the dark, with
+yawning depths beneath him, and the gush of waters in his ears.</p>
+
+<p>"I said, have you got anything to say?" repeated the impatient
+commissioner.</p>
+
+<p>"I hain't got nothin' t' say&mdash;only&mdash;only&mdash;&mdash;" he began, in a voice that
+split and ruptured in crowding past the lump that choked him. He turned
+his gray eyes and fixed them upon the bloated, triumphant visage of
+Burton.</p>
+
+<p>"Only," he struggled on, quaveringly, as he lifted his two cuffed hands
+and leveled them at the revenuer, "he kilt my Maw&mdash;he ded&mdash;an' he kilt
+my pap, he ded&mdash;an'&mdash;an'&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a>
+<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"He kilt my maw&mdash;he ded&mdash;an' he kilt my pap."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>Burton grabbed one shoulder with a snort, the deputy the other, and they
+led him out.</p>
+
+<p>As the door closed, the blonde typist resumed her machine, and her
+chilly eyes were moist. She glanced covertly at the commissioner. His
+downward drawn mouth was ajar, and he was gazing blankly at a familiar
+ink spot on his desk.</p>
+
+<p>Once again Lem found himself marching through the rain between his
+captors, and all the unknown strange noises of a city consolidated and
+merged into a tumult that harried his very soul. His next distinct
+impression came when he realized that Burton was unlocking his
+handcuffs.</p>
+
+<p>He was now inside of a jail. He stood before a desk and a man in uniform
+was putting various questions to him in a curt and gruff voice,
+concerning his age and residence, to which Lem answered in an apathetic,
+dazed way. The man made a record of these responses in a book. While he
+was thus occupied, Lem was eyeing his awesome surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>Now for the first time, he was conscious that Burton and his deputy had
+disappeared, and another man in uniform stood at his side. The desk-man
+presently handed this officer a pink slip, and he in turn told Lem to
+follow, leading the way across a big rotunda of concrete to a huge
+iron-barred gate which he unlocked. He ushered the prisoner into a long
+corridor, and transferred him to the care of a second uniformed guard,
+who proceeded to search Lem's clothes with a skill and deftness that
+would have inspired envy in the bosom of a professional pickpocket.</p>
+
+<p>The guard seated Lem on a bench which was already occupied by two men in
+blue cotton shirts, and the perversely striped trousers of convict garb.</p>
+
+<p>"Blinky," said the guard, "where's Last Time?" addressing a huge convict
+with red hair, a mop and a bucket.</p>
+
+<p>"He's over at the bath house."</p>
+
+<p>"Send him front when he comes back. And you," turning to Lem, "sit there
+till you're wanted."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon, with the pink slip in his hand, he walked to a small desk at
+the farther side of the corridor and sat in an arm-chair with his back
+toward the three now on the wooden bench, waiting for Lem knew not what.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, Lem's eyes roved about making a grim inventory of this
+great merciless cage that had engulfed his body. He was inside a mammoth
+arcade-like structure that stretched its repellent length out a thousand
+feet and more to a blind, sinister end. Along its sides, equi-distant,
+appeared high arched double windows, bolted and barred with a
+lattice-work of iron. Wherever Lem perceived a spot of God's light, a
+cold, forbidding hand lay across it like a blasphemy, spreading out its
+unyielding, black, skeleton fingers to enmesh a human soul.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, this stupendous, invulnerable shell incased and jealously
+protected a second structure equally strong and grisly, for as Lem
+looked, he noted this other structure occupying the center of the
+arcade. It was a tomb within a tomb, and the boy's already heavy heart
+sickened as his eyes slid down the seemingly interminable vista of small
+iron-barred doors, some four feet apart, that diminished in perspective
+toward the distant end until they shrank to the size of a newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>The doors in this cunning edifice were accessible by means of a steel
+skeleton-work forming lengthwise porches five stories high, where even a
+sluggish imagination could visualize convenient gibbets stationed just
+outside these black, mysterious doors, awaiting the condemned necks of
+the inmates.</p>
+
+<p>While Lem made further notations in undisguised wonderment, convicts
+were constantly passing to and fro. They were "short time" men who had
+their allotted duties, working about the tiers and corridors.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, Lem became suddenly conscious that the two men at the other
+end of the bench were eyeing him curiously. Their interchange of looks
+and low words to each other made it obvious that Lem was a subject of
+comment. Now that Lem was looking straight at them, the man nearest slid
+along the bench, smiled good-humoredly, then whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"What did ye draw, bo?" The man watched Lem's mute lips for response.</p>
+
+<p>"What did they give ye, pal?" he repeated, while the second man slid
+over and craned his neck for the answer. Lem still looked puzzled, but
+finally answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothin'."</p>
+
+<p>The other started a laugh which was squelched with an elbow punch in the
+ribs from his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, pal," pursued Lem's inquisitor, "did ye git a sentence in this
+jail, er did they bind ye over?"</p>
+
+<p>"I air continued," replied the boy gloomily, "wherever thet takes me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes&mdash;is this your first pinch?"</p>
+
+<p>Lem risked a nod, with only a vague notion of what "pinch" meant.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the man spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, pal, you ain't never been in jail before, have ye?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw," responded Lem without hesitation, "an' I 'low I want out o' heah,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>He delivered this earnest sentiment with such guileless sincerity that
+both men snickered.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you care. You'll feel dopy for a day er two&mdash;then ye won't mind
+it. It'll git your nanny the first time. This is my fifth time in this
+joint," he volunteered. "I got eight spots ahead of me. Say, pal, sneak
+me th' makin's, will ye?"</p>
+
+<p>Lem did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Have ye got any tobacco on ye?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ef I had, yo'd be welcome to hit&mdash;I never use hit."</p>
+
+<p>The man looked disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Say&mdash;when the bull frisked ye&mdash;did he git all your matches&mdash;ain't ye
+got no matches either?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haint got nary a match."</p>
+
+<p>Here a big, husky fellow in stripes, who walked as if he had springs for
+shoe-soles, passed by. Then he stopped, and turning back, looked keenly
+into Lem's face. Lem met his gaze and noted that he wore a livid scar
+from the right cheek-bone down to the chin. He did not appear to see the
+other two men on the bench, but stood looking with open interest at Lem.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Last Time," greeted the man next to Lem. Wherefore, the newcomer
+shifted his gaze searchingly, then grinned. With a furtive backward
+glance toward the guard's desk, he thrust his hand out.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you draw, Rox?" he probed.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight."</p>
+
+<p>"A mere speck&mdash;I could stand on my head that long. I may see you
+to-night." He hurried on with his elastic tread toward the guard's desk.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm dead sure we'll git some tobacco now," predicted the man beside
+Lem. "That's 'Last Time'&mdash;he's a time-lock expert&mdash;believe me,
+gents&mdash;he's some cracker, too. I met him in Joliet, and I met him agin
+in San Quinten. Say, Monk, do ye remember readin' about that back-track
+stunt Last Time pulled off five years ago? No? Well, that was a funny
+caper. You see, Last Time touched a big joint in Cincy and got four
+thousand bucks. Then he beat it west. Two days later he got stewed in
+Chi&mdash;then he boarded a train with a bottle of booze, thinkin' he was
+bound fer Omaha; but he woke up that night and walked smack into the
+arms of the fly cops in Cincy. What do ye think of that? They didn't
+prove it on him very strong, but he drawed two spots at Columbus on
+general principles. I wonder what he turned this time. I met him last
+winter in St. Louis and I was up aginst it good and strong, too, but
+Last Time slipped me fifty as easy as dirt. He's got a heart as big as a
+cow's. Don't you worry&mdash;we'll git tobacco now. I wonder how much longer
+they'll keep us here," he faced about and addressed Lem. "I'm waiting to
+git my top-knot clipped&mdash;I reckon ye wouldn't want to lose your hair,
+would ye, pal?" he observed, regarding Lem's flowing locks.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon he will lose 'em, though," projected a raspy voice.</p>
+
+<p>The three looked up. Blinky was standing over them with a pair of
+clippers in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you, anyhow," chided Blinky, sneeringly. "Are you a cowboy or
+a preacher?"</p>
+
+<p>Lem felt a warm sting rise to his cheeks, as he fixed his eyes
+inquiringly upon Blinky's insolent face.</p>
+
+<p>"What else could he be," interposed a new arrival, "but a preacher? He
+ain't no convict&mdash;the Captain jest sent fer him. He's goin' to live here
+amongst us and reform a lot of you bad guys."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture, still another convict came up, bearing a blue cotton
+shirt and a pair of prison trousers over his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the new duck?" he queried.</p>
+
+<p>"Duck&mdash;duck," echoed Blinky. "Ain't ye got no manners? I'm ashamed of
+ye&mdash;ain't ye got no respect for a preacher? This is Brother Silsand&mdash;he
+got a call&mdash;here."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, excuse me. Well, Brother Silsand, you'll carry these elegant pants
+and this fancy shirt on your arm when Last Time comes to escort you to
+the beach. When you come back, you'll feel like a gentleman sure
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>Other men were attracted, and now a little group clustered around the
+bench, all eyes turned upon Lem, as though he were some strange animal.
+And all in turn contributed their jest calculated to furnish fun for the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes Brizz now," announced Blinky. "Ha, there, Brizz&mdash;I brought
+your clippers down. Pipe this guy's hair&mdash;you'll never git that reaped
+twixt this and sun-down. Say, Shorty, you been bellerin' for a mattress
+ever since I knowed ye&mdash;now's yer chance&mdash;rake this pretty hair up as
+fast as Brizz mows it, and feed it to that hungry tick of yourn. I'll
+bet my plug Saturday to three matches that the bell won't wake ye up."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment, Brizz, a heavy man with a ponderous paunch, crowded in
+and took the clippers out of Blinky's hand. Brizz was the official
+reception room barber.</p>
+
+<p>"It do look uncommon extensive, don't it?" said Brizz.</p>
+
+<p>All this while, Lem had grown more and more uneasy, and his first
+resentment was rapidly amounting to real anger under these unkind
+criticisms, and the jeering faces that now encircled the bench.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll swear it do," reiterated Brizz. "Still, I'm a regular old rip when
+it comes to mowin'&mdash;come here young feller," he urged with a
+business-like flourish of the clippers. "Let's start early so's we'll
+get done for supper."</p>
+
+<p>He laid a hand on Lem's shoulder. Whereupon, Lem rose up, his jaws set,
+his muscles tense, while a steady light shot his gray eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef yo'-all tech me with them things," he said, low and steady, "I'll
+take em away from yo' an,'&mdash;an' hit yo' with 'em."</p>
+
+<p>The men were so enthralled with these festive proceedings that they
+failed to notice Last Time sneak up from behind, where he was taking it
+all in. When Lem stood up and showed fight, a chorus of low derisive
+laughter rippled around the circle which was instantly disrupted as Last
+Time burst ruthlessly into their midst, throwing one of the convicts
+completely off his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"What you fixin' to do, Brizz?" he growled.</p>
+
+<p>"Who&mdash;me?&mdash;I'm here to cut this man's hair," wherefore, the barber
+applied the clippers so unexpectedly and so roughly to the head of the
+man who had been seated next to Lem, that the unlucky fellow protested
+loudly. Last Time turned upon Blinky. He scowled at him for a second,
+his lips curled away fiercely, emphasizing an under-shot jaw.</p>
+
+<p>"You old clothes thief," he hissed, "you rod-ridin', cheap, ugly
+leather-snatcher&mdash;you forgot the hammerin' I handed you last month, eh?"
+Last Time shot a quick look across the corridor at the guard's back.
+Then he reached out and took a clutching handful of Blinky's
+shirt-front, and thrust his right fist close to Blinky's nose. Blinky,
+who was a head taller, now hung away, white and dumb.</p>
+
+<p>"You let this new man alone&mdash;do you get me? You let him alone. The next
+time I get at you I'll take your jaw off&mdash;I'll send you across the lot
+for many a day&mdash;get away&mdash;get," he snarled, with a violent, contemptuous
+push.</p>
+
+<p>The minute the other onlookers had noted Last Time's attitude toward
+Lem, they faded noiselessly away like so many rats. All except Shorty.
+He stood meekly, holding the shirt and the trousers across his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the bully of the jail," said the convict, following Blinky with
+a belligerent look. "He's got 'em all bluffed&mdash;but one," he added with a
+scornful laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"What you waitin' on?" he demanded of Shorty.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's his clothes," replied Shorty, indicating Lem with a jerk of his
+head. Last Time scathed him with a withering look.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, I had a trained cockroach once that could learn things quicker
+than you&mdash;you get dumber and dumber day by day. This man is on the court
+side&mdash;he keeps his own clothes. Take them things back to the
+dud-cubboard, and put 'em back where you got 'em from. Let's see&mdash;you're
+Lutts, ain't you?" he broke off, producing from his pocket the pink slip
+Lem had seen the guard have when he was first brought into the cell
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I air ole Cap Lutts' boy o' Moon mountain."</p>
+
+<p>The convict shot a curious look at Lem.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>A FRIEND IN NEED</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Sure&mdash;that's right," he assented. "Well, Lutts, come with me now. You
+have to take a bath&mdash;everybody that comes in here has to take a bath,
+the first dash out the box. You ain't never been in a place like this
+before, have you? A blind man can see that," he conjectured, gnawing a
+chew off a very black prison plug. "Have a chew?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never hankered fo' t'baccy," declined Lem, smilingly, with a gesture
+which he meant for a polite curtsy in lieu of thanks.</p>
+
+<p>As they proceeded across the graveled prison yard, toward the bath
+house, Lem's keen inherent sense of penetration had analyzed the man
+beside him as accurately as Last Time had read the artless, simple soul
+of the big mountain boy, and notwithstanding that Lem knew instinctively
+that this bull-necked, scar-faced fellow was a bad and desperate
+character, he at the same time felt a warm feeling springing up within
+him toward this man. He felt that he had a friend in Last Time, who was
+the first and only one to give him a kind look or word since his arrest,
+and a sympathetic look or a cheering word coming from any quarter was
+indeed a welcome offering to a person in Lem's unfortunate and
+distressing position.</p>
+
+<p>As they walked, the convict talked along in a friendly way, and noting
+Lem's roving eyes, he proceeded to tell the boy about the various
+buildings scattered about the great lot.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the Chapel over there," he said. "That's where you will go to
+church on Sunday, if you want to. If you don't, you'll stay locked in
+your cell. There's the dining-hall back there by the left wing of the
+cell-house. That long shed over there open on all sides is where the
+shop men stop to wash up. There's three hundred men over there now at
+work. They make brushes and wire fences and shoes and a lot of other
+things, but you won't work there&mdash;cause you're held for Court&mdash;but I'd a
+damn sight rather work than stay locked up all day&mdash;night's bad enough.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you don't come back here after your trial. Any man with as much
+intellect as an oyster can see that you don't belong here. And there's a
+few more like you here, that don't deserve bein' in a place like this&mdash;a
+waller for the scum of the earth. Don't look at me, Lutts&mdash;that don't
+include me&mdash;I got off damn light. I was due for five spots in the pen.
+You see that little brick coop over there, Lutts&mdash;without any windows,
+and a solid iron door? That's Calcutta&mdash;the dungeon&mdash;they call it the
+'hole.' That's where they put the bad actors. Inside, there's a solid
+sheet-iron cell, with an iron cot, and an iron bucket in it&mdash;that's
+all&mdash;not a crack of light. They chain 'em to the bed an' leave 'em&mdash;once
+a day they give 'em fresh water and toss in a piece of punk. When the
+men march in at night, you'll notice the Captain standing at the
+cell-house door making the count, and you'll see a bull standing by him,
+pullin' men out of line. When you see a guy pulled out, it's Calcutta
+for him."</p>
+
+<p>"I've been here nine months, and I've been in that 'hole' five times,
+'cause I can't stand these fresh stiffs around here. The last time was
+for makin' hamburger out of Blinky. See them little wooden houses away
+'cross there up on the wall? Them's for the lookouts. See, there goes
+one now, walking on the wall with his cannon in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's where you get your bath, Lutts. Upstairs over here is the
+Hospital. That's where I sent Blinky and a couple more of his cowards."</p>
+
+<p>Last Time's laugh predicated a deep, pleasurable reminiscence, as they
+entered the bath house. There was no one in the bath house at this time
+save the convict attendant. He handed Lem a towel which in dimensions
+resembled a large table napkin, and a piece of yellow soap which in size
+looked like a chewing-gum wafer. Here, Last Time reached out and took
+the mite of soap and the meagre towel out of Lem's hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Hoggie, I'll look after him. You stay up at the door and watch the
+big-top. If you see the bull come out and pike over uneasy, you squeak.
+Wait, Lutts&mdash;I'll get you a decent piece of soap."</p>
+
+<p>With this he climbed up on a box, and reaching up behind a series of
+steam pipes, he produced a half-bar of white soap and a towel of coarse
+fabric, but clean and ample. Lem then busied himself with the bath,
+which was sunken into the concrete floor. As this new-made friend talked
+along, trying to acquaint Lem with the rules of the prison, he noticed
+that the boy fumbled, and hesitated, and was plainly abashed when it
+came to divesting himself of his clothes. Last Time thoughtfully left
+the mountaineer to himself, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll help Hoggie watch for old Caladadac&mdash;you can wash your hair if you
+want to&mdash;that soap is O. K."</p>
+
+<p>Some fifteen minutes later, when Lem had concluded his hasty bath and
+joined his conductor at the door of the bath house, a high-keyed bell
+suddenly pealed out. It was the first familiar sound Lem had heard since
+he left the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the recall," said Last Time. "Stay back in the door a minute and
+you'll see the file come out&mdash;they've stopped work now&mdash;it's four
+o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>The celerity with which these convicts got out of the shops was
+remarkable. Hardly had the tower bell ceased when five long rows of
+stripes stood ready to march. The guards each blew a mouth-whistle in
+turn, and the columns moved across the plaza toward the wash-shed like a
+great dragon with hundreds of legs. Then out of the wash-shed the
+columns crawled, bent around the dungeon-house, and marched into the big
+dining hall, with the scraping rise and fall of the lock-step&mdash;a
+peculiar, sinister sound.</p>
+
+<p>Lem had peeped out at the bath-house door upon this spectacle with
+awesome eyes. He stood in open-mouthed wonder, and was aroused only when
+Last Time spoke and touched his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"The night bull 'll come on now, and he'll be hollerin' for me&mdash;we
+better git along," he said. "You won't eat with them men. You'll git
+yours in the dining hall inside."</p>
+
+<p>Upon reaching the cell-house, Last Time conducted Lem to the tables at
+the front end of the basement corridor where the Court prisoners were
+already at supper, and then left him. A soup-bowl, filled with a
+substance that at least resembled coffee; a plate of beans, and a thick
+piece of bread were placed in front of Lem by a convict waiter.</p>
+
+<p>Lem felt at the moment that he never again would want to eat anything.
+Not only was his appetite wholly gone, but the mere sight of this food
+was nauseating, although he had not tasted anything since he had eaten
+breakfast at home the day before.</p>
+
+<p>While he sat looking about him with lugubrious eyes, the man next to
+him&mdash;an uncouth individual indeed&mdash;whispered surreptitiously:</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't ye goin' to eat your punk?"</p>
+
+<p>Lem shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Kin I have it?"</p>
+
+<p>Lem pushed the whole fare over to him gladly. Presently a gong rasped
+out two harsh, reverberating notes. At this the men, some forty in
+number, rose, fell into line and straggled up the basement steps to the
+main corridor. At the head of the steps Lem met Last Time, who was
+apparently waiting for him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you your cell now. You're 420&mdash;right next to me on the first
+tier."</p>
+
+<p>Here a great commotion of hurrying feet sounded below and overhead on
+the tiers above, mingled with the metallic ring of keys and the cold
+clanking of steel doors and the rattle of iron. And from far up the dim
+corridor Lem heard a sound that, somehow, filled him with a strange
+dread. It was the rising and falling of a scraping, tide-like
+rhythm&mdash;the muffled rhapsody of a hundred-legged lock-step. The last
+column of convicts was marching into the cell-house from the dining hall
+on the plaza.</p>
+
+<p>It was the on-coming of a grisly, striped, argus-eyed multiped, with
+fifty heads. This ugly sound reverberated soft and stealthful at first;
+like the padded feet of some fabulous, carnivorous monster sneaking into
+this cavernous mortuary to gloat over the dead souls it had cached here.
+Then again, beneath the nearer tumult, this natant, ill rhythm died down
+to a measured, sinister moan, echoing through the stone corridors in
+soughing jabs, like sounds marking the visitation of some maimed Hydra.</p>
+
+<p>The denotation of this eery evil tread of ruined lives grated terribly
+on Lem's highly tensioned nerves. And oddly enough, he did not seek to
+shut it out&mdash;this revolting, dreadful scrape, that nothing can ever
+imitate. On the contrary, he strained his ears for it, impelled by the
+same indefinable, weird influence that charms one to turn again and look
+back upon a horror that has fascinated the eyes. Thus was Lem fascinated
+by this hateful noise. Enthralled in this that had dominated his senses,
+for the moment, he had unconsciously ascended the skeleton iron stairs.</p>
+
+<p>When he aroused himself, Last Time was pointing into the cell allotted
+him, and looking at him pityingly. Lem shot one swift look into this
+dark hole, then withdrew his startled eyes and fastened them upon the
+convict's scarred visage. The boy's eyes were freighted with the igneous
+luster of some unnamable terror that seemed to stultify his senses,
+leaving his manly instincts in the grip of some perverted agency that he
+did not know was there.</p>
+
+<p>If Lem Lutts had possessed a pistol, he would have killed himself in
+that instant. Quaking perceptibly, he hung back from the cell door. His
+hand trembled as he held to the railing of the iron porch. His lips
+moved, and he tried to tell the convict something. The world seemed to
+be falling about his ears, carrying his soul down into the fumes of
+hades. Of all the subtle, dormant influences that awake, and invade the
+scheme of human life to sway the impulses of men, there is none so
+bewildering as this phase of psychological prompting which holds its
+profound mystery intact, and baffles solution.</p>
+
+<p>Where is the abode, and what is the origin of this plenipotent conjurer?
+Certainly Lem Lutts trembled at the threshold of this stone cell. Last
+Time could see that. What sweeping, pillaging power was this that
+assaulted Lem's will, causing him to quake thus like an aspen. Surely it
+was an abstruse form of fear.</p>
+
+<p>Verily, it could not have been the stigma of cowardice. Lem Lutts had
+never known fear. From the very cradle his life had been enveloped in
+danger. Deeds stood out boldly to refute this suspicion of weakness.
+Scores of times in Lem Lutts' life he had looked into the grim teeth of
+on-coming death unflinchingly and unafraid, with a self-forgetfulness
+that spells sublime courage. But here he stood now, on the brink of a
+moment that was in some strange, exaggerated way, awful to him. He
+stood, pale and shaken, in front of this black jail-cell, undeniably
+fear-stricken.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this was the same quality of fear that caused Napoleon to
+dismount, cursing his horse, pale, sick, and unsteady for an hour,
+because his steed had crushed a camp cat with its hoofs. Possibly it was
+the same subtle thing that inspired the late C. K. Hamilton, the most
+daring of all aviators, to rush in panic from a dental chair. It may
+have been the same brand of unknown dread that impelled one of the
+greatest war conquerors in American history to shun a graveyard after
+nightfall. Some time or other this strange power lays hold of the
+bravest hearts. It had Lem Lutts now, and he was backing away and trying
+to get down the stairs. Last Time spoke to him gently, as he took his
+arm and urged him slowly into 420.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up, Lutts&mdash;don't you hear 'em? They're lockin' up now, and I've
+got to run the tier for the bull&mdash;there now&mdash;I know just how you
+feel&mdash;I've forgot all the other times, but I've never forgot the
+first&mdash;and God knows I never will. You can't tell me&mdash;but you'll be all
+right&mdash;I'll come and talk to you after a while. They don't lock me up
+until eleven o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>Lem had stepped inside gingerly, as if he expected the floor to collapse
+and engulf him. There was a dull rolling, a click, and the iron-barred
+door was closed upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand up at your door until the bull makes the count," imparted Last
+Time, as he hurried along the tier looking into each cell. Then he came
+back, and pulling a great lever at the end of the tier, locked all the
+doors automatically. Now he started back, again calling into the cells
+as he passed.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand up&mdash;stand up&mdash;stand up!"</p>
+
+<p>A big guard followed close behind the convict, with a gliding tread that
+did not give forth the slightest sound. He dashed a cold, penetrating
+stare in at the faces that hovered at the bars. When the guards had made
+the count for the night, a babble of conversation began between the
+prisoners all over the place. They called to each other by the cell
+numbers, or nicknames; and the talk waxed to an incoherent, mixed medley
+that tangled itself into nothing intelligible. Though strange to record,
+this did not seem to bother or confuse those talking.</p>
+
+<p>The door of Lem's cell seemed to be as sensitive to every sound as a
+telephone receiver. A voice at the farthest end of the corridor trailed
+into Lem's cell as distinctly as a voice two cells away. Thus, a sound
+two cells away might be interpreted as emanating from the remotest cell
+in the place. Lem, sad, dejected, and with a weight of gloom at his
+heart that submerged his spirit and held him in a lethargy, still stood
+at the door with his fingers twined around the chill bars. His eyes,
+starry with the emotions that swept over him, were fixed upon the only
+thing he could see&mdash;the blank stone wall opposite, laced with a series
+of steam pipes, and the high windows blotted with a skein of iron.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE STIGMA</h3>
+
+
+<p>He was in jail now&mdash;he, Lem Lutts,&mdash;old Cap Lutts' boy&mdash;was gunless
+to-night; hanging on to the bars of a jail door. His father, seventy-six
+when he fell in the Church of Hellsfork, had never been in a jail.
+Crowding up amidst other lamentations, and superseding them for the
+moment, Lem felt keenly the stigma and sting of this scandal. It was a
+disgrace on the whole Lutts faction that he, their leader, now should
+stand behind the iron bars of a jail door. The irony of it was deeply
+excruciating&mdash;that he, their chieftain, should succumb to a revenuer.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, was it not unspeakably shameful that this revenuer who took
+him was the man who had invaded his home and killed his mother? He had
+waited a little and killed his father. Then he tore him away from his
+domain and his people; and caged him where he stood to-night&mdash;gunless,
+in an iron and concrete hole, with the cold, unyielding bars between him
+and his free, wide, high Cumberland Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>Lem probed his conscience for the hundredth time in quest of the crime
+he had committed to bring him to this hell. And when a small voice
+answered back from out its castle of inherent chauvinism, and told him
+that he sinned against no man&mdash;then it was that the smouldering, dormant
+hate, sleeping in his heart, stirred and welled up into a mighty tide,
+effacing all other kindred emotions that had traversed his being upon
+being jailed. This new force aroused him to action, and somehow he felt
+better.</p>
+
+<p>How strange are the workings of that mystically mated pair&mdash;the human
+heart and brain! How appallingly strange that a phase of hate should
+assuage the pain in any heart. But this was a truism that for the time
+inspired Lem to action and forgetfulness of his environments, for now
+his previously dull eyes were afire, as he turned back into his cell for
+the first time. He felt his way to the limits of the wall. The distance
+was a mere three steps for him. Then he turned and took the three steps
+back to the door. Then back again he went. And thus he took up this
+three-step march, the while the ugly visage of the revenuer projected
+itself against the gloom, and he saw Burton's dog-grin. He saw him smear
+the sweat off his leering face, and fancied he heard his vaunting words
+of triumph to the commissioner, gloating over the killing of Lem's
+father, and the taking of himself.</p>
+
+<p>And here, while Lem paced to and fro, he forgot all else save his thirst
+for revenge. And through these walls he heard dim voices from two graves
+in the hills urging him onward, and he invoked God to give him strength
+to endure. He vowed that he would be patient and endure, even to the
+crack of doom, that he might stand face to face with this man-brute,
+when he, Lem Lutts, would hold the upper hand, in that great day, over
+this wanton blood-lover who had done these things.</p>
+
+<p>Lem's life was linked to this Nemesis by an inexorable blood-debt. He
+was bonded to the revenuer, with the rigid, unmalleable nexus of hate
+that naught but annihilation of one or the other could sever. Thus, with
+these hurtful thoughts whirling through his brain, Lem forgot in a
+measure, which mitigated the dejection and chagrin imposed by his
+terrible predicament.</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore, he continued to follow these stormy thoughts as from door to
+wall he paced&mdash;three steps backward, then three strides to the bars,
+walking, turning, walking and turning again&mdash;until presently he stopped,
+transfixed, startled, and blinking. A flood of brilliant light, had
+dashed into his cell. The boy had heard of this wonderful invention, but
+he had never before seen an electric globe. This magic effulgence that
+rushed in and drove the darkness from his cell was a most welcome
+visitation, but it added to his strange, uncanny surroundings, and
+perplexed him deeply. He stood rigid for a long minute gazing intently
+at the incandescent globe that stuck put from the wall, irradiating its
+brightness in so mystifying a manner. He approached this bottle-like
+device, and examined the wall around it minutely. He raised one hand
+cautiously and with a forefinger touched the globe gingerly, as if he
+feared it might burn him. While he was thus engaged pondering upon the
+necromancy of this light which smacked so strongly of witchcraft, and
+upon the avenue that conveyed it hither and the puzzling power that
+sustained it, he heard a slight sound at the door. Whereupon, he wheeled
+quickly and met Last Time's scarred face grinning through the bars at
+him pleasantly, and obviously amused. Knowing that the fellow had been
+watching his antics around the electric globe, and acutely conscious of
+his own crudeness, Lem stepped to the door with an abashed smile.</p>
+
+<p>"How are you now?" inquired the convict.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't powerful happy," returned Lem lugubriously. "This air the
+all-fired'st cave I ever been into. I 'low I'll never git used t'
+hit&mdash;leastways I air glad thet yo'-all come round t' talk. I ain't much
+on th' talk myse'f&mdash;I never could talk much, someways,&mdash;th' folks up my
+ways air all putty much thet-away&mdash;they don't any of 'em spill over with
+talkin'&mdash;'pears like they got so much to think about thet hit keeps
+their tongues stalled all th' time, most&mdash;but ef I can't say much&mdash;I air
+glad yo'-all come round, 'cause I like to heer yo' talk. Gawd'll
+Moughty! hit's powerful lonesome-like in heah."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," sympathized the convict. "It's lonesome'ern hell; but it ain't
+that altogether thet hurts a first-timer, Lutts&mdash;it's the gang of
+old-timers he's bound to meet inside every jail."</p>
+
+<p>Lem smiled wearily, in a mirthless way, and delivered his short,
+eloquent gesture, implying acquiescence and approval, as he watched the
+convict's face with interest. Silently, Last Time produced a small tin
+box containing a bit of woolen rag and a tiny piece of flint, together
+with a button through which two cords passed through separate holes.
+Standing, he lifted his knee, placed the box thereon, and with dextrous
+skill started the button like an improvised buzz-saw against the flint.
+The spark flew and ignited the woolen rag. He then lighted his
+cigarette, replacing the box, and leaning his big shoulder against the
+bars, forced the smoke through his nostrils reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what brought you here, Lutts&mdash;I ain't askin' you&mdash;it's
+none of my business&mdash;but I hope you don't come back here after your
+trial&mdash;it's the old-timers, like me, that the cul meets in jail that
+makes the criminals of this country. Just listen to that talk now&mdash;that
+ain't up-liftin', is it?&mdash;Sure not. Just hark to that swearing and them
+rabby songs&mdash;sure, that's all aginst the rules of the prison, but what
+can they do to stop it? Nothin'. They'd have to keep a bull at each
+door. The men are allowed to talk a little while to each other from
+their cells before the lights go out. They can't speak during the
+day&mdash;they got to let them talk some time or other in a place like
+this&mdash;if they didn't, they'd all go crazy&mdash;then where would the
+politicians and the prison contractors be?</p>
+
+<p>"Then when these guys start in to talk, what do you hear? But there
+ain't much of that stuff comin' from the first-timers, Lutts&mdash;they're
+too thoughtful to-night&mdash;they ain't hard enough yet&mdash;but wait till they
+come back&mdash;very soon. If they do, they won't get any jobs when they get
+out, believe me&mdash;it's me that knows. What happens when a guard starts
+out to catch some of these cursers? A bull's got to be almost in front
+of his cell to be sure. And you take three hundred convicts with
+two-thirds of them cussin' all at the same time, and the echoes all
+jumbled up&mdash;he might as well try to take the ocean up in his arms&mdash;they
+get them&mdash;sometimes. When a bull slips up and starts along the tier, he
+don't no more than get started, when the guys that he's already passed
+gives out the signal and you won't hear a peep until the bull's gone
+down again&mdash;then they'll all give him the merry ha-ha, and cuss him for
+sneaking up. It's the people you meet here that makes the criminals,
+Lutts. I hope you don't come back here. If you do, you're gone&mdash;not that
+you want to be gone, but the world 'll sizzle you to a frazzle&mdash;they
+will want none of you&mdash;it's me that knows."</p>
+
+<p>Lem was profoundly attentive. He pressed against the door and listened
+to the convict's words with growing interest. Last Time rolled another
+cigarette, manipulated the tinder-box, lighted up, and continued:</p>
+
+<p>"It makes my gizzard ache," he said, "every time I see a first-timer.
+Their stories are all the same. If you'll listen, Lutts, I'll tear off
+nine rods of my own life, right at the spot, where I first got in jail."</p>
+
+<p>"Once I had one of them good mothers&mdash;like everybody has or had. My
+daddy was killed in a mine, and my mother died three months later. They
+sent my little sister to an orphan asylum, and I went to work for a
+dairy-man for my board and clothes. I sure did sling the work&mdash;from four
+in the mornin' to eight at night, sometimes later. He fed me good
+enough, but the old stiff wouldn't give me a cent to spend&mdash;only two
+jits on Sunday to toss to the preacher. Course he didn't agree to give
+me any money, but if he had just a slipped me two bits on Saturday he
+could have squared my feelin'. I didn't kick out loud, and wouldn't a
+felt so bad at that if he had let me see my little sister once in a
+while. I begged him every month, but he turned me down cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I got to wantin' to see my sister so damn bad after a year that I
+swiped a set of single harness from the old guy. I kept them hid for two
+weeks, then I dug them up, sold them, and skated. I left a note tellin'
+ole Storman that I had gone West to make my fortune, like they say in
+books. Well, I see now that I hadn't ought to a stole the harness&mdash;I
+hadn't ought to a throwed that trick. Anyhow, them two months was the
+happiest I've seen since.</p>
+
+<p>"When I left I meant to work for some one near the asylum who would pay
+me till I got money enough to pay for the harness and go back, as the
+old man had promised to pay me wages when I was eighteen, but I struck
+such luck that I forgot to go back; but I paid him for the harness&mdash;like
+a dub&mdash;and what did I get for it?</p>
+
+<p>"I was a husky lad and knew the dairy business. I got a job near the
+asylum&mdash;saw my sister every day&mdash;and got twenty-five bucks a month. The
+harness was my first bad break, and it worried me. The second month, I
+sent old Storman a postal order for twenty dollars and told him I took
+the harness and was sorry. He cashed the order and had me pinched the
+next day. They tried me and slammed me into the booby-hatch for six
+months; so I was on my way.</p>
+
+<p>"Lutts, I'll never forget that first night&mdash;not me. When I got out I
+went back to my last job and got the throw-down. He said it was good for
+me to confess and pay for the harness, but that every one knew I had
+been in jail, and he couldn't have me around. Then I went back to my own
+town like a fool&mdash;everybody gave me the go-by&mdash;even the church that I
+had carried money to every Sunday wouldn't have me. I saw then I was a
+dead one. I hiked out then. Every time I'd get a good grip on a job,
+long would come that convict-hunch, and I'd have to make my by-by. I
+ain't tellin' you how hard I tried for a year, Lutts&mdash;but I'm tellin'
+you now that I ain't tryin' any more, and don't mean to. I quit tryin'
+and hunted up a guy I met in jail, and when I found him in St. Louis I
+was hungry and ragged and ugly as a wet dog.</p>
+
+<p>"He was the whitest guy I ever met. He staked me and I stuck to him, and
+worked with him until he got shot dead the night I got this scar you
+see. Believe me, Kid, Morgan was the smoothest blower that ever lifted
+the front off a safe&mdash;and I want to tell you, Lutts, when I'm outside I
+ain't ragged and hungry any more&mdash;not me&mdash;and I don't mix with tin-horn
+trash like Blinky and this gang in here. I live right, Lutts, when I'm
+out. I got twenty-three hundred bucks planted right this minute, where
+no one will get it but me&mdash;at that, Lutts, I'd go back and work for five
+dollars a week if I could, but I know I can't&mdash;there's no turning back
+for an old-timer&mdash;he's gone.</p>
+
+<p>"I know as well as I know I'm talkin' now, that in the end they'll plant
+me in the potter's field, and the chances are that I won't die
+natural&mdash;they wouldn't even let a guy like me into a decent
+graveyard&mdash;the life has big draw-backs&mdash;and when you get out, Lutts, you
+remember the advice from a party that knows&mdash;you side-step anything that
+looks crooked&mdash;even if you do see ready money&mdash;you blow it&mdash;it's a
+boomerang&mdash;I'd rather die a beggar than a rich thief&mdash;blow it, Lutts&mdash;it
+ain't too late for you&mdash;if you don't come back. Say, Lutts, you must be
+hungry&mdash;I know you didn't eat anything downstairs&mdash;wait a minute&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Last Time broke off abruptly, and slipped into his cell. He returned
+with a paper sack which he thrust through the bars to Lem.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's some crackers and cream cheese&mdash;the bull gave it to me&mdash;you eat
+it all&mdash;I got all I want. Hello&mdash;there goes the quarter&mdash;the lights 'll
+go out in fifteen minutes. 'Creepin' Jesus' 'll wake up now. I got to
+bring the night bull's lunch from the kitchen and take the towels over
+to the Hospital, and turn the hot water off at the bath house, and a
+string of other old-woman stunts before they lock me up&mdash;so-long."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>RUBRIC DROPS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lem ate the cheese and crackers thrust upon him by the generous convict,
+more to assuage the acute pangs of hunger that now assailed him than to
+indulge his palate, the while he pondered over the convict's story.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the electric lights went out and left his cell in darkness save
+a glimmer across the corridor. The scores of obstreperous, profane
+tongues that had scathed the fetid atmosphere now subsided, and Lem sank
+on the side of his cot and gazed with empty eyes between the bars at the
+dim light across the stone hall, and the full force of his unlucky
+predicament rushed upon him again.</p>
+
+<p>This gas jet, which burned all night, was some fifteen feet from the
+corridor floor, bringing it up to a level with the tier porch. The jet
+flung a faint, orange-hued ray obliquely toward Lem's cell door.
+Although he was mentally worn out and weary of body, still he could not
+bring himself to lie down. Finally, he took the straw pillow from his
+cot, placed it on the cement floor close to the door, and sat down with
+his mind astray and his unseeing eyes fixed blankly upon the gas light.</p>
+
+<p>At this instant, he was suddenly blinded, as "Creeping Jesus" flashed
+his lamp in his face, turned a cold stare on him, and glided on like a
+ghost. Lem clutched the bars and tried to look after the apparition that
+seemed to be borne along on air. While he was pressing against the door,
+a sudden medley of noises disrupted the quiet. As it came nearer, it
+gathered volume, and the somber stillness was quickened with the discord
+of voices, and the shuffling of padded feet, accompanied by the baser
+scrape of a heavier tread. Seemingly, this confusion stopped and
+centralized directly over his cell, but what tier it was on he could
+form no conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>In a momentary lull came the rasping of a key; then the subtle roll of a
+cell door, followed instantly by a frightened voice that rang through
+the dead corridors with a jumble of protesting, begging utterances that
+rended the solemnity of the place.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no! Not in there! Not there! I&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up&mdash;you'll wake every dog in the place&mdash;get in."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't go in there! I won't! I can't go in there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you get in there? You get in there&mdash;you damn fool!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't put me in there&mdash;don't&mdash;don't! I won't run away&mdash;how can I? I'll
+stay right here&mdash;but please don't put me in there."</p>
+
+<p>"Take hold of him, Sam&mdash;throw him in&mdash;get hold of his leg."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait&mdash;wait&mdash;wait&mdash;please listen just a minute&mdash;I'm not a
+criminal&mdash;don't put me in&mdash;my parents don't know where I am&mdash;let me stay
+out here&mdash;my father is rich&mdash;he will send for me&mdash;he will pay you&mdash;he
+will come for me&mdash;please don't put me in that place&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Kid&mdash;you're the limit! For the last time&mdash;are you goin' to get in
+there? If you don't&mdash;we'll throw you in."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't!&mdash;I can't!&mdash;I'll smother in there. I'll die there and my mother
+will never know&mdash;oh&mdash;oh&mdash;you're choking me&mdash;stop&mdash;you're
+chok&mdash;cho&mdash;ch&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>For a scant minute there came the panting hiss of labored breaths,
+heaved through clinched teeth; a combat of footsteps, mingled with the
+sound of ripping garments. Then came a dull thud overhead, a slight
+rumble, the click of a cell door, followed by an agonizing groan, ending
+with the pang of a sob that impinged cruelly upon the awesome, dead
+solitude.</p>
+
+<p>While these hateful sounds still lingered hurtfully in Lem's ears, two
+feet and a pair of striped legs confronted him. He looked up from his
+position on the floor. It was Last Time.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't you asleep yet, Lutts?" he whispered, then went on, "Did you hear
+them slam that first-timer in? He's right over you in 520. God, but he
+hated to go in there&mdash;but he went in. He's no mongrel&mdash;he's a swell
+looker&mdash;only a kid&mdash;the poor devil. It's eleven o'clock&mdash;there's the
+bull lookin' now&mdash;night."</p>
+
+<p>The convict stepped into his cell and slammed his door noisily as a
+signal to notify the guard, who stood waiting at the end of the tier,
+that he had closed the door tight. Then the big lever ground back into
+position, and Lem sat motionless with a horde of curious thoughts
+trailing across his benumbed brain. It seemed like an age that he sat
+there, throughout the pitiless hours like a distorted image; the
+deserted habitat of a soul with its tenant gone. He was only aroused
+momentarily when hour after hour "Creeping Jesus" hung at his door for
+an instant, like a great nocturnal humming-bird, then darted away like a
+winged phantom.</p>
+
+<p>The boy had the comforting, though fatuous notion, that the nearer to
+the door he managed to get, the nearer to freedom was he. Under an
+apathetic spell his thoughts fled back to the hills. With quick, wistful
+breaths, each a cry from a stifling soul, and his hot forehead pressed
+against the iron, he crouched there on the floor by the cell door. His
+body was imprisoned between these grim, impassable walls; but his soul
+was yet uncaged. For in spirit he was once again back amidst the
+beauteous wild hills of the Cumberland with the feel of his rifle,
+hunting and hunted in turn, but with the pungent aroma of odoriferous
+blossoms in his nostrils; the purl of crystal waters in his ears; and
+the illimitable arch of opalescent sky over him, and the free fraternal
+rocks beneath his feet.</p>
+
+<p>And in his vision, framed in blissful hours, his retrospection conjured
+a seraphic face&mdash;a luring, misty vision, with a bowed red spot for a
+mouth, and great black-fringed eyes&mdash;eyes tinted like robins' eggs&mdash;eyes
+that held an unworldly baby look; and curls&mdash;a riotous billow of satiny
+curls. Ah, even as he crouched here, he could see the little pale scar
+that crossed the part in her curls&mdash;his scar&mdash;his scar to kiss,&mdash;that
+little scarab-like mark that fascinated his lips.</p>
+
+<p>The longer he stared at the rufus halo that encircled the gas light, the
+wider it expanded; and as it grew, its burning gamut embraced a
+multiplicity of changing scenes representing hours of his life. Like
+cinematographic pictures, it held a stirring pantomime boldly up to his
+intent gaze.</p>
+
+<p>As he looked again, a beautiful nascent wraith slowly developed and
+occupied the nimbus of the buff light. Her meaning lips were slightly
+parted, her eyes saw him, and there was a specific message therein. He
+knew that if some sorceristic agency could put her down by him now in
+this black midnight hour, that she would put her hands in to him and
+would give her lips between these unbreakable iron bars. The price of
+her kiss to-night would be one look at his haggard, haunted face.</p>
+
+<p>In fancy, he took her in his arms and fled, galloping across the clouds
+to the Cumberlands, racing with the shadows that traversed the valleys
+like eagle wings. Once again his eyes were gladdened with the vast
+colored panorama that crowded in one limitless circle around Eagle
+Crown. Now the cascade in Hellsfork was beating in his ears, the
+soothing rhyme of its endless monotone, a cadence he loved so well. And
+now the sun had followed a shower, and he was sitting with Belle-Ann
+under the big magnolia tree on the spot that was ever dry, and they were
+holding out their hands and catching the crystal raindrops that rolled
+off the leaves overhead.</p>
+
+<p>Half consciously, he now thrust his hand out toward this scene his own
+imagery held before him. And even now the warm drops came down from
+overhead&mdash;dripping, dripping, dripping. He could feel them splash and
+burst now on the back of his outstretched hand, just as they did in the
+joysome days agone when the drops tickled their palms, and he could hear
+the music of the girl's dulcet laughter. Again he caught more of these
+drops.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly and rudely, Lem was jerked out of this beatific reverie by the
+fearful howls of some convict, night-mare ridden. These hideous
+screeches aroused Lem's senses, and he blinked and rubbed his hands. His
+hands were wet. Instinctively he looked up and discerned the crack in
+the tier porch overhead from whence these warm drops trickled down and
+splashed in front of his cell. Wherefore, a shock of suspicion jerked
+him out of his rambling thoughts. He leaned close and stared at the back
+of his hand, getting to his feet at the same time. It was smeared with
+red. Even in the semi-darkness, Lem knew that the stain on the back of
+his hand was blood.</p>
+
+<p>In an under-tone he called repeatedly to Last Time in the adjoining
+cell, but the convict slept on and did not respond. Lem searched for
+something with which to knock on the wall to wake him. Failing in this,
+he backed up against the wall and hammered with the heel of his heavy
+boot. Presently, Last Time's voice awoke sleepily and from afar.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter&mdash;is that you, '20?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," returned Lem in a whisper. "Yo'-all come t' th' door."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Lutts?"</p>
+
+<p>"They's blood a comin' down overhaid."</p>
+
+<p>"Blood!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;hit's a drippin' down heah."</p>
+
+<p>"You sure it's blood?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," reassured Lem. "Hit's sho' blood&mdash;'cause I got some on my han'."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute."</p>
+
+<p>Lem heard him rummaging around in his cell. The convict made a long,
+rigid roll out of a newspaper and thrusting this out and around at arm's
+length he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Lutts, get the end of this&mdash;stick it in the blood and hand it
+back."</p>
+
+<p>Lem manipulated the paper. Reaching as far out as he could, he rubbed
+one end in the dark pool in front of his cell, and handed it back to the
+convict. Lem heard Last Time exclaim:</p>
+
+<p>"The hell&mdash;I thought that guy'd do something."</p>
+
+<p>The next minute the convict was scraping a tin cup across the bars of
+his door, a performance that sent metallic echoes from end to end of the
+corridor. A guard responded with surprising alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the rumpus here, Last Time?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"That cul up in 520's croaked himself&mdash;pipe the blood in front of next
+door."</p>
+
+<p>The guard turned his reflector upon the pool, then hastily unlocked Last
+Time's cell.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along," he ordered.</p>
+
+<p>He then ran to the end of the tier, and pulled the lever to allow Last
+Time to open his door and follow. After that, Lem heard nothing overhead
+save subdued whispers, cautious steps, and guarded movements. He did not
+hear Last Time return to his cell.</p>
+
+<p>When the first gray light of dawn filtered through the high arched
+windows of the cell-house, and drove the gas light pallid, it found Lem
+still awake. Without, the English sparrows set up their garrulous
+chirpings, and like a draught of some blessed elixir, a faint breath of
+early morning, dew-damp air was wafted through the outer bars into the
+sodden cells. The bell on the prison tower rang, and there was a great
+stirring of convicts, mingled with a multitude of harsh jail noises.</p>
+
+<p>While the keys were grating on the tiers above, Last Time hustled up to
+Lem's cell with a bucket of water and a mop, and in silence washed every
+vestige of the blood-stain away. As he took up the bucket to go, he
+turned to Lem.</p>
+
+<p>"He's over in the dead-room now. Ain't it hell, though?&mdash;and him only a
+kid at that. He had a fine face, too,&mdash;he cut his throat with a broken
+pocket mirror. There comes the bull for the count&mdash;so-long."</p>
+
+<p>As the cracksman went, Lem saw a film of moisture glisten in his eyes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>"THE ONLYEST LUTTS"</h3>
+
+
+<p>Up on Eagle Crown, dim crest of his benighted world, Buddy Lutts' small
+shape made a vague shadow, fusing with the dawn-mists that dipped and
+lifted and swathed the peaks like a nun's veil. The boy crawled far out
+on this majestic point that divided night from day. On one side the sun
+had poised its jewelled lance against the east. On the other, the
+vanquished morning moon was hiding his pallid face amidst the naked
+peaks.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy crawled farther along the dew-chilled brink of the ledge like a
+young, lean catamount whelp. Here he sprawled at full length upon his
+stomach with his thin face propped up between his hands. Here, alone on
+the sanctum-rock of Eagle Crown, he lay, his moody eyes gazing beneath
+and across the limitless expanse of purple fog.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great ache in his heart, and he was lonelier than any boy
+could well be and live. By and by he discerned the top of the church
+belfry floating on the sea of fog like a buoy, and the mere sight of
+this replenished the fires of vengeance that had reduced his puerile
+being to a hard cinder of hate.</p>
+
+<p>No human foot had ventured across the door block of that death place
+since that serene Sabbath morning, more than a year since, when they had
+lifted the dead body of his father off the virgin altar and laid him on
+the pyramid of flowers built up in the clearing by the hundreds who had
+come to witness the dedication of the church. Although this deed stood
+foremost and fresh and even more vivid now in his memory, still, the
+calendar day of its enactment, seemingly, held a grim unforgettable spot
+on the apex of a grievous avalanche of immeasurable vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>The boy wearily withdrew his truculent gaze and his eyes softened with
+an unutterable sadness as he fixed them on the tops of the apple trees,
+behind the log barn, grouped about the two sodden graves of his father
+and mother&mdash;both dead at the hands of the despised law. His heart was
+dead to all else save one hope&mdash;to avenge the death of his parents and
+his brother Lem, whom he now believed to have been murdered by Sap
+McGill. He would not count his young life amiss with all its hardships
+and heart-aches, if only he could see the dawn of this triumphant day
+for which he lived. He was hoping and waiting and watching&mdash;waiting
+evermore.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed that the torturous days, weeks and months that he wandered
+through the hills furtively and alone, waiting and watching since his
+father's killing and since Lem and Belle-Ann had slipped away and out of
+his life, was time enough to make a decrepit, aged man. An insufferable
+loneliness had wrapped its tentacles around his being, and had, like a
+cruel tourniquet, crushed all the joy out of his soul. At times in
+retrospective indulgence he felt that his soul could not endure. Tears
+might have alleviated the misery within him, but Buddy's grievous
+repining and loneliness was of a tearless brand.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy Lutts was a boy in size and in years only, for it was with an
+adult stoicism that he valiantly fought this creeping madness. In his
+weaker moments this brooding would seize him and drag him back to the
+brink of utter hopelessness and despair; but always his purpose would
+fly to his rescue and beckon a renewed promise, and he would awake out
+of these lethargies armed with a buoyant sense of patience and inspired
+with a mighty will to wait and watch.</p>
+
+<p>In these periodical relapses it was his wont to humor his fevered fancy
+with lurid and extravagant sequences to his protracted term of
+espionage. Among these vagaries was a pet dream representing the
+revenuer and Sap McGill creeping upon him in single file; whereupon, he
+fired and his single ball tore both their hearts out and made him dance
+and clap his hands with sheer joy, and he was merrier than any orphan
+had ever been before him. His conscience acquitted him blithely, and his
+spirits soared skyward.</p>
+
+<p>Deprived of these monopolistic creations of reprisal to alleviate the
+tension of his hate, the bonds of his perverse reason would have burst
+asunder and left him bereft.</p>
+
+<p>But now again, there arose a cheering prophecy in the advent of spring.
+Since Lem Lutts had dropped out of the mountain so mysteriously, the
+bitter nights and days had rolled into weary months. And the brooding
+months had waxed into riotous winter tempests and had dragged in
+endless, eternal deluges of ice and snow, adding cold agony to Buddy's
+already misanthropic heart. But finally the crows rode up on the soft
+winds out of the South, and a benign sun broke the grip of these
+frost-bound hills, and gradually emptied their pockets of snow. The
+ridges and coves, and the emerald hulks of the mountains smiled
+gratefully back. And through this expanse of tangled scenic splendor,
+the rhododendrons and laurels wove a banner of multicolored tones. The
+sassafras and poplar and dogwood bloomed and the cascade sang a new ode.
+The calling of the lark came up from the lowland, mingled with the
+blatant scream of jay-birds in the orchard. And the warble of the
+blue-birds filled the odoriferous somnolent air.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy lay motionless out on the crag with his thoughts, and watched the
+sun unveil the spurs below him. Then he divided his gaze between the
+distant splash of water that marked Boon's Ford, shining back like the
+glint of a sun-perch, and the yellow length of trail across Hellsfork
+that marked the path to Sap McGill's stronghold. Then he twisted his
+head around unconsciously, and his eyes caressed the rifle that rested
+behind him&mdash;his father's rifle. And an inarticulate muttering answered
+the reiterated avowal in his heart, inspired each time he looked at
+this, his father's rifle&mdash;a sacred relic bequeathed to him and vested
+with a stupendous responsibility. He reasoned that now as he was the
+last of the Luttses, he was rightfully the Captain of the faction. In
+view of this heritage he argued that he should at least have a voice in
+the counsel of the clan.</p>
+
+<p>But Johnse Hatfield had a smooth, persuasive mien with him, and while he
+and all the men facetiously recognized young Buddy as their "Captain,"
+they had, through Johnse, kept Buddy artfully in the background. The
+disgruntled boy did not relish this lack of due recognition and these
+periods of inaction. He did not favor postponements. Time and again he
+had appealed to Johnse Hatfield to issue a call and muster every man and
+boy in the Moon mountains range, and cross Hellsfork and storm the
+McGills, win or lose. Ultimately, Johnse always twisted this sanguine
+project away from him, through flattery and cajolery; making amendments
+bit by bit, until Buddy's pet scheme had petered down to another
+postponement to which he readily acquiesced at the time. But always his
+truant acumen told him later that Johnse Hatfield did not consider him
+"fitten."</p>
+
+<p>This morning Buddy crawfished backward away from the brink of the
+overhanging rock. He threw the rifle-strap over his shoulder, and as he
+made the dangerous descent, there was etched on his grim little face the
+outlines of some new, inexorable resolution.</p>
+
+<p>The type of man who now stood as dictator and leader by proxy, of the
+Lutts' faction in the Moon mountain range, was an individual possessing
+a peculiarly complex and many-sided nature. In stature Johnse Hatfield
+was of medium height. He was deep-chested and thick of neck, but his
+legs were straight and incongruously slender in comparison with his
+shoulders. His face was a mask of black, close-cropped hair, save the
+complete exposure of the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>The hair growth halted below the lower lip and, from constant biting or
+use of the shears, the hair on his upper lip held aloof; hence, the
+mouth, thick-lipped and wide and tilted upward at the corners, bore the
+aspect of one perpetual smile. But, oddly enough, the eyes were a total
+and surprising antonym of this smiling mouth. They were markedly small,
+close set, and of a singular amber hue, glinting like needle points and
+carrying the fire of direct and instant demand. Thus, these closely
+coupled, unwinking eyes contradicted and specifically denied the
+smiling, placatory, diplomatic mouth so prominent across his black
+visage.</p>
+
+<p>It was said of Johnse Hatfield that at the moment marking his advent
+into the world he had interrupted his mother who was working a pump-gun
+from behind a grind-stone, in her will to help the men-folks repulse an
+attack upon their home cabin. She claimed that she "sho' wud a fetched
+thet 'onery Tod McCoy," whose head she was angling for behind a turnip
+mound, "ef little Johnsie hed a waited an' hadn't bin so all-fired
+anxious t' git hisse'f into th' rumpus."</p>
+
+<p>As a lad Johnse had carried arms with his notorious father and brothers
+against the McCoys. Then he had drifted up Hazard way and had, through
+blood relationship, become entangled in the French-Eversole war. Eight
+years since he had come up to Moon mountain to visit "Maw" Lutts, who
+was a blood cousin, and he never went back.</p>
+
+<p>While his life had been practically one prolonged fight, there was,
+nevertheless, a commiserating, gentle side to his nature. This
+incorruptible fealty and trustworthiness was an element that had
+attracted old Cap Lutts, and in time Johnse Hatfield had become the old
+man's first lieutenant. He had since served gallantly through many
+fierce sorties with the McGills and the revenuers.</p>
+
+<p>Johnse's friends pretended that he was a source of deep anxiety to them
+when near the water, because if he unfortunately fell in, there was
+enough lead in him to take him to the very bottom and keep him there.</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield had a smattering of education, and was reputed as upstanding as
+a mountain fighter could well be. Certainly, Johnse did not stand up and
+invite hot pellets of lead. He did not scorn a rock or a tree any more
+than did his opposing belligerents. But throughout his life the value of
+his given word was equal to a fulfillment. Those who bargained for this
+man's word felt that on the spot where Johnse defaulted they would find
+his dead body.</p>
+
+<p>When Lem Lutts had disappeared so inexplicably from the mountains,
+Hatfield had, after a hasty search, hied himself out and visited every
+calaboose and county jail in the surrounding country. He knew the
+cunning of Burton, the revenuer, well enough, but little did he
+anticipate such a flagrant irregularity as the transfer of a
+"moonshiner" to the capital of the State, with a dozen counties
+separating the place of offense. Such a procedure was depriving a
+defendant of all constitutional rights, and an effrontery to county
+jurisprudence, the enormity of which Hatfield could not ascribe to the
+power of even the wily, murderous revenuer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>BUDDY FORCES AN ISSUE</h3>
+
+
+<p>After getting authentic information from the offices of the six Federal
+commissioners in the eastern district, and finding, to his deep chagrin,
+absolutely no trace of Lem Lutts, Johnse returned, and calling fifty
+men, he instituted a search that lasted for weeks. He beat every
+mountain side up to its crest. He scoured every cave and cove, and creek
+bottom. There was not a square yard of rock or earth or tangled brush
+that had escaped his search for Lem. But they did not find Lem's bones,
+and finally, Hatfield had resumed the regular routine amidst daily
+conjectures and prophecies, and dire maledictions from the men, directed
+toward the McGills.</p>
+
+<p>While Johnse made no outward preparations for hostilities, his mind was
+busy. This disappearance of Lem Lutts was not a closed incident to be
+relegated to forgetfulness. On the contrary, as the months passed, the
+temper of the Lutts' faction waxed to such a stage of suppressed fury
+that Hatfield knew it was only a matter of time, and a brief time at
+that, before he would be compelled to head a massacre over in Southpaw.
+It was while Johnse was making preparations after careful deliberations,
+to force a fight with the McGills and square for the supposed
+annihilation of Lem Lutts, that an unlooked-for incident occurred which
+hastened the conflict, but changed the site of battle.</p>
+
+<p>Prior to the death of old Cap Lutts, he had moved his distillery to a
+new site. Some fifty yards distant from the blind mouth of a cave he
+drilled a hole downward through forty feet of rock and earth and into a
+cave. Then he ran a channel pipe up through this hole and directly over
+the outlet he built a two-room cabin. This pipe was merged into the
+structure behind the fireplace in the cabin and continued upward some
+feet to where it opened out into the chimney proper; wherefore all the
+pungent odors and smoke from the distillery in the cave beneath the
+cabin followed this pipe and issued into the atmosphere through the
+chimney in a most natural manner.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing short of destruction of the cabin could have disclosed the
+presence of this ingenious device. Moreover, in the improbable event
+that prying eyes had been permitted to scrutinize these premises, it is
+highly doubtful that the mouth to the cave would have been discovered
+after the most minute and careful search. Because the entrance to this
+underground region was barely spacious enough to admit one man on his
+hands and knees.</p>
+
+<p>Furthermore, this entrance would be wholly and snugly closed by a huge
+boulder several tons in weight, or more than twenty men could displace.
+This great rock had the innocent appearance of a hundred other rocks all
+about it, and was so trussed up and balanced that one man could knock
+the prop out with a single blow, thereby releasing it and allowing it to
+drop back with its concave side fitting over the mouth of the cave in a
+manner that defied detection. When this precaution was resorted to, it
+required the labor of thirty men and two steers to truss it up again.</p>
+
+<p>It was here in this cabin that Johnse Hatfield kept "bachelor's hall"
+and maintained a "residence."</p>
+
+<p>When Buddy Lutts climbed down from his solitary reverie on Eagle Crown,
+he made for Johnse Hatfield's cabin as straight as crooked trails that
+"back tracked" themselves could take him.</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived at the "still," the "night force" was just crawling out
+of the cave to repair to their respective shacks. Buddy stepped within
+the cabin and cast about for Johnse. He stepped toward the adjoining
+room, but halted inquiringly, when he saw Hatfield's broad back and the
+profile of a man he did not know.</p>
+
+<p>Johnse looked behind him, got to his feet, and as he closed the door
+between, tossed a meaning gesture to Buddy, who rolled into a
+split-bottom chair to wait, opposite a row of ten Winchester rifles
+along the wall.</p>
+
+<p>The men from the cave now pushed into the cabin. They all wore holsters
+with twin Colts, but had stepped in to get their rifles. As they lagged
+about, got their guns, and straggled out again, they all in turn had an
+indulgent look or a playful nudge or respectful pleasantry for "little
+Cap Lutts." Their manner, however, made it plain that they did not
+expect any effervescent response from Buddy.</p>
+
+<p>Bud was known to be not a voluble lad. Some had ventured that "little
+Cap wus jest a pinch tuck in th' haid," but down in their rough hearts
+they pitied and loved him, for who knew better than they the train of
+barb-tipped circumstances that had crushed down upon this boy to harrow
+his young life with their eating misery?</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield soon appeared, followed by the strange man, who continued out
+the door without words. Johnse faced Buddy.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, little Cap&mdash;how's pickin's?"</p>
+
+<p>Buddy sat speechless with the newcomer in his mind, and questioning eyes
+upon Johnse's face, but Hatfield volunteered no enlightenment, and his
+hairy mask with its naked, smiling lips and frowning eyes was
+unreadable.</p>
+
+<p>"Foller me in, Buddy&mdash;I'm aimin' to kick up some breakfast 'bout
+now&mdash;maybe yo'll have a snack, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Bud did not open his mouth, but his pale eyes followed Johnse as he
+began hacking at a raw shoulder of pork. Buddy knew Johnse, and Johnse
+knew Buddy, and the boy knew that there was something particular in
+Johnse's mind. And Hatfield knew just as well what Buddy would say as if
+the boy had already condescended to speak. After a minute's unbroken
+silence, Johnse said:</p>
+
+<p>"What ded yo' say, Buddy, eh? Ded yo' say yo'd have a hank o' corn
+bread, an' a slab o' po'k, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw," answered the boy sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>With the knife poised Johnse cast a covert look at Bud. Then he laid the
+knife down gently, threw his wide hat down on the red oil-cloth table
+cover, and sprawled down on a chair in front of the boy. With one hand
+he reached out and squeezed Buddy's shoulder solicitously, and
+pretending not to know what was coming, he inquired in his inimitable
+soft, smooth voice:</p>
+
+<p>"What ails yo', little Cap&mdash;hain't yo' feelin' peert like thes nice
+mornin', eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Buddy's lips were tightly compressed and his eyes, which had not
+wandered from Johnse's face, were now eloquent with reproach. Johnse
+waited.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'low yo' haint a treatin' me right, Johnse Hatfield."</p>
+
+<p>The man simulated a profound density.</p>
+
+<p>"Whut&mdash;whut&mdash;hain't a treatin' yo' right?&mdash;Why now, Buddy&mdash;now&mdash;come
+now." Johnse forced a soft placatory laugh. "Come now, little chap&mdash;whut
+hev I done t' yo'&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Bud straightened up with a jerk and his mouth began to twitch with the
+heat of some vehement words that stood just behind his lips, but
+Hatfield quickly forestalled him as he intended to do.</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;now&mdash;don't git riled, little Cap&mdash;why, haint I tuk th' best care
+uv yo' as I know how&mdash;an' every month after I've paid th' men, don't I
+bring yo'-all half o' whuts leftin'&mdash;every month since Lem's bin gone I
+han' over yore part reg'ler&mdash;an' last month wus better 'n any&mdash;why, I
+give yo' fifty-one dollars last month, Buddy&mdash;whut yo' got to pester
+yo'&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>At Hatfield's first words, the boy had settled back in his chair,
+plainly disgusted.</p>
+
+<p>"Whut do ail yo' anyways, Buddy&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>When Buddy straightened up again, Johnse relaxed in his seat and
+expressed a willingness to listen by plucking his beard with two fingers
+and a glint of amusement in his small eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnse Hatfield," began the boy vigorously, "ef yo'-all wusn't honest,
+I 'low we-uns wouldn't a hed yo' heah&mdash;thet ain't whut I'm aimin'
+at&mdash;hit hain't&mdash;yo' alers treated me like pap ded&mdash;yo' alers ac'ed like
+a dad t' me&mdash;only one thing, Johnse Hatfield&mdash;jest one thing&mdash;I air a
+tellin' yo'."</p>
+
+<p>He had slid out of his chair and was now holding an admonitory finger up
+to Hatfield's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Only one thing, Johnse Hatfield&mdash;an' yo' done me pesky on thet, yo'
+ded."</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield regarded the end of Buddy's finger for a moment&mdash;then softly
+inquired:</p>
+
+<p>"How ded I do yo' pesky, Buddy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hain't I th' onlyest Lutts?" he fairly yelled, falling back a step,
+with head tilted backward, and an unmistakable note of pride trembling
+through his piping voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Warn't ole Cap Lutts my dad?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Then who air leader by rights&mdash;who air th' head o' th' people&mdash;who air
+Cap'in heah in Moon?"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus4" id="illus4"></a>
+<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"Who air th' head o' th' people&mdash;who air Cap'in heah in Moon?"</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>While Johnse was gathering response with slow deliberation, the boy held
+his ground with unswerving eyes, the while tapping his own little thin
+chest with his finger tips, and with an emphasis that boded no denial.</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield perceived that to argue with him now would be like taking a
+bone from a starved dog.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Buddy!" placated Johnse, "ded I ever 'low yo' warn't?"</p>
+
+<p>"But yo' don't think I'm fittin'&mdash;yo' don't&mdash;yo' don't think I'm
+fittin'!" he shouted hotly.</p>
+
+<p>Mentally Johnse told himself that it was time to launch what he held in
+reserve and end Buddy's turbulent tirade, which was carrying the boy to
+the verge of distress. Hatfield's attachment to old Cap Lutts had been
+fused with a ligature of fealty little short of blind idolization, and
+it did his soul good to watch this outburst of virility and aggression
+that flamed up in the boy, reflecting the blood and stamina of the old
+man. And Hatfield loved this little human tiger that had come to-day to
+arraign him with the iron gusto of a born ruler and all the plenipotent
+fire of a vice king and despot.</p>
+
+<p>"I hain't fittin'&mdash;I hain't fittin'&mdash;be I?" he reiterated vociferously.</p>
+
+<p>"Shore, yo're fittin', Buddy. Course yo're a little feller yet,&mdash;shore
+yo're fittin'&mdash;ef ary hillbilly says yo' hain't&mdash;why, I'll turn his face
+down out o' these mountains, I will&mdash;yo' never heard me say yo' wusn't
+fittin', Buddy, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, but leastways yo' ac' hit Johnse Hatfield&mdash;yo' ac' hit&mdash;yo' do.
+You won't listen t' me."</p>
+
+<p>"I alers listen t' yo', boy," contradicted Johnse quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yo' listen, but yo' don't heed&mdash;yo' don't," he stormed.</p>
+
+<p>"Whut do yo'-all want me to do?" petitioned Johnse naïvely.</p>
+
+<p>"Tear em up&mdash;tear em up&mdash;tear em up!" he cried, with an arm stretched
+toward the south. "Hain't I begged yo' t' tear em up&mdash;hain't I begged
+yo' fo' a yeer t' tear em up&mdash;hain't I prayed t' yo' t' wade in an' make
+em pay fer killin' Lem? Gawd'll Mighty&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here the boy's fury broke all bounds of self-restraint and he tore up
+and down and across the puncheon floor, bandishing his two fists,
+distraught and choked with an avalanche of impassioned, inarticulate
+words. After a minute he went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Th' men won't foller me 'cause I air a boy&mdash;an' I hev begged yo' t' git
+em fo' killin' pore Lem. Don't I know they kilt Lem&mdash;don't I know they
+kilt Lem an' tuk em across Hellsfork an' made a hole fo' em in Southpaw?
+Efen yo' wus afeered I'd know whut t' do&mdash;but yo' hain't askeert, yo'
+hain't. Ef th' ole Scratch wus t' cum in thet door now t' git yo',
+Johnse Hatfield, yo'd smack em over and wring his neck&mdash;yo' hain't
+askeert&mdash;yo' got some tuther reason ahidin' out&mdash;yo' air&mdash;an' I don't
+'low t' swoller hit no longer! Whut ud my pore daid pap say&mdash;an'
+maw&mdash;an' pore Lem, whut Sap McGill kilt an' hid away?&mdash;we cyan't keech
+th' revenure&mdash;he's gone&mdash;but we kin keech Sap&mdash;Johnse Hatfield&mdash;efen yo'
+don't heed me now&mdash;so he'p me Gawd&mdash;I'll fire yo'&mdash;I'll fire
+yo'&mdash;karnsarn yo', I will&mdash;I'm a tellin' yo'&mdash;I hates t' do hit,&mdash;but
+I'll pay yo' anything I owes yo'&mdash;an' I'll fire yo' shor'n hell."</p>
+
+<p>The boy pulled his eyes slowly off Johnse's face and, sagging with
+passion, backed against the wall and turned his quivering face to the
+logs. Hatfield stood up and pulling his Colt gun twirled it lovingly and
+laughed like a man who had won something.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy started and twisted a look over his shoulder. Then he turned about
+and fairly crept back upon the man, and looked searchingly up into his
+face. There was a timbre in Johnse's laugh that told the boy something.
+There was a note in that laugh that mated with a solitary hope in his
+own heart. It sounded like a knock for which he had been listening for
+ages.</p>
+
+<p>"Whut&mdash;Johnse&mdash;whut?" The boy's whisper trembled and he laid two
+pleading hands on Johnse's sleeves and peered eagerly up into the man's
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield grabbed Buddy's wrist and dragged him outside the cabin. Still
+holding him, he pointed the gun down across Hellsfork and over to where
+the balmy, warm sunshine made soft, dreamful pictures in black and white
+amid the tinted spurs and ridges of Southpaw.</p>
+
+<p>"Buddy," he said, with profound, succinct accents, "yo' 'lowed I wus
+layin' back&mdash;but I wusn't, little Cap&mdash;I bin busy all th' time&mdash;an' now
+I got th' gates o' hell open fo' em&mdash;an' Tuesday when co't meets down at
+th' Junction, we'll drive em in with th' ole Scratch."</p>
+
+<p>Overwhelmed, Buddy stared open-mouthed at Johnse, but he could not
+mistake. He knew that Johnse spoke true, and not waiting for further
+details, he broke loose and capered in a circle. He tossed his hat up in
+an abandonment of joy and kicked it about when it came down. He grasped
+a big rock in his exuberance, and tossed it several feet, astounding
+Johnse with his strength, and he rung Johnse's hand, too overjoyed for
+words.</p>
+
+<p>Johnse returned to the kitchen, lighted a fire, and while the corn bread
+was warming he busied himself slicing the pork.</p>
+
+<p>"Ded yo' say yo'd hev a pinch o' breakfast, Buddy?" he invited.</p>
+
+<p>"Shore," answered Buddy. "I didn't 'low I was so hungry&mdash;lemme he'p yo'
+git th' snack, Johnse&mdash;I cud eat a bilt owl."</p>
+
+<p>When the corn bread and the cane-molasses and the pork and black coffee
+were all on the table, the two sat down to the repast together, and
+Johnse proceeded to take Buddy into his confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' hain't t' open yore haid, Buddy&mdash;nary a word, yo' heah?"</p>
+
+<p>With his mouth full, Bud nodded understandingly. "Yo' seed thet feller
+whut went out o' heah? Thet's Plunkett&mdash;he's bin a spyin' down at th'
+Junction fo' me, goin' on fo' months now. I brought em up from Hazard
+jest fo' thet purpose. I tol' em to git a job at Hank Eversole's store
+ef he hed to work fo' nothin'. Well&mdash;Eversole doddled along with em fo'
+two weeks&mdash;then th' old sore-eyed dog offered Plunkett twenty dollars a
+month an' Plunkett tuk hit, yo' bet&mdash;he'd a tuk ten dollars, 'cause I
+bin a payin' em twenty-five a month out o' my proceeds from thes works,
+Buddy. I'm a goin' t' tell yo' all frum th' start, an' 'fore I finish
+yo'll be surprised. Yo' see, Bud&mdash;I alers knowed thet some skunk traitor
+led th' revenure on to yore pap, an' I alers hed a mind who hit wus, but
+I never said nothin'. I wus so shore I wus right thet three times I hed
+my gun on em&mdash;then somethin' told me maybe I wus mistaken&mdash;an' I let em
+go&mdash;but I learnt this mornin' thet I'm right&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Buddy gulped, dropped his tin cup of coffee, and strained forward over
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Who&mdash;who, Johnse&mdash;who?" he blurted, straining his ears as though a
+river separated him from the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Jest yo' set down an' eat yo' meal&mdash;yo' jest wait til I git to
+thet&mdash;I'm aimin' t' tell hit all as hit comes along&mdash;eat yo'
+breakfast'&mdash;I learnt thes mornin' thet I wus right," Johnse went on
+evenly. "Thet was Plunkett heah thes mornin'&mdash;I saved his life down at
+Hazard one night ten years ago, an' Plunkett 'ud take a message to hell
+fo' me an' git an answer&mdash;besides, I pay em&mdash;an' I don't want yo' to
+shoot em&mdash;he air apt to slip up here any time now, day or night&mdash;I give
+em the countersign and to' th' men to let em up&mdash;an' I want yo' to look
+sharp 'fore yo' go t' pullin'&mdash;yo' mought slide th' pork thes way,
+Buddy. Plunkett air worth all I pay em, an' more too&mdash;an' I'd starve
+myse'f fo' ten years jes t' git th' information he's brung me."</p>
+
+<p>Buddy had suspended eating, and, conscious that he dare not interrupt
+Hatfield now, he sat tight-lipped and listened like an image, with one
+hand gripping the other and holding it down under the table.</p>
+
+<p>Johnse proceeded with his recital with a deliberation that grated
+insufferably on the boy's nerves and made him shiver with impatience and
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe yo' rec'lect Buddy, when Don Perry wus laywayed on Pigeon Creek
+two months arter yo' pap wus kilt? Sap McGill an' Pete an' Stump Allen
+done thet job. An' now we cum t' th' main louse, Buddy. It was Jutt
+Orlick that led th' revenure t' th' church when yo' dad wus kilt, an'
+last night down at th' Junction, jest as Mart Harper started home, Sap
+McGill stepped out o' old Eversole's store an' Jutt Orlick out o' th'
+blacksmith shop opposite an' fired on Mart an' kilt him 'fore he could
+wink two eyes. An' down at old Eversole's Post-office ther's a passell
+of letters writ to Lem&mdash;old Eversole an' Sap an' Orlick tore th' letters
+open an' read 'em, an' Orlick hid 'em in th' store. Thet's bin mor'n
+three months ago. Plunkett learned that fo' sho', but hain't never heard
+one word 'bout Lem. Maybe McGill didn't git Lem, maybe Orlick done
+hit&mdash;but we'll charge 'em with hit, anyway; besides, hits more'n time to
+collect fo' their other divilment. Now yo' jest keep yo' haid
+shut&mdash;don't even peep, Buddy, 'cause ef th' men heer all thes news they
+won't wait&mdash;they'll bust out an' spile my plans. Jest keep quiet an'
+leave hit t' me, an' Mistah Hatfield 'll show yo', Buddy, whut cums o'
+laywayers an' traitors&mdash;an' yo'll hev a chanct t' see with yore own eyes
+how sich sinners crowds up t' git their crimes washed away with their
+own blood. I never kilt a man in my life lessen hit wus t' save my own
+life er some tuther body's life&mdash;I kilt 'em a fighten'&mdash;I never
+laywayed&mdash;thet's 'bout all I got t' say on th' subject&mdash;damn nigh
+enough, hain't hit?"</p>
+
+<p>Johnse pushed his tin plate away, settled back and wiped his mouth on
+the corner of a blue handkerchief he had knotted around his neck. He
+lifted his eyes to Buddy's chair, but the boy had left the table. Johnse
+looked around and beheld a solemn pantomime that he well understood and
+which he did not interrupt. Buddy had slipped noiselessly into the
+adjoining room, where he occupied the center of the floor. He stood
+there swaying, his lips moving mutely, and his two invoking hands lifted
+upward.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MURDER PARTNERS</h3>
+
+
+<p>A bird's-eye view of Junction City would inspire even a jaded wayfarer
+to continue on and forfeit what measure of scruffy, uncouth hospitality
+its lazy, primitive confines might hold for him. On high, it looked,
+physically, like a monstrous spoiled egg, dropped from a great height,
+and halted in its desolation and turned back by a narrow, swift river
+that wrapped itself half around the town like a horseshoe. Its ill
+complexion was clay-yellow, and its adornments were pitted and streaked
+with a somber, sickly, worm-eaten gray. The very atmosphere that
+permeated this hole between the hills was at once forbidding, repellent
+and sinister. And up from the mad throat of the river, choked against
+the boulders in mid-stream, there issued a warning which never died.</p>
+
+<p>From eminences of the hills that crowded this town into a mere ragged
+plot, the most prominent institutions observable were the Courthouse and
+the graveyard, with the second look favoring the latter.</p>
+
+<p>One marvelled at the population of this habitat of the dead, sprawling
+on the side of a hill. Their countless pale hands thrust up out of the
+ground, seemed to have frightened the river, for here it turned sharply
+and dodged away between the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>The Courthouse was in the upper end of the town. It was framed and
+roofed with clapboards. In front, a crude attempt of hypostyle was
+visible in the two huge pillars of poplar logs that supported a balcony.
+The structure bellied out at the sides and oddly, at each corner of the
+roof, two mansard windows projected like ears, while above all a pigmy
+dome arose covered with unpainted tin. Withal, from afar the Courthouse
+looked like a decrepit bull dog squatting amidst a scattered litter of
+pups. The dome of this temple of justice looked up askew at the sun with
+the bluish-yellow glaze of a blind eye.</p>
+
+<p>Topographically, young Sap McGill and old Hank Eversole owned this town.
+Morally and spiritually they were paupers, and their souls were as
+pitted and yellow and gray as the town looked to be. Moreover, the
+McGills "said" they owned five thousand acres in the Southpaw range
+abutting Hellsfork, where they lived. Their verbal deed to these acres
+was sustained by a cavalcade of rifle men and a squad of wary, creeping
+bush-whackers.</p>
+
+<p>Old McGill and old Eversole had fought the Lutts faction for twenty
+years, but old Lutts had ever proved a most formidable antagonist, and
+when he brought the fearful Johnse Hatfield up to Moon mountain as aide,
+there was both renewed caution and consternation in the McGill camp.
+Then, when old Cap Lutts finally killed the elder Sap McGill on
+Hellsfork, one Sunday morning, they foresaw an eclipse that would bedim
+their day of power and their impotent chagrin and rage was unbounded.
+Where his father had left off, young Sap then took up the feud with a
+re-enforced vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>Then one day when the tidings came down to Junction City that the old
+King of Moon mountain had been killed by a revenuer, the exultation of
+the McGill faction was unconfined. Following closely upon this, a
+traitor sneaked down from Hellsfork and whispered to old Eversole the
+news of the arrest and spiriting away of Lem Lutts. The accrued glee of
+Eversole and young Sap with this opportune turn of affairs reached a
+stage that demanded expression. Wherefore, they celebrated with a public
+barbecue on the Courthouse lawn, and great rejoicing was mingled with
+sanguine prophecies, and the drunker Sap became the louder his avowals
+to annihilate the Lutts faction.</p>
+
+<p>Eversole and young Sap plotted, then, to waylay Lem Lutts as soon as he
+was released from prison, and during the interval they killed three of
+the Lutts' sympathizers, and took Jutt Orlick into the fold. But
+throughout this apparent upperhand in the war, Sap and Eversole had an
+apprehension that grew day by day, and of which they exchanged serious
+comments.</p>
+
+<p>The very silence of Hatfield, the man who now marshalled the Lutts
+faction, was significant and alarming. If old Cap Lutts' war-name was an
+awesome enunciation, the name of Johnse Hatfield was equally fearful.
+His name was scoffed at in public, but secretly he was a haunting
+bugbear to these murder partners.</p>
+
+<p>In one respect, Hatfield was unlike old Cap Lutts. Lutts would fight so
+long as the enemy was in sight and then quit. All the old man wanted was
+to be left alone and unmolested. But not so with this Hatfield. He had
+the reputation of following his enemy up, and he did it with a
+confidence and deliberation that was little short of uncanny. He had
+been literally shot to pieces in other family wars, but always survived
+and always followed. It was the shadow of this relentless Nemesis that
+filled Sap and Eversole with a nervous unrest. These two conspirators
+not only owned practically all the realty in Junction City, but they,
+moreover, owned and controlled the Judge of the Court, the County
+prosecutor, and the Sheriff, and through Sap McGill old Eversole was the
+dictator supreme in Junction City.</p>
+
+<p>He was postmaster and the post-office occupied one corner of his
+merchandise store. In the event that any citizen appeared lax or
+half-hearted in his partisanship, Eversole would accost him with a
+leering, soft-spoken reminder, which mild petition pounded more like the
+pungent echo of a gun-crack than a voice, and the delinquent always
+heeded.</p>
+
+<p>In a sense, old Hank Eversole was a philanthropist of no mean
+generosity. Anybody could get a tombstone out of old Hank. These
+ornaments were a sort of hobby of his. If the deceased's relatives could
+not pay cash, he procured one and took a mortgage on the stone. If they
+rejected all overtures on the pay plan, he furnished one and placed it
+at his own expense, and gave it gratis. He maintained that plain boards
+were a disgrace to a well-ordered graveyard, and not meant for Junction
+City.</p>
+
+<p>It was the second Tuesday in May, and the sun shone brightly and the air
+was scented with the mingled odors of spring. Junction City had taken on
+a sudden new life. The May term of circuit court was in session and the
+activity and life astir here was more animated than that which attended
+a court term for many a year, for the reason that there was a murder
+trial in progress.</p>
+
+<p>In this festering crime-stained town, where hired assassination brewed
+under contract by day, and was returnable at night with its toll of
+blood, a murder was not a sensational episode, but a real murder trial
+was. Here the chief conspirators, who had made the Judge and the
+Prosecutor and the Sheriff, had the law by the throat; and they dumped
+the offal of their deeds into subservient arms of the law, and burdened
+and shackled it with collusions it dare not drop. Wherefore, the law
+winked and connived with these murder lords in brazen malfeasance
+inflicted upon the commonwealth, and trials assumed all the aspects of a
+hurried laugh-provoking comedy, despite the grim fact that its elements
+involved human life. The swearing out of warrants had long since fallen
+obsolete. In times past, charges had been made and warrants issued, but
+when the day of trial arrived, there were no witnesses at hand, and the
+prosecuting witness was usually the farthest distant.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, it transpired that the trial which opened the circuit court at
+Junction City on this May day was to the denizens a memorable one.
+Although the trial itself, which was never finished, was not a factor in
+what followed, still, this trial was remembered as having opened a day
+that ended with a scrambled, tragic event which ground the
+McGill-Eversole combination to a pulp, and marked an era of new
+political and social ethics in Junction City.</p>
+
+<p>Three months since a young German named Daum, and hailing from below,
+made his optimistic appearance in the town. After alighting upon a
+four-room shack that seemingly suited his wife, he cast about to locate
+the landlord. As there was only one landlord in Junction City, Daum
+found his way into old Hank Eversole's store. Daum was even more than
+loquacious&mdash;he was effervescent, and in no time old Hank had pumped him
+dry. Daum claimed that he would receive ten thousand dollars from
+Germany six months hence,&mdash;that he wished to fish and hunt and live as
+cheaply as possible until his money arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Old Eversole finally decided that the newcomer was simply a harmless,
+dumb Dutchman, and before Daum left the store, old Hank had given him a
+receipt for six months' rent paid in advance. The German paid cash for
+his groceries at Eversole's store, and hunted and fished to his heart's
+content, while his young, round-faced wife made baby clothes on the
+porch.</p>
+
+<p>Withal, Daum was not an undesirable citizen until the end of the first
+month, when apparently tiring of fishing and looking at the hills and in
+response to his native thrift, he took to himself a quick notion to make
+some money. A week after this economic inspiration the energetic German
+had converted the front room of his shack into a general store.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding that the display he scattered on his porch was a
+melancholy exhibit compared to that of old Eversole, it was sufficiently
+competitive to lead old Hank's footsteps directly to Daum's
+establishment. Old Eversole was not as irate as his temperament might
+suggest. He was, in truth, stirred with a deep amusement as he wended
+his way Daumward and pictured how this presuming German would leave the
+town in haste after this first interview.</p>
+
+<p>When Daum understood the purport of this un-neighborly call, he
+explained that he had never intended to remain in Junction City a day
+after he obtained his money from Germany, but protested that, insomuch
+as he had paid his rent for six months and being in a free land, he
+would do business until that time.</p>
+
+<p>The interview opened mildly enough, but ended with a mandate from old
+Hank, commanding Daum to close up his store within the limit of six
+hours. Whereupon Daum grew very angry, and as old Eversole swaggered
+out, Daum hurled his determination and sentiments after old Hank in a
+few wrathful, terse words.</p>
+
+<p>"Mit you I vont nuddings&mdash;I standt py mine piziness&mdash;to hell mit you
+also&mdash;ulch!"</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak the following morning Daum's wife was in her garden with a
+sprinkling can when she espied one Steve Barlow, a loafer around
+Eversole's store, sneaking out of her woodshed and slipping away along
+the picket fence hemming the potato patch. She pondered curiously upon
+the man's actions and, her suspicions giving way to fear, she returned
+to the house, but Daum had already gone after his usual morning fry of
+fish. The wife, then impelled by an apprehension that grew momentarily,
+followed after him; and found her husband stark dead at the end of the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>After the burial, the widow departed from Junction City, fully bent upon
+devoting her forthcoming estate to the trailing down of her husband's
+slayer. The day she left old Eversole sent word by Plunkett, his
+"clerk," that he would erect a tombstone for her husband, and that she
+could pay for it later or not, just as she chose. Ten days later, the
+widow Daum appeared in Junction City accompanied by a lawyer named
+Logan. Logan was a man with a state-wide reputation as a criminal
+practitioner, and old Hank Eversole pricked up both his ears.</p>
+
+<p>Logan proceeded to the Sheriff's office with his client and swore a
+warrant for Steve Barlow. The warrant was issued with reluctance; the
+entire court personnel being loud in their defense of Barlow. But there
+was a grim directness and aggression about this Blue-grass lawyer, that
+with his inconceivable temerity and a reputation which awed even their
+callow senses, they pretended at last to agree to catch and try Barlow.</p>
+
+<p>Logan visited the Courthouse the next day and found the Eversole-McGill
+faction had done just what he thought they would do, and precisely what
+he wanted them to do. Logan's youth had been spent in the hills, and he
+knew the proclivities of these mountain men. They had hedged Barlow with
+a formidable and insurmountable alibi.</p>
+
+<p>Logan then made a concession, and stated that while he meant to try the
+case, he would suggest that Barlow, if he be apprehended, be admitted to
+bail. He said that he realized that this procedure was a trifle
+irregular in such cases, but that if the townspeople were so morally
+certain that the alibi would stand, he did not wish to impose the
+hardship of several weeks in jail upon the defendant.</p>
+
+<p>To this generous proposition they agreed with pleasure and alacrity. And
+the next day Steve Barlow was "apprehended" and quickly released,
+pending trial the second Tuesday in May. Then the astute Logan took to
+hunting, and incidentally watching for a chance to catch Barlow alone.
+He had acquainted himself with Barlow's history and felt that he could
+wean him over. Barlow was an ignorant vagabond with no permanent home,
+living from hand to mouth, and a crinkling tool in the hands of old
+Eversole.</p>
+
+<p>After four days' prowling around the adjacent hills, Logan surprised
+Barlow in a by-path across the river. The lawyer opened the interview by
+handing Barlow a new twenty-dollar gold certificate, which the lout took
+eagerly with an idiotic grin, before he even inquired what it was for,
+and Logan knew he had him.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of an hour's persuasion Barlow confessed and agreed to make a
+clean breast of the affair in court. Logan in turn promised to give him
+one hundred dollars in money, and help him out of town.</p>
+
+<p>Barlow said that old Hank Eversole gave him ten dollars for killing
+Daum, and promised him a month's board beside. That night Logan left
+town and took Barlow with him. Just what became of Steve Barlow was a
+matter of divided conjecture to the idlers around Eversole's store. Some
+'lowed that Steve had just "mosied" off and would be on hand trial day.
+Others ventured that he had "done leapt his bail."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>CIRCUIT COURT</h3>
+
+
+<p>However, Barlow's disappearance was a matter of small concern to old
+Hank. If Steve did not show up, Hank knew that he would never pay the
+bond and would be a month's board in to boot. If he did show up, he
+would "cum cl'ar" with the alibi concocted for him.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, rumors of the determined stand taken in this case by
+the noted Blue-grass lawyer, Logan, had spread throughout the hills, and
+added to the usual interest of court days a morbid impetus that brought
+the people down to Junction City in droves. And be it said, that among
+these mountain folk, there were not a few who would hail with joy and
+secret plaudits any visitation of reprisal that would put a dent in the
+tyrannical reign of the Eversole-McGill combine, under which they had
+suffered and been coerced beneath an iron heel.</p>
+
+<p>The dent was delivered on this May day when the sun was bright and made
+pictures against the mountain sides, traced in pigments of emerald and
+white and carmine. And the buoyant air was charged with the stirring
+odors of spring and rife with rapturous bird voices. The town was agog
+with armed mountaineers of every age. They all arrived early and during
+the hours preceding the opening of court they swapped news that had
+accrued since last court week, while their dogs fought the hostile
+canines of Junction City, mingling snarls and yelps with the braying of
+mules and the neighing of horses.</p>
+
+<p>Old Hank Eversole was resplendent in a new pair of light store trousers
+and a maroon shirt, and his rubicund face was illuminated as he divided
+his smirks between the groups outside and the high festivities back in
+his noisome bar where Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick were the star,
+hilarious spirits.</p>
+
+<p>When the sheriff leaned out the Courthouse window and rang a blatant
+bell, all within earshot made for the Courthouse. In a remarkably short
+time the court room was filled to overflowing, leaving scores who had
+been less sprightly on the outside, unable to find standing room. Before
+anybody could get fairly settled the Court announced that Logan had sent
+word that he could not be in court until four o'clock, and that they
+would proceed with the minor business on docket and hold court until
+five o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon the jury and more than half the eager spectators, who crowded
+the court room, having no interest other than the murder trial of
+Barlow, now straggled outside, disgruntled and thirsty. In the interval
+that followed many wagers were laid and hinged upon the appearance or
+non-appearance of Steve Barlow. The odds favored Barlow's absence, but
+promptly at four o'clock there was a great stir among this motley,
+impatient throng.</p>
+
+<p>A two-horse rockaway hove in sight, drew up and stopped at the outer
+limits of the Courthouse yard. The curtains of the vehicle were closely
+drawn and Logan, who was riding outside with the driver, alighted and
+opened the carriage door, whereupon three men climbed out, leaving a
+fourth man inside. Two were newspaper men from Frankfort, one from
+Lexington, and the fourth man was Steve Barlow.</p>
+
+<p>Logan exchanged a few brief words with Barlow, who sat back smoking a
+stogie as unconcerned as if he were simply waiting to kill somebody. His
+animal brain was of too low an order to know fear, or his senses too
+dull to impress him with the danger that imperiled his life in the
+forthcoming hour.</p>
+
+<p>The advent of Logan and the strangers was quickly passed around,
+followed by a wild pell-mell rush for the court room. When the Court
+rapped for order and the shuffling of feet and mumble of voices died
+down, the prosecutor directed the sheriff to call Steve Barlow, out on
+bail, and all the witnesses in the case, and in turning about, stole a
+covert, triumphant look at old Eversole, who stood near the Judge's
+bench with Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick at his elbow. Here some of the
+jurymen exchanged meaning looks. When the sheriff's joculatory
+utterances failed to produce Barlow, the prosecutor arose and, turning
+to Logan, said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Logan, that you got all your witnesses here for
+nuthin'&mdash;but I reckon Steve Barlow has done leapt his bail."</p>
+
+<p>Logan rose up with a slow, deliberate movement, and as he addressed the
+Court, his eyes were upon old Eversole.</p>
+
+<p>"I have little need for witnesses in this case," he began, "moreover,
+the man who is charged with the commission of this deed has not
+forfeited his bond, and I mean to show by his sworn confession that,
+while it was by his hand that Daum was deprived of his life, it was
+through bribery and threats imposed upon him by another man&mdash;a man whose
+deeds are black and numerous&mdash;that prompted him to do this murder. I
+mean to lay the burden of this crime upon this instigator who prevailed
+upon an illiterate, half-witted unfortunate, who had no grievance, to
+sneak out and do an inoffensive man to death&mdash;a wanton act from which
+his own coward's hands shrunk. Mr. Somber, bring Steve Barlow into the
+court room."</p>
+
+<p>The quiet of the next few moments was not unlike the stillness of a
+tomb. As the reporter started to crowd his way out in compliance with
+Logan's request to bring Barlow in, his footsteps echoed like a great
+noise. Old Eversole's face had lost its flush and he stared open-mouthed
+over the heads of the astonished jury, and the people, toward the front
+door. Jutt Orlick and Sap McGill then whispered to each other with
+scowling faces, which precipitated a general babble throughout the room.
+Midway to the door Plunkett, Eversole's "clerk," thrust a note into the
+reporter's hand, and the latter immediately turned back and handed the
+paper to Logan.</p>
+
+<p>The attorney glanced over the sheet, then stood up and addressed the
+Court, who was too dazed to rap for order. But at the sound of Logan's
+voice there was instant quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just been handed a message, and while it is not addressed to me
+personally, it appears to concern all present. If the Court pleases, I
+will read it aloud."</p>
+
+<p>The judge, who had been gazing inanely about the room, nodded his
+acquiescence. Then Logan proceeded to read the note in loud, resonant
+tones:</p>
+
+<p>"I hereby warn all men who don't 'low to fight fer the McGills to clear
+out of town within five minutes&mdash;I hev arrive. Johnse Hatfield."</p>
+
+<p>Fire or an earthquake could not have precipitated greater confusion and
+consternation than ensued at the name of Johnse Hatfield. The McGill
+partisans shrank away from the windows with exclamations and curses,
+while scores of non-combatants fought to get out of the rear door.</p>
+
+<p>Old Eversole's face now was the hue of gray moss. The unprecedented
+nerve of Hatfield in sending a warning into a house of armed enemies was
+significant, and indicated that he held a strong hand. Above the
+disorder McGill was shouting some incoherent commands. Jutt Orlick
+forced his way to the end of the long room and thrust his head
+cautiously out of a side window. Then he jumped out the window and
+started on a run for Eversole's store. Before he had gone ten feet,
+there was a rifle crack and Orlick dashed back to the shelter of the
+Courthouse with his palm full of blood, streaming from his left ear.
+With the tail of his eye, he caught sight of Buddy Lutts in the door of
+the blacksmith's shop, jerking his rifle up for another shot. A hand
+reached out and jerked Buddy back out of the door just as a dozen shots
+fired from the Courthouse windows pierced the boards of the shop. Then
+Johnse Hatfield's face showed for the fraction of a second as he yelled
+across:</p>
+
+<p>"Cum on out&mdash;yo' wild hawgs!"</p>
+
+<p>This sally was answered by another volley from the Courthouse. Hatfield
+had knocked every sixth board off the north side of the old shop, which
+afforded ample firing space. No one dared reach out and close the
+shutters of the Courthouse, and he could now see them piling benches up
+on their ends in front of the windows.</p>
+
+<p>The blacksmith shop, being diagonally across, commanded both front and
+side view of the Courthouse. Before he sent his terse warning into the
+court room, Hatfield had detailed a dozen men to go around and get a
+position corresponding with that of the blacksmith shop, which would
+command the rear and north side of the building. But there had been
+delay in working their way to this position unseen. Suspecting this
+move, the McGills were cautious about showing themselves, but as time
+passed and as the attack came only from the south side and front, they
+decided to venture an attempt at flanking the shop that held their foes.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this juncture, when a handful of men had dropped out the north
+windows of the Courthouse, that the Hatfields gained a lumber pile a
+hundred yards distant and greeted the maneuvering enemy with a volley of
+lead. Two of the McGills dropped into the grass, and the remainder
+limped and scrambled back into the Courthouse, while those inside
+instantly sent fifty or more shots toward the lumber pile, killing one
+of the Hatfields.</p>
+
+<p>For three hours the McGills were bottled up in the Courthouse, save
+those who had not gained entrance and were on the outside when the
+attack began. Some of these were trying their hand at sharp-shooting
+now, while others disappeared with the non-combatants. The women of the
+town had dragged their children inside and fastened the shutters and
+barred the doors of their houses. From some of these houses a towel or
+white rag appeared hanging at the end of a stick thrust out the window.</p>
+
+<p>For the past hour the shots from the surrounded Courthouse had dwindled
+down to spasmodic outbursts and Hatfield knew that the McGills were
+saving their ammunition, as they had not anticipated a siege. But Johnse
+Hatfield had come into this fight with the forethought of a trained
+military man. Every Hatfield man had an extra bag tied to his belt
+crammed full of cartridges. Moreover, Hatfield had stationed two mule
+wagons just beyond the hill. One of these wagons was to transport his
+dead and the other the wounded. Furthermore, with these wagons there
+awaited, with all his paraphernalia, a surgeon whom Hatfield had brought
+up from Hazard.</p>
+
+<p>As night came on and a brief half-moon illuminated the South road, the
+crucial hour for which Hatfield had waited was at hand. He dispatched a
+messenger around to the detachment behind the lumber in the rear of the
+Courthouse, telling them to leave three men there and for the others to
+work their way back to the South road. And the envoy Hatfield chose to
+deliver this important message was none other than Buddy Lutts.</p>
+
+<p>Although the air-line distance through to the lumber pile from the shop
+was less than five hundred yards, it was a full hour before Buddy crept
+back between the old wagons in the yard and told Hatfield that the men
+were waiting. Then Hatfield left three men in the shop and with the
+others joined the waiting squad. Lining these men up, he now marched
+them openly up the moonlit road toward the Courthouse. When they came
+into view, they fired a volley simultaneously into the Courthouse, and
+Hatfield yelled out derisively:</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon yo' got enough&mdash;yo' pack o' laywayin' wild-hawgs!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he retreated down the road at a brisk trot, followed by his sixteen
+men, Buddy Lutts galloping at his heels. There was a great stir within
+the Courthouse now. They had plainly heard Hatfield's jeering words
+above the patter and echoes of his last string of shots, and had espied
+his men turn and start down the road on a run. There was a noisy
+scramble and commotion now, as the McGills made haste to avail
+themselves of this apparent chance to get outside and pursue and fight
+their enemy, but with due precaution they waited until several
+volunteers had slipped out and made a hasty reconnoiter of the lumber
+pile and the blacksmith shop.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GRAVEYARD MASSACRE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The three Hatfield men had crawfished back into a dense dewberry patch,
+while the three in the shop had crawled into the loft and hidden among
+the miscellaneous rubbish. As there was no more shooting, and as the
+Hatfields could be seen in the moonshine fleeing down the white road,
+the McGills decided to overtake them and wipe them from the earth, and
+the Courthouse now quickly disgorged its mob of eager, infuriated
+militants.</p>
+
+<p>Regardless of ownership, men unhitched and mounted the first horse or
+mule they came upon. Old Eversole dashed across the street and banged on
+his store door for admittance. His women folks having barred and bolted
+the doors, he called loudly for his clerk, but Plunkett had disappeared.
+Presently a woman admitted him at the saloon door. He rushed into the
+bar and gulped down a glass of liquor&mdash;then, gathering all the
+cartridges he had in the place, he ran out and distributed them among
+the men.</p>
+
+<p>Sap McGill and Orlick were astride their own mounts, and McGill was
+crying for the men to make greater haste. McGill rode a light dun
+animal, and Orlick a powerful dappled gray with a bobbed tail. With
+thirty-odd horsemen and twoscore or more rifle men afoot, they now
+dashed after their fleeing opponents, who made a dark splotch in the
+moonlit road far ahead.</p>
+
+<p>This road ran straight until it reached the graveyard, where it made a
+short, sharp turn to the left, looping around the base of a hill that
+jutted outward. This abrupt turn in the road was directly opposite, and
+midway of the front length of the graveyard, which was elevated some
+fifteen feet above the road-bed and occupied the slope. Hatfield's
+horses were hitched just around the bend in the road. When the sixteen
+men were mounted, he ordered them back along the rail fence for a
+distance of fifty yards.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy Lutts, clinging to his ready rifle, was eternally at Hatfield's
+heels. Johnse had ordered him back three times; now he took him by the
+collar and fairly dragged the protesting boy back and told the men to
+keep him there. Buddy's peaked face was flushed with a look that
+partially expressed the wild exultation that obsessed him. Hatfield
+mounted his piebald mare and, advancing, drew in close to the clay bank
+that jutted into the road, and here he waited, tense and rigid.</p>
+
+<p>When he heard the clattering hoofbeats thundering down toward the
+graveyard, he urged his horse a few yards nearer the point, then with a
+Colt gun in either hand, his habitually smiling lips broke into a brutal
+grin, and his little reddish eyes snapped murderously.</p>
+
+<p>The stillness was quickened again, on the brink of this Waterloo, with
+the stuttering wail of a screech-owl watching from the dead yard. Always
+wary, the McGill cavalcade drew up short at the bend and waited for
+their panting horde behind. Then they pushed boldly around the bend.</p>
+
+<p>It was just then that the indescribable, tragic scene took place that
+stamped its grim memory ineffaceably in these mountains, and made a
+crimson stain on feudal history, known ever afterward, as the "graveyard
+massacre."</p>
+
+<p>When Johnse Hatfield saw the noses of the McGill horses, he uttered a
+wild yell of triumph that pierced the far-reaching hills, and called up
+an invocation to the mute tombs above.</p>
+
+<p>"Now drive 'em in, boys&mdash;drive th' wild hawgs in with th' old Scratch!"
+he yelled.</p>
+
+<p>And in a trice, Hatfield had turned that hillside graveyard into a
+seething crucible, whose moulten maw opened and sucked the living in
+with the impotent smothered dead. Seemingly, every soul tethered in the
+confines of that silent dead-plot came to quick ghostly life, and pushed
+up out of the ground into the moonlight, wielding a lance of darting,
+destructive lightning. Up from a hundred sodden graves, a hundred human
+forms sprang, and the tombstones belched out liquid death. And the May
+night was ruptured with a deluge of gun-shots, and harried with a chaos
+of curses, and death-groans, and the frenzied squealing of horses. And
+the air was rife with a pungent odor, not unlike brimstone, as over this
+seething disaster the powder vapor lifted and arose against the moon
+mist, studded and starred with spurting tongues of alternate flame, and
+twisted an ephemeral arch that, seemingly, framed the gates of hell.</p>
+
+<p>The McGills afoot had some show at seeking cover and retreat, but not so
+the horsemen. They became inextricably jammed into the narrow turn in
+the road, and the harder they struggled to turn about, or go forward,
+the more entangled they became. To jump from their mounts in this
+instant of turmoil and surprise meant sure death.</p>
+
+<p>Into this struggling, tangled mass of plunging, besmeared horses, and
+fighting, snarling, bleeding men, Johnse Hatfield had plunged his own
+horse, followed by his ferocious riders, now blind-mad with the lust of
+battle. And all the while the lead rained down from the graveyard
+without cessation.</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield had only one object in view now. He knew that the old coward,
+Eversole, was not there. He had seen the sheriff go down, and knew that
+he was under the horses. In the rise and fall of the conflict, he could
+not locate Sap McGill, but he did see Orlick, and Orlick saw him at the
+same time, and tried vainly and frantically to force his horse out of
+the mêlée.</p>
+
+<p>As Hatfield forged his way nearer and nearer, Orlick raised his pistol
+and fired at him. But at that instant a horse reared between them, and
+the animal received the ball in the head and fell back against Johnse's
+mount, knocking it to its knees. When Hatfield saw Orlick again, he was
+on the outer edge of the combat, and would have been away had not a man
+seized Orlick's bridle and held on. Johnse saw him fire in the man's
+face, and saw the man's head disappear.</p>
+
+<p>Free at last, Orlick turned and drove his horse up the road toward town
+like the wind. Hatfield now stabbed his horse cruelly, and forced it up,
+over and through the fighting mass, and followed Orlick, leaving the
+battle behind. But Orlick's horse was a swift and powerful animal, and
+Hatfield lost ground.</p>
+
+<p>All this while Buddy Lutts had been busy. He had climbed to the top of a
+clay bank, forty feet above, and was sharp-shooting with telling effect.
+Looking down in the moon mist upon the struggle, it was hard for him to
+distinguish the enemy from his own people, but every time he saw a man
+break away and run back toward the town, he knew it to be a McGill and
+he fired with careful aim.</p>
+
+<p>It was while thus engaged that the boy discerned Orlick's big gray leap
+out and gallop toward town. Buddy raised his rifle and pulled the
+trigger, but there was no report. His gun was empty. While he was
+fumbling nervously in his haste to reload, he saw the piebald break out
+and dash up the road, and he knew that Johnse was after Orlick. When
+Buddy had loaded the rifle, he crept along the brow of the hill and
+started to run after Hatfield. He had not gone far when he came
+unexpectedly upon four men. The boy, startled, jerked his rifle to his
+shoulder, when the men in his path threw up their hands, one holding a
+white handkerchief above his head and calling upon the boy not to shoot.</p>
+
+<p>Ignoring their friendly overtures, Buddy circled around them and ran
+onward at top speed toward town. The men were Logan and the three
+newspaper reporters, following the progress of the fight at the risk of
+their lives. Johnse Hatfield already had five bullets in his body and
+was bleeding profusely, but he spurred ahead unmindful of his wounds,
+keeping the fleeing gray in sight.</p>
+
+<p>When Orlick turned the corner and vanished, Johnse called upon his mare
+for all the speed that was in her. As he made the corner and swerved to
+the right past Eversole's store, old Hank jumped out and fired upon him.
+The ball broke Johnse's left arm and his pistol slipped from a nerveless
+hand to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Undaunted, and without slacking his pace, Hatfield wheeled in the saddle
+and fired two quick shots with his right. He saw old Eversole pitch
+headlong into the horse-trough. Because of a line of trees that cast a
+black shadow along the main street, he could not now see Orlick's gray,
+but he could hear the tattoo of the horse's hoofs. Determined to
+overtake this traitor, Hatfield urged his mare to her utmost. In a few
+seconds the big gray came out into the moonlight again, and Hatfield saw
+that Orlick was headed for the river.</p>
+
+<p>As Hatfield divined Orlick's intentions, a savage joy stirred within him
+and mitigated the torture of a shattered arm and other bodily wounds. He
+knew that if Orlick attempted to ford that swift, roaring river that he
+(Hatfield) would get the shot for which he thirsted and, as he spurred
+his horse after Orlick and felt his strength fast failing him, he fought
+this weakness off with a mighty will, buoyed up with the thought of how
+he would at last take toll from this traitor for his part in the killing
+of old Captain Lutts.</p>
+
+<p>As Johnse flew along, he saw the gray disappear down the river bank. The
+next minute he was surprised to see the horse plunging back up into
+sight. Then the horse pivoted and went down again. Then back up the bank
+he lunged a second time, and Hatfield could hear Orlick cursing the
+animal, and he knew that for some reason the horse had balked and would
+not take to the water.</p>
+
+<p>A shock of delight instilled new strength into Hatfield, whose blood had
+been ebbing away for the past three-quarters of an hour. At this
+particular spot on the river bank there were no trees, and the rim of
+the river was destitute of rocks sufficiently large to offer protection
+for a man's form. But, standing back from the road and some four hundred
+feet distant from the river bank, there was a deserted old shack with
+sagging porch and dismantled windows. And just outside the broken picket
+fence at the near corner of the yard there stood a huge chestnut tree
+with a thick body.</p>
+
+<p>While Orlick was wrangling with his refractory horse, his actions made
+it plain to Hatfield that he had marked that tree. Then, evidently
+despairing of controlling the stubborn animal, he slid to the ground,
+obviously bent upon making the shelter of the chestnut. Hatfield now
+bore down upon him, swerving to the right of the road to thwart Orlick's
+attempt to reach the tree. Whereupon Orlick ran back and along the bank,
+and dropped in the high weeds.</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield, weak and totally exhausted from pain and loss of blood, now
+stopped his horse and fell out of the saddle. He gripped his Colt and
+tottered toward the spot where he had last seen Orlick, but he knew that
+Orlick would not be on that exact spot. He knew that the man was
+bellying away like a snake through the grass somewhere. Knowing that he
+would not last much longer, and desperate in his eagerness to flush
+Orlick, he stumbled recklessly about through high weeds with his gun out
+before him and his eyes darting here and there.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Orlick jumped up fifty feet to the right in the direction of
+the chestnut tree and fired. Hatfield also fired at the same time. The
+two reports seemed to consolidate and make a single echo that quivered
+across the river. Hatfield pulled the trigger again, but it only clicked
+emptily and did not respond. Orlick was still upright, but motionless.
+Hatfield wondered why he did not shoot. Orlick's shot had struck him in
+the arm that already hung useless and limp at his side. He stood
+watching him curiously. Then he saw Orlick thrust his gun in its holster
+and sit down on the ground, as if to rest. He held this position for
+several seconds&mdash;then lay back slowly, flat on his back.</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield suspected Orlick of treachery and hastily proceeded to break
+his gun with his good hand. This he contrived to do, and while he was
+fumbling for cartridges, of which he had a countless number, a blinding
+faintness seized him and, thinking that he was falling backward into the
+river, he threw up his good arm suddenly to catch his balance. The gun
+flew out of his grasp and rolled down the embankment.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant he fell forward and lay still on his face in the weeds.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>HATFIELD OVERTAKES THE TRAITOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>By and by, Hatfield opened his eyes to find that his horse was nosing
+his face with his warm, rough lips as if bent on waking him up. Johnse
+lifted his aching eyes toward the moon. He calculated that he had lain
+there fully an hour or more. His left arm held him in an agony of
+torture. His whole body was racked with shooting pains traversing from
+his head down and back again. His smiling lips were now cracked and
+bloodless. Gladly he would have exchanged the life left in him for a cup
+of water. All the events of this night filtered back into his
+consciousness. He felt instinctively for his guns; then recalled what
+had become of them.</p>
+
+<p>Remembering where he had seen Orlick lie down in the weeds, he wondered
+if he was still there. Impelled by a consuming curiosity to know what
+had become of this hated enemy, he struggled up and, dragging his dead,
+limp arm along, he hobbled on his knees and one hand toward the chestnut
+trees. At the end of a few tortuous minutes, which seemed hours of
+suffering, he saw the bottom of Orlick's feet.</p>
+
+<p>Orlick must have heard this ominous, heavy breathing, for suddenly he
+raised on his elbow and looked.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw&mdash;hell!" gasped Hatfield. "I 'lowed yo' wus daid&mdash;yo' wild hawg."</p>
+
+<p>His voice carried a volume of reproach and disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Where yo'-all bin&mdash;hain't I got ez much right to cum back ez yo' hev?"
+snarled his weak, wounded foe.</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, yo' hain't&mdash;yo' hain't never had no right on earth," growled
+Hatfield in tones that dwindled feebly to a malevolent hiss. "Traitors
+like yo' hain't hardly fittin' fo' hell&mdash;yo he'pt kill Cap Lutts, didn't
+yo'&mdash;eh?&mdash;didn't yo'&mdash;eh? An' yo' he'pt kill Mart Harper, didn't
+yo'&mdash;eh? An' yo' spied fer Sap and them fellers thet kilt Don Perry,
+didn't yo'&mdash;eh? An' thet hain't all, yo' bin a traitin' up Moonway fo'
+five year&mdash;I'm goin' t' finish yo' now&mdash;I'll finish yo'&mdash;jest wait til I
+git my breath an' I'll settle yo', shor'n hell."</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield's head dropped down in the grass and he lay panting.</p>
+
+<p>Orlick then struggled to his knees, impelled by some cryptic terror that
+imparted to him a measure of astounding vitality, and crawled away
+toward the deserted shack like a turtle. Hatfield, determined not to
+lose sight of him, crawled along tenaciously ten feet in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>The ground under the chestnut tree and along the picket fence of the old
+shack had been stamped and worn bare by roving stock. When Orlick
+reached this bare spot, he tumbled flat and inert. In a few minutes more
+Hatfield came up, spent and heaving and unable to go another foot. He
+fell prone with his good arm stretched out and his clutching fingers
+within twelve inches of Orlick's throat. Orlick's body was in the shadow
+of the chestnut tree, but his head and neck were plainly visible in the
+moonlight. He turned his face and looked wearily at the impotent hand
+that was reaching for him&mdash;then his dull eyes followed the arm down to
+the dark visage with its smiling marble-white lips, and he wagged his
+head indifferently. Hatfield spoke again between teeth that gritted down
+upon the agony of his wounds:</p>
+
+<p>"Coward&mdash;what yo' a runnin' fo'?"</p>
+
+<p>He got no response.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait 'til I rest a minute, an' I'll finish yo', shore&mdash;leastways, I
+plugged yo' gud&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Orlick's bloodless lips moved now.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' don't look so damn peert," he groaned back.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' didn't do hit&mdash;by Gad&mdash;yo' hit me in th' arm, an' hit was already
+busted&mdash;ha!&mdash;ha!&mdash;I didn't feel what yo' done," Hatfield laughed weakly,
+but derisively. "Leastways, yo' won't be a traitin' up in Moon again so
+soon. I plugged yo' gud, eh?" he ended jeeringly, venting a sound that
+in health would have mounted to a loud laugh, but which was only a faint
+gurgle in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"An' yo' 'lowed yo'd git Belle-Ann, eh? Yo' mouse-dog&mdash;yo' 'lowed
+Belle-Ann 'ud parley with sich as yo'&mdash;eh? Ef I wusn't so tired I'd
+laugh 'til I'd bust&mdash;say, skunk&mdash;yo' 'lowed I didn't know&mdash;but I knowed
+all 'long&mdash;I had my eye on yo'&mdash;yo' karnsarned wild hawg. I was a
+watchin' yo'&mdash;say&mdash;yo' 'member when yo' grabbed Belle-Ann in th' yard
+thet time&mdash;I was ahind th' corn crib, an' I hed a bead on yo'&mdash;I'd a
+kilt yo' then pint-blank ef Belle-Ann hadn't bin so clost&mdash;I started
+after yo', an' when yo' let her loose I got ahind the wagon-bed an'
+waited. Say&mdash;Belle-Ann give yo' the run, didn't she&mdash;eh? Didn't she run
+yo'&mdash;eh? Say, louse&mdash;Belle-Ann wouldn't spit on yo', she wouldn't&mdash;not
+her. Did she run yo'&mdash;eh? Gawd'll Moughty!&mdash;I wish I could laugh gud an'
+plenty&mdash;I'm aimin' to finish yo' in a minute&mdash;when I rest&mdash;then yo'
+he'pt kill her pap&mdash;an' I reckon yo' he'pt kill Lem&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Orlick now seemed to be beyond all fear of the hand with its menacing
+fingers that wriggled toward him, and the malicious dying face below. A
+half grin touched Orlick's pallid lips and curled into the symbol of a
+pleasing memory as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;'low&mdash;peaches'll be 'round&mdash;'fore Lem air&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This amazing insult threw Johnse into a fit of rage. He mumbled curses,
+but could not budge. The fingers within a foot of Orlick's neck worked
+convulsively and rigorously. A siege of coughing choked his maledictions
+and blood issued from his mouth. His fingers clawed into the soil and
+closed and, with a mighty effort, he tossed the dirt into Orlick's face.
+Presently he again found breath and words.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a cummin' after yo' now&mdash;now, I'm a cummin'&mdash;I'll guzzle yo'
+now&mdash;&mdash;" but he did not move.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't yo' shoot?" inquired Orlick, with no show of concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't yo' shoot&mdash;skunk&mdash;coward?" wheezed Hatfield through clinched
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Lend me a cart'age an' I'll shore 'commodate yo'," returned Orlick.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' shove thet gun down an' I'll shore help yo' 'long a pinch,"
+suggested Johnse, struggling vainly to drag his body just a foot that
+his hand might close upon Orlick's throat.</p>
+
+<p>The facilities for wreaking final vengeance upon each other was a
+disjunctive irony divided equally between them. Neither had sufficient
+strength or vitality left for bodily combat, and Orlick possessed the
+gun, while Hatfield had the cartridges. Had fate favored one, at that
+instant, with the possession of both, he could not have possibly missed,
+with their faces less than four feet apart.</p>
+
+<p>"Say&mdash;skunk&mdash;we'll draw fo' em both&mdash;heer me?" suggested Hatfield. "I
+got th' cart'ages&mdash;we'll draw&mdash;I know yore a traitor&mdash;but I got t' take
+a chanct on yo'&mdash;we'll draw&mdash;heer me? Ef I win, yo' shove me the gun&mdash;ef
+yo' win, I'll shove yo' a cart'age&mdash;damn yo'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Damn yo'&mdash;I'll take yo' up," agreed Orlick thickly.</p>
+
+<p>While these two helpless belligerents lay in the moonlight, slowly
+bleeding to death and scowling at each other, Johnse, at length, laid
+his fingers on a twig which he broke into two parts, attended with
+infinite pain. Then where his hand lay he clawed up more dirt into a
+minute mound. Into this he stuck the long stick and beside it the short
+one. Then he pulled them out again and hissed a scathing reprimand at
+Orlick.</p>
+
+<p>"Yore a lookin'&mdash;traitor&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>Orlick slowly averted his face.</p>
+
+<p>A brief silence ensued, broken only by the roar of the river and the
+wheezing of their breaths. Again Johnse stammered:</p>
+
+<p>"Now draw&mdash;draw now, coward&mdash;take yore pick&mdash;heer me?&mdash;draw&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Over in the road a roving hound squatted his gaunt shape, and lifting
+his muzzle up to the moon, howled long and piteously.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Buddy Lutts had dodged along, avoiding the road until he
+reached a narrow plot of underbrush that separated him from the first
+row of frame houses. Here he lay and watched for a chance to proceed
+along the road. He could not see the road directly beneath him, but
+through an aperture he held a diagonal view of the highway for a
+distance of some fifty yards.</p>
+
+<p>Like projections of a cinematograph, he saw the forms of men flitting
+past this moonlit gap, running toward town. But he could not distinguish
+the pursued from the pursuers. He also saw some horses gallop past with
+empty saddles. One of these derelicts stopped short, framed in the light
+of the gap, and turned to cropping at the roadside with reins dragging
+about his hoofs. Far behind him the noise of the conflict echoed back in
+desultory, straggling shots. These reports emanated also from a remote
+quarter of the tobacco field opposite where Buddy lay, and from the
+direction of the Courthouse.</p>
+
+<p>The boy instinctively knew that the real battle was over; he knew that
+his people had crushed and annihilated the main body of the McGill
+forces in less than ten minutes, at the gate of the fated graveyard. He
+furthermore knew that the tail of this fight was backing toward the
+town, where it would quiver and stir, and would not die until sunrise.
+It had dwindled down to a "bush-whacking" contest. It was now a
+nocturnal game of hide-and-seek, with death lurking in the shadows and
+behind every object that offered refuge.</p>
+
+<p>As the boy lay concealed, watching and listening with his rifle beside
+him, his untaught soul was profoundly exercised with the triumph of this
+victory. In truth, he would have been almost happy had he not been
+assailed with a sudden, acute apprehension concerning Hatfield. He had
+seen Johnse's horse tear up the road after Orlick, but he had not, as
+yet, seen any signs of Hatfield's returning. At the rate the two were
+going, he deemed it time for Johnse to be on his way back.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy debated as to whether he should continue on beneath the shadows of
+the trees which skirted the rear gardens and out-buildings of the frame
+houses just ahead. He was now deeply perturbed about Hatfield. After a
+minute's deliberation, he quickly arrived at a determination to face the
+dangers presented at every turn and push onward and look for Johnse.</p>
+
+<p>With this quest firmly in mind, he reasoned that to pass behind the
+houses was, on that hand, taking a great risk. He knew that every house
+in Junction City was in darkness, barred and bolted, with shutters
+closed and blinds drawn, the inmates not daring so much as to peep out.
+But he did not know what these back yards held for him.</p>
+
+<p>In hours of strife, mountaineers can never be found in their houses with
+the women, but they are often found near their homes, hiding out.
+Besides, Buddy knew that he could not mislead the sagacious senses of
+the ever-present hounds. Growing more anxious momentarily, he at length
+decided that it was less perilous to take the open road, where he could
+at least see around him, and rely upon the wayside shadows for
+protection.</p>
+
+<p>To this end, the boy crept out of his concealment, making his way
+noiselessly down the slope through the brush tangle and saplings. He
+crept down to the corner of a house which had no enclosed front yard,
+and looked furtively up and down the street. The road was apparently
+clear now, save the vague outlines of a few wandering horses. Buddy
+slipped across the highway, to the vista of sable shadows that followed
+the rail fence and then, in a half-stooping posture, ran toward the main
+street as fast as his legs could propel him.</p>
+
+<p>As he hastened along with his eyes furtively ahead, a sow jumped out
+from the thistles in a fence corner and gave Buddy an awful fright. He
+finally reached the Courthouse square, and hiding behind a wagon, cast
+his eyes around in every direction. The Courthouse doors and windows
+were open, and the building was plainly deserted. A sepulchral stillness
+pervaded the square, and there was no visible sign of the conflict
+which, the boy knew, was still smouldering, for the night wind still
+carried the muffled sounds of rifle-shots from the South, and from the
+distant end of the street westward.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Buddy knew that Hatfield would be compelled to return southward by the
+same route he had gone. But here the boy was confronted with the problem
+of the route Orlick had led his pursuer, when the two had reached the
+square. It was gravely essential that he decide quickly upon some
+action, for the boy realized fully that his life was in jeopardy every
+moment he lingered here in the midst of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>While he hoped vainly to catch sight of some of his own people, and
+appealed to his judgment to point out to him the direction Hatfield had
+taken, he suddenly discerned two men trotting down the middle of the
+road, running close together with rifles at ready position. Buddy fell
+down flat on the ground and watched through the spokes of the wagon
+wheels.</p>
+
+<p>The men halted at Eversole's store, and looked up at the windows
+overhead. Then they whistled softly. Then they went around to the front
+of the store, and Buddy heard them knock several times on the closed
+door. Evidently getting no response, they turned about, and the next
+instant Buddy heard a loud, profane exclamation and saw them pulling
+something out of the horse-trough. At this distance, in the
+semi-darkness, Buddy could not distinguish what the object was they
+labored over, and did not then know it was the dead body of old
+Eversole.</p>
+
+<p>As the boy was straining his eyes, now for the moment half forgetful of
+his perilous whereabouts, he was suddenly electrified by voices behind
+him. He shrank close to the ground, and casting a look in the rear,
+observed the forms of three men approaching along the South road. Now
+acutely alive to his danger, Buddy's eyes swept the shadows to the left,
+the only avenue open for retreat. His searching eyes lit upon a rockaway
+carriage, with the tongue propped up, standing at the roadside some two
+hundred feet distant. He crawfished cautiously toward this lone vehicle,
+dragging his rifle after him through the dust of the road. When the
+three men had advanced and were on a direct line ahead, bringing the
+wagon in between, and thereby screening him, the boy darted safely to
+the shadow of the carriage and peered out at the men, who now quickened
+their pace toward the two at the horse-trough.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking that the carriage would afford a reasonably safe hiding place
+for the moment, Buddy decided to climb inside, where he could peep out
+at the five men in front of Eversole's store, and at the same time watch
+the highway for Johnse Hatfield. The boy knew that, if he could remain
+unseen long enough, it was only a question of time ere some of his own
+faction would come upon the scene, affording him protection and
+assistance in seeking Hatfield.</p>
+
+<p>Now bent upon secreting himself inside the carriage until the way was
+clear, and, in the meantime, determine what was the most likely route
+Orlick had taken to escape Hatfield's vengeance, Buddy opened the
+carriage door, but fell back, amazed and startled, as the limp body of a
+dead man tumbled out upon him. Recovering quickly from this surprise,
+Buddy took a look at the face. The body lolled half out of the vehicle,
+one arm and the head hanging down between the wheels. Although the face
+was outward, it was at the same time downward past the step of the
+vehicle, and in this inverted position the boy could not have recognized
+his best friend in the wan moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>He shot a swift look around him and across toward Eversole's store&mdash;then
+laying his rifle on the ground, he lifted the dead man's head up and
+scrutinized it closely. As Buddy had never known Steve Barlow, the face
+was strange to him, and he was in the act of easing his gruesome burden
+down, when soft sounds like muffled footsteps startled him. They were
+close to him, seemingly coming from the opposite side of the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting an instant or even looking a second time, Buddy jerked
+his hands free, grabbed his gun, and made a headlong dive across the
+plank-walk and sprawled against the picket fence, at bay, but with gun
+pointed toward the carriage and ready to die fighting and take a toll
+for his own life.</p>
+
+<p>His little heart beat wildly for the next few seconds. Affrighted, he
+had dropped his burden so suddenly that its weight had jerked the other
+arm outside, and now the inverted dead face swung to and fro, and
+gesticulated between the wheels in the moonlight. Then under and behind
+this grim pantomime, the boy could discern the vague outlines of legs in
+the dense shadow cast by the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy did not court shots from the front, but he had always dreaded a
+shot in the back, and he knew that the McGills would show no quarter,
+not even to a boy, much less a Lutts boy. In reality, it was less than
+fifteen seconds that Buddy lay with finger in the trigger-guard, staring
+at that veiled, menacing shadow stirring near at hand, but it seemed
+very much longer to the boy. He could not endure the suspense, and just
+as he began to crawfish stealthily along the fence, a riderless, unshod
+horse stepped leisurely from the gloom and walked noiselessly through
+the thick dust.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy heaved a long breath and leaned back against the fence. The horse
+was a light dun, with black mane and tail. He wore a saddle and the
+reins dragged. The animal stopped and pricked up his ears in Buddy's
+direction, then strolled over in the Courthouse yard, champing his bit
+noisily, a preface which Buddy thought the horse had previously omitted
+with mischievous intent.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant Buddy was all action. He slipped across to a tree and
+peered toward the store. The five men appeared to be carrying something,
+as nearly as Buddy could make out, into Eversole's side gate. Now was
+his time to leave this spot. Here he committed a very boyish and
+extremely indiscreet act. The dun horse stood idly by, waiting for some
+one to ride him. The empty saddle invited Buddy to mount, with an
+insistence that the boy could not resist, in the stress of the moment,
+and his earnest desire to get away quickly. The animal being unshod and
+the dust being dense, his chances of escape looked favorable, while the
+men were in Eversole's yard.</p>
+
+<p>Without another moment's deliberation, Buddy succumbed to this sudden
+impulse. Wherefore, he pulled his gun strap over his head and thrust his
+arms through, making the weapon fit snugly at his back, and in a jiffy
+he was in the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>He reached up to an overhanging bough and possessed himself of a keen
+switch and, wheeling the dun horse, was ready for a dash down the road.
+As a precaution, he urged the horse up close into the shadow of the
+Courthouse to make sure the men had disappeared. The horse, eager to be
+away, was prancing now and rattling his bit noisily. As Buddy leaned out
+from the saddle, with his eyes fixed intently on the store, a shot
+echoed up from the distant river, and oddly enough, Buddy determined in
+that instant to take toward the river, instead of the north road. But in
+that same instant a disastrous thing happened which sent Buddy afoot
+down that river road faster than he had intended to go, and sorely
+worsted.</p>
+
+<p>When he turned his head, a man was standing at the horse's head with a
+firm hold on the bridle. Without a word, the man led the horse out of
+the shadows into the moonlight. This man was hatless, and his head was
+swathed about with bandages, and his right arm was trussed up in a
+sling. When he lifted his face and scowled up at Buddy, a shiver
+traversed the boy's spine and made the perspiration start in his hair.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy could not mistake. It was the evil, murderous visage of Sap
+McGill. The boy was in the hands of the enemy at last. The hand that
+held the rein also clutched a pistol. Dropping the rein, McGill pulled
+Buddy off the horse.</p>
+
+<p>"So besides bein' a Lutts&mdash;yore a hoss thief t' boot, air
+ye?&mdash;well&mdash;by-damn!"</p>
+
+<p>Sap cursed Buddy eloquently and long. Buddy said not a word. He felt
+that his time had come. He only gazed fixedly at the ugly face over him,
+convulsed and working with passion. McGill jerked the boy around and
+called out loudly toward the store:</p>
+
+<p>"Hey&mdash;Stump&mdash;yo', Stump&mdash;cum out!"</p>
+
+<p>After calling several times, two men appeared in response, at the side
+gate, back of the store.</p>
+
+<p>"Cum on over, Stump&mdash;I keetched this fuzzy little Lutts runt a stealin'
+my hoss&mdash;hain't thet th' all-firedest beatenst nerve ye ever heerd tell
+on&mdash;cum git thes hoss while I ring thes little cuss's neck."</p>
+
+<p>Sap's left hand clutching Buddy's shoulder, also retained the pistol
+which encumbered his grip, and as the two men advanced, Buddy threw all
+his strength into a sudden twist, breaking loose, and fled down the road
+toward the river with all the might that was in his skinny legs.</p>
+
+<p>In his flight he stooped, and straightened, and ran azigzag; performing
+every trick known to him calculated to dodge a bullet. Buddy did
+artfully dodge two balls which Sap sent after him, but the third bullet
+tripped between his arm and his body, burning a furrow on both sides,
+and the fourth pinched a piece out of his shoulder. But these sensations
+only lent wings to Buddy's feet, and handicapped as he was, with his
+rifle double hitched over his shoulders, he fairly sailed.</p>
+
+<p>When he reached the black shadows of the line of trees that reached out
+toward the river, he ventured a look over his shoulder. Sap had stopped,
+but the other two men were in hot pursuit. Buddy could not possibly
+travel any faster than he was going then, but his pace soon distanced
+his pursuers. When the boy observed that they were losing ground, he
+darted across a vacant plot between the shacks and continued on,
+stumbling now along the darkened, unfamiliar paths back of the houses,
+leading toward the river. Finally he paused and stood panting and
+listening. Amid these shades it was too dark for him to see more than
+fifty feet distant. He could hear nothing but the barking of hounds and
+the beating of his own heart. The men who had started out after him had
+evidently given up the chase. But wishing to place a safe distance
+between himself and these prowling enemies, the boy ran onward, and did
+not stop until he was a quarter of a mile past the last house.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>"DRAW&mdash;NOW&mdash;COWARD!"</h3>
+
+
+<p>Here he slackened to a walk and, turning over, crossed into the road. He
+felt of his shoulder gingerly. It did not appear to be bleeding much,
+but the wound under his arm stung and burned and he could feel the warm
+blood trickling down his side, and along his arm, also.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood in the road extricating himself from the unusual manner in
+which he had harnessed his rifle to his shoulders, he was startled by
+the rapid hoofbeats of an approaching horse. Believing that the McGills
+were coming after him again, Buddy ran across the road, then hurried
+toward the river under cover of the wayside brush. He came suddenly upon
+a broken-down shack, and as the sounds of the galloping hoofs grew more
+distinct, Buddy dropped to his knees and crawled through a rent in the
+dilapidated fence and lay down in the weeds with his face toward the
+road, and waited for a few seconds.</p>
+
+<p>Then he thrust his head between the broken pickets and looked up the
+road. A horse was coming onward at a fearful, breakneck pace, and behind
+him followed three or four other horsemen. In the moonlight, Buddy could
+plainly see the white cloths around the foremost rider's head. It was
+Sap McGill on the dun horse. Judging from the terrific rate at which the
+lead horse was leaping over the road, Buddy felt sure that they would
+pass him by. The boy drew his head in and waited, breathlessly. Then Sap
+McGill dashed past, and just as he did so two shots rang out, and McGill
+tumbled out of the saddle and sprawled in the middle of the road, where
+he lay still, while his horse continued on.</p>
+
+<p>At this unexpected turn, a great light broke in upon Buddy, and his
+heart went apatter with joy. He knew now that the men following McGill
+were his own people. He scurried through the aperture in the fence, but
+the men had wheeled about and were galloping back as swiftly as they had
+come.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy hallooed at the top of his lungs, but the noise of their horses'
+feet drowned his voice and they raced on and away. As Buddy reached back
+through the fence and pulled his rifle to him, preparatory to running
+after the men, he was arrested by the sound of a human voice. He stood
+puzzled and mystified. He could see nothing, but the voice was uncannily
+near; seemingly at his very feet.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy cast an awesome look toward the battered, deserted shack with its
+yawning, sinister windows, and a grave suspicion stole upon him, and
+mounted to a fear that embraced his soul, and set his knees atremble.
+The house was haunted!</p>
+
+<p>Buddy shrank away from the fence, moved by a fear that nothing else
+could inspire, and which has no kindred terror, but he only made two
+steps. The same voice held him rooted to the spot. This time there was a
+timbre in the inarticulate utterance that was strangely familiar to
+Buddy. Then the mysterious voice formed words that were clearly
+intelligible: "Now draw&mdash;draw now&mdash;coward&mdash;take yore pick&mdash;hear
+me?&mdash;draw&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Buddy knew that voice too well to question it further. He hurried around
+the corner of the fence, and out under the chestnut tree, where he
+stopped short for the space of a moment, spellbound and dismayed, mutely
+gazing at the two prostrate forms stretched eerily before him in the
+gleam of the moon. The next instant Buddy was on his knees beside
+Hatfield.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnse&mdash;Johnse&mdash;air yo' kilt&mdash;air yo' hurted bad&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Air thet yo'&mdash;little Cap?" inquired Johnse feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sho'&mdash;I bin a huntin' yo'&mdash;air yo' hit bad, Johnse?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm scratched up some, boy; twixt us two, I don't feel as skeetish as I
+ded 'bout sun-down. Say, Buddy, th' coward won't draw&mdash;I knowed he
+wouldn't&mdash;I jest knowed he'd throw in some ornery trick. Say, Buddy,
+give me yore rifle-gun down heah&mdash;an' fix th' muzzle in his ear fo'
+me&mdash;I lost my Colts&mdash;hurry long&mdash;han' yore gun down, Buddy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The boy had been making a hasty examination of the familiar form that
+lay inert beside Hatfield. He now leaned over Johnse again.</p>
+
+<p>"Orlick's daid," announced the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, air he?" said Johnse. "I 'low I'll scuse em then fo' not drawin'&mdash;I
+knowed I hit em hard&mdash;but I didn't think he 'lowed to die&mdash;th' way he
+jest naturally hung on&mdash;he air so karnsarned tricky. Say, Buddy&mdash;how is
+hit a goin'&mdash;air th' fellers at em yit?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sho'&mdash;we'uns licked 'em bully, Johnse&mdash;they's jest a playin' tag now up
+in town&mdash;Sap plugged me twict up by ole Hank's store, as I cum
+by&mdash;Johnse, I got t' rack out now an' git th' men to tote yo' to th'
+wagons&mdash;I reckon th' doc-man kin peert yo' up a pinch&mdash;does yo' hurt
+bad, Johnse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ded Sap plug yo', Buddy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yep&mdash;hit don't hurt powerful bad though&mdash;an' our men jest plugged Sap,
+jest now&mdash;didn't yo'-all heer th' shoots?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mought hev, Buddy,&mdash;but I wus powerful busy arguing with Orlick&mdash;yo'
+sho' they got Sap?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sho," reassured Buddy. "He air a layin' up on th' road yonder now&mdash;I
+got t' rack out an' git yo' away from heah now."</p>
+
+<p>"An' I got ole Hank&mdash;Gawd'll Moughty!&mdash;hain't we'uns in luck?"</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield's voice sunk now to a thin, lingering whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Buddy," he muttered wearily, "'fore yo' go&mdash;kin yo' fetch me a speck o'
+water&mdash;jest a mouthful o' water somehow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The boy hurried behind the old shack in quest of something that would
+hold water. He found an old tomato can, but there was a rent in its
+bottom. Presently, he caught sight of a rusty tin bucket hanging by a
+wire, against a rotting porch post. He dumped the earth and dried roots
+out of this and held the bucket up to the moon. Then he ran toward the
+river. When he returned a few minutes later with the water, he was
+trailing Hatfield's piebald mare after him. The wounded man gulped the
+water greedily and Buddy unknotted the handkerchief about his neck and
+bathed his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I air goin' now, Johnse," said Buddy. "Yo' jest lay easy like, an' I'll
+be back with somebuddy 'fore a goat kin wig his tail."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon, Buddy mounted the mare and galloped toward the courthouse,
+unafraid. In less than half an hour, Buddy galloped back, accompanied by
+six horsemen. They lifted the maimed, unconscious Hatfield and bore him
+away. As the cortège moved slowly up the moonlit road bearing their
+wounded leader, little Buddy turned the mare back, and cantered down
+toward the river to the spot where he had seen Sap McGill tumble out of
+the saddle when the Lutts' had fired upon him. But the boy was acutely
+disappointed. McGill was gone. And three bony, starved dogs with
+ravenous, wolfish eyes that gleamed in the moonlight, wore licking at a
+pool of blood in the road.</p>
+
+<p>The immeasurable canopy above the hills was clear and pearly, save a
+narrow reef of low clouds that anchored over the serried peaks of
+Southpaw. Clouds frowning against the sun, grim and somber and splotched
+with a sable film that seemingly reflected a stratum of despair and
+gloom that tides of time could not erase.</p>
+
+<p>Down upon the Moon mountain range, the sun smiled with an affiliating
+mellowness that found grateful response in the hearts of the denizens,
+despite the fact that the coves were scarred with new-made mounds, and
+their cabins were not without the wounded.</p>
+
+<p>And dividing these two mighty ranges of victory and defeat, the frenzied
+waters of Hellsfork dinned a neutral warning, reiterating an idiom that
+boomed like the omen of a tom-tom.</p>
+
+<p>For the past three weeks the Lutts' cabin had been utilized as an
+improvised hospital. Three of the men who had lingered there had
+departed to their respective homes, leaving Johnse Hatfield propped up
+in the "four-poster" alone.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy Lutts' hurts, while painful and stubborn, were flesh wounds, and
+the boy had spurned the bed. Slab, the negro, was a willing and deft
+helper. And Buddy attended Johnse with the devotion born of idolization.
+In Buddy's boyish appreciation Johnse Hatfield was now a hero, seconded
+only by his dead father's memory. One bullet had gone entirely through
+Hatfield, leaving six lodged therein. The surgeon from Hazard had
+extracted every other one, leaving three inside of Johnse. The doctor
+did not advance any prophecies direct, because he was not interrogated,
+but he told the "Ridin' parson" who had been up to the Lutts' house,
+that in two weeks more Johnse would be up and out, a little heavier, but
+sound as a grind-stone.</p>
+
+<p>Just at dawn each day, Johnse would open his eyes, yawn and vent an
+observation he had repeated regularly for three weeks:</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;I 'low I'll go up t' th' still long 'bout noontime, Buddy&mdash;air
+yo' a goin' long?&mdash;little Cap?"</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon, Buddy would bring in the breakfast which old Slab had ready
+for him. Then Buddy would go to the "what-not" and get the treasured
+newspaper, and without protest, Johnse would read it all over to the
+boy, just as he had done each day since the paper had arrived. Logan,
+the audacious lawyer from the Blue-Grass, who had bearded the McGill
+faction in their own courthouse, had, thoughtfully, sent Johnse Hatfield
+a Frankfort newspaper, as a significant token of some sort of respect.
+The front side of this daily bore a picture, gotten up from description,
+of Johnse Hatfield. And under this spurious representation were three
+full-length columns presenting a graphic description of the "Bloodiest
+Clash in the History of Feudal Warfare," followed by details of the
+"Graveyard Massacre" by an eye-witness.</p>
+
+<p>According to these reporters, out of some eighty-eight men, who dashed
+down the road on that fateful night to slaughter the Lutts clan,
+forty-two of them never got away alive from the graveyard facade.</p>
+
+<p>To Buddy Lutts' keen appreciation, the only flaw in this wholesome
+narrative was the printed rumor that Sap McGill had escaped and was
+slowly recuperating over in Southpaw.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MISSION SCHOOL</h3>
+
+
+<p>'Twas some days ere Belle-Ann fitted her mood to her strange
+environments. The Mission School at Proctor was a beautiful place&mdash;a
+great rambling structure on the apex of a hill overlooking the
+picturesque Kentucky River. The building was girded with a continuous,
+spacious porch, and hemmed about with flowers, the identity of which was
+unknown to her. The grounds behind were unstinting, and reached half a
+mile back to the mountain abutting it.</p>
+
+<p>Flanking the building proper, on the verdant esplanade, stood a superb
+statue of Daniel Boone, embellished with a gurgling fountain which the
+State had recently reared on this spot where Boone had built his
+historic fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann was allotted a cozy little room with white enamel furniture,
+and pretty curtains, and quaint Japanese matting, the like of which had
+never met her admiring eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Withal, Belle-Ann was deeply pleased with her new surroundings&mdash;with the
+other scholars and with the teachers. But so much had been crowded into
+her young life of late, coupled with the pang of parting from her home,
+that it was days before her mood aroused itself to the necessity of
+application.</p>
+
+<p>When she did begin her lessons, it was with an assiduous energy and
+receptive aptitude that not only attracted the teachers, but the other
+pupils likewise. From the outset, she developed an inordinate thirst for
+grammar. Indeed, a great part of the time out of study hours, she
+carried her grammar about with her, peeping into it anon, spelling,
+repeating, and pondering over its phrases&mdash;never tiring of its dawning
+mysteries and vast possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>The Mission School, familiarly designated as the Chapel, was not an
+academic institution of classics and national renown, but it was of
+State-wide repute and an oasis of preparatory learning amidst the barren
+lives of mountain youth, hitherto isolated and deprived of the
+advantages of his more fortunate Blue-Grass cousins.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Virginia Worth, in charge of the Chapel, was as agreeably impressed
+with Belle-Ann as the girl was pleased with the charming teacher. Miss
+Worth was a woman of thirty-seven, with an abundance of perfectly white
+hair and the fresh, smooth face of a girl of twenty. Upon this benign,
+wholesome countenance there dwelt an ever-present sympathy and love for
+mankind. In her gray eyes was a look of succor that beckoned suffering
+to her. Oddly enough, a woman of private wealth, she had made the uplift
+of the mountain folk her life work.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, Miss Worth was a woman of deep and unerring penetration,&mdash;of
+careful and soothing diplomacy&mdash;she had made a life study of the ways of
+the human heart. With true divinity, she had stepped out into the world,
+smiling, amidst the trivialities and dissensions, and weaknesses that
+assail and tempt and twist and scar the lives of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>In the fountain of her spontaneous Christian soul, she had a lotion for
+them all. From the first, it was this benevolent woman's smile that drew
+Belle-Ann to her&mdash;a look that reminded the girl keenly of Maw Lutts'
+perennial smile, and spread an aftermath that carried her back to days
+of utter happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Ill things of the soul are oft concealed through the measures of a
+lifetime. Thus, when its tenancy is predestined,&mdash;but when a spirit is
+unmated to evil, its odious residue gravitates like cork to the surface
+and speedily floats in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>From the beginning there was an indefinable underlying something
+permeating this sweet-faced girl that had come to her from out of the
+wilderness&mdash;a something that sorely puzzled the good Miss Worth. It was
+like a single elusive carbon spot hidden away in the core of an
+otherwise perfect diamond&mdash;a spot that reflected through the eyes in
+fleeting transitory glints&mdash;a mote-flash that could not be
+located&mdash;baffling discernment only under powerful, expert analysis.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worth loved the girl. She loved her straightway from the minute
+that she had held her small, shapely hand, and listened to the timbre of
+that shy, dulcet voice. She had never seen eyes tinted like these. She
+marvelled at her curls. Her perfect delicate, Grecian features filled
+Miss Worth with a lasting wonder.</p>
+
+<p>Through the Reverend Peterson she heard the tragic history of the girl's
+comely mother, but she could not conceive a heredity sufficiently
+generous to give the beauty made adorably manifest in this girl of the
+hills. In every movement her natural artless grace was as a rhythm of
+poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worth then recognized an extraordinary character&mdash;the fibre of a
+beautiful, wonderful, lovable womanhood&mdash;a girl who could, with the
+embellishments of education and adornments of fashion, go into the
+sphere of any secular circle of society in any municipality and create a
+furore. She was quick to foresee an interesting future for her new
+protégée, if she could only discover the elusive defect that she could
+not name, but which was palpably present to her keen senses, versed in
+thought reading and the pathology of organic character ailments.</p>
+
+<p>Very many times, as the days slipped by, she observed flashes of that
+sober, mystifying light in Belle-Ann's eyes&mdash;a sudden quick, almost
+vindictive dropping of the sweet lips that showed, otherwise, a dimpled
+upturn. It followed that Miss Worth devoted extra care to Belle-Ann's
+tutorage&mdash;all the while bent upon deftly angling for that alien,
+shifting thing that a casual observer would have passed unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>The second Sunday following Belle-Ann's arrival at the school, Miss
+Worth presented to her an elderly gentleman of distinguished mien and
+marked personality, and of whom the girl was destined to see much
+thereafter. This engaging personage was Colonel Amos Tennytown, who
+resided down Blue-Grass way, and who visited the school, sometimes
+during the week, but most generally on a Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann ever remembered her first meeting with this man, whose
+deferential manner was rich with little original courtesies which were
+innate manifestations of gentility that were born with the man. And his
+voice, in particular, carried a charm that was soothing and totally
+irresistible.</p>
+
+<p>All this appealed to a certain latent delicacy that wove its hereditary
+fibre through this untaught mountain girl's being and stirred a response
+which had hitherto been dormant. She had known true hearts, honest and
+courageous, but she had never known polished mannerisms in men.</p>
+
+<p>She recalled the radiant face and the suppressed tremor in Miss Worth's
+voice when that lady glided into Belle-Ann's room and announced that she
+wished to introduce her to a gentleman friend. Belle-Ann remembered her
+poignant embarrassment as she stood before him on the porch, shyly and
+acutely conscious of her own glaring deficiencies and simple gown, and
+of her determination at that first instant to excuse herself quickly and
+slip away&mdash;and of the manner in which she was instantly reassured.</p>
+
+<p>Later, she recalled the keen interest he took in her at this first
+meeting, and how her case of blues vanished temporarily as she listened
+to his pleasing voice and was distracted by his courtly, cheery, easy
+manner. Her shyness forsook her straightway and she experienced a sense
+of having always known him. He came, ostensibly, to see Miss Worth, they
+being friends of long standing, and Belle-Ann remembered how he had
+gallantly bowed to Miss Worth, on leaving that first day, when he
+laughingly removed the nosegay from his lapel and stuck it into
+Belle-Ann's curls.</p>
+
+<p>She remembered that she was sorry when he departed, and stood on the
+porch with Miss Worth's arm around her, and helped her tutoress watch
+the tall, commanding figure of the Colonel receding down the sinuous
+path toward the ferry.</p>
+
+<p>Many months had elapsed since that day, and it had come to pass that now
+Belle-Ann looked forward to Colonel Tennytown's coming with an eagerness
+that rendered her almost wistful. This had grown upon her in a subtle
+way, and in these days he was seemingly a vital connecting link between
+herself and some indefinable but palpable mystery that hung over her
+life, veiled by the opaque future.</p>
+
+<p>Tom-John Benson had always, in his rough way, been thoughtful of his
+only child. Of late years, through necessity, he had been compelled to
+be away from her, working for a paltry wage. The Kentucky spirit, ever
+ready to give, is slow to take and, though sorely pressed, stands aloof
+from charity.</p>
+
+<p>Long since, the good Reverend Peterson of the Diocese of Lexington had
+volunteered to give Tom-John Benson a free scholarship for his girl&mdash;an
+offer influenced mainly by the Christian spirit of his true missionary
+heart, and partially because he was sympathetically familiar with the
+pathos that enveloped the life of Belle-Ann's beautiful mother, who had
+deserted a luxurious home in Lexington and immured herself in the
+cloister of the Cumberlands, never to emerge. But free scholarship did
+not appeal to Benson. His pride was less crude than his exterior. He
+bided his time, and by dint of saving from his meagre wage, paid in full
+for Belle-Ann's schooling.</p>
+
+<p>The fruits of Belle-Ann's close application to her studies were now made
+manifest in a way little short of marvelous. It was plain from the
+outset that she possessed a natural aptitude for the tasks set before
+her. She developed a love for books that grew into such ceaseless,
+indefatigable zeal that Miss Worth and Miss Ackerman, her under teacher,
+were often obliged to remonstrate with her. While the other girls were
+at tennis or some other diversion after hours, Belle-Ann was poring over
+her books with as deep absorption as if it were play. Very many times in
+the night Miss Worth, knowing her propensity for night study, would slip
+into her room and implore her to retire. She was fast winnowing out her
+mountain dialect, but there were some words that clung to her tongue
+tenaciously, despite her efforts to eliminate them.</p>
+
+<p>She was the recipient of a letter each month from her father, always
+containing a small sum of money, calculated to maintain her simple
+wardrobe. Then one day she was delighted to receive a postal order for
+fifty dollars from her father, who stated that the company for whom he
+worked had given him entire charge of the mill at Catletsburg, and had
+advanced his pay. He stated, furthermore, that he wished her to buy some
+nice clothes with the money accompanying the letter.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worth, having three other schools to supervise in different
+sections of the county, was unable to spend more than two or three days
+at a time at Proctor. She being absent now, Miss Ackerman accompanied
+Belle-Ann across the river to Beattyville, where they purchased two very
+neat and becoming dresses for Belle-Ann, together with various other
+needful articles. And now being able to write an intelligent and
+commendably legible letter, Belle-Ann indited an epistle to her father
+which abounded with original expressions of love, and wherein she
+expressed her gratitude to him, describing at length the things she had
+purchased with the money he had so thoughtfully allowed her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BELLE-ANN VISITS LEXINGTON</h3>
+
+
+<p>One evening after class hours, Belle-Ann was in her room engrossed in
+the pages of her grammar when Miss Worth entered. As the girl leaned
+over her book, her black curls tumbled about her face, she did not look
+up until Miss Worth spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann," said Miss Worth, with a twinkle in her clear eyes. "I see I
+shall be obliged to lock all your books up in the closet."</p>
+
+<p>"And I shan't complain if you-all allow me to carry the key," returned
+Belle-Ann.</p>
+
+<p>"But I would guard the key, dear," declared her teacher, pushing the
+grammar aside and drawing Belle-Ann over to a sofa.</p>
+
+<p>"But I can whittle&mdash;Lem taught me to whittle&mdash;I can make lots of funny
+things&mdash;and I would make a key with my pencil knife and open the door."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I would take away your wooden key and lock you, together with your
+books, in the closet."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I would pull the shortest hair from my crown and blow on both ends
+and make a wish and turn into an elf&mdash;no, a gnome,&mdash;no, that isn't it
+either&mdash;anyhow, I would turn into something very thin and flat and slide
+out under the door."</p>
+
+<p>"But you couldn't get your books out, dear&mdash;and it would be too lonesome
+and dark to study in the closet."</p>
+
+<p>"But I would catch some fire-flies out thah and slide back under the
+door&mdash;then I would have a light, and when I study I don't get lonesome."</p>
+
+<p>"Then a sad thing would happen, my dear&mdash;I would be compelled to switch
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann vented a peal of pent-up glee and pulled the prematurely white
+head toward her.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I would kiss you thah and thah and thah&mdash;I would do what you
+always tell me&mdash;I would give good for evil&mdash;and I would not switch you
+back, and would only squeeze you hard&mdash;like this&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The woman in turn touched the dimpled, mischievous face fondly and
+kissed the red mouth, so temptingly close to her. Miss Worth the while
+had held a free hand behind her and in this hand she secreted something.</p>
+
+<p>"I really didn't come in to frolic, Belle-Ann," she said. "I came to
+tell you something&mdash;rather to ask you to do something for us."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's us, Miss Virginia?" quizzed Belle-Ann, her roguish, child-like
+curiosity superseding her levity.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean for me&mdash;of course, I have talked this matter over with Colonel
+Tennytown&mdash;in fact, we have had it in mind a long time. As you already
+know, I have private means and an income that accumulates until I hardly
+know at times where to place it."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worth toyed with the ringlets of silky jet that crossed the girl's
+low brow.</p>
+
+<p>"I love all my pupils," she went on, "but your little self has taken a
+hold upon my affections in a way that no other pupil has ever done&mdash;and
+we feel&mdash;I feel that you have gifts and natural aptitudes that should
+not be neglected&mdash;and cultivation costs money, Belle-Ann, and I want you
+to borrow some money from me."</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann's round violet eyes had grown wider with wonder, as she
+studied the youthful countenance of the woman with the white hair.</p>
+
+<p>"But am I not at school heah?" she observed. "Besides, I don't need
+money&mdash;deah daddy sent me fifty dollars last month and I have lots of
+that left, and heah it is near the end of the month and he will send
+more, too. I thank you-all so much, Miss Virginia&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The teacher placed her hand over the ravishing mouth and left only the
+eloquent eyes protesting.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't seem to catch the import of my suggestion clearly,
+Belle-Ann," admonished Miss Worth. "Your kind father is not in a
+position to afford you the kind of training and education that your
+energy and latent talents warrant. At the rate of your present progress,
+you will soon outstrip the advantages which a school like this can offer
+you. In less than another year, you will know all that we have here. I
+well know that you are not the girl to grow vain&mdash;but your voice has
+always stirred me like a miracle. I should accuse my own conscience if
+your voice went amiss for want of culture. You plainly possess musical
+instincts that are suffering now. We think that you should go, very
+shortly now, down to Lexington to the Seminary, where the facilities for
+your musical training are sufficiently good for the beginning&mdash;and
+eventually you can go abroad&mdash;to Germany&mdash;and the means will be
+forthcoming!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;mean across the ocean?" cried Belle-Ann in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Alone&mdash;by myself?" she ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we can't tell&mdash;I may go with you," predicted Miss Worth with an
+amused smile.</p>
+
+<p>As the import of Miss Worth's proposition filtered into her
+comprehension, an efflux of joy and gratitude bubbled up from the girl's
+heart and tinged her dimples with carmine and overspread her cheeks. She
+sat for a minute beyond words. Her eyes strayed to the open window, and
+her gaze continued on over the pine tops, as though fixed intently upon
+a tiny mote that had bobbed about and gesticulated on the horizon of her
+child-dreams, but which was now resolved out of mythical vagueness into
+a poignant reality that was growing and speeding toward her with her own
+humble life for a goal, and with a pageantry of opportunity that dazzled
+and overwhelmed her senses.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, very slowly, she turned her flushed face and fixed her eyes, now
+moist and brimming with love, gratitude and homage upon Miss Worth. Her
+bosom lifted as she looked mutely into the face that smiled down upon
+her. Then Belle-Ann's round chin lowered and her curls were on the
+woman's breast and her arms crept up and around and locked about the
+neck of her benefactress. Miss Worth patted her shoulder, and whispered
+words through her curls, and presently Belle-Ann whispered back to her.</p>
+
+<p>"But can I be worth it&mdash;could I ever&mdash;ever&mdash;be worth it? Besides, I
+could never, never, pay you-all back," she deplored tremulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you can, sometime&mdash;you will have money of your own&mdash;that is, you
+may become a great prima-donna," she ended optimistically. Belle-Ann sat
+up straight.</p>
+
+<p>"Prima-donna," she repeated uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;you know, Belle-Ann, even in your simple old-timey song, 'Kitty
+Wells,' I have wondered at the volume and peculiar quality of your
+voice, and have compared the strength of that peculiar cadence to that
+of great singers I have heard. I believe that your voice holds all the
+fundamental requisites of an operatic singer. Anyhow, we are going to
+have your voice cultivated to its highest perfection&mdash;and who can
+tell&mdash;you may in time become a prima-donna."</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann hung upon Miss Worth's utterances with an intentness that lent
+to her an attitude of listening to some seductive melody coming from
+afar.</p>
+
+<p>"Prima-donna&mdash;prima-donna," she murmured softly and wonderingly.
+"Prima-donna&mdash;but don't tell me&mdash;let me find it, Miss Worth&mdash;I am not
+sure of its meaning." Whereupon, she skipped across the room and
+returning with her dictionary, flurried over its pages eagerly and
+swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>"P-r&mdash;p-r-i&mdash;prima&mdash;prima-donna&mdash;heah, I have it," she said.
+"'Prima-donna&mdash;the principal female singer in an opera;'&mdash;and do they
+make lots of money?" she inquired quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"They surely do," responded Miss Worth with growing amusement. Belle-Ann
+reflected for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe&mdash;fifty dollars a month?" she ventured timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"That sum wouldn't interest a prima-donna, Belle-Ann. It is said that
+some of them enjoy salaries of one thousand dollars per week and more."</p>
+
+<p>"One thousand dollars!" she cried, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann slowly closed her dictionary and a look of deep disappointment
+touched her pretty oval features.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, Miss Virginia," she sighed, clasping her little hands
+hopelessly. "I could never make one thousand dollars in one week&mdash;I just
+know I couldn't."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worth laughed outright&mdash;then kissed her twice.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's talk about what we are to do to-morrow," suggested Miss Worth
+cheerily. "I have another pleasant surprise for you, dearest." Belle-Ann
+showed her winsome dimples and waited expectantly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very necessary that you have some nice clothes and have them
+immediately. I mean some stylish apparel suitable to appear in city
+society, because you have some friends in Lexington who are anxious to
+have us visit them shortly, so to-morrow morning you and I are going to
+the city and I will take you to a modiste and have some pretty gowns
+made up for you. Here is the money." At this juncture, Miss Worth
+dropped five one hundred dollar bills into Belle-Ann's lap. The girl was
+utterly stupefied with a surging joy, and her exclamations of delight
+were varied and many as she tossed her curls in sheer exultation and
+rapture.</p>
+
+<p>The mere anticipation and the purpose of this intended sojourn filled
+Belle-Ann's untutored, pleasure-starved heart with ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>She talked volubly along, her cheeks aflush, in a transport at the
+prospect of possessing herself of an assortment of pretty modern dresses
+for which her girl-heart now yearned,&mdash;particularly since she came to
+the school and observed the dainty, modish clothes of some of the girls
+who came over from Beattyville on Sunday to visit Miss Worth and Miss
+Ackerman.</p>
+
+<p>And thus it was that a new and alluring vista of probabilities opened up
+before her imagination that set her blood a-tingle and made her eyes
+sparkle with anticipation. The elusive dimples came and went, and she
+was very beautiful in this sudden, new happiness. Belle-Ann never forgot
+the joys of that shopping sojourn to Lexington.</p>
+
+<p>That night her mind teemed with processions of fantastic imaginings
+that, strive as she would, she could not dispel. Notwithstanding that
+her slumber had been scant, she arose earlier than usual fresh and
+bright and charged with an enthusiasm profuse and spontaneous. At
+eight-thirty the following morning, Belle-Ann and Miss Worth crossed the
+ferry to Beattyville. Here they took the train for Lexington and
+Belle-Ann had her first ride in a Pullman car.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GUEST OF A GRANDEE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Arriving at Lexington, the girl was confronted with her first sight of a
+city. Belle-Ann was agreeably surprised to meet Colonel Tennytown, who
+had been awaiting their arrival at the station. The Colonel was plainly
+as pleased as was Belle-Ann, and helped the two into his big limousine
+with many courtesies and a radiant countenance. And here the girl whose
+head was a-whirl with child-like rapture, was treated to her first
+automobile ride.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel's first thoughtful act was to present Miss Worth and
+Belle-Ann with a great cluster of roses he had in the car for them. He
+then directed the liveried chauffeur to drive out to his homestead, but
+in this he was artfully thwarted by Miss Worth, who hastily and firmly
+protested with a meaning look, declaring that their time was limited and
+that by complying with his kind invitation, the shopping would suffer.
+In lieu of that pleasure, the persistent Colonel, not to be denied, took
+the ladies to a big hotel where they had luncheon and spent an enlivened
+hour in his company, after which, Colonel Tennytown went his way,
+sending the ladies onward in his car to do their shopping.</p>
+
+<p>The wonder and mysteries of the big shops inspired Belle-Ann with
+amazement and delight unbounded, and her spontaneous and original
+comments and profuse inquiries concerning these sights kept her
+companion's face in one perpetual wreath of amused and happy smiles.</p>
+
+<p>After purchasing a number of suitable fabrics, Miss Worth took Belle-Ann
+to a modiste where they were detained for more than two hours. By the
+time they had completed their shopping, it was dusk and their automobile
+dashed up to the station barely in time to make the train. Colonel
+Tennytown was there to see them off, and had only time to bid them a
+hurried good-by.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worth had arranged for all her minor purchases to be delivered to
+the school the same day that the gowns were sent. In the meantime,
+Belle-Ann had made three hurried trips with Miss Worth to the modiste in
+Lexington for fittings. Then, one memorable day, a horde of boxes
+arrived at the school for Belle-Ann. There were four exquisite dresses
+cut in the latest fashion. There were three beautiful imported hats.
+There were delicate veils and gloves and shoes and three dainty pairs of
+pumps embellished with oddly carved silver buckles. There were lingerie
+of the finest texture and stockings of many hues, so soft and fine that
+Belle-Ann marvelled at their resiliency. Also, there was a great
+brass-bound trunk, with compartments, with Belle-Ann's name stamped
+thereon, and a smart buff-leather traveling bag.</p>
+
+<p>There was everything calculated to inspire a girl-heart to the heights
+of inexpressible happiness,&mdash;particularly a girl who had never before
+known a luxurious life. Miss Worth and Belle-Ann spent half the night in
+the girl's room amid a deluge of tissue paper and boxes.</p>
+
+<p>The following Tuesday Miss Worth and Belle-Ann went to Lexington to
+visit Colonel Tennytown and his sister. The girl's figure had rounded
+and she had grown a head taller during the past winter. Her appearance
+in a city in her simple mountain garb would have challenged
+attention,&mdash;not because of the quaintness of the garb, but by merit of
+her natural grace and fresh, startling beauty. But to-day this wealth of
+beauty was enhanced a hundred fold. When she alighted at the station in
+Lexington, she presented a vision of loveliness that arrested the
+admiring eyes of people who had become inured to the sight of pretty
+girls, from the nearby newsboys, up to a group of loquacious old ladies
+who wore suffragist badges.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann wore a dark blue creation that fell in clinging, Parisian
+grace about her supple form. The yoke and sleeves were trimmed with
+pleated lace of exquisite richness, and a jabot of lace fell down the
+front from the yoke midway to the waistline. On her feet were dark blue
+pumps with silver buckles and hose to match. She wore a large Panama hat
+caught up at one side, drooping at the other side and back and girded
+with a wide Persian ribbon knotted at the back and ending in a silk
+fringe that trailed toward the hair. Her mass of black, lustrous curls
+were caught up in the back in the embrace of a large Oriental clasp of
+unique design.</p>
+
+<p>In one hand she carried a beautiful Oriental purse suspended by a
+dragon-skin thong, which was hemmed with a camel's-hair braid. In the
+other hand, she balanced a long-stemmed white silk parasol. The apparel
+might have been duplicated; but the oval face under the Panama hat had
+no replica. There was no vestige of powder or cosmetics on the girl's
+complexion, which was left in all the rich purity that nature decreed to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>The chin was indescribably fascinating. A little mouth with curved
+carmine lips that turned upward at the corners flanked by dimples. A
+short, thin little nose, white like the soft white of a rose petal.
+Above that, a pair of round, wondrous eyes&mdash;eyes that harbored a depth
+of unfathomable eloquence&mdash;black-fringed, steadfast eyes, of a peculiar
+deep violet hue, merging into that matchless pigment that tones the blue
+of a robin's egg. Above that, were exquisitely penciled brows, and then
+the soft, shiny, raven-black ringlets that rippled beneath the hat.</p>
+
+<p>It was this beautiful Grecian countenance that inspired even the
+well-bred people about her in the station to pause for a second covert
+look. They had waited several minutes in the station when Colonel
+Tennytown's tall figure appeared coming toward them. He apologized
+contritely for his tardiness, stating that his car had suffered a
+"blow-out" which had delayed him.</p>
+
+<p>They were whirled along the shell road four miles outside of Lexington
+to the Colonel's magnificent homestead surrounded by acres of level
+pasturage and numerous modern out-buildings. As Belle-Ann learned
+afterward, this estate represented the highest type of a modern stock
+farm and was one of international repute. Colonel Tennytown's pedigreed
+horses were periodically shipped abroad.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel was a gracious and fascinating host. He was a widower and
+had now in his household his maiden sister a few years his junior. There
+was no conceivable hospitality these two did not lavish upon their
+guests. Colonel Tennytown's proud prototype is met frequently throughout
+Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>He was tall and of commanding carriage and manner and attired
+immaculately. He was a polished man whose courtesy was effervescent. He
+wore the regulation broad-brimmed hat, white moustache and goatee, and
+while his thin face was florid, it was at once refined and intellectual.
+His hobby was horses bred in the purple, but there was an utter absence
+of horsey vulgarism about him, his very presence irradiating breeding
+and culture.</p>
+
+<p>It was made convincingly clear, by every look and word and gesture, that
+the Colonel's stately maiden sister had fallen in love with Belle-Ann at
+first sight. The house was a great square structure and one could walk
+around its four sides on a broad, spacious porch. A wide hall ran
+through the center directly to the back. This roomy hall was appointed
+with massive, quaintly carved furniture of colonial design. The walls
+and ceilings throughout the house were paneled and frescoed in artistic
+and unique patterns and painted in harmonious tints that indicated taste
+of the highest order.</p>
+
+<p>In the center of the hall, midway, was stationed a great fountain, some
+six feet in diameter, where the crystal drops rained down upon myriad
+fishes and the moss and coral-built submarine castle. Magnificent
+paintings and various rare statuary subjects and huge palms and foreign
+plants and flowers abounded on every hand. And the sweet notes of an
+enraptured mocking-bird came from somewhere mingled with the silvery
+tinkling melody of unseen music.</p>
+
+<p>Profusely scattered about were pieces of odd furniture, strange
+bric-a-brac, curious pottery and miniature idols, relics collected from
+every quarter of the globe. Big Turkish couches and willow rockers and
+cane sofas with red and green velvet pads, and little upholstered stools
+and bamboo tables were everywhere. Mammoth gilt-framed mirrors reached
+from the floor to the ceiling, and the wide doors and windows were
+draped in various-colored portières and curtains of silk and velvet in
+gold brocade.</p>
+
+<p>The great dining room was a spot that awed Belle-Ann with its intrinsic
+resplendence. The mahogany and the dazzling array of silver and mirrors
+and prismed chandeliers and greenery held this demure mountain girl
+entranced. She caught herself wondering what Lem would say, if he could
+look in upon her at this moment, and behold her dressed in "Blue-grass
+style," being entertained in this mystic realm of a grandee, the
+opulence of which even her own active fancy had never pictured.</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon, the Colonel conducted his visitors to the stables where
+he pridefully exhibited a hundred or more blooded horses. Straggling
+groups of horses and colts were observable grazing in the rank pastures
+that stretched beyond as far as the eye could reach.</p>
+
+<p>While en route through the stables, Belle-Ann thoughtlessly gave the
+party a scare. Colonel Tennytown had directed a hostler who followed the
+party to bring out a sorrel gelding of which he was especially proud.
+All of the compartments for the animals on one side were box-stalls.
+Before the man had time to bring forth the gelding, Belle-Ann noted an
+extra-high compartment built of heavy oak boards with an iron gate.
+Attracted by this, she stepped away from the others to see what this
+strong box-stall contained.</p>
+
+<p>The girl beheld a most magnificent black stallion. An ardent lover of
+horses and naturally fearless, she was so delighted at sight of this
+proud, silken-coated animal, that she drew the iron pin and slipped
+inside with the horse. The animal stood for a moment as though deeply
+and curiously surprised at this effrontery. Then his fire-rimmed eyes
+flashed. His little ears lay flat to his head. With a snort, he started
+toward her. Belle-Ann advanced a step to meet him, and at sound of her
+voice the great beast paused and pricked up his ears. Talking to him the
+while, the girl walked unhesitatingly over to him and laid a hand gently
+upon his massive neck. The feel of his satiny body pulsing with salient
+power was a joy to Belle-Ann. The stallion nosed her clothing with mild
+little snorts. With soothing, coined horse-words, the girl ran her hand
+over him. She then lay one hand on his back and with the other slapped
+his side playfully. To this ticklish overture the horse responded
+instantly.</p>
+
+<p>He reared on his hind legs. He clashed his bared teeth, he plunged,
+pawed the straw, and kicked and squealed. Belle-Ann stood perfectly
+still and laughed outright at his antics. Then the animal threw his ears
+back and his fore feet in the air and lunged toward her, only to pluck
+at her sleeve with his rough lips and push her gently with his shoulder,
+taking care not to tread upon her feet.</p>
+
+<p>The sorrel gelding had been brought out and the Colonel was deeply
+engrossed in rehearsing his pedigree to Miss Worth and did not at the
+moment notice Belle-Ann's absence. The girl had her arms about the
+stallion's head and was smilingly engaged in scratching his ears, when
+Colonel Tennytown's white face appeared at the iron gate of the
+box-stall, together with that of the scared, shaky hostler.</p>
+
+<p>"Come out&mdash;come out!" importuned the Colonel in hoarse, unsteady tones.
+Through the thick boards Belle-Ann heard Miss Worth's appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann! Belle-Ann! come out of there, dear&mdash;this instant&mdash;do,
+please."</p>
+
+<p>The horse, catching sight of the faces at the gate, jumped forward,
+wheeled like a flash, and lashed out with his heels, striking the gate a
+terrific whack with both feet. The gate, which opened inward, clashed
+against its iron sleeper with a frightful noise. The horse then returned
+to Belle-Ann's side and lowered his head for her to resume the
+scratching process.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, Miss Benson, I beg of you to come out," called the
+distressed Colonel. Then Belle-Ann stepped safely and serenely without.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worth, who knew the stallion's reputation, stood with hands
+gripping each other tensely and with averted, pallid face. The hostler
+was quaking visibly, and the Colonel seized her arm as though rescuing a
+drowning person.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Benson," said the Colonel, "I implore you never to do that
+again,&mdash;please, never, never go near that gate."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," spoke up Miss Worth, "I shall have to hold you by the hand
+until I get you out of here. Whatever prompted you to go in with that
+vicious horse?"</p>
+
+<p>The hostler mumbled to himself:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll sho' slap er padlock on dat hoss 'fore sun-down."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Belle-Ann laughingly, "you-all talk as though he were a big
+tiger instead of a big, beautiful horse&mdash;I love him."</p>
+
+<p>"Ponce is the meanest horse I have ever owned," interjected the Colonel.
+"I would not dare go in to him. If it were not for for his strain, I
+would have gotten rid of him long ago&mdash;he killed a hostler last summer.
+The men have to feed him through a trap door&mdash;the men could not be
+induced to go in to him as you did, Miss Benson. They have to rope him
+from both sides to lead him. He not only kicks, but he fights with his
+fore feet and bites like a dog. You have had a narrow escape, I assure
+you, dear Miss Benson. How happy I am that you were not hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Colonel Tennytown," interrupted the girl, "he was only playing
+with me&mdash;why I can go in thah now and make him walk around on his hind
+legs."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut-tut! No you can't, my dear," interposed the Colonel monitively,
+"not while we are here to watch you, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I would love to ride him&mdash;may I ride him some time, Colonel?" she
+persisted laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It pains me deeply to refuse you any request&mdash;I have any number of
+others you may ride, but never Ponce," he declared emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner it developed that there was plainly a conspiracy afoot to
+have Belle-Ann sing. Without the slightest demur or embarrassment the
+girl took her stand beside the piano while Miss Worth played the
+accompaniment. She sang an excerpt from Il Trovatore which Miss Worth
+had taught her with infinite care. The voice held the listeners
+spellbound.</p>
+
+<p>When her last lingering notes had swelled and died away, the Colonel's
+sister hurried to her with profuse praises that were plainly sincere and
+kissed her cheek. The Colonel strode to her side and pressed her hand,
+and Miss Worth beamed upon her.</p>
+
+<p>As dusk approached, the visitors climbed into the big limousine en route
+to the train, and rolled through the richest plateau in the world,
+flooded with the erubescent splendor of a setting sun. At the station
+Colonel Tennytown carried the handbags into the Pullman, and here he
+lingered until he heard the hiss of the reservoir that released the car
+brakes. With his farewell, he lifted Belle-Ann's white soft hand, and
+slipped a ring on her finger. Concealing it under his own hand, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is there with a wish which I hope will come true," and he hurried
+out and away. As the train pulled out, the lights were turned on in the
+car, and Belle-Ann was holding one hand up before two pairs of admiring
+eyes. It was a marquis ring with an oval turquoise in the center, hemmed
+with eight rubies and bordered with ten beautifully cut diamonds. And as
+Belle-Ann gazed at this lovely present, her violet eyes emulated the
+sparkling lustre of the ring.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>KNOW YE THE TRUTH</h3>
+
+
+<p>That night Belle-Ann indited a letter to her father, dwelling upon the
+kindness of Miss Worth, who had proposed to give her a higher education.
+She told of her delightful visit to Lexington and of the beautiful
+present Colonel Tennytown had given to her. She asked again, as she
+always did, if he had heard anything from Lem.</p>
+
+<p>She also ventured another letter to Lem. During the past winter she had
+written several letters to him; as yet, she had received no answer to
+these. However, she supposed they were still uncalled for. She knew that
+Lem could write sufficiently legible for her to decipher it, but she
+also remembered the fact that the nearest post-office was thirty miles
+distant from Moon mountain. Moreover, she knew Lem was not accustomed to
+visiting Junction City, because he never received any mail, and because
+the denizens of Junction City were rank sympathizers with the McGill
+faction.</p>
+
+<p>And always she yearned for sight of Lem's honest face. Not a day passed
+but what she cherished thoughts of home. When she was apparently in her
+gayest mood, Lem's tall shadow stood in the background waiting for
+her&mdash;always waiting. While occupied in her tensest study hours, down in
+her subconsciousness lay a memory that stirred like a thing having life.
+And ever more overshadowing this dominating vision of Lem Lutts was the
+haunting presence of the revenuer. From her waking hours these thoughts
+trailed into the night to pollute her dreams and, not infrequently,
+pilfer her sleep away.</p>
+
+<p>Oft times, in the presence of others, she would abruptly lower her book
+or suspend anything at hand, only to come out of an ill reverie, to find
+her eyes fixed blankly at nothing, and her lip in the grip of her upper
+teeth. These uncontrollable abstractions had caused her many
+embarrassments and had grown upon her, as the months slipped by, instead
+of diminishing.</p>
+
+<p>Now that she stood on the threshold of a new life, a mystic, fascinating
+world, the vague dreams of which had gesticulated and beckoned to her
+childish fancy in the hills, foretelling its beautiful emoluments of
+which she now had dazzling, palpitating glimpses&mdash;she was dismayed at
+her own disquietude. She had made very many dear friends. She had an
+array of beautiful clothes. She was forgivably conscious, without
+vanity, that she was an unusually beautiful girl. The refinements of
+education for which she had an inbred craving were filtering into her
+brain with the mellow, rich residue of a rare wine. The whole atmosphere
+that enveloped her was charged with all the pedagogic influences and
+wholesome blithesomeness calculated to inspire a girl of her temperament
+to utter happiness.</p>
+
+<p>But Belle-Ann was not happy. The fear that had eroded its path into her
+being stood over her young life to menace and alloy every new-born
+pleasure. Her soul trembled now lest the revenuer had killed Lem
+instead. Then her life would not only be broken, but the revenuer would
+still live on to project his hated shadow across her heart, and her
+agony would go on and on with another and more potential impetus.</p>
+
+<p>When the human heart throbs against the barbs of an eating agony through
+a measure of years, there comes a time when the soul staggers and cries
+out.</p>
+
+<p>One night Miss Worth awoke and following a habit, she got up and slipped
+across the hall, bent on seeing if Belle-Ann were sitting up in bed with
+her books, as was her wont.</p>
+
+<p>She opened the door softly. As there was no light in the girl's room,
+she was about to close the door and go to bed when she caught a sound
+that half startled her. Quickly and noiselessly she stepped over the
+threshold. A shaft of moonlight fell athwart the bed. It was empty. She
+cast a searching glance about the room. At the window-seat she saw a
+mass of black curls above the white of a night robe.</p>
+
+<p>Crouching on the floor, her face buried in her arms, alone in this small
+hour, Belle-Ann was crying in the half gloom. Alone with some great
+grief that was undoing her. Her shoulders shook with its racking
+on-coming. Then again, its vortex of agony swept across her lips in
+piteous supplicatory sobs, vibrating in the stillness like the bleating
+of a dazed, lost creature enmeshed in the tentacles of some merciless
+destroyer.</p>
+
+<p>Motionless, Miss Worth stood for a minute, her mind divided by two
+opposing conjectures. One, a deplorable apprehension that this girl she
+had come to love so dearly was assailed by some new sudden visitation of
+suffering. The other, a keen, pungent joy that perhaps that for which
+she herself had striven and labored for months was coming to pass. Maybe
+after all the blighting soul-fistula she had so deftly and tirelessly
+probed for had burst and its poisonous feculence was now eddying away.</p>
+
+<p>Until a month ago Belle-Ann had, with the natural reluctance and
+reserved suspicion of the mountain-born, withstood and parried all of
+Miss Worth's gentle approaches to discover her secret woe. The mountain
+spirit nurtures a bitter antipathy for revelations. Then a day came when
+this dear friend broke through the barrier, and Belle-Ann poured out her
+whole life to Miss Worth. There was no detail or memory that she did not
+vividly picture before Miss Worth's understanding. Then Miss Worth,
+knowing where to look, reached out with all the potent power of her
+subjugating diplomacy to extirpate the roots of this melancholy plant
+that grew and threatened to overrun a beautiful soul.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worth hurried across the room and spoke her name. With distress
+undisguised, Belle-Ann lifted her tear-wet face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!&mdash;I can't&mdash;I cannot endure it longer," she declared between the
+tremulous sobs that convulsed her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worth knelt beside the girl and with her arms around her, she
+talked in soothing undertones. For almost an hour the two sat clinging
+together. Not a minute had Miss Worth's voice ceased. As the girl
+huddled, listening tensely, the tears ceased and dried on her distressed
+face. Presently, she arose and walked aimlessly around the room.</p>
+
+<p>"But you-all don't believe as we do," she said. "Our people are shot
+down in their own yards, and when we call upon the law, the law only
+turns the assassin loose. Then the law itself comes to kill. Oh&mdash;Oh,
+dear Miss Worth&mdash;you can never understand&mdash;you can never know what this
+is. Only we up thah who suffer these things know its sting. Who could go
+on and live without redress and not strike back? If you had suffered
+this as I have&mdash;if you could see what I have&mdash;if you could see now&mdash;this
+minute&mdash;what I see&mdash;thah&mdash;thah&mdash;&mdash;" she ended in stifling utterances, as
+she stared at a spot of moonlight that had strayed across the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Now, totally oblivious to her whereabouts, and utterly unconscious of
+Miss Worth's presence, she fell to her knees on the floor, stretching
+her arms out over the pallid beam, in benediction, and lowered her hands
+to fondle the face that her fevered fancy held there; and to touch the
+still, immobile bosom with its bullet-spot. And again her grief broke
+loose beyond restraint and she sobbed aloud. A great lump had brought an
+ache into Miss Worth's throat, and she, too, was crying. She lifted the
+girl up and led her back to the window-seat. Here she whispered solace
+to her for a time.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Miss Worth arose and left Belle-Ann at the window. When she
+reached the door she turned back.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, dearest," she said, "Know ye the truth and the truth shall
+make ye free. I'll be waiting up for you&mdash;I shall not retire until you
+come. If you see the light&mdash;come to me&mdash;I'll be waiting and praying,
+too."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>BELLE-ANN HAS A VISION</h3>
+
+
+<p>After a time Belle-Ann arose wearily to retire. Then she laid her
+troubled head on the pillow and closed her tear-wet eyes and finally
+dropped into a restive sleep. And in this furtive slumber a titanic,
+stirring dream came to her. The ethereal universe convulsed and burst
+asunder, and opened up to her startled vision a celestial theatre of
+glory that gripped her heart with its untold resplendence.</p>
+
+<p>And roundabout, leagues high, gloss-buffed walls of amethyst, and
+gleaming pillars of pearl girded this splendor. And above this
+scintillating heavenly realm an amphitheatre of sinuous clouds
+circulated, charged with pigments and prismed lustres; shot, lanced and
+plumed with a woof of multi-colors that no tongue could tell; and out
+from this spectacle of molten glory, a multitudinous horde emerged,
+trooping through its liquid opalescence.</p>
+
+<p>And the angels reveled, flapping their wings in the starlight to the
+throbbing rhythm of ten thousand silver lutes. And out beneath the
+proscenium arch of this fantastic gilded dream, an archangel rode and a
+beloved face looked down upon the girl. It was a chaste, smiling face; a
+sacrament of love, replete with amity and forgiveness.</p>
+
+<p>And the knowing eyes were diademed with a specific message. And the
+vision bore straight down to earth upon her; and she lifted up her arms
+to meet it. And the whir of its pinions awoke her. She slipped out of
+bed and stood erect, her bosom lifting and her eyes looking through the
+dark after this receding apparition.</p>
+
+<p>And there as she stood alone in that small hour of the night, a great
+Presence came into the room and an unseen hand reached out and touched
+her soul.</p>
+
+<p>Beside the little white bed Belle-Ann bent her knee and bowed down her
+head until the curls spread out on the coverlet. And lo! a sword of
+divine light dipped down and penetrated the cryptic catacomb hidden in
+her heart and pierced its gnawing, pillaging tenant, and killed her ill,
+uncouth creed; and drove her lingering sorrow out, purging her being
+free of the chaotic fires of revenge-thirst that was slowly but surely
+searing her soul.</p>
+
+<p>And when she rose up, a plenipotent strength of understanding had lifted
+her crying spirit out and up to a sanctuary of truth; and she stood in
+the early hour of coming day, serene and triumphant, with the lustre of
+a conquering light in her purposeful eyes, and faced a new world.</p>
+
+<p>It was dawn. Amid a theatre of opalescent clouds reefed in the east, the
+sun diffused its glory, and shaped rubescent coral columns, edging its
+facade with azure and gold. The air was rife with the musks of the
+blossomed mountain-sides, and a medley of bird-music emanated from a
+hundred species, flitting and flapping their wet wings in the morning
+dew.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann tapped gently on Miss Worth's door. She stepped lightly into
+the room. Miss Worth was wide awake and paused, struck with the pure
+radiance of the girl's face.</p>
+
+<p>"At last!" ejaculated Miss Worth triumphantly. She kissed and hugged
+Belle-Ann in the exuberance of her joy and enthusiasm. Belle-Ann's eyes
+were clear and wide with a new light. The mote that had floated in their
+depths was gone for all time. And Miss Worth saw before her the most
+charming character and perfect specimen of young girlhood that fortune
+had ever led her to. "At last&mdash;you understand now, Belle-Ann?" she said,
+drawing her over to the edge of her bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do understand, Miss Worth," answered the girl, her face dimpled
+with smiles that betokened the calm and serenity of a new-found peace
+and faith.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, deahest Miss Worth," she repeated, "but I don't
+understand how I understand&mdash;it is all so deeply mysterious&mdash;so
+wonderful&mdash;to think of these wasted years! Oh!&mdash;if I could only see
+Lem!"</p>
+
+<p>"And now," observed Miss Worth, "is it right for Lem to kill the man?"
+pursued Miss Worth tentatively. Belle-Ann arose quickly from the bed,
+spurred by the thought that she now miraculously regarded as a two-edged
+wrong, and a direct offense against God.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed regretfully, "how could I ever have thought it
+right&mdash;how could I? It's ignorance&mdash;it's downright ignorance&mdash;I see it
+all plainly now, my deah, sweet, true friend. I see it all just as
+you-all promised me long ago that I would see it&mdash;instead of lightening
+Lem's sorrows I was adding to them&mdash;I was making his burden harder to
+endure&mdash;I was dragging him down to misery, not knowing any better&mdash;it's
+terrible, Miss Worth&mdash;it's pure blind ignorance&mdash;I can't believe now
+that I did that. I'm guilty&mdash;guilty&mdash;guilty&mdash;if Lem kills the revenuer,
+I, too, am guilty, for I will now tell you, Miss Worth, I not only asked
+Lem to kill the man, as I told you-all&mdash;but I demanded it against Lem's
+love for me&mdash;offered a prize&mdash;a reward for the revenuer's dead body. Lem
+begged to kiss me on parting&mdash;I wouldn't even kiss him good-by&mdash;he
+kissed my hair, not my lips&mdash;I can see him now standing up thah holding
+out his arms to me&mdash;I was mad for the sight of that officer, dead. If
+Lem kills him it will be I who helped to chain an anchor of crime to
+Lem's poor wretched life&mdash;to drag him down. I did nothing to uplift
+him,&mdash;nothing to incite him to look for bright things in the future&mdash;my
+whole heart was aflame with revenge. Oh! what a miserable thing it is! I
+was mad; weak-spirited; blind with ignorance&mdash;and to think that I
+boasted of it to you! As I stand heah now, I can't believe I did that
+monstrous thing. And Lem up thah, his eyes and thoughts fixed
+downward&mdash;down on the trail of revenge, a path that leads to eternal
+unhappiness. I can't wait, Miss Worth&mdash;I won't rest until I see Lem. I
+hope nothing has happened to him. I'll lead him out of it all. I'll show
+him the way to life as God meant us to live. I'll lead him out, just as
+you, my deahest, kindest friend&mdash;just as you have led me away from the
+pit around which I had beaten a path with all of my foolish years of
+life&mdash;you led me away from a seething pit of misery, Miss Worth; a
+cauldron into which I would surely have tumbled, soul and all, in time.
+Now&mdash;now&mdash;it's different; now&mdash;it's all changed&mdash;life looks like a
+beautiful picture to me now. But, oh!&mdash;how I pity the benighted
+sufferers up thah in the mountains&mdash;if there was only a way to show
+them&mdash;to show them the emoluments of life with the misery of feudal hate
+eliminated."</p>
+
+<p>Too much overcome with sheer joy to speak, Miss Worth listened to
+Belle-Ann's earnest declarations and watched her smiling, confident,
+beautiful features with a sense of having, just here, achieved one of
+the greatest conquests of her missionary life.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann walked to the window, a new exquisite incarnation of girlhood.
+With a thankful, gracious heart, ready and primed for the wonders of
+which she now had a divine intuition, she gazed across to the mountain
+summits, touched with the iridescent vapors, figured by the rising sun.
+She watched the veil-like mist gradually rise over the river where it
+lingered like a film of bluish wood smoke. She listened to the clamorous
+carols of the birds, and there was a song in her heart and inwardly she
+was stirred with all the inspirations that accompany the placidity of a
+spirit untroubled and immaculate. The chapel chimes suddenly pealed out
+their morning anthems, and its music tinkled sweetly across the senses
+of the girl whose soul was throbbing in perfect attune.</p>
+
+<p>From the sublimity of her momentary reverie, Miss Worth's gentle voice
+aroused Belle-Ann.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann," she said, "would a bit of news before breakfast be
+distasteful?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl cast a quick, expectant look toward Miss Worth, whose face was
+symbolical of still another revelation.</p>
+
+<p>"I can bear anything," answered Belle-Ann. "I can now appreciate more
+than ever any glad news&mdash;life can hold no sorrow now that I cannot
+endure bravely&mdash;don't hesitate to tell me&mdash;I am unafraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;it is not by any means fearful news, my dear; on the contrary,
+it's the most delightful surprise imaginable&mdash;the only thing I fear is
+that you will not forgive us for what will doubtless present itself to
+your mind as a rank conspiracy."</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann laughed and squeezed the hand that crept into hers.</p>
+
+<p>"When you are concerned, you are forgiven anything in advance&mdash;you-all
+couldn't commit anything, Miss Worth, that I could hold against you a
+second," she assured, laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>The older woman fell pensive for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann&mdash;I have known this for a long time&mdash;Colonel Tennytown asked
+me to acquaint you with this when I thought fit&mdash;I think the proper time
+is now at hand&mdash;Colonel Tennytown was your mother's father, Belle-Ann."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>A GRANDFATHER</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Oh!&mdash;Miss Worth!" ejaculated the girl with a noticeable catch in her
+voice. "My grandfather&mdash;you-all can't mean that Colonel Tennytown is my
+really grandfather?" she pressed hastily, overwhelmed by this
+unlooked-for surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, truly&mdash;Colonel Tennytown is your own grandfather, Belle-Ann, and I
+am happy and proud that you have such a man for your grandfather&mdash;he is
+going to come and claim you, my dear, and you are not to rebel when he
+tells you about your legacy&mdash;you have an inheritance&mdash;it is rightfully
+yours by every moral and legal tenure&mdash;it was your mother's&mdash;although
+her proud, relentless temperament spurned it while she lived. It now
+devolves upon you, Belle-Ann; you have been rich all along and did not
+know it&mdash;money matters need never trouble your dear little head. You
+recall that first visit to Lexington? Well, we took you out to the
+Colonel's home purposely for his maiden sister to see you. You know they
+wanted to be sure of you, Belle-Ann,&mdash;they wanted to feel certain, dear,
+that they would like you. And dear old Miss Malinda was more than
+charmed with your beauty and personality&mdash;she confided to me afterwards
+that she begged the Colonel to go directly and bring you there to live
+permanently. Belle-Ann, you look like you do not believe this good
+fortune," she ended abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Out of a daze the girl awake, and impulsively threw her arms around Miss
+Worth and kissed her until she laughingly protested. As Belle-Ann
+dressed for breakfast, she pondered upon the ways of Providence and
+wondered what unseen happening would come next to take its place in her
+life. She moved about in a state of bewilderment. She struggled to
+compose herself; this great good luck thrust upon her so suddenly seemed
+visionary. She, whose life heretofore had been lonesome and isolated,
+and overshadowed with unhappiness.</p>
+
+<p>This abrupt intervention of a kind fate bore the atmosphere of a fairy
+romance. It was difficult to comprehend off-hand, that all this was
+meant for her. So that it was only gradually that she gathered the grace
+of its realization, and then her fancy waxed busy. A glamorous vista of
+possibilities were opened up to her. She saw before her salient,
+new-born contemplation, scores of day-dreams that had invaded her
+girlhood, resolve themselves now into a semblance of approaching
+tangible realities.</p>
+
+<p>With superb, delicate touches she added to these mental pictures with
+the prolific imagery and exquisite mastery that only a vivacious,
+high-spirited girl can conjure. And paramount above all these fantastic
+castles were the benefits set aside to be bestowed upon Lem and Buddy
+and her father and even poor old Slab&mdash;they who had been
+fellow-sufferers in a war of strife and aching misery that had seemed
+interminable.</p>
+
+<p>With the tail of her eye, Belle-Ann caught a parting glimpse of her
+profile in the mirror. She noted with a little laugh that her lips were
+moving. All unconsciously she was repeating over and over the phrase
+that drifted to and fro through her half-incredulous mind:</p>
+
+<p>"A grandfather&mdash;an inheritance&mdash;Belle-Ann Benson&mdash;with a legacy?"</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Tennytown, who had been called to New York on business, had now
+returned to Lexington. To-day, when Miss Worth returned to the school
+she imparted to Belle-Ann that she had received a message from the
+Colonel stating that he would be up to see them in the evening. He had
+been absent for two weeks and Belle-Ann had not seen him since she had
+learned that he was her grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>With a lingering, tender embrace, twilight untwined her nebulous arms
+from the sable-lustre mantle of night and parted with a promise.</p>
+
+<p>The tryst place had been the dim, infinite dome of the world.
+Plenipotent, majestic night settled on the throne of the supernal
+cosmos, diademed with a million twinkling jewels to dazzle his mundane
+subjects. His ancient serfs, patrolling the heavens at his behest, all
+a-glitter, trembled in his presence. And between the limits of these
+fire-touched planets, the milky-highroad developed like a mystic wand
+leading across a vast ethereal universe, and trailing adown into
+immeasurable cyclopic spaces, fading away between the gigantic
+vapor-tombs and ghost biers of a thousand dead centuries.</p>
+
+<p>And all the soul-stirring agencies of rapturous nature pulsed and glowed
+down upon the night-world of mankind. A neutral moon whose fixed face,
+young yet, unsmiled and uncreased with the joys and woes upheld by the
+supplicant ages, seemed now to soften with mellow sympathy upon a
+girl-heart below. Could even a stoic moon look upon this girl unmoved?
+Belle-Ann leaned listlessly against the bronze rail that girded the
+fountain, gazing with expectant eyes, along the moonlit path leading to
+the seminary.</p>
+
+<p>The Chapel bells chimed out their angelus across the fantasmal gloaming,
+tinkling through the girl's mood in utter harmony with the music of her
+soul, and the supernal smiles that lingered about her cupid lips.
+Beneath the enchanting rays of the moon, Belle-Ann's wraith-like,
+relaxed form looked even taller. Arrayed in a vision of delicate blue
+silk and lace, clinging to the pronounced curves of her subtle outlines,
+she presented an unforgettable picture; a rare hellenism of feminine
+beauty. A type to ravish the senses. The shimmering blackness of the
+girlish curls that crowded around her small features, contrasted
+adorably with her eburnean skin, natural as the purity of rose petals,
+soft and fine-textured, from which the mountain tan had long since
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>A bouquet of great roses was pinned at her bosom, and the musk of
+calcanthus was in her curls. Her lips parted and she hummed a soft
+ditty. The sweet dulcet timbre of her voice was a mellowed sound wafted
+straight from the realms of Dixie. Her whole palpable self irradiated
+and pulsed with the subtle witchery and glamour of the South.</p>
+
+<p>As she stood in the half-shadow of the fountain gazing intently along
+the hedge-hemmed path, a sudden gladness stirred her as she discerned
+what her eyes had sought. Two vague forms descended from the porch,
+coupled perilously near together. Then, as they halted beneath the
+dappled shadows of the rose-tree, Belle-Ann fancied she saw a white
+sleeve against a sable shoulder. It may have been the trick of her
+imagination, but it seemed that the man stooped his head and lingered
+over the white-clad figure.</p>
+
+<p>She knew it was Colonel Tennytown and Miss Worth who tarried there.
+Belle-Ann had known all evening that he would seek her out. She had not
+laid eyes on him since the Sunday preceding that memorable dawn when
+Miss Worth had revealed his relationship. But now with a heart full to
+the brim with gratitude she awaited his coming, and to acknowledge her
+grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the Colonel's tall figure emerged from the shadows and came
+toward her. With his broad hat in his hand he halted before her and
+smilingly bowed in courtly grace. As Belle-Ann looked straight into his
+eyes, her face was now all aflush with pleasure and the baffling dimples
+were at play.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A CONFESSION</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann," Colonel Tennytown began gently, with a strange new
+exultation noticeable in his tones, "I have come to ask you to do me a
+favor&mdash;a very great kindness&mdash;do you deem me deserving of a kindness in
+view of my grim shortcomings?"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it singular, Colonel Tennytown," interjected Belle-Ann
+laughingly, "that when I saw you coming down thah, I thought how happy
+I'd be if I had the power to do you-all some kindness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" rejoined the Colonel, "now we have it&mdash;happily, you possess a
+naturally charitable spirit, Belle-Ann," he said. He had never called
+her Belle-Ann before. His Southern chivalry had never permitted him to
+diverge from the prefix of Miss to her surname. "As you now know all,
+Belle-Ann," he continued, "I wish you, henceforth and onward, to call me
+grandfather&mdash;I beg you to forgive me for my seeming tardiness in coming
+to the front to acknowledge my granddaughter&mdash;my approach has doubtless
+appeared to you masked in a form of deception, and now that I am here to
+inflict the brazen audacity of a complete confession, you can plainly
+see, Belle-Ann, that I am in need of your uttermost indulgence. The
+truth is, I regret to say, that we never knew of your existence until
+you came here to school when my esteemed friend, Reverend Peterson, made
+me acquainted with the fact.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, the moment I laid eyes on you my heart melted and my soul went
+out to you&mdash;I instantly saw in you purity and beauty&mdash;indeed you are
+even more beautiful than your mother was, Belle-Ann&mdash;your mother whose
+sole offense was her stubborn refusal to marry the man whom we thought
+best fitted for her; and then she ran away and married a mountaineer far
+beneath her station, doubtless a good man&mdash;but practically a stranger,
+and one to whom she gave her life, and her duty, but not her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"We struggled for years to reconcile her, pledging absolute forgiveness,
+but her blood told, Belle-Ann&mdash;the blood of her father&mdash;her high-bred
+spirit met our pleadings with unbroken stoic silence. She lost herself
+completely&mdash;the grand young man who had just been elected to the state
+senate of Kentucky, and who loved her, declined from that day and died a
+broken man. The remorse that gnawed at my heart for years, Belle-Ann,
+has left its scars&mdash;is a skein of secret, silent woe, untold, my dear
+little girl&mdash;a blight across the old man's life that no language is
+sufficiently adequate to reveal.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!&mdash;what an awful lesson I have had&mdash;and then I found you. You were
+sent by a kind Providence to assuage my great sorrow, Belle-Ann. You
+see&mdash;my daughter&mdash;we wished to be certain that you inherited your
+mother's lovable traits. I did not wish to take a step which might,
+perforce, have to be retraced later; to be plain, we sought to make sure
+that we liked you, and I can say to-night that we do like you,
+Belle-Ann&mdash;we do more than that, we all love you&mdash;we do more than love
+you; we idolize you; we worship you; we all adore you. Will you adopt
+us? Will you take me with all my arrant failings and use me as best you
+can for a grandfather?"</p>
+
+<p>He dropped his hat on the grass and stood erect before her in the
+moonlight the image of a southern nobleman, holding his hands out to
+her. All throughout his earnest words she had been deeply and happily
+moved. Her bosom rose and fell, riding the roses pinned over her heart.
+Her star-like eyes were misty, and there was pathos in her sweet treble
+utterance as she thrust her two hands into his waiting palms.</p>
+
+<p>"Col&mdash;grandpa," she corrected, "it is a proud distinction to claim you
+for my grandfather&mdash;I feel wholly unworthy. I feet almost like an
+interloper&mdash;I owe you so much&mdash;I shall struggle with all my heart to
+take and fill my mother's place."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel stooped and pressed his lips to her forehead and kissed the
+curls near the little wreath of flowers.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann," he went on, a new line of serious thought suggested to him,
+"you must promise me one more thing&mdash;in fact, if you don't promise, it
+will disrupt my plan of years&mdash;it will&mdash;well&mdash;it will place me in a very
+unhappy position."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, grandpa?" she quizzed through her smiles.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;you see&mdash;that is&mdash;of course it's a secret," he ended lamely, with
+a furtive look toward a dim white figure beneath the trees. "As I said
+before&mdash;it's like this&mdash;&mdash;Oh!&mdash;plague&mdash;take it!&mdash;to-night I asked Miss
+Worth to marry me, and she said she would if she could; but that she
+couldn't unless you promised to come immediately with us to Lexington
+and make your home with us&mdash;so you see where the whole thing hinges.
+Will you do me this favor, Belle-Ann?" he pressed anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann could not restrain herself and laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look so solemn, Grandpa&mdash;go tell Miss Worth I said to marry you
+by all means&mdash;I'll do my part."</p>
+
+<p>There was a boyish ring in the Colonel's laugh as he picked his hat up
+off the grass and with Belle-Ann's arm through his, started toward the
+porch.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;Grandpa," protested Belle-Ann, as her lovely face suddenly
+sobered, and a grave note crept into her voice, "I must go up to Moon
+mountain before I think of anything else&mdash;some hearts up thah are
+beating against my return&mdash;but I'll promise to come back heah, in three
+days, Grandpa."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Tennytown stopped short on the path.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!&mdash;now we have it," he exclaimed. "I know all about those folks. Tell
+me, my dear, plainly&mdash;do you love that boy, Lem?"</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann's cheeks turned visibly crimson in the moonlight as she looked
+up quickly upon this unexpected query.</p>
+
+<p>"I might&mdash;might learn to&mdash;Grandpa," she murmured grudgingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the Colonel decisively, "you shall start up there Monday
+morning&mdash;and you tell that Lem Lutts for me that I want a good, steady,
+dependable man. I'll give him charge of my entire stock farm&mdash;seven
+hundred acres&mdash;and three hundred head of the best horse-blood on the
+face of the earth. I'll train Lem and make him manager. If he will, he
+can go to school and polish himself up first. And that little Buddy
+Lutts&mdash;you tell him I'll give him a pony all for his own, and keep him
+in clothes and spending money if he'll come down to Lexington and go to
+school once in awhile."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I want to ask you, Belle-Ann&mdash;about that old negro chap, Slab. Is
+the lobe of his left ear missing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes&mdash;yes!" exclaimed the mystified girl.</p>
+
+<p>"And is he a very long, narrow gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely&mdash;he's quite tall&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear him sing 'Kitty Wells'?"</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann clapped her hands in childish glee.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard that song every night all my life, Grandpa; how did you-all
+know Slab, Grandpa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! now we have it&mdash;when Miss Worth mentioned him, telling me things
+about him as you had told her, I would always say that he is the same
+old Slab&mdash;and I'll bet the best horse I've got that he is the same. He
+belonged to my uncle who lived on the plantation adjoining my father's.
+Slab was asleep in the shade of a porch one day when I, a boy of seven
+years, meaning to startle him, slipped up and held a snapping turtle
+close to his face. When I started to arouse him with one hand, the
+turtle suddenly shot his neck out and gabbed old Slab by the ear. Then
+Slab woke up. You ask him about that; and you ask him if he remembers
+the time old Hickamohawk ran away with him&mdash;and you bring him down here
+with you. Just tell him that Amos Tennytown wants him and he'll
+come&mdash;bring the whole family&mdash;there's room for us all, Belle-Ann."</p>
+
+<p>She had listened to his warm-hearted suggestions with growing enthusiasm
+that sent her blood bounding, as she pictured the surprise and gladness
+the Colonel's message would inspire in those lonely, isolated hearts up
+on Hellsfork.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandpa," observed the girl, out of her unutterable joy and gratitude,
+"God made your heart awful big."</p>
+
+<p>"And God made you the gentlest and most beautiful of all granddaughters,
+my dear," he answered gallantly. "Monday I will have here the best
+single-foot saddle beast in this country for you to ride, and I will
+send a man to escort you, who will guarantee your safety."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Grandpa! I don't wish him to go any further than Boon's Ford. He
+can turn back thah. I feel sure Lem and Buddy and Slab will come back
+with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you will, Belle-Ann," he agreed, and the two mingled their
+mutual, uncontrollable outbursts of ecstasy as they joined the figure
+lingering amid the mystic vacillating shadows of the rose-tree.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RED DEBT</h3>
+
+
+<p>All through these wretched months, Lem Lutts had weltered in jail.
+During the first hideous weeks of his incarceration he thought his
+reason would not serve him longer. He felt that he would surely go mad.
+Night after night he stood with dull, hopeless eyes at his cell door,
+his fingers twined around the mercilessly cold iron bars, gazing across
+the dim corridor at the blank stone wall.</p>
+
+<p>When "Creeping Jesus" glided up to his cell door like a phantom, and
+flashed his lantern upon Lem, he found him hour after hour wide awake,
+his eyes burning and starry with the unquenchable fire of a throbbing,
+wild, mad unrest. The keepers wondered how he kept alive, considering
+the amount of food he took and the sleep he had.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann's face was ever before him. Her beautiful vision floated
+evermore through the dark confines of his cell. Many times he had
+scribbled letters to Belle-Ann, with fond hopes that some word from her
+would come back to him, not knowing that these missives had never
+reached the outside of the jail.</p>
+
+<p>He had lolled upon the iron cot through the soul-wrenching hours of
+countless nights, staring up through the black toward the concrete
+ceiling. His groping mind saw no solution written in the dark. Merciless
+assumptions in default of proofs had opened the great loathsome cage
+whose maw had gulped his body.</p>
+
+<p>True&mdash;he had helped his father work the "still" that his
+great-grandfather had worked with a free conscience. That was all&mdash;the
+"still" that the despised law had never yet unearthed. The aspect of the
+law conformed with the teachings of his father. It fitted unto the
+sights that his own eyes had beheld. Where was its equity? He had seen
+his own relation shot down in cold, cruel blood. This law had never come
+forward to punish the wrong and champion the right. This law only
+hovered like a python above its prey, and struck when it had advantage.</p>
+
+<p>The law was a mangy, fanged reptile&mdash;a monster that bit the honest
+rights of the people out of their hearts; then clawed and rolled and
+mauled their bodies. He had heard that God inspired the wise men who
+made the law. Surely, the Almighty had not lent His seal to this curse.
+The God that Maw Lutts had told him about&mdash;He, who would some day make
+all things right in Kentucky&mdash;was not a party to this law that had
+finally taken the lives of his parents and had taken him. It was all the
+evil, godless work of men. It was the plot of a city faction. He was in
+the hands of a gang. In the last days of his jail life, the boy's
+philosophy had reduced the blame to a unit, until it fixed the whole
+responsibility upon a single man&mdash;"Big Pete" Burton&mdash;leader of the gang.</p>
+
+<p>The boy, who had never in his life before been outside the limits of the
+Cumberland, had gone to jail, on that eventful day, innocent. He came
+out guilty. The mountain tinge had long since deserted his cheek and
+left it jail-hued. The simple-souled eyes now shone with the flinty
+stare, the designing needle-glints, the relentless play from eye to eye
+that traverses the orbs of the jail-man. He came out guilty, not of that
+which he had knowingly already done, but guilty of the added thing now
+stored away in the core of his being that he meant to do.</p>
+
+<p>The heart-breaking midnight loneliness and the nerve-stabbing "third
+degree" had not sucked the fire from his feudal veins. His religion now
+measured by his capacity for revenge, Lem Lutts came out of prison, his
+young heart and soul and strength obsessed by a sacred quest. His
+suspicions ratified in jail, he came out tarnished and arrayed against
+the world. In the centre of this flaming theatre of vengeance there ever
+stalked one leading figure, one solitary actor&mdash;a huge animal-headed man
+flaunting a frayed precept, called law&mdash;the monster law-man reaching for
+the rights and the blood of the people&mdash;he of the shadow-built body and
+the charmed life&mdash;that fearless ghost-spawn who never backed away from
+the mouth of a gun&mdash;he who always plunged toward the flame and the smoke
+and fought in the open&mdash;he whose skin was tattooed by the Winchester
+stencil of the mountaineer; but who still lived, and pursued, and fought
+on&mdash;the man who forged always onward with uncanny precision, ever
+stalking the hillman, ever reaching for his sanctum with merciless,
+untiring law-biting fury.</p>
+
+<p>The vision of this supernatural man, who had killed his parents, stood
+in front of the boy's life and blocked his untamed spirit with taunts.
+Loyal to inherited instincts; guided by the influence of environment;
+handicapped by ignorance; fanatically brave in his peculiarly educated
+understanding of justice, and property rights&mdash;the boy saw only this
+man. This hated enemy had not deserted him in jail. "Big Pete" had
+visited him time and time again. He had coaxed, abused, threatened,
+cajoled. He had even "manhandled" Lem, but never an utterance had
+crossed the boy's lips to betray. Finally, they had put him in the
+dungeon. When he emerged from the "black hole of Calcutta," he was
+thinner, chalk-hued, and benumbed of brain, but unrelenting, and "Big
+Pete" knew there was a demerit across his record. He did not make an
+informer.</p>
+
+<p>To-day they had released Lem Lutts in disgust. The revenuer, Burton, was
+on hand with that same despicable stare, and followed him from the
+warden's office to the street.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get you yet, Lutts," predicted the detective. "I'll bust that
+gang, and I'll send you to Atlanta the next time. I'll bust you, or I'll
+get you like I did your&mdash;your&mdash;&mdash;" his temerity broke. "I'll get you all
+right&mdash;I'll be on your trail in a week." To this gentle benediction he
+added a gentle push as emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Slight as the push was, Lem lost his balance and went to his knees, his
+hat falling to the walk. When he gained his feet and faced about, the
+officer stared in dumb amazement at the savage figure before him. Lem's
+stoicism had left him. His immobile features yielded to the volcanic
+hatred within. His light eyes glinted like full sockets of quicksilver.
+The froth fermented and bubbled off his twitching lip.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;yo' houn' dog!&mdash;yo' kilt my pap, an' my maw&mdash;yo' did!" he
+shrieked out in a riot of rage. "Yore 'lowing t' git hain't a gittin',
+hit hain't'&mdash;yo' kin 'low, an' 'low, an' 'low&mdash;thet hain't a
+gittin'&mdash;yore a pesky coward&mdash;yore a damn woman-killer&mdash;an' th' day'll
+cum when we'uns 'll run th' cow-brutes acrossin' yore snaky ole grave,
+we will! An' our'n hawgs'll root parsley offin' yore ole houn'-dawg
+grave, they will&mdash;yo' kilt my pap an' my maw, yo' did&mdash;an' hits we'uns
+what'll make a stinkin' hole fo' yore ole carcass,&mdash;what'll run the wild
+skunks out o' th' mountains&mdash;a hole what'll make th' buzzards puke.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' kilt my pap an' my maw&mdash;yo' he-skunk!&mdash;an' ef they's a God up in
+th' clouds, He'll see yore ole bones a-burnin' up in hell 'fore long&mdash;He
+will."</p>
+
+<p>He bleated out his imprecations, his frothy, distraught utterances
+tumbling together and stifling his speech. His wrist-band became
+loosened, and he stretched a sleeveless, naked arm high over his bared
+head to solemnize an oath that had sealed itself in his tempestuous
+heart. The sullen officer scowled at him, speechless; then grimly,
+silently, turned his back upon the lava of this mountain boy's impotent
+frenzy.</p>
+
+<p>Panting and dazed, Lem walked in a circle around his hat, which lay on
+the walk. Finally picking it up, he backed away from some curious eyes
+that had gathered, and ambled off toward the Kentucky river. Near two
+hundred miles from Moon mountain, forlorn, soul-sick, friendless,
+moneyless, but free, with one steadfast, consuming purpose fixed in his
+heart,&mdash;an organic purpose which he kept protected with prayerful
+importunities to Providence that it might not go amiss!</p>
+
+<p>When Lem got his bearings, he started cross-country afoot. At the end of
+the ninth day he found himself on the skirts of the Big Sandy country.
+With that tireless wolf-gait, he put the rugged miles behind him. All
+through the moonless night he tramped with eager eyes fixed toward the
+east where the hills piled higher and higher, and penciled a sable,
+ragged border against the paling, myriad stars.</p>
+
+<p>At length the atmosphere grew heavy and a flume of languid clouds
+straggled up where they hung upon the distant mountain peaks, pregnant
+with pulsing heat lightning. When, in the loneliness of that weird hour,
+the darkest epoch between night and morning, Lem beheld, silhouetted
+against the incessant flashes of lightning, the sombre dome of Moon
+mountain&mdash;that sullen watch-dog of the Cumberland&mdash;he pushed ahead
+unmindful of fatigue, while out of the wreckage of his battered soul,
+and aggrieved senses, there rose up a semblance of his old self as he
+lessened the distance between him and his beloved home.</p>
+
+<p>Before the sun was up, and while the transparent jewels still trembled
+on the damp face of the wilderness, Lem was on the last half of his
+climb. He forged onward, his head aflutter with a multiplicity of
+anticipation that precedes the sight of a long absent home. Presently he
+espied a thin column of smoke aloft, which he knew issued from his own
+cherished habitat. He pulsed with a savage delight. With the pungent
+odors of a horde of familiar, endeared growing things in his nostrils,
+he throbbed with the salient, rabid joy of an escaped jungle animal back
+again to its own. In a vortex of ecstasy he viewed the wild, enchanting
+scenes developing through a film of early morning mist.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SHOOTING OF PETER BURTON</h3>
+
+
+<p>When finally Lem reached the narrow twist where the trail jutted out and
+clung to the dew-damp breast of the mountain, he halted and dropping his
+torn shoes, which he had carried in his hand the past hour, he gazed
+along the ragged channel of a blind gulch that bit into the base of the
+mountain. The tree-fringed mouth of this gulch framed a picture below
+that entranced him. Upheld on the grass-grown palm of the distant
+clearing, he saw the squatty outlines of the meeting-house.</p>
+
+<p>Like a blow from a bludgeon the tragic details of that unforgettable
+tragedy hissed and rankled anew in his brain;&mdash;that red, accursed
+half-hour amid the naked shadows of a lugubrious dusk, with death at his
+elbow; the cry of the panther in his ears, and a ghost that breathed and
+scowled and cursed over him.</p>
+
+<p>Motionless, he looked at that wooden magnet below with a rapt,
+breathless stare. When he seized his damaged shoes and started onward,
+two stinging tears, hot with the acme of bitterness, fell off his chin,
+through his open shirt-front, and rolled across the white scars that
+dappled his breast.</p>
+
+<p>When he made the next turn he was in full view of the cabin. He saw the
+blue-black martins, swirling around and chattering over their box. He
+heard the crowing of the cocks, and the see-saw music of the guineas
+behind the log barn. He saw the red steers reluctant to leave their warm
+wallow in the be-dewed stable yard. He placed his fingers to his mouth
+and gave two shrill whistles. In an instant his father's spotted hound
+bounded from behind the cabin, followed by four other obstreperous dogs.
+While the dogs were yapping and mobbing him with their boisterous
+welcome, Slab appeared at the cabin door, followed by Bud half-dressed.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallaluyah! hallaluyah! hallaluyah!" shouted the old negro,
+gesticulating joyously and shambling pell-mell down the descent.</p>
+
+<p>On the backward path to the cabin there followed a noisy and gladsome
+reunion. Hanging to his brother's arm, Buddy kept crying crazily:</p>
+
+<p>"Lem hain't daid&mdash;Lem hain't daid&mdash;air yo', Lem?"</p>
+
+<p>While Lem ate his breakfast, he told his own sad story and, in turn, Bud
+and the negro poured into his ears the happenings of the past months.
+Nor did Buddy omit a single detail of these events. He began with the
+trapping of a brown bear, and ended with the rehearsal of that terrible
+fight at Junction City, as he exhibited the scars of that sanguine
+combat.</p>
+
+<p>"I air ole Cap Lutts' boy&mdash;hain't I, Lem?" he ended pridefully, probing
+for his brother's commendation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' sho' air, Buddy&mdash;an' I air powerful happy t' own yo' fo' my
+brother&mdash;yo' kin show pap's blood in yore veins any day&mdash;I 'low yo' kin
+hold th' mounting some day," lauded Lem, with an affectionate slap, "an'
+yore brother Lem'll git thet onery low-down Sap McGill fo' shootin' a
+boy&mdash;fo' shootin' my brother. He'll answer&mdash;same's th' revenuer. I was
+thinkin' o' leavin' fo' a spell, Buddy, but I'll not leave heah, as long
+as God Almoughty holds th' clouds over these hills, an' my heart
+beats&mdash;I'll not leave til' I kill 'em both&mdash;I won't&mdash;I won't leave."</p>
+
+<p>Worn and weary as he was, Lem did not wait to rest. He bathed his
+aching, swollen feet, and slipping on a pair of cow-hide moccasins, he
+hastened away with Buddy, to surprise Johnse Hatfield, and the faithful
+men at the still. And as he passed Eagle Crown, his eyes sought its
+lofty apex and his heart throbbed with a deep yearning. The vision of
+the absent girl who had gone out of his life and carried with her every
+fibre of joy that had hitherto woofed his existence&mdash;now stood before
+him with a vividness and insistency that eclipsed all previous
+visitations.</p>
+
+<p>In a measure, the surprise was turned upon himself, for they heard a
+shot and came suddenly upon Johnse Hatfield on the trail, crouching
+behind a boulder, his rifle still smoking, and peering keenly over into
+the laurel thicket below. When he looked up and beheld Lem, back again
+alive and well, he almost collapsed. Then the wild joy of Johnse's
+greeting merged swiftly into a grimmer enthusiasm as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I plugged em at last, Lem."</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Th' revenuer&mdash;I jest plugged em," enlightened Johnse.</p>
+
+<p>"Burton?" cried Lem, unwilling to believe the news.</p>
+
+<p>"Shore," returned Johnse, "I stopped 'em thes time&mdash;I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Air yo' sho' he's kilt?" eagerly, as the three crouched behind the
+boulder.</p>
+
+<p>"He air," assured Johnse emphatically. "I kin tell the way a feller
+flops his wings when he air kilt an' when he air jest hurted&mdash;he war a
+snakin' round&mdash;an' I 'low he war a spyin' on yore house&mdash;he looked up
+an' seen me a watchin'&mdash;then he pulled on me&mdash;but I fired quicker'n
+him&mdash;I got em shore thes time, Lem."</p>
+
+<p>"Gawd'll Moughty!" muttered Lem, under his breath, "air thet cuss back
+thes quick&mdash;a houndin' me agin, thes soon?&mdash;but he tol' me he'd do
+hit&mdash;he said he wouldn't parley any&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Who tol' yo?"</p>
+
+<p>"Burton."</p>
+
+<p>"When&mdash;yo' hain't meanin' thet yo' talked to that devil?"</p>
+
+<p>"I been in his jail all thes time."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Hatfield's face was a picture of dismay. He was dumb and
+plainly beyond any expression. Presently Johnse spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I see thar game&mdash;course thar's a traitor, but I 'low it hain't
+Orlick&mdash;they wanted t' beat yo'-all back, thinkin' yo' wouldn't be a
+lookin' fer 'em so soon&mdash;an' he war a spyin' on yore house, aimin' t'
+foller yo'-all to th' still&mdash;then raid us&mdash;but I changed his tune."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope yo' hain't kilt em&mdash;'cause he belongs to Cap Lutts's boy&mdash;to
+me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I kilt em, Lem&mdash;I had t'."</p>
+
+<p>Lem still stared incredulously at Hatfield's grim, bearded face.</p>
+
+<p>"Come 'long, Johnse!" exclaimed Lem decisively. "I 'low yo' believe yo'
+kilt em&mdash;but yo' can't lead me t' his daid body&mdash;yo' can't," declared
+Lem dubiously. Gripping his Winchester, Lem started away down the trail
+on a run, with Hatfield and little Bud loping along after him.</p>
+
+<p>When they arrived within sight of the place indicated by Hatfield as the
+spot where he had seen the revenuer's head disappear, the trio fell upon
+their knees, and crept cautiously along, with rifles ready and eyes
+alert. In a dense clump of laurel brush between two great dun rocks,
+they came upon a tan felt hat lying in a wide circle of dark blood. A
+few paces away lay a silver-mounted Winchester rifle. Lem knew the gun;
+the instant he laid eyes on the piece, he knew it was the property of
+Pete Burton, the revenuer. The front of the hat, just above the band,
+was slit open for six inches or more, as if cut with a knife. Lem's eyes
+glowed like fire-balls, as he examined the gun and passing it to Bud to
+carry, he turned upon Hatfield, who stood speechless eyeing the blood.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' said yo'd show me his daid body, Johnse&mdash;do yo' see hit?" Lem
+emitted a bitter, derisive laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Hatfield's hairy visage was the picture of dumb bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnse Hatfield," began Lem solemnly, "could any man thet Gawd'll
+Moughty made human lose all thet blood and not stay heah, on thes
+spot?&mdash;eh? I kin tell from his hat yore bullet swiped em 'long th'
+forehead,&mdash;yo' hain't kilt em&mdash;yo'll never kill em&mdash;I'll never kill
+em&mdash;nobuddy'll ever kill em, Johnse Hatfield!&mdash;ef he wus a human bein'
+my pap would a got em 'long 'go&mdash;Johnse, when yo'-all kills a eagle yo'
+takes a bead on em pint-blank first, don't yo'?&mdash;sho'&mdash;yo' don't shoot
+at his shadder skimmin' along on th' ground under him, do yo'?&mdash;no. But
+when yo' shoot at this cussed revenuer yo' mought as well shoot at his
+shadder's fer's killin' him goes&mdash;he air a ghost. But I'll never stop
+tryin' t' git em anyways&mdash;I feel that I'll never git em&mdash;leastways hits
+soothin' t' be always a tryin'&mdash;cum 'long, Johnse."</p>
+
+<p>They twisted in and out through the laurel and rhododendrons, between
+bald rocks, mighty and pigmy, and over crumbling logs coated with
+liverwort. Through walls of tangled thorn brush; out and along paths
+beaten by the wild razorbacks, and down, always downward, the three
+followed the erratic zigzag trail of blood for four miles. Down to the
+very water's brink of Boon Creek, where they lost it.</p>
+
+<p>They traversed both sides of the creek up and down for miles with no
+signs of the lost trail. Hour after hour they searched until night came
+upon them, and they returned home, with the uncanny feeling that the
+wounded revenuer was likely to rise up out of the ground, or step out of
+the granite heart of some boulder at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn the following day, thirty armed men gathered at the cabin. Lem
+spread them out, beginning at the canyon of Hellsfork, and they beat the
+rugged country systematically, working upward. Each day at sunrise they
+resumed the search where they left off until the eighth day, when they
+left all growth and foliage behind and came high up amid the naked,
+forbidding peaks of the range; precincts to discourage a mountain goat,
+much more a wounded man. They were rewarded with no signs of the
+revenuer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH SLAB PROPHESIES</h3>
+
+
+<p>They disbanded, and Lem Lutts returned to the cabin, melancholy and
+morose. This futile hunt for his elusive arch enemy was prophetic of
+some strange, dawning evolution. He felt the tang of it in his blood. He
+saw it lettered in the patchwork of the shadows that tried to wrap their
+arms about him. Amid the swaying branches of the trees the sympathetic
+night winds lisped incoherently, and tried to tell him something. The
+feral night-hawks dropped their shrill cries ominously down from the
+sky; utterances seemingly meant for him. From down in the jungle realms
+of the deserted church the faint whimpering of a panther whelp floated
+up to his attuned ears, like the sobbing of a tired child, carrying the
+warning of an oracular omen he could not deny.</p>
+
+<p>The tree-frogs piped the spirit of this premonition to him with a
+monotonous insistency that filled the boy's soul with an alien, restive
+turbulence not comprehensible. The katydid purled its mysterious
+cadence. To his keen interpretations all the subtle, nocturnal elements
+of nature united upon one portentous theme. A significant, adjuring
+symphony; the prelude of some miraculous happening that stood very close
+to his life; inspiring him with a wild, palpitating unrest that puzzled
+his reason and stirred him like the touch of an unseen hand.</p>
+
+<p>A week after his abandoned search for the ghost-like revenuer, Lem's
+haunting broodings resolved themselves into a quick, sudden action.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, when Bud and Slab justly supposed Lem was still asleep, he
+appeared at the witch-elm horse-block with Johnse Hatfield's piebald
+mare. He gave to the mystified Bud and Slab a few brief instructions,
+absolutely distinct from any inkling of his intentions, and rode away
+through the chill mist and disappeared westward. He came back at
+nightfall of the fourth day with a bulky package strapped to his saddle.
+When he carried this bundle inside the cabin and exhibited its contents,
+Bud and Slab looked on in open-mouthed wonderment.</p>
+
+<p>There was a fine blue-serge suit of store clothes, shirts, linen
+collars, ties, socks, underwear, tan shoes, and a direct insult to the
+etiquette of mountain head-gear&mdash;a slick derby hat, which Buddy regarded
+with open scorn; but which he speedily forgot when Lem unwrapped a
+lesser package and presented his brother with a pearl-gray, wide-brimmed
+Stetson hat for himself, and half dozen soft shirts, all of which were
+grotesquely over-sized. Lem also gave Slab a half dozen flannel shirts,
+two of which were a brilliant red, and which filled the old negro's
+mouth with a score of assorted exclamations that left small doubt of his
+gratitude and appreciation. Lem was non-communicative until after
+supper. Then it was that he called Buddy and Slab out to the horse-block
+and took them into his confidence, after Slab had sung "Kitty Wells."</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;Buddy," Lem was saying with profound emphasis, "to-morry yo'll be
+th' man o' th' house, understan'?&mdash;an' yo' got t' be a man&mdash;and run
+things like a man&mdash;'cause yore brother Lem'll be gone away from heah
+to-morry, Buddy&mdash;do yo' 'low yore brother kin trust yo'-all, Buddy?&mdash;eh,
+kin he trust yo'?"</p>
+
+<p>Bud stood with a solemn, peaked face, into which had suddenly crept an
+apprehensive, wistful look. He had lost no time in donning his new
+things. Although his skinny little boy's figure was undersized, he had
+on a man's shirt; likewise a man's hat. He had in his grasp a man's
+rifle, a gun that had belonged to a very great man; undeniably the
+greatest man that had ever lived. That look of dull puerile doubt
+vanished instantly as the realization dawned upon him that his brother
+was now about to honor him with a man's commission. He straightened
+valiantly as he looked full into his brother's steadfast eyes and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon ole Cap Lutts o' Moon mountain was my pap, Lem&mdash;same's he was
+yo'n."</p>
+
+<p>Lem bestowed a beaming look of pride upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"I jest hoped yo'd say thet, Buddy&mdash;yore a game lad, an' yo' kin show
+pap's blood in yore veins any day."</p>
+
+<p>"Air yo' a goin' fer off, Lem?" questioned Bud. Slab edged nearer, his
+old ears eager for the project.</p>
+
+<p>Lem reached out and laid a hand on his little brother's thin shoulder,
+as with a jerk he tossed his chestnut hair backward.</p>
+
+<p>"Buddy," he said in measured tones, "to-morry I'm a goin' away&mdash;I cyan't
+tell how fer&mdash;I mought be gone a week&mdash;I mought be gone a month&mdash;mebby a
+year&mdash;mebby ten years&mdash;I mought never cum back, Buddy&mdash;but when I do cum
+back&mdash;yo'll know thet I seed Belle-Ann."</p>
+
+<p>This intelligence jarred Buddy's hard, tight-lipped mouth ajar and fired
+his cold, misanthropic heart with a vibrant yearning. How he would love
+to see Belle-Ann! Slab slid gently off the witch-block like a turtle,
+and rubbed his gnarled old hands together in hearty approval.</p>
+
+<p>"When yo'-all see Lem agin, Buddy," repeated Lem, "yo'll know I seed
+Belle-Ann&mdash;I air agoin' below, an' I air agoin' t' find Belle-Ann ef th'
+trail leads aroun' th' worl'&mdash;I aim t' see her face onct mo'&mdash;jest onct
+mo' 'fore I die&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ef I see her, I'll cum back heah t' Moon mountain, an' never leave 'til
+yo' all lay me down 'side maw an' pap&mdash;ef I don't cum back&mdash;yo'll know
+thet I'm still a lookin' fo' our'n deah little Belle-Ann&mdash;er I'm daid."</p>
+
+<p>"Mebby yo'll find her, Lem," predicted Buddy, "an' mebby she'll cum back
+home long o' yo'." An unwonted smile lingered on his countenance for a
+brief moment in this anticipation. Then Slab with deep solemnity
+advanced a sorceristic theory, drawn from his prognostic acumen.</p>
+
+<p>"Lemmy&mdash;Lemmy," he began in a confidential, sibilant, half-whisper,
+"las' night&mdash;las' night," he peered cautiously into the gloom, peopled
+with gesticulating shadows. "Las' night er han' recht out an' tech me on
+ma foot&mdash;an' I wake up&mdash;an' er li'lle voice say, 'Slab, git up'&mdash;an' I
+git up&mdash;an' th' li'lle voice say, awful soft an' low like, 'Slab,' it
+say, 'Slab look out'&mdash;an' I peek ma haid out&mdash;an' thar set Mr. Owl&mdash;not
+er onery li'lle screech owl, what snoops wif de debil&mdash;but er big,
+yaller, honest ole owl, whut de Obeah-spirit send t' tell Slab er
+message, whut de good Lord hev in mind whut's gwine t' happen. Dah set
+Mr. Owl up in de daid cedar, wif de big moon right ahind him&mdash;den I
+snuck out an' slip up t' de daid cedar, an' stand jist as still, an'
+wait t' see ef owl say somethin'&mdash;'cause ef owl say first&mdash;den dat means
+bad&mdash;but ef owl wait fo' me t' say first&mdash;den dat means good&mdash;so I stand
+jist as still&mdash;an' owl he don't say nuffin'&mdash;an' I wait agin, an' owl he
+don' open he mouf&mdash;den I fix my hands, an' I say&mdash;'hoo! hoo! hoo!' an'
+jist ez quick ez lighten' Mr. Owl he say 'hoo!&mdash;hoo! hoo!' Den I say
+'hoo! hoo! hoo!' seban times, an' ebery time Mr. Owl he answer me&mdash;den
+when I say 'hoo!&mdash;hoo!&mdash;hoo!' de las' time&mdash;Mr. Owl he flop his wings
+an' goed away&mdash;den I knowed shore dat somethin' gwine t' drap&mdash;den I
+looks 'round an' finds er li'lle bitty Obeah-stone&mdash;er li'lle white
+stone, wif er li'lle black speck on hit&mdash;an' I fetches hit heah an' lays
+hit down on de witch-block right heah&mdash;an' I turned 'round an' started
+back t' bed, when somethin' whispered ahind me&mdash;den I jump 'round&mdash;but I
+warn't skeert&mdash;an' dah she were&mdash;dah she were, Lemmie&mdash;dah she were
+settin' up on dis witch-block right whar I put de Obeah-stone,&mdash;dah set
+our li'lle Belle-Ann lookin' at Slab&mdash;I seed her just ez plain,
+Lemmie&mdash;jest ez plain ez I see you des minit&mdash;all dressed up white ez
+snow&mdash;an' all dem curls er hangin' down roun' her shoulders, an' her
+li'lle mouf wus er smilin' at me&mdash;an' her beau'ful eyes wus er lookin'
+right at me&mdash;an' I drap down on ma knees&mdash;right heah&mdash;right heah, whar I
+stan' now&mdash;an' I hollers out: 'Hallelujah!&mdash;I allers tol' dem dat yo'd
+cum back, li'lle gal'&mdash;an' she stretch her hands out ter me&mdash;an' I bust
+out er cryin'&mdash;I couldn't he'p hit&mdash;I bust out er cryin'&mdash;an' I heer her
+voice just ez plain ez I heer ma own now,&mdash;I heer her voice like er
+nightengale's voice,&mdash;she say, 'Whar's Lem&mdash;whar's Lem&mdash;whar's Lem?&mdash;yo'
+Slab&mdash;whar's Lem?&mdash;blow de horn fo' Lem,&mdash;yo' Slab&mdash;blow de horn fo'
+Lem'&mdash;an' I git up off ma knees an' go t' tech her han' an' she warn't
+dah&mdash;she goed away jist ez quick ez lighten'&mdash;an' I look an' de li'lle
+Obeah-stone I lay on dat witch-block wus goed away, too&mdash;Lemmie&mdash;dat
+means dat we's gwine t' see li'lle Belle-Ann 'fore a great spell&mdash;yore
+due t' find li'lle Belle-Ann, Lemmie,&mdash;yo'll sho' see her&mdash;Buddy'll see
+her&mdash;Slab's ole eyes'll see her&mdash;yo' know, Lemmie,&mdash;de good Lord hev His
+pertic'ler ways t' tell good folks 'bout all des things&mdash;He kindy tells
+dem 'forehand&mdash;so's dey hearts won't break&mdash;so's dey'll hev c'urage, an'
+trus' in Him&mdash;Slab knows He do&mdash;Slab knows."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NEAR ASSASSIN</h3>
+
+
+<p>The following day Lem Lutts arrayed himself in his newly purchased store
+clothes and prepared to face a strange, unfriendly world of which he
+knew little. Not a week, not a day, scarcely an hour had elapsed since
+Belle-Ann had gone to Proctor that thoughts of her were not uppermost in
+his mind. Indeed, it was the sustaining hope of seeing her that had held
+his unhappy being together. It was seemingly a wretched measure of years
+since that unforgettable day when he had kissed the little scar that
+crossed the part in her curls, when she had stood before him and crossed
+her heart, and pledged him that she would surely come back to him. But
+the day of her return, as he had marked it in his mind, a scintillating
+goal, promising an epoch of luxuriant life, had come, and long since
+passed. He had, while in prison, written half a dozen crude letters
+addressed to Belle-Ann at Beattyville. His credulous mind had always
+supposed that these missives had reached their destination. As he had
+never received any reply to his letters, he had deducted that either the
+subtle influence of education and society had taken hold of her, weaning
+her heart away from all thoughts of the mountains, or that some
+unforeseen circumstance beyond her will had kept her silent. If it
+developed that he could not find her at the school, he had determined,
+next, to go down into the Big Sandy camps and hunt up her father.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with his sudden inception of this extended sojourn, he was
+quick to realize that to mingle with the proud inhabitants of the
+strange land, into which he sallied, he would be handicapped, and
+doubtless be put to a retarding disadvantage by appearing among them in
+the crude garb of a mountaineer. He had gleaned this bit of wisdom while
+in prison. A credulous, guileless spirit can learn more of the world in
+a city jail in one month, than he can learn in twenty years out on the
+Godhead, in the geodetic domains allotted him by Providence. Therefore,
+Lem had with rare forethought equipped himself in a manner not
+unpleasing, and calculated to ward off disdain and ridicule. However, he
+had postponed having his luxuriant locks shorn to the last minute,
+deciding to sacrifice them when he struck the first big town. So that
+now he looked a bit incongruous, his shining black derby contrasting
+oddly enough with his long, curling hair.</p>
+
+<p>Lem had bidden Slab farewell, and after spending a time up in the
+Orchard beside the two mounds, he climbed up to Eagle Crown, his
+favorite, endeared refuge, to take what might be his last survey of the
+wild kingdom he loved so well. When he reached that dizzy height, he sat
+down to gain his breath. As he did so, his eyes fell upon a small, round
+object at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly he picked it up, and with a reminiscent smile pressed it
+fondly to his lips. It was a button off Belle-Ann's gingham gown.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy in his impatience had wandered on down the trail toward the loop,
+where he had been waiting for Lem for well on to an hour, for he meant
+to accompany his brother as far as Boon's ford before taking leave. He
+had sauntered along idly and had reached a point opposite the gap in the
+spur, where he could look back and view the open trail, when a young
+badger suddenly ambled out in the path and stood regarding him
+curiously, with its pink snout working inquiringly. Buddy had no wish
+for the young badger, but, boy-like, he could not resist shying a rock
+at it, and at least inspire the creature with some sense of respect.</p>
+
+<p>With a grin, he stepped over toward a spruce log half hidden beneath the
+foliage of laurel and wild dewberry bushes. As he stooped down and took
+up a small rock, a sight met his eyes that electrified him, causing him
+to forget the little animal and to drop the stone as if it had been an
+ember. In an instant he had his rifle at readiness. The object upon
+which he had his eyes riveted would never have been detected by a lay
+mind. But Buddy's little greenish eyes, versed in woodcraft, knew
+instantly that the two round holes he had glimpsed meant the presence of
+a shotgun! If there is anything that the mountain-born hates worse than
+a revenuer, it is a shotgun. They regard this mongrel weapon with a
+deep, cordial loathing not to be reconciled. The sight of a shotgun in
+the mountains is always a forerunner of deviltry and treachery.</p>
+
+<p>Bud looked around furtively, then he leaned over and with infinite
+caution parted the laurel. He recoiled, stung with amazement.</p>
+
+<p>Sap McGill lay close up against the log, with an empty whiskey flask in
+his relaxed palm! The boy drew back and his brain began to work with
+great rapidity. The last time he had seen Sap he was tumbled in the road
+by a bullet at Junction City. McGill was now in ambush; hidden here,
+bent upon a killing, and had involuntarily fallen into a drunken
+slumber, overcome by liquor, as evidenced by the empty bottle. Then
+suddenly Buddy deducted a hypothesis that decided him irrevocably.
+McGill could be in waiting for no one other person than his (Buddy's)
+brother. McGill was hidden here waiting for Lem to come down the trail,
+when he would rise up and send two loads of buckshot into the back of
+Lem's head. Buddy's lips tightened fiercely. With a quick, deft movement
+he reached over and, taking the shotgun by the muzzle, drew it
+noiselessly out to him. Swiftly he broke the gun, extracted the two
+shells and placed them in his pocket. He then carefully replaced the gun
+in the position he had found it, and stealthily secreted himself behind
+a boulder less than thirty feet distant. Here he lay down on his stomach
+with his rifle trained through a crevice, over the spot where McGill
+lay.</p>
+
+<p>To Buddy's tense nerves the minutes seemed like long hours. He lay so
+long in this one position, not daring to move to another shelter, that a
+dull aching began to traverse his arm, which he feared would jeopardize
+his aim. This was the only position he could command here, where he
+could see the log held by McGill and at the same time hold a direct aim.
+From where Bud lay he could see the open trail through the gap for a
+distance of fifty yards without stirring.</p>
+
+<p>But for McGill to get a glimpse of the path it was necessary for him to
+thrust his head far out from his place of concealment. Just at a time
+when Bud thought that he must surely risk a change in his position, a
+half-dozen razorbacks trotted up from behind. When they saw Bud lying on
+the ground in plain view, they uttered a series of affrighted grunts,
+and dashed ahead, two of them swerved and jumped over the very log that
+hid McGill, and must have come perilously near to jumping squarely upon
+him. The next instant McGill's head was thrust stealthfully out of the
+laurel, his eyes fixed intently on the scrub cedars that jutted out into
+the trail leading down from the Lutts cabin. As McGill waited to waylay
+Lem, his life in these minutes hinged upon a seemingly irrelevant and
+insignificant act.</p>
+
+<p>The moment that McGill broke his gun and discovered that it had been
+tampered with, he would naturally replace the shells. And the instant
+that he replaced the shells, Buddy Lutts meant to send a rifle ball into
+his brain.</p>
+
+<p>On the eve of leaving his sequestered haunts in the hills, none but the
+omniscient Providence could tell for how long, Lem Lutts was loath to
+turn his eyes toward the blue-grass country. So it was that he lingered,
+feasting his gaze upon the panoramic view that lay beneath Eagle Crown,
+every spur and nook and cove and gulch of which he had been familiar
+with all his life. With a heaviness weighing his heart, but a
+determination unabated, he swept his eyes over the purple distance with
+one last farewell, and turning started his descent. His head had
+disappeared downward when suddenly, as if in response to a voice, he
+halted and, not knowing his own purpose precisely, he climbed back and
+stood up on the ledge, sending his gaze afar to the glistening patch of
+water that marked the Boon Creek ford; immortalized in his soul, with
+the last beckonings of her whom he adored with a flaming, compelling,
+deathless love that eclipsed and obliterated all else in life. His gaze
+dwelt here for a full minute. Then he turned half-way, then looked
+quickly back. Something there had attracted him. With his hand half
+raised, he pushed to the brink of the precipice. He now discerned the
+burnished coat of a blood-bay horse standing in the ford. Lem's mouth
+dropped ajar. As he strained his eyes downward, his breath paused with
+the miraculous thought that slowly filtered into his brain. From this
+vast, hazy height he could not determine whether the equestrian was male
+or female. But an exciting intuition seized his senses as he descried
+some object flashing methodically in the sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>Unmistakably the distant rider was waving to him!</p>
+
+<p>Then the signal changed to something white, flaunting against the azure
+space, and Lem's heart smote his ribs with a great bound of suffocating
+joy, as the influx of a scintillating realization obsessed him, and he
+started down that perilous descent faster than he had ever gone in his
+life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BELLE-ANN COMES BACK</h3>
+
+
+<p>When he reached the ground he dashed along the trail like a madman. On
+past the cabin he ran in great bounds; down the cypress cut, his speed
+increasing every second. As he rushed headlong down into the loop, a
+startling thing happened.</p>
+
+<p>As Lem shot around a clump of scrub cedars that marked a sharp twist in
+the trail, the form of a man confronted him with a shotgun leveled at
+his head. At the same time the ambuscader pulled the trigger with
+murderous intent. The gun snapped with no report, and the sheer impetus
+of Lem's body moving at terrific velocity bore him down in a trice. As
+Lem flashed past, unable to check his headlong speed on the moment, he
+struck the mystified face a stunning, crashing blow. The man tumbled
+backward&mdash;his head striking a rock with a crushing impact.</p>
+
+<p>It was only when Lem had turned back that he fully established the
+identity of his assailant, who had started to grow a beard. In his
+excitement and utter amazement, he had not heard the footsteps behind
+him. However, he received another shock when he saw Buddy run up to the
+prostrate McGill and thrust the muzzle of his rifle against the man's
+side. The infuriated Buddy was on the verge of pulling the trigger when
+Lem sprang forward and grabbed the rifle out of his brother's hands. The
+irate boy shot an inquiring look at Lem.</p>
+
+<p>"Warn't he layin' t' kill yo'&mdash;hain't I bin watchin' em fo' mo'n a
+hour?" protested Bud, plainly disgusted with his brother's interference.
+"Didn't I break his ole damn shotgun when he drinked hisse'f asleep, an'
+take his loads out&mdash;heah they air&mdash;now&mdash;now&mdash;see?&mdash;an' yo' hain't
+'lowin' t' kill em?&mdash;when he plugged me twict in Junction City?" Buddy
+shook his head savagely, and glared at the unconscious form lying prone
+and inert on its back.</p>
+
+<p>"Now yo' jest hol' yore han'," panted Lem. "Sho'&mdash;I'm aimin' to kill em,
+kill em?&mdash;I'll kill em twict er three times&mdash;I will&mdash;&mdash;" He cast an
+anxious, wistful look behind him, then ran a dozen yards down the path,
+turned and plunged crazily back again, and acted like he had suddenly
+gone daft. He was mumbling muddled words that Buddy could not make out.
+Buddy had never before seen his brother in such a confused flurry.</p>
+
+<p>"Sho'&mdash;I'll kill em, Buddy," reiterated the flustrated Lem, "but I
+hain't 'lowin' to kill em thes minit&mdash;his haid air busted ag'in' that
+rock&mdash;he don't know nothin'&mdash;an' I want em to know who kilt em, I do&mdash;I
+want em to see me&mdash;I want em to know that Lem Lutts keetched em at
+last."</p>
+
+<p>"Whut yo' a runnin' roun' like a shot deer fo'?" interrupted Buddy in
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"I want em to know thet he air a payin' in to Lem Lutts fo' all his
+other divilmint&mdash;an' fo' shootin' a boy&mdash;yo'&mdash;all watch em, Buddy&mdash;keep
+your gun on em when he wakes up, an' don't yo' plug em&mdash;hold em 'til I
+git back&mdash;Gawd'll Moughty! I got to go&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The gravel scattered and there was a rush of feet. Buddy looked around
+and saw Lem tearing off down the trail like a being distraught, and even
+faster than he had appeared a few moments since. Nonplussed at his
+brother's conduct, amazed, he waited sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>With fiery, belligerent eyes Buddy regarded the motionless figure of
+McGill. The terrible, pitiless hate that seethed and flamed in Buddy's
+heart for the fallen foe lying on the ground before him had superseded a
+measure of his natural curiosity concerning his brother's frantic and
+lightning-like appearance and his sudden and frenzied departure. Lem, in
+his excitement, had carried Buddy's rifle away, leaving him weaponless.</p>
+
+<p>A thought brought a grim smile to the boy's lips, and a satanic light
+flitted across his eyes, like the shadow of a bird skimming the ground.
+He hurriedly withdrew one of the loaded shells from his pocket. He would
+surely now put an end to Sap McGill. A brute of his caliber should have
+died long, long ago. He would be dead and safely beyond all further
+deviltry in a few seconds. His eyes burning with the lust of this
+design, Bud reached down to take up McGill's shotgun to reload it, when
+he heard Lem's distant voice. His words startled Buddy, and arrested his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann's a comin'&mdash;Belle-Ann's a comin'&mdash;Belle-Ann's come back,"
+echoed back to the boy.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that the psychological impulse dashed upon little Bud,
+wrenching out of his mind his intent of manslaughter. His fingers never
+reached the shotgun. He dropped the loaded shell and, jerking his new
+hat off, he flung his head back and fairly flew after his brother. With
+all the might he could muster into his skinny legs, he left the scene of
+this bloodless encounter behind.</p>
+
+<p>McGill lay face upward. He had not moved a muscle since he fell. The
+sleepy stillness was broken only by the wild bird voices of the wood. A
+suspicious catbird dropped down on the end of a log near the silent
+figure and gave vent to his whining, petulant phrase.</p>
+
+<p>From under the rock upon which McGill's head had struck, the head of a
+live thing was thrust. Then a long, gorgeous body slid into view. Its
+sinuous length was embellished with beautiful pigments of gold and black
+and light canary. With the omnivorous curiosity of the reptile for all
+inanimate objects, the rattlesnake thrust his mouth, shaped like that of
+a catfish, up to Sap's ear. The two black rings circling his little
+incandescent eyes began to swell. The whole surface of his mottled head
+flattened out and pulsed. He seemed to be breathing through the top of
+his head. A peculiar half-sound, indescribable, issued forth when the
+dappled tip of the snake's tail quivered. Like a forked needle his
+tongue flashed in and out of his throat.</p>
+
+<p>As the rattlesnake's challenge met with utter immobility, he started a
+thorough inspection. He began at the ear and nosed on down to the feet.
+Then he came up on the other side of the unconscious man, back to the
+starting point. A cloud passed, and the sun fell straight down upon the
+man's face. With a snake's love for radiation the rattler, now
+apparently satisfied, glided up on McGill's breast. With no sign of life
+communicating, and finding warmth beneath him, and warmth above him, the
+rattler coiled himself in a jiffy and lay basking comfortably on
+McGill's bosom.</p>
+
+<p>At the glad sight that met his eyes, Lem Lutts checked his wild, joy-mad
+race down toward Boon's ford. He became suddenly and acutely conscious
+that such a helter-skelter approach did not compare favorably with the
+beautiful theme of sweet dignity presented ahead of him. Lem now walked
+moderately to recover his breath and to compose and regain his
+equipoise. What he saw was a magnificent blood-bay horse flashing like
+crimson satin in the sunlight, his black mane and tail rippling in the
+south breeze. The animal lifted his noble head and emitted a neigh,
+which utterance was a royal echo from the pasture realms of the
+Blue-grass. The horse stopped under a great sycamore tree, where still
+remained the quaint characters they had cut into its bark in childhood
+days, when they two were playfellows.</p>
+
+<p>Lem's amazed, staring eyes beheld a lovely girl dismount. She was tall
+and round, and withal more beautiful than any stretch of his imagination
+could picture a girl. She was attired in a handsome, modish riding
+costume, with dainty patent-leather riding boots. She stood now waving a
+silver-mounted whip as he approached.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!&mdash;Lem!" she dropped her gauntlets, tossed back her mass of curls and
+held her hands out to him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE REUNION</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann!" His voice was husky and quavering. Her hands were closed
+within his mighty pressure.</p>
+
+<p>They were looking into each other's face. The boy with incredulous,
+wondering eyes, reflecting a heart full to the brim with adoration; she,
+palpitating, her dimples aflush, her bosom lifting, her delicious red
+mouth ajar. And in the exquisite domains of those azure-tinted orbs lay
+the lucid litany of a wondrous, beautiful parable. Those two
+violet-stained eyes were misty with the text of a miracle that nestled
+in her heart, the tendrils of which she meant to train with care around
+the boy's mountain soul. In wordless, panting silence they studied each
+other's happy face for a long minute.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew that was you-all up thah on Eagle Crown. Were you-all looking
+for me, Lem?" she questioned in a half-whisper, predicating an affection
+that had its inception back in the child days of yore.</p>
+
+<p>"I was up thah a lookin' fo' yo', Belle-Ann&mdash;th' same's I bin a lookin'
+every hour since yo'-all went away," he assured her, dropping her hands
+and with a movement to take her into his arms and kiss her bowed,
+smiling mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann quickly threw back, with a tolerant ripple of mirth, thwarting
+his intent with the guise of a half-coquettish, half-mischievous
+challenge. But her purpose in this denial was tenfold deeper than
+girlish byplay. Her motive was infinitely more profound than to
+tantalize. She meant to withhold that priceless first kiss as a leverage
+to undo that which she had done. She meant to hold that first embrace as
+a reward for the reversal of the godless compact, the tenure of which
+she had long since penitently recanted.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Lem was quick to divine the import of her act. He fell
+back a pace, abashed and crestfallen.</p>
+
+<p>"Thet's so," he said sorrowfully, "I hain't kilt th' revenuer yet,
+Belle-Ann&mdash;but I 'low I tried hard enough, Belle-Ann,&mdash;Johnse Hatfield
+shot em through th' haid three weeks back&mdash;but all we ever found o' him
+wus a hat, an' a rifle, an' a barrel o' blood&mdash;he must hev jest flopped
+his arms an' flew up in th' sky&mdash;daid er alive&mdash;he hain't on
+Hellsfork&mdash;he&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here Buddy rushed up, perspiring and breathing hard. He seized the
+girl's hand and hung on with a tenacity that bade fair to incumber her
+forevermore. The boy was too full to speak. His lips only trembled as he
+gazed up at her. When with endearing terms she pressed his thin little
+form to her and kissed him, the tears welled up and obscured his hard
+little eyes. Although these were tributes of joy from his stormy,
+suspicious heart, it was the first signs of tears any one had seen him
+manifest since old Cap Lutts had lain white and still, amid the flowers
+on God's acre. Then while Buddy fondled and admired the salient, superb
+horse with his fire-rimmed eyes and slender legs, the other two sat down
+on a rectangular stone, all coated in liverwort, upon which they had
+lolled many times in days agone. And here they communed with happy,
+hurried words.</p>
+
+<p>"But Lem," Belle-Ann was saying, "you are all dressed up&mdash;but for your
+beautiful locks, you look really citified&mdash;perhaps you-all was on your
+way to visit some young lady&mdash;am I right?&mdash;come now,"&mdash;she laughed
+coyly.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann, ef yo' had come 'bout half hour later&mdash;yo' wouldn't a found
+me&mdash;I wus jest a startin' out on my way below t' look fo' yo',
+Belle-Ann.&mdash;I wus 'lowin' t' scour th' whole earth fo' yo'&mdash;I told Buddy
+an' Slab thet I'd never come back till I seed yore face jest onct,
+anyways&mdash;I wus goin' t' spend th' balance of my life lookin' fo' yo',
+Belle-Ann."</p>
+
+<p>"Lem&mdash;didn't I cross my heart that day and pledge you that I'd come
+back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but I wus afeerd thet somethin' had happened t' yo'-all,
+Belle-Ann,&mdash;then I togged myself up an' fixed to go below&mdash;then I
+thought I'd go up on th' Crown an' take a last look at the spot
+where I saw yo' last a wavin' at me, and pretty soon I seed
+somethin'&mdash;an'&mdash;an'&mdash;Gawd'll Moughty&mdash;thah yo' wus a wavin' right at
+me&mdash;then I sho' did make time a gettin' down off'n thah&mdash;an' as I run
+down th' trail&mdash;thet ornery Sap McGill jumped out an' tried t'
+shoot&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With a fear-fraught half-scream, Belle-Ann had bounded to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Sap McGill&mdash;McGill, here?" she cried out incredulously. Her bosom
+heaved with excitement, and her eyes were wide and starry with a sudden
+new-born terror. "Oh!&mdash;don't tell me that McGill is up heah&mdash;on this
+side of Hellsfork!"</p>
+
+<p>Then it was, with bated breath and hurried, fear-laden words, that she
+implored Lem to hide somewhere. When she finished, all the blithesome,
+pulsing happiness that had dwelt in her beautiful face a few moments
+previously had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Lem got quickly to his feet and stood eyeing her bloodless countenance
+in a trance of blank incomprehension.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me&mdash;tell me quick, where is McGill now?" she panted, her hat
+dropping from her nerveless hands and falling at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;Belle-Ann&mdash;I left em a layin' on his back up at th' loop."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you kill him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw&mdash;I didn't hev time&mdash;I wanted t' meet yo'-all&mdash;I left Buddy a
+guardin' em."</p>
+
+<p>There was pitiable, livid dread in her face now. Her pathetic mouth
+dropped woefully. She stood, with fingers interlocked helplessly, in the
+grip of a seething apprehension. Buddy, who did not understand the real
+cause of Belle-Ann's distress, stood with two clinched fists, and a look
+of awful destruction aglow in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I say yo' oughter kilt em&mdash;didn't I tell yo'?" he cried in
+piping, admonishing tones. Lem had not moved a muscle, though the girl's
+whiteness was communicated to his mask-like visage. Now he frowned upon
+Buddy.</p>
+
+<p>"What ded yo' leave em fer?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"McGill will kill you, Lem," muttered the girl, beside herself with the
+violence of this sudden new fear that overpowered her. "If he isn't dead
+now&mdash;I know that he is lurking along the trail to kill you, Lem!&mdash;Oh,
+it's awful!&mdash;It's so disheartening to live such lives&mdash;what can we
+do?&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;" With her hands to her face she burst into sudden tears,
+precluding all speech.</p>
+
+<p>Just as suddenly was Lem Lutts electrified with a quick determination.
+He grabbed Buddy's rifle.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll trail em down ef he's gone, Belle-Ann&mdash;I'll sho' kill em now."</p>
+
+<p>With a swift movement Belle-Ann clutched Lem's sleeve tenaciously to
+detain and dissuade him. But his eyes shone with a maniacal fire as he
+jerked away from her and ran back up the trail with strides that carried
+him far ahead of the nervous horse that had taken affright and had
+bolted and was now galloping up the rock-strewn path in Lem's wake. Deaf
+to Belle-Ann's appealing voice urging him to come back, Lem only yelled
+back over his shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll sho' kill em now!"</p>
+
+<p>The horse soon swerved off from the trail and plunged down toward the
+valley amidst the brush, with Buddy in pursuit. Belle-Ann ran now along
+after Lem as swiftly as her trembling, weak limbs would carry her.</p>
+
+<p>When Lem Lutts reached the loop he halted, struck dumb with the
+spectacle before his gaze. McGill lay just as he had left him more than
+an hour before. Apparently he had not moved a finger.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DOWNFALL OF SAP McGILL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Thinking McGill dead, Lem made one step forward and stopped, attracted
+by a strange, quivering movement; then he beheld the rattlesnake coiled
+up on Sap's breast. Then a sudden revelation dawned upon Lem Lutts. He
+felt instinctively that Sap was not dead, although he could not have
+been whiter and more inert had he been so.</p>
+
+<p>To make certain Lem cautiously shrank back, and taking care not to make
+the slightest sound, he worked his way around to the opposite side and
+gained a position where he could see McGill's face. Like a shadow he
+stepped out from behind a boulder and looked at Sap.</p>
+
+<p>What he saw almost caused him to laugh outright. Sap was far from being
+dead. He was wholly conscious and wholly alive, but ludicrously quiet.
+His eyes were popping out of his head. They told that he would beg for
+his life if he dared so much as to speak. He hardly dared breathe. Great
+tears of terror were oozing out of his forehead and trickling in copious
+streams down across his death-like features. The only risk the dullard
+could take to express his agony was to roll his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The rattlesnake's head was focused less than twelve inches from his
+chin, and he knew well that upon the slightest tremor of his body the
+rattler would stab him in the throat. He knew well that the lightning of
+the heavens could not emulate the fatal quickness and rapidity of that
+snake's poisonous blow. For well on to two hours McGill had suffered the
+agonies of a thousand hells. Lem now spoke to him.</p>
+
+<p>When Lem's words reached McGill's ears, his only sign of comprehension
+was an added bulge transmitted to his rolling eyes. Standing motionless
+and in even tones, to avoid startling the rattler, Lem said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;so yo' got t' yore jest end at last, didn't yo'&mdash;egg-dog?
+Belle-Ann is a comin' up the trail in a short spell&mdash;an' I air a goin'
+t' kill yo' 'fore she gits heah, which is a mighty short spell t' live I
+'low&mdash;so ef a skunk like yo'-all knows a prayer, why now's yore time to
+think hit&mdash;but I advise yo' not t' git up on yore knees er stir roun'
+much." Here Lem chuckled tauntingly and gleefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Say&mdash;air thet a tame snake yo'-all got thah&mdash;eh? Ac's like he wus some
+kin to yo'-all&mdash;say, 'fore y'o go away&mdash;just glance yore mind over all
+th' pesky, onery divilmint yore folks has been a doin' fo' twenty years.
+'Member th' day yore old pap shot my dad under th' truce flag thet my
+maw held up, 'cause we'uns wanted t' have peace&mdash;but yore old pap didn't
+git away, did he?&mdash;he was kindy slow-like. Say&mdash;yo' know a feller in
+these mountains named Johnse Hatfield&mdash;eh? Did yo'-all ever hern tell on
+em&mdash;eh? Ha-ha-ha! Hit wus a good dance, wusn't hit? Pears like Johnse
+sort a put a crimp in yore folks down at Junction City thet night&mdash;eh?
+Say&mdash;yo' ugly groun'-dawg&mdash;I hain't a killin' yo' exactly fo' all
+thet&mdash;I air only aimin' t' kill yo' onct fer thet&mdash;but I air goin' t'
+kill yo' twict fo' shootin' a boy&mdash;yo' shot a little boy, dedn't
+yo'&mdash;eh? Yo' shot my boy brother twict an' tried t' kill em&mdash;didn't
+yo'&mdash;eh? Now I air goin' t' blow yore brains out&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With his last taunts a dull rush of red rage overspread Lem's
+countenance, as with a quick, decisive movement he jerked his rifle to
+his shoulder and fell upon one knee. A groan of despair escaped McGill's
+bloodless lips now, and the rattlesnake instantly made that fatal loop
+at the narrow of its neck. Evidently Sap preferred a bullet in the head
+to a stab in the throat from the yellow monster that was flashing its
+pronged tongue in his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I'll show Belle-Ann whut ugly brains yo'-all got," muttered Lem,
+sighting along the glistening gun barrel.</p>
+
+<p>A piercing shriek of horror rent the air. Belle-Ann was not a hundred
+feet away. A vivid terror stood in her eyes. She struggled for breath to
+thwart the tragedy that filled that instant.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake&mdash;oh!&mdash;for my sake&mdash;don't shoot&mdash;Lem&mdash;Lem&mdash;Lem!" she
+screamed out, terrified, in begging, forbidding, distraught utterances,
+and collapsed in the path.</p>
+
+<p>But Lem, unheeding, quickly pressed the trigger. There was a pungent
+crack. The rifle spat out a long, slender tongue of flame. A ragged wisp
+of blue-white smoke spread out, separated and floated languidly upward.
+There was an acrid odor of burnt powder in the air. Across the tenseness
+of that long, awful moment the soft trill of a catbird grated like the
+harsh blasphemy of a parrot. The gentle barking of a squirrel impinged
+like a nerve-shattering noise.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann was on her knees in the trail&mdash;her face averted and her hands
+over her eyes to hide them from what lay before her. Her curls were
+shaking and trembling with the chill that swept over her body. She,
+Belle-Ann Benson, who could, in days gone by, have watched with interest
+and pleasure the killing of an enemy, and smile. But now the subtle
+crack of that gun-shot rived into her senses like a withering scourge.
+Had the bullet pierced her own vitals she could not have suffered thus.
+All through the after years of her life the reverberation of that sharp,
+little gun-noise hung about her ears, and she could never think of this
+scene without a shudder.</p>
+
+<p>She heard a loud, strained laugh, carrying a volume of contempt and
+scorn. She peeped through her fingers fearfully. McGill was standing
+upright, wiping his wet, pallid face with his shaking, naked hand.
+Belle-Ann's hands came away from her eyes as she regained her feet,
+dumfounded, and stared as if a ghost confronted her. She doubted her
+senses.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann," shouted Lem, "cum an' take a look at th' live coward!"</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden influx of gladness she ran forward, a thankful heart
+beating color back into her dimpled face. She looked at Lem, dazed,
+nonplussed. Then she gazed at McGill and at a rattlesnake, whose bloody
+head hung to its neck by a slender ligature of skin as it lashed the
+rocks with its dying tail. Not once did McGill look in Belle-Ann's
+direction; nor indeed did he meet Lem's truculent gaze. He stood abject,
+with downcast eyes, and the dull apathy of a sick ox. On his depraved
+features was a lettering of criminal sullenness; on his twitching lips
+the curse of cowardice. Beneath this avenging stroke of Fate his big,
+sinister hulk lopped down, and he stood stupidly licking his cracked
+lips like a spiritless dog.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann still stood awed, nearby, trying to solve this strange
+phenomenon. McGill's guilty heart plainly dreaded this fair girl's
+presence. He did not look up, nor did he essay to utter a word of
+defense. His shallow eyes only roved at his feet. He presented the
+picture of the crestfallen criminal cornered on the premises of his last
+losing stand.</p>
+
+<p>"Pears like yo' hain't a carin' t' say much&mdash;eh?" taunted Lem, as with a
+sudden rising fury he stooped down and grabbed up McGill's shotgun from
+the ground, and with a series of terrific blows upon a nearby boulder he
+reduced the weapon to a broken, twisted wreck in no time. Flinging what
+was left of it out into the rhododendrons, he advanced and stood before
+his erstwhile dangerous enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Sap," he began, "how did yo'-all ever git out o' hell in th' first
+place&mdash;eh? 'Cause I know thet Gawd'll Moughty never made sich as yo' to
+be born&mdash;I don't 'low yo' wus ever born, an' I believe yo' wus too mean
+and pesky and treacherous t' live in hell&mdash;I 'low th' devil drove yo'
+out." He aimed a finger within an inch of McGill's nose.</p>
+
+<p>"Looky heah&mdash;yo' owe yore dirty life t' Belle-Ann thah&mdash;not t' Lem
+Lutts&mdash;'cause ef she hadn't come, yo'd be powerful daid against
+now&mdash;hit's a shame t' take thet pore snake's life away t' save sich as
+yores&mdash;now git away from heah&mdash;git out'n my sight 'fore I do kill yo'.
+Git out o' heah&mdash;an' ef I ever lay an eye on yo' agin on thes side o'
+Hellsfork&mdash;Belle-Ann and Gawd'll Moughty together won't keep me from
+killin' yo' on sight&mdash;yo' heer? Go, skunk&mdash;hit's ole Cap Lutts' boy a
+talkin' t' yo'&mdash;Lem Lutts."</p>
+
+<p>In the tenseness and absorbing excitement of the moment, they had not
+heard the hurried clatter of hoofs, like the tattoo of a cavalcade
+coming up the trail. They did not see Buddy ride up on Belle-Ann's
+charging blood-bay&mdash;nor the other three horsemen that crowded along
+close behind him. 'Twas only when the three men rushed in upon them and
+arrested and shackled McGill that they fully realized what had really
+taken place.</p>
+
+<p>The officer removed his hat and bowed in respectful admiration to
+Belle-Ann, with a smiling light of recognition in his eyes. He was the
+deputy sheriff who had spent a night at the Lutts cabin before Belle-Ann
+went away to school.</p>
+
+<p>"With the charges against him at Junction City, I don't think this
+gentleman will bother you for a long time. You know the McGills don't
+own Junction City any more," he said, obviously wondering at the pretty
+up-to-date picture presented by the girl before him. The last time he
+saw Belle-Ann she wore moccasins, was bare-legged, and dressed in a
+gingham gown; but he had never forgotten her beauty.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>BELLE-ANN'S RECANTED CREED</h3>
+
+
+<p>In mutual contented silence they stood looking after the three officers
+leading their sullen prisoner down the mountain trail toward Boon's
+Ford. With the first wholesome grin that had touched his face for nearly
+two years, Buddy rode on toward the cabin astride Belle-Ann's splendid
+horse. Presently Belle-Ann looked up into the pensive face behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you kill Sap, Lem?" she probed, though its answer had been
+happily divined.</p>
+
+<p>"I hed a bead on his ear when I heered yore voice, Belle-Ann&mdash;I heered
+yore voice a callin' 'fo' my sake'&mdash;an' I jest couldn't do hit&mdash;then I
+shot th' snake's haid off."</p>
+
+<p>Knowing Lem as thoroughly as she did, she knew that this humane, gallant
+act had been to him a real sacrifice. They sat down upon the log behind
+which McGill had hidden. She was waiting for him to speak. With covert,
+abashed glance, he was regarding her handsome costume. She knew that he
+was puzzled and wondering at this astounding exposition of wealth.
+Presently he spoke up:</p>
+
+<p>"Yo'-all look powerful beautiful, Belle-Ann&mdash;I never 'lowed they wus
+sich fine things in th' worl'."</p>
+
+<p>Her merry, sweet laugh rippled out now as she laid a white hand on his
+arm and looked up into his face with a challenge in her eyes. He did not
+press her for an explanation. Then with a toss of her curls, she
+launched forth and poured her fairy-like tale into his amazed ears, all
+about her wondrous discovery of a lovable, priceless grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>Then in wretched contrast to Belle-Ann's glittering conquest below, Lem
+recounted his capture by the revenuer, and his tortuous measure of
+months in prison. He told of how he had written letter after letter to
+her, hoping, always hoping, hourly, daily, monthly, to hear from her.
+And the girl's eyes grew misty and her heart went out to him. The very
+recital of this experience cast a gloom over him now. Wherefore she
+sought to introduce a pleasanter theme and cheer him with prospects of
+the future.</p>
+
+<p>"And, Lem," she was saying, "I have ever so much money&mdash;oh!&mdash;I don't
+know how many thousands of dollars&mdash;all my own, grandpa says."</p>
+
+<p>Lem had not digested the story of her opulence as enthusiastically as
+Belle-Ann had anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>"But I hain't kilt th' revenuer yet&mdash;so&mdash;so&mdash;I 'low&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No words can tell you how glad I am, Lem&mdash;that you have not succeeded
+in killing the revenuer. God will surely lead him to his retribution,
+but it is not for you to exact, and I now take back all I said&mdash;and you
+must promise me not to kill him if you get the chance, and I can't ever
+promise you-all anything until you make me this pledge."</p>
+
+<p>Lem rose slowly up off the log and looked curiously down upon her. At
+the end of a long minute he spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann," he said, "I can't understan' yo'&mdash;'fore yo' went away t'
+school I axed yo' t' promise t' marry me. Yo' wouldn't promise&mdash;yo'
+wouldn't even 'low me t' kiss yore face then&mdash;yo' said thet yo'd never
+'low nobuddy t' kiss yo'&mdash;thet yo'd never promise t' marry me&mdash;lessen I
+kilt th' revenuer&mdash;an' Gawd knows I been a tryin' t' kill em! Now
+yo'-all comes back an' tells me thet yo' don't 'low t' promise me
+anythin' ef I <i>do</i> kill th' revenuer&mdash;I can't understand thet,
+Belle-Ann&mdash;I 'low yo'-all is hankerin' t' git shut o' me, Belle-Ann," he
+ended despairingly, passing his hand over his eyes as if to brush away
+this strange philosophy that had skeined itself in his brain in one
+insoluable tangle.</p>
+
+<p>She did not respond straightway. She fully understood the magnitude of
+the task she had before her. To convert Lem to her new creed would
+enlist all of the gentle diplomacy at her command.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann, I hev always loved yo'," he resumed solemnly. "I love yo'
+now&mdash;I love yo' mor'n I love my life&mdash;my life hain't as much as thet
+daid snake 'sides th' way I love yo'&mdash;I'd stand on Henhawk's Knob an'
+jump into Hellsfork ef yo'd ax me t'&mdash;but, Belle-Ann, I owe th' blood o'
+thet revenuer t' pap and t' maw&mdash;th' two graves up in th' orchard air a
+cryin' out fer th' revenuer's blood. I saved Sap's blood&mdash;saved him
+'cause yo' called t' me not t' shoot&mdash;I let em go, much as I hate th'
+pizon mad-dog&mdash;saved em as bad as he oughter be daid&mdash;but, Belle-Ann,
+much as I love yo', yo' can't take th' revenuer 'way from me ef he's
+alive yit."</p>
+
+<p>She was appalled at the terrible wave of pain and passion that now swept
+his countenance. He poised a clinched fist above his head, as he removed
+his derby hat, and casting his eyes upward he added:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll kill thet revenuer&mdash;I'll kill thet revenuer, I will, ef lead'll
+kill em&mdash;I'll have his blood ef I git th' chanct&mdash;I'll kill em with my
+last lick o' lead&mdash;ef I go t' hell th' next minit."</p>
+
+<p>She responded to this volcanic outburst with a soothing pressure on his
+arm, as she thrust her arm through his and they walked up the trail
+toward the cabin, her mind busily occupied, groping for a mode of
+procedure whereby she could convey to him the great divine law of
+universal love and charity, prescribing the return of good where evil is
+given&mdash;a practice not only to shame his erring enemies and brim their
+thoughts with penitence; but in its doing to enrich his own soul with a
+mollient peace, and clothe his life in a spiritual raiment rarer than
+gems and bullion of kings.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the old honeybee tree, they saw Slab cavorting down to
+meet them. His head was back-flung, his arms akimbo, and he showed a
+hock action, despite his age, that would have inspired a coach horse
+with bitter envy. As he neared them he began yelling:</p>
+
+<p>"Hallalujah&mdash;hallalujah&mdash;hallalujah!"</p>
+
+<p>He wrung Belle-Ann's hand, tears of joy following the creases in his old
+face. He circled around and around her, chanting various adages filched
+from the tenets of his sorceristic faith, all of which compared happily
+with Belle-Ann's presence. All the way to the cabin Slab's utterances
+and antics were effervescent.</p>
+
+<p>"I done tol' dem yo'-all sho'd cum back," he said stoutly. "Den when
+yore deah li'lle spirrut cum dat night an' tuck er way dat li'lle
+Obeah-stone&mdash;den I shore knowed yo' war due&mdash;an' ma heart war a shoutin'
+all night so hard dat hit keep me wake&mdash;an' heah yo' be li'lle gal&mdash;heah
+yo' be&mdash;hits Slab dat knows&mdash;Slab he knows."</p>
+
+<p>"Slab," projected Belle-Ann, without the slightest prelude, "Amos
+Tennytown wants you."</p>
+
+<p>These words halted Slab with one foot raised. He cautiously let the one
+foot down. The smiles that had wreathed his visage when Belle-Ann spoke
+were frozen there.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Slab," urged Belle-Ann. "Surely you are not scared. Colonel
+Amos Tennytown sent you-all a kind message. He wants you to drop in and
+see him at Lexington, Slab. Do you remember when that cruel snapping
+turtle woke you up?"</p>
+
+<p>Slab was now stumbling along open-mouthed, blinking down at the girl,
+his dim eyes shot with a smoldering fire of endeared reminiscences; a
+cherished theme that had hovered in his memory since the distant day
+when the blue and the gray had dueled,&mdash;scenes mellowed by time, but
+sweetly mated with "Kitty Wells." Unbelieving and in faltering tones of
+half reproach, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Li'lle gal, don' pesticate de ole man,&mdash;I's er ole man, li'lle
+gal,&mdash;yo' orter be good t' de ole man now&mdash;don' fool de ole
+man&mdash;no&mdash;don' fool Slab, li'lle gal&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Slab, I am not fooling you. How could I know about the turtle and old
+Hickamohawk if I had not seen Colonel Tennytown? And he wants you down
+thah, Slab."</p>
+
+<p>"Li'lle Amos&mdash;li'lle Amos?" he repeated, measuring the imaginary height
+of a boy with his hand. "Li'lle Amos&mdash;he want Slab?"</p>
+
+<p>All doubt vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallalujah&mdash;hallalujah&mdash;hallalujah!"</p>
+
+<p>Intermittently, Slab advanced stout volumes of oral matter to
+demonstrate that the long-looked-for millennium had arrived at last.</p>
+
+<p>At the witch-elm block the old blind hound staggered exultantly about.
+Obeying the instinct of his lonely dog-heart, he yelped and yelped with
+joy at the vision his senses pictured for him, though which his blank,
+sightless eyes could not behold. Belle-Ann fell on her knees and took
+his old head to her, stroking his gray face and kissing his ears.</p>
+
+<p>One of the girl's first acts was to gather two great sheaves of
+forget-me-nots. These she carried to the orchard. Lem walked beside her,
+and now they both fell silent. Dividing the flowers equally, Belle-Ann
+knelt down and arranged them with infinite care.</p>
+
+<p>"Maw loved these," she whispered. "Maw loved these best of all, didn't
+she, Lem?" She looked up through a film of mist. Their eyes met, and Lem
+turned his back and walked slowly away and did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour the girl lingered there between these two graves with
+her memories. When she finally got to her feet and lifted her swollen
+eyes, she saw Slab standing looking at her. The tears were streaming
+down his ancient, creased visage. His lips moved helplessly, but no
+words crossed them. He could only point to numberless withered flowers,
+and seared wreaths scattered hard by, which he had discarded to replace
+with fresh ones.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Slab&mdash;you-all did not forget, did you?" she managed to say.</p>
+
+<p>The old negro shook his white head, too overcome to respond.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann and Lem then made the rounds of the place, followed by little
+Buddy, lugging his father's rifle. They walked out beneath the
+magnolias, and the giant pines, and visited their old haunts, each of
+which stirred memories of hours agone.</p>
+
+<p>When they returned to the house, Slab had a most tasteful meal prepared
+for them. The menu consisted of two kinds of bread, hoe-cake, and hot
+butter-milk biscuits with honey. It also embraced baked yams with fresh
+butter, fried spring chicken, poached eggs, rich, fresh milk, and
+blackberries and cream.</p>
+
+<p>As Belle-Ann lingered over this repast, she felt that she had not,
+during her absence, tasted anything quite so delicious. Near dusk, Slab
+took up his hybrid banjo and repaired to the witch-elm block, followed
+by the others. There, with the blind hound's aged head in her lap,
+Belle-Ann joined in the chorus of "Kitty Wells." And as the shadows
+stole down and put their arms about them, the day lifted, and the
+thread-like note of the mock-thrush ebbed away from the blossomed sides
+of the mountain. The plaintive callings of the Bob White ceased, and the
+forest birds folded their wings. And another choir of voices awoke to
+cross and re-cross the void of twilight.</p>
+
+<p>The katydids began to purl. A symphony of crickets trilled away in the
+darkling rhododendron thickets. The tree-frogs piped an avalanche of
+pleading notes amid the ruby-throated magnolias. The silvery treble of
+the nightingale floated down from afar, and the hilarious killdeers,
+king of all-night revelers, screamed aloft and flapped their speckled
+wings in the early starlight. And above this, in soughing, alternate
+waves of sound, a titanic rhythm trailed into this medley of wilderness
+voices&mdash;the savage, deathless music of the cascade ranting in the
+rock-barbed throat of Hellsfork, dying, swelling, reverberating like the
+barbaric boom of a tom-tom.</p>
+
+<p>That night Belle-Ann occupied her own little crude apartment in the
+four-room cabin. She slept soundly and sweetly in this little wooden
+bed, which Slab had reverently preserved unaltered for her coming. And
+the night air drifted in upon her face, pungent with the scent of pine,
+and the old sweet odors that summoned a hundred memories to vivid life.
+There were the self-same multiplicity of night enunciations,
+consolidated and merged into a soothing litany, harping a pulsing
+consonance that lured the girl's senses away to the fantastic shoals of
+dreamdom. And betimes, the same great, friendly moon that had followed
+her abroad, came now and stood at her window.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GHOST-MAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lem had said little, but upon his honest, pleasing face there was now
+etched the momentous outlines of the most serious, profound problem that
+had ever confronted his tempestuous life. With the sober, solemn
+realization of this vital issue that had come upon him, he found himself
+mentally reaching out for sustenance. Seemingly he stood upon the
+pinnacle of an epochal summit, with all the threads governing his life,
+past and future, dangling limply beneath him. It was the tensest hour of
+his existence.</p>
+
+<p>They sat in the moonshine on the witch-elm block, and the whip-poor-will
+was calling. They came here in the whispering gloaming ere twilight and
+night had parted. They still sat there; the girl talking incessantly.
+Time galloped by unheeded with the flight of an affrighted Pegasus.
+Phantom shadows grew and gesticulated and stretched their wraith-like
+arms out toward them. And the moon slipped over the spur and laved them
+with an effulgent benediction. Lem sat non-committal and stoic.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann's curls bobbed in the moonlight as she tossed them back
+restlessly. For more than an hour she had been pouring into his ears all
+the things that lay in her heart which had been re-cast in a new mould
+of understanding and burnished with ethics of education. The titanic
+moment she had anticipated had arrived. The dawn of the morrow was to
+part them forevermore, or it was to bind their lives together
+irrevocably. He had again begged her to promise to marry him, and this
+was her answer. Her low, dulcet tones rippled on and on. Her little
+hands fluttered appealingly in their flights of emphasis. Her violet
+orbs were starry with the truths that hurried across her lips, and her
+whole being throbbed with the vibrant force of this conquest. He spoke
+for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef yo' keep on a talkin' thet away, Belle-Ann,&mdash;yo'll make me lie t'
+yo'," he predicted dolefully, casting yearning eyes upon her. As yet not
+once had he kissed that red-mouthed, dimpled face. Not yet had he
+clasped that withy, supple form to him. The price now of that treasured
+kiss, and that longed-for embrace, and her priceless love, was his whole
+and complete repudiation of his bloody creed of feudalism.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid of your deceiving me, Lem&mdash;you have never lied to me in
+the past, and I'll trust you-all in the future. I mean to lift you up,"
+she went on earnestly,&mdash;"to show you a worthy goal that I know is thah
+awaiting your acknowledgment. As I have said over and over, Lem, I do
+not expect you to understand it all now, but I hoped that you would
+believe me, who have gone through it all with its blighting misery. Your
+whole life is now and always will be made furtive and fear-ridden, while
+you cling to this blood-dogma of revenge&mdash;always looking for the blood
+of your enemies, and when at last you get that blood and delude yourself
+into the thought that you are satisfied, you find springing out of that
+very act other enemies waiting in your path. It is an endless chain of
+fight and flight and blood that is harrowing. I saw an example of it
+yesterday before my very eyes, because I know you would have killed Sap
+McGill had I not been thah. It is all fundamentally wicked. Oh, Lem! It
+is all hideously wrong. Now that I am rid of that awful sting, I cannot
+and will not link my life to one who harbors these awful things to drag
+us both down.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you put this life behind you, Lem, and come down where God has
+granted a paradise&mdash;a paradise of peace? Down where nature has unfurled
+a grassy, level land and men walk in the open and can see each other's
+faces? Down thah, Lem, where hearts beat uncontaminated beyond the
+maelstrom of feudal hate, and where all men are brothers&mdash;down in the
+land of hope&mdash;hope that makes a song of life&mdash;in the land of hope,
+Lem,&mdash;a cloudless, sunshiny fairy world&mdash;where dreams come true?</p>
+
+<p>"You said you would love to go to Lexington to my grandfather, but you
+won't leave the mountains until you have killed the revenuer and Sap
+McGill. Is that evidence that you love me, Lem? To-morrow morning I'll
+ride Rajah back alone. I don't believe that you love me, Lem&mdash;I can't
+believe it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lem got to his feet. He was very white in the moonlight now. He picked
+up a stick off the ground. He rested the butt of his rifle against the
+block and, placing the muzzle of the gun against his breast, he reached
+down and touched the trigger with the end of the stick before Belle-Ann
+realized what he was up to.</p>
+
+<p>"Belle-Ann, say that I don't love yo' agin an' I'll blow my heart out."
+Gently and quickly she took the stick out of his hand in alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Lem, there is a way out for you&mdash;there is a sustaining power that will
+help you, if you will only have faith," she pleaded. "'Know ye the truth
+and the truth shall make ye free.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But he kilt my old pap,&mdash;an' my good old maw, Belle-Ann. I'd alers heer
+their spirits a cryin' ef I went away an' didn't git th' revenuer's
+blood," he protested for the twentieth time. "An' didn't McGill try t'
+kill me jest yisterday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lem," she said, "I tell you what we'll do. We'll go down to the
+church&mdash;we'll go down thah&mdash;you and me and Buddy&mdash;down thah by the altar
+where your father died. God won't deny you thah. We will offer up a
+little prayer for pap and maw, and you will ask God to show you the
+truth of my words&mdash;that it is wrong for you to hang back and sacrifice
+your future for the blood of your enemies. Take my word for it, Lem&mdash;God
+will surely lay His hand on those who have harmed you. Will you go,
+Lem&mdash;come now&mdash;will you go with Belle-Ann?"</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Lem's face lost a measure of its despair. His eyes
+lighted up with the advent of an emollient hope, and a half-smile
+touched his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Come 'long, Belle-Ann," he agreed, "let's do thet." And a prayer
+mounted in Belle-Ann's breast as she called to Buddy to come along and
+bring a lantern. Then hand in hand they wound their way down the moonlit
+mountain-side toward the deserted church. And up from the girl's heart a
+spa of hope was abubble. The joy of life was again strong upon her.
+There was a song in her soul and the blithesome days of yore were
+rippling in her veins.</p>
+
+<p>The forsaken church stood out big and white, magnified in a pool of
+moonlight, like a runic tomb guarding the memory of a martyr. With a
+ruthless swish, the laurel wall that hemmed the clearing suddenly
+parted, and the next instant the scathed, battered semblance of a
+man-being crawled out into the silver moonshine.</p>
+
+<p>A wound-burnt, sinister shape, half naked. The revengeful way-path rocks
+had bitten into his inflamed knees. The vicious thorns had torn and
+stabbed maledictions into his hands. The clawing underbrush had stripped
+his clothing away, and the poison ivy and skunk-viper had sprung upon
+and spat their gangrene acid against his nakedness. There was misery in
+each lift of knees and hands, as though weighted with ball and chain. In
+his zigzag wake there was a lesion of nauseous mocking horror. This
+thing panted like a spent buffalo, as with popped, blood-rimmed eyes it
+stared at the church.</p>
+
+<p>It was the revenuer come back in the hour of his extremity.</p>
+
+<p>With wabbling head, he focused his blighted face upon the church&mdash;a
+shrine all in white beckoning to him, insistently. Foot by foot he
+forged his tortuous way across the open and onward. His corporal being,
+ruined, ravished and wrecked, his derelict spirit was blindly
+upstanding. Excruciatingly and piteously he moved across the sea of wild
+honey clover and foxtail with the slowness of a shore-viewed water
+craft, stationary only while the eye held it, but with a trick to move
+when the gaze is lifted.</p>
+
+<p>When this odious, strange apparition had gained a point midway to the
+church, then it was that a lithe, agile, uncertain shape, a spawn from
+the matrix of the shadowless gulch below, slid up out of the dark,
+halted on the verge of the shades and then as lightly as air sprung its
+haunches upward to a great spruce stump. It was the male panther who
+owned a mate and cubs, and who patrolled the darkling hours with a
+dare-all note in his minor night-squall; who dominated the animal
+kingdom and held in subservient fear all the lesser pantomimic pirates
+of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>At first his eyes widened curiously as they settled upon the audacious
+trespasser in the clearing. Had this thing under his quizzical gaze
+walked upright, he could have understood and would have skulked hastily
+away, but now a quick challenge crowded into his feline breast, as he
+realized that an alien, hairy creature, that stalked on four legs, had
+dared to invade the night that belonged to him and the province that was
+his.</p>
+
+<p>Straightway a keen and malignant resentment seized and traversed his
+bristling spine, and his long tail began to lash the ground menacingly.
+It wagged him into a great fury. As noiselessly as a moccasin slides
+into the water, he dropped from the dark spruce stump into the velvet
+mullein leaves, and skirted the whiteness of the moon. He leaped lightly
+through the space and landed in the shade of the church. With a sudden
+wary flash, he darted forward. Then, boldly and ready, he turned sharply
+and advanced in the forefront of this new enemy that now was his prey.
+Stealth was in his padded paws as he lowered his ermine belly to the
+ground and crept sneakingly to meet the newcomer.</p>
+
+<p>When a mere six feet separated the two, the panther's hairy, spotted
+lips parted thirstily. He choked back the growl of savage exultation
+that welled up in his chest, his yellow eyes all afire with lust. He
+gathered his steel-like thews under him with a mighty tenseness to
+spring. His wagging tail stopped and stiffened. As he made to leave the
+ground, the thing before him jerked its gory head suddenly upward,
+looked, and thrust a laugh in the brute's face.</p>
+
+<p>Such a laugh! The splintering, squawking reiterations of petered-out
+echoes, bubbling up into a mundane night from the precincts of the
+eternally damned. That laugh splashed upon the serene night like the
+plunge of a boulder into a placid pool. It drove the pith out of the
+panther's militant cat-heart. It curdled the will to kill that had
+blazed from the beast's agate eyes. Instantly the brute, dazed with
+terror, wrenched his round head askew, to shut from his tan eyes and
+black ears the sight and the sound of this monstrous, unknown
+antagonist.</p>
+
+<p>The brute's tail went limp as he hurtled obliquely through the air,
+landed in the bull-grass, plunged into the inky shadows and fled away
+from this moonlit spot with its hideous blot of terror, and hurried
+toward the pitchy brakes that hemmed the river, with panic curdling his
+jungle blood.</p>
+
+<p>The maimed, bedraggled hulk careened; then at the end of a panting
+struggle fell over the door block and tumbled heavily against the church
+portal. The dilapidated, weather-scarred door gave way unresistingly to
+him and his bedlam cry as though it had boded this unholy visitation. He
+stopped on the threshold, sprawling half in, half without. The uncouth
+noise of his breathing hissing through a ragged ruin of teeth, cut the
+sepulchral stillness of the church room with the portent of some awful
+prediction. His haggled, bleeding hand stamped its red curse upon the
+door panel. Then, with a mad, mighty will, he lashed his flagging spirit
+to another effort and broke into a pitiable, wabbling, four-legged trot.</p>
+
+<p>When his swollen, bleeding feet disappeared, the church door swung back
+and engulfed the revenuer's racked, gaunt bones within the ostracised
+temple of death. With stark eyes upward and ahead, he stared through the
+dark to the spot where a single lance of moonlight stabbed obliquely
+through the dismantled window, revealing a cross done in blood that lay
+prone athwart the untrodden pulpit floor.</p>
+
+<p>Without, a white virgin mantle of peace and purity enveloped the haunted
+church. The honey clover, foxtail, mullein, and dill-poppies had closed
+over the horrible path-way leading to the church door-block. The panther
+was gone. A seductive south wind rippled across the blossomed clearing
+and a hundred families of unnamed flowers raised their heads and nodded
+to the stars. The far-off, drowsy baying of a hound drifted down from
+the ridge and trailed plaintively into the night. And from somewhere the
+sweet love-tale of the elusive nightingale was told over and over again.
+There was utter papal peace without for several moments. Then suddenly
+this magic spell was startlingly burst asunder with a rising tempo of
+sounds issuing from within the church. It grew into a horrific, guttural
+clash. The noise of contending demons dead-locked. The riotous commotion
+of a thousand struggling, distraught fiends told of some terrible
+enactment inside the church.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HAUNTED CHURCH</h3>
+
+
+<p>As the trio approached the church, Buddy hung back reluctantly. He did
+not relish this nocturnal invasion of the gospel-house where no human
+foot had trod since the killing of his father. In truth, Lem shared this
+apprehension also, but was valiantly cautious not to betray this
+aversion in Belle-Ann's presence. With this cryptic timidity, both the
+boys marveled at the voluble mirth and bold blithesome advance of the
+girl; not understanding that Belle-Ann's education had burned away all
+barriers of superstition.</p>
+
+<p>The denizens on Hellsfork had long given this lonely, desolate structure
+a wide berth. Many a bold and audacious spirit, knowing no other fear,
+quaked with the thought of entering that dilapidated storm-battered
+sepulchre. Not because a man had been killed therein, but there was a
+ghostly phenomenon connected with that musty, bat-haunted altar,
+uniquely horrible.</p>
+
+<p>That rubric cross had cut its ragged blight into the senses of the
+mountaineers to a degree that forbade all thoughts of approach. There
+was something at once subtle and strange and unspeakably terrifying in
+the remembrance of that red picture, something that inspired them with a
+lasting, superstitious dread.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, a treasure trove could have reposed upon the dank floor of this
+haunted church within easy sight without fear of molestation. Weird and
+creepy tales were rife outlining amazing visitations here. It was told
+with conviction by some whose ears had heard, and whose eyes had seen,
+that on each moonlight night a screech-owl would flutter to the broken
+window of the church and call. Whereupon the red, ragged picture on the
+altar would stir and move and sit up; then gather itself into human
+semblance and stalk to the window. And old Captain Lutts' ghost would
+commune with the little feathered creature. Then the screech-owl would
+hurtle away, and the phantom would stalk back and lie down, and resolve
+itself again into that fearsome, crimson death-splotch that naught save
+fire could ever obliterate.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann was in the lead when the three reached the door-block of the
+church. Then, with a self-conscious lack of chivalry which inspired him
+with a sudden spurt of courage, Lem stepped in front of her, where he
+stood lighting the lantern, when Buddy, who had halted at the corner of
+the building, suddenly hissed softly and motioned for them to join him.
+Bud stood pointing ominously amid the skeleton limbs of a dead sycamore
+tree. Belle-Ann laughed amusedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Buddy," she reassured, "that's only a pretty, harmless little
+owl."</p>
+
+<p>"But hits a scrutch-owl," frowned the boy, shrinking away.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come on, Buddy!&mdash;I really believe you are afraid of ghosts,"
+returned Belle-Ann, taking him protectingly by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>Re-enforced by the girl's utter absence of fear, Lem pushed the door
+open, and stepping within led the way, lantern in hand. Upon their
+approach to the altar, the bull-bats flapped their bony wings amongst
+the rafters. There was in the fetid gloom of the place a permeating musk
+of things seemingly not of this earth. Lem hung up the lantern on the
+hook at the end of the dingy rope suspended near the pulpit. The rope,
+which great spiders had converted into a swing, now felt soft and snaky
+beneath his touch. He turned the light up as high as he could without
+smoking and faced Belle-Ann. He saw at a glance that a measure of her
+temerity had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>A smothered exclamation fell from Lem's lips. He pointed through the
+buff halo cast from the lantern. There against the south wall of the
+room some of the benches could be dimly discerned overturned,&mdash;others
+twisted and broken and scattered in a mass of wreckage&mdash;while one
+balanced perilously on the casement as though a hand had sought to take
+it out through the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Who yo' 'low done thet?" inquired Buddy in a tremulous whisper,
+clinging timorously to Belle-Ann's skirts.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't 'low any human bein' done hit," predicted Lem in faint
+undertones that faltered with a creeping, choking apprehension. A queer
+brain-numbing apathy settled upon them that seemed to deprive them
+suddenly of the use of their tongues and limbs.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nonsense!" discredited Belle-Ann bravely. "Some mean boys perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>Disbelieving, the brothers stood rigid and shook their now pale faces in
+denial. Belle-Ann did not fear ghosts, but there was undeniably some
+strange mortal influence circulating the eery atmosphere of this place
+like the proximity of some menacing presence close at hand, but unseen.
+She fought hard to repel this unknown fear that was stealing upon her,
+but, despite her valiant struggle, it was fast seizing upon her nerves
+and permeating her whole being with singular insistency.</p>
+
+<p>With an effort she gathered herself together.</p>
+
+<p>"Now hurry on, boys," she directed briskly in a voice that sounded
+unnaturally furtive and low. "Buddy, you get in here between Lem and
+I&mdash;there&mdash;that's it. Now, boys, we are going to say a little prayer for
+pap and maw, and you, Lem, remember."</p>
+
+<p>At a slight sound the three impulsively and unconsciously took hold of
+each other and turned blanched faces toward the window opposite the
+altar. At the same instant, a screech-owl closed his wings on the window
+casement and sat immobile, like a creature without life, while a
+slender, livid finger of moonlight crossed its speckled back and,
+continuing on, pointed specifically to the bloody cross athwart the
+altar.</p>
+
+<p>Little Bud faltered weakly and shook like a boy with the ague. His lips
+worked mutely and tried to whisper something, but his tongue cleft,
+paralyzed with a prickly dread that stole over him, and his teeth began
+a forbidding tattoo. He cast an appealing look at Lem; wherefore the
+mere sight of Lem's white face accentuated his own fleeting courage. The
+grim lethargy of this subtle, contagious dread had communicated its
+blight to Lem's senses with equal virulence.</p>
+
+<p>A pall of lethal fear deprived Belle-Ann of words and action. What with
+the awful thick dark, made pitchy beyond the buff circle of the
+flickering lantern; a fetid, curdy, musty, stifling blackness which, she
+now felt instinctively, held screened just there, some hidden horror
+reaching out to wrap its smothering terror about her.</p>
+
+<p>The fan-like hiss of the hybrid bats that blundered aloft, their vicious
+unearthly squeaks, stabbing the dead stillness, added to her cryptic
+dread. Upon a sudden current of vagrant air a handful of fire-flies were
+driven through one of the sundered windows, whereupon they bobbed and
+swayed about evilly against the haunting gloom of the church like
+ghastly corpse candles. Together with the unblinking stare of the
+screech-owl from the moon-touched window casement, all these menacing
+influences combined and laid hold of Belle-Ann's will like overpowering
+hands of living agencies crowding her remorselessly to the verge of
+panic.</p>
+
+<p>She stood rigid, listening with a natant, sickening consciousness that
+something terrible hung at her back. Then, ashamed of her exposition of
+timid indecision and fear, she valiantly strove to disguise with action
+the sudden racking shudder that compassed and rippled over her being,
+like the chill of an icy current.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann summoned all her failing faculties and levied upon her will to
+proceed with the ceremony of the sacred mission that had led them to
+this Godless place. But she only stood fixedly, rigid and helpless,
+growing paler with each succeeding moment, and gazed blankly at Bud and
+Lem alternately. Their nerves were as yielding as jelly strings. Other
+than the silky rustle aloft, punctuated occasionally with the thin
+needle-like anathemas of the bull-bats, there was now not the slightest
+sound within to disrupt the death-hush of this place. Nevertheless, Lem
+craned his neck, edging closer to the other two, and whispered
+portentously:</p>
+
+<p>"Ded yo'-all heer anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," returned Belle-Ann faintly and uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>Buddy could only shake his head. Then sharply and, oddly enough, in
+unison, impelled by a sudden common instinct, the trio wheeled about,
+facing the wrecked benches. What they saw in that instant congealed the
+warm flow in their veins to currents of ice and drove their very breaths
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Three hearts smote their ribs a single whack; then seemingly, melted
+away and sank downward and out of their bodies, leaving a trio of
+lifeless, inanimate mummies, frozen into horrified, stony attitudes. An
+awful thing hung there on the edge of the grommet of light. A blurred,
+half-naked, grisly monster sprawled on its loathsome haunches before
+them,&mdash;a thing topped with a blood-mottled, hideous head, made frightful
+by two luridly igneous, horrible eyes. Eyes girded and shot with a
+bloody film bulged fixedly up at them, glaring through the flickering
+orange light. The eyes&mdash;the eyes!</p>
+
+<p>Divided by the part in the middle, one half of the wiry hair stuck up,
+the dead white hue of chalk, admitting its stains of red. The other half
+bristled, an ebon black blighted with its share of gore. At once it gave
+the startling impression of separate semi-faces filched from two
+different rawheads and slapped together thus, in smeared, mismated
+makeshift, that was hideous. Had only its fearful Nemesis stayed his
+devil-genius and spared the torrid eyes,&mdash;monstrous ember eyes that
+flamed like live coals against the dark,&mdash;mad-red eyes that burned and
+sparkled and sputtered up from their dancing depths, emitting and
+vomiting over the brims, a changing luster, blended with all the fevered
+fires of hell&mdash;eyes that eroded a nauseous path with their abhorrent
+stare. The accursed thing crouched there as immobile as the owl. A limp,
+blood-oozing tongue protruded from an addled, unspeakable mouth,
+distended and heinous with jagged teeth askew. Girding the besmeared
+forehead at the hispid white and black hair line of this festering
+scourge-scathed visage, just where the scalp separated and curled apart,
+a revolting ribbon of pure skull shone,&mdash;a strip of skull drained dry
+and clear and white as polished ivory; shimmering out like the badge of
+a death-head from some grim grot of perdition.</p>
+
+<p>The three tried to flee from the awful, withering presence of this
+nameless thing. They tried vainly to cry out; to vent the horror that
+was upon them, depriving them of all utterance and action.</p>
+
+<p>They only clutched each other nervelessly and stared insanely.
+Thereupon, in an unlooked-for instant before their livid faces, this
+ghastly misshapen thing struggled to its naked feet and lurched past
+them toward the altar, with the faltering wabble of a foundered ox. Up
+across the corner of the pulpit it clambered, and, reeling too near the
+edge, tumbled off the other side and struck the floor with a heavy,
+resounding thud, where, amidst jerky groans that were not human
+enunciations, it panted and floundered and arose once more.</p>
+
+<p>Up again with a mighty torturous effort, the hulk mounted the platform a
+second time, and with head dangling at the end of a limp neck, crawled
+to the ragged cross, etched out with the blood of old Cap Lutts. Here it
+mumbled gutturally and labored crazily to gather up the crimson
+altar-piece into its seared, torn arms. Then again up to its feet it
+reared, and, standing thus with arms upflung, the stillness was
+shattered with frantic echoes of a broken word-spluttering, hell-twisted
+cackle, carrying a faint gleam of coherency and culminating in ravings
+that made the night hideous.</p>
+
+<p>"I say&mdash;I say&mdash;I say&mdash;" gathering stress, louder and louder it shrieked
+until the very air curdled with these eery cries. "I say&mdash;you there, you
+there&mdash;you God&mdash;you God&mdash;I say the law's here&mdash;the law's here&mdash;the law,
+the law, the law I say&mdash;hear me?&mdash;hiding, hiding?&mdash;no, no, no, I have
+never hidden from men&mdash;I'll not hide now from my God&mdash;I'm here now,
+God&mdash;'Thou shalt not kill&mdash;thou shalt not kill'&mdash;but I done it&mdash;I done
+this&mdash;these hands done it&mdash;see, God? They are wet with this deed&mdash;but I
+swear the law drove me to it&mdash;the law saddled a hundred offenses to my
+life&mdash;but I'm here now, God&mdash;I bring these offenses here&mdash;I done it&mdash;I
+done it&mdash;these hands done it&mdash;these two blood-stained hands&mdash;the law
+made me&mdash;I swear it&mdash;listen&mdash;you can't get me&mdash;you can't rend me&mdash;you
+starved heathens&mdash;stand back&mdash;stand back, you dungeon-dogs&mdash;stand away
+there, you ratty jail-birds&mdash;you can't get at me, ha, ha, ha!&mdash;gnaw your
+iron cuffs apart first&mdash;bite your cuffs in two&mdash;gnaw them until your
+teeth shatter, and your gums flood your felon throats&mdash;ha, ha, ha!&mdash;Oh,
+my head, my head&mdash;Christ, the world's afire&mdash;the world's burning
+up&mdash;listen&mdash;listen&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon the screech-owl awoke to quick animation. With trembling wings
+slightly lifted, it thrust its head through the broken window-pane and
+uttered a scathing arraignment&mdash;a long-drawn, graduating, derisive
+titter that raked the ghoulish solitude of the church like
+perdition-music&mdash;a mockery medley wafted from a cortège of the doomed.</p>
+
+<p>As the last prickly notes dropped down and trailed like a thread of sin
+back into the owl's speckled breast, the gory raw-head blundered around
+and fixed that mawkish, ghastly hell-mask full upon the girl and two
+boys, whose feet were locked immovably to the floor with terror. Then in
+emulation, seemingly, of the owl's tittering, it belched its awful laugh
+into their faces. Such a laugh&mdash;its chilling, unhallowed screech
+launched a petrific measure of untold vocal wickedness, an awesome,
+direful gamut of echoes that gathered volume, scattered and split,
+crossed and recrossed; reverberating through the death-still atmosphere
+like the hysterical chattering of a band of stricken, tortured souls.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FLIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Human senses could not withstand such an onslaught. It startled the
+three to instant action. The tide of self-preservation ebbed back into
+their bodies; with one accord they reared their arms upward across their
+faces to ward off the shock of that accursed sound, as though its very
+effluvium scorched its scar into their flesh. There was an utterance of
+mingled gasps. There was a sudden rush of jumbled, panic-stricken
+footsteps. A tumbling, scrapping, frantic confusion. A groan&mdash;a half
+scream&mdash;a sob and the door banged.</p>
+
+<p>The church was empty, save for the mumbling, croaking, mad lazar.</p>
+
+<p>In getting out Lem had stumbled in the door and fallen heavily over his
+rifle. When he scrambled to his feet again, he beheld Belle-Ann and
+Buddy fleeing across the moonlit clearing. He started to follow, but
+checked himself and stopped short; he stood combating the superstitious
+fear that had dropped into his senses and sapped away his equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>"Gawd'll Moughty," he muttered audibly, "air this ole Cap Lutts' boy
+runnin' away. Not by a dern sight&mdash;I'll go back an' finish em." Then he
+hallooed lustily after Buddy.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Buddy&mdash;Buddy&mdash;Buddy&mdash;cum back heah&mdash;cum back heah, I tell yo'&mdash;cum
+back!"</p>
+
+<p>Buddy came back reluctantly, his thin countenance still grim with pallor
+and an inquiring look in his wild eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Whut ails yo', Lem?" he panted.</p>
+
+<p>Lem regarded him a second with an admonishing stare, forgetful of his
+own conduct.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ashamed o' yo'," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Whut, Lem?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whut yo'-all a runnin' fo'&mdash;eh?" demanded Lem.</p>
+
+<p>Bud jammed one hand into his pocket, abashed, and cast a fearful glance
+toward the church door.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't yo' know hit's the revenoor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, course I do, Lem&mdash;but&mdash;but they's a hant in em."</p>
+
+<p>"Hant er no hant, we'uns air agoin' in, an' ef he hain't daid&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' darsn't, Lem&mdash;no&mdash;no," protested Buddy in alarm. "Yo' darsn't kill
+hit, Lem&mdash;yo' darsn't kill a hant&mdash;th' witches 'll spell-tuk we'uns an'
+foller we'uns alers, alers. Slab says so&mdash;Slab knows."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," returned Lem, "leastways we'uns 'll go back an' see."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon he strode to the church door resolutely and pushed it half
+open. Buddy still hung back undecided.</p>
+
+<p>"Hain't yo' ole Cap Lutts' boy?" rebuked his brother severely. "An'
+hain't that the revenuer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sho'," agreed Buddy, now plainly embarrassed, and followed with
+determined alacrity. Howbeit, the same ghostly dread hung at Lem's
+elbow, but his mighty will whipped his body into subservience and he
+boldly re-entered the church, and made his way toward the lantern that
+shrouded the altar with its yellow glow. Buddy followed closely and
+tremblingly at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>The soft, irregular, rapid pad of bare feet met their ears, punctuated
+by a prodigious breathing that might have issued from the bellows of a
+blown horse. They caught alternate glimpses of the bestial thing, as its
+lengthy, starved shadow hove around the near corner of the altar and
+struck the far rim of light. It flitted past like a gesticulating, dying
+toad, glued to the tire of a wagon wheel. It was galloping madly in a
+circle&mdash;milling around and around and around the platform as if ridden
+and spurred by an incubus, bent on the reward of a trophy hell-cup.</p>
+
+<p>And each time it came round to the dark blood-picture on the floor, it
+cleared this with a mighty leap into the air, as a horse makes a wide,
+dangerous ditch. The rustling wings of the eery creatures amidst the
+rafters aloft were hushed. The lance of moonlight had faded from the
+window casement and the owl was gone. The Lutts boys halted; gripped and
+raised their rifles mechanically for a shot. Each time the tattered
+apparition flashed into the light on its desperate circuit around, their
+fingers would curve spasmodically about the triggers for the pull, but
+each time that opportune fraction of a second eluded them and the
+ghastly spectre sped onward.</p>
+
+<p>The astounding manner in which this careening, wavering scarehead held
+the narrow limits of its course without plunging off the stage was
+acutely awesome, and little short of a phenomenon. Every downward lunge
+was checked as if jerked by an invisible cord. Verily, it seemed to be
+held to its path by the influence of a powerful magnet. As the boys
+stood thus agap, in firing attitude, undoubtedly the subtle agency of a
+deep-seated plenipotent superstition which so thoroughly saturates the
+mountain-born had now risen up and cast its obfuscating shade between
+the quarry and their intent to kill.</p>
+
+<p>With mutual glances they peered at each other irresolutely. At this
+juncture, the pattering of naked feet suddenly ceased. Again they fixed
+their eyes on the pulpit and its gloomed blasphemy. It tottered on the
+brink of the platform a second; inclined perilously forward; started on
+its headlong plunge outward, then miraculously checked its descent and
+straightened. Then, backing away, it paused, stiffened and fell backward
+with the rigidity of a board.</p>
+
+<p>Lem and Buddy, collecting their befuddled senses, made their way
+forward. The hideous mass of bones and blood and rags now lay quite
+still on the altar. Through a short interval the two watched it for
+signs of life. Presently, Lem prodded it with his rifle. It gave way,
+yielding and inert, and now Lem took the lantern down from the hook at
+the rope's end and, advancing dubiously, he held the lantern over the
+awful spectacle and dared a look. That look sufficed. What had once been
+the revenuer lay sprawled athwart the bloody cross&mdash;dead.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the church door Lem halted and wiped his face absently. A look
+of deep perturbation was plainly perceptible on his countenance. A
+gulch-scented wind rode the plaintive sobs of the she-panther up from
+the darksome thicket below, and Lem harkened attentively, as though he
+had never heard these faltering, familiar notes before.</p>
+
+<p>"Leastways," he projected presently, "he got part o' what's due him,
+Buddy."</p>
+
+<p>"But he'll cum back, Lem&mdash;he will," predicted Bud stoutly. "They's a
+hant in em&mdash;he'll cum back sho'&mdash;yo' see&mdash;hants alers ac's like
+thet&mdash;then they sneaks back agin."</p>
+
+<p>Lem had started dejectedly across the clearing and did not appear to
+hear his brother's apprehensions.</p>
+
+<p>"Yo' go ahead, Buddy," advised Lem, "an' catch up with Belle-Ann&mdash;I'll
+be 'long directly."</p>
+
+<p>Buddy's thin, colt-like legs struck a trot, and Lem followed slowly up
+the mountain side, deeply absorbed in thought and obviously disgruntled.
+Altogether, the whole untoward events of the night had conspired to
+cheat him out of his revenge. This was the strangest night he had ever
+known, the happenings of which seemingly, derided his own reality. A
+night divided into ecstasy and torture, and above the chaos of his soul,
+the voice of Belle-Ann ever rippled with the monotone and insistency of
+running water.</p>
+
+<p>When finally Lem reached the cabin he found Belle-Ann huddled on the
+horse-block, her face pallid and distressed from the effects of the
+terrible, revolting scene she had witnessed in the church. Buddy sat
+beside her saying things, which she heard vaguely and to which she made
+distrait response.</p>
+
+<p>Lem put his rifle and the lantern down and stood before her.</p>
+
+<p>"I air sorry, Belle-Ann, thet yo'-all had t' see sich a sight," he said
+slowly. "He's daid."</p>
+
+<p>She arose quickly to her feet and looked searchingly into his face.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you&mdash;you didn't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Belle-Ann&mdash;I didin't kill em. We'uns went back after yo'-all left
+an' he were up on th' altar daid."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;how awful&mdash;how terrible it all is! Oh, I wish it were morning&mdash;that
+I could ride away from heah! Even a day of this awful life is more than
+I can bear. Are you satisfied now, Lem?" she ended sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I hain't," he returned hotly. "I wus cheated out'n his blood. Pap
+an' maw wanted em t' die at my hands&mdash;they ded. Belle-Ann, air yo'
+'lowin' t' go way in th' mornin' an' never cum back?" he finished, with
+a look of despair settling on his features.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going in the morning, Lem," she answered decisively, though a note
+of utter sorrow crept into her gentle tones. "You have had your
+opportunity. You told me Johnse Hatfteld offered you five hundred
+dollars for your interests heah. Surely you could have gone down to
+Blue-grass with my grandpa and taken Buddy and Slab along,
+and&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;could then&mdash;but you want to stay here and feed your soul on
+blood. Could you ask a more bitter punishment for the revenuer than what
+you saw to-night? I implore for the last time, Lem&mdash;put that evil life
+behind you, Lem. Ask God to help you, and take my heart and hand on it
+that He will not forsake you. You will come through as I did. Will you
+try, Lem?" she pleaded softly, with a toss of curls and a tender,
+compelling light in her sweet, sad eyes. "Let me lead you, Lem," she
+whispered.</p>
+
+<p>The boy's face paled suddenly. It was the advent of a terrible upheaval
+coming upon him. Belle-Ann saw and divined his intent.</p>
+
+<p>With no backward word, only a look that embraced an untold, profound
+meaning, he hurried from her, spiritless and disconsolate and
+tumultuous. Her eyes followed him, enthralled. She knew where he was
+bound! She prayed devoutly that the web, traced by destiny, wrapping
+their two lives into a unit, would not now, at this crisis, burst its
+ligatures asunder. She prayed with all the fervent strength of her young
+heart that Lem would come down from Eagle Crown and take her in his
+arms,&mdash;take her willing life to him irrevocably, with a new precept
+written in his heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2>
+
+<h3>HIS ROCK OF AGES</h3>
+
+
+<p>But as Lem climbed upward, a withering despair mounted abreast with him,
+like the shadow cast by evil. By the time he had reached the giddy apex
+of the cliff, he was staggering amidst the chaos of a battle with
+himself that was slowly outdoing his soul.</p>
+
+<p>His mind had come, miraculously, to nurture the holy dogma that
+Belle-Ann had brought back to him. He could see its wonderful sequence
+plain in Belle-Ann's beautiful face. In her angelic violet eyes he
+beheld its wholesome, serene pictures. He could hear it, vocal, in the
+anthem-music of her soft, new speech. Her very sweet, divine presence
+irradiated its palpable truths. All that was good in him was calling out
+for her.</p>
+
+<p>But in the under-tide of some indefinable, contending, compelling
+element he was drifting apart. While his mind opened its portals to all
+the logic so earnestly tendered and tutored by Belle-Ann, his
+back-standing, immutable mountain heart fought it off like a
+destroyer,&mdash;repelled its invasion with a titanic force that his willing
+energies could not subjugate. The tentacles of his father's creed
+promptly admonished and enmeshed his rebellious heart, protecting its
+odium, cleaving to its tenancy of "eye for an eye and tooth for a
+tooth." Which adjuration only lent impetus to an endless cycle of strife
+and distress, rolling his feverish soul back amidst bones that curse the
+dead years&mdash;that warp the souls of men, and bow down hearts that God
+made to beat through life upstanding, radiant with harmony and hope and
+buoyancy.</p>
+
+<p>In the growing vortex of this tumult of mind and heart, Lem stood like
+one distraught, circling the limits of the table rock, caged by empty
+space,&mdash;scarce knowing that his feet lifted, oblivious to his
+whereabouts. Through this seething, tangled skein, his thoughts seeped
+for an instant and fled backward. He viewed the past. He saw only two
+sodden graves side by side. His beset pilgrim mind then turned toward
+the future, and groped out into the years to come in a vain quest for
+succor and some element of honest hope.</p>
+
+<p>The boy's thoughts rushed back upon him with a picture that forbade
+contemplation&mdash;a barren, dismal prospect&mdash;a measure of life that did not
+embrace Belle-Ann. He would choose death, he told himself, rather than
+gain and mislead her. Even had he sought to, he knew he could not
+withstand his own lie to her. She whose limpid, steadfast, child-eyes
+could read every line that crossed his soul&mdash;every thought that passed
+his eyes. He knew a lie would sheathe itself in its own being.</p>
+
+<p>In his extremity, he stalked madly about the confines of this
+moon-touched mount. His perturbation waxed to a volcanic upheaval that
+now inflicted a physical pain. To him it was as if these two conflicting
+forces had confiscated his corporal structure for a ravaging mêlée,
+augmented by two combative rivals struggling in his own heart. His mad
+love for Belle-Ann&mdash;his blind adherence and faith in the code-honor of
+his hillman lineage. That there was something amiss in this faith his
+mind could not deny but, oddly enough, his heart hotly rejected it all,
+stirring him to mad, reckless action. Belle-Ann filled up the whole of
+Lem's wild, humble life. Without her the future held no hope. Without
+hope he wanted to die. His vain effort to dislodge the scourge within
+his soul, goaded him to maniacal thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in an unlooked-for instant, an awful wrong shaped itself to a
+determination. He would hurl his tortured self over the cliff. He told
+himself that he was not fearful of the fall. In proof thereof, he rushed
+to the jagged brink of the ledge and looked down into hazy moonlit space
+and was unafraid.</p>
+
+<p>With a desperate movement he snatched his hat off and cast it down at
+his feet. His toes inched over the abyss in his aberration. He gathered
+a long breath. His knees bent to the leap. His heels raised slowly under
+him; when in this instant a memory dashed upon him, and he straightened
+and stiffened, electrified.</p>
+
+<p>The thought of Caleb Peevy rived into his muddled, benumbed mind. Caleb
+Peevy, who had jumped wilfully off Henhawk's Knob into Hellsfork three
+years since, and had gone to hell, so they said. A check of repugnance
+swept him as he recalled the lasting scorn and contempt of the mountain
+folk, and the epithet of coward&mdash;coward that followed Peevy past the
+grave with its two-edged stigma that linked, inseparably, to his memory
+to-night.</p>
+
+<p>Lem drew back, stung with self-shame. A hope drifted back into his
+distraught breast. He looked upward into the astral sky for God's
+guiding star that Maw Lutts had shown to him. All a-quiver, he watched
+for the flambeau of Belle-Ann's pious prophecy: "Know ye the truth and
+the truth shall make ye free!" A divine revelation ebbed across his
+chaotic senses.</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden replenished faith he looked to God, as he recalled the
+despised, loathsome dead man now lying on the altar of the
+church&mdash;asleep now, across the crimson picture that his, now dead, hand
+had shaped with the blood of Lem's father. Surely none but God's hand
+had wrought this retribution. Verily, this Omnipotent Being would not
+forsake him now?</p>
+
+<p>He was now sensible to the God-sent monitor that had saved him from
+McGill. He was sensible to the Providential agency that saved him from
+the Judas, Orlick.</p>
+
+<p>With praises, he remembered Belle-Ann's escape from this vampire. Surely
+this self-same God would not deny him now. Lem did not mumble
+disjointedly now. He did not whisper incoherent, aimless pleas.</p>
+
+<p>Now, from the crest of the world, his aching breast heaving, and his
+erring feet firm upon his ancestral Rock of Ages, he lifted his face up
+to the trembling stars, as with outstretched, pleading arms he cried out
+vociferously to God for Him to come to him&mdash;called out, in ringing,
+fulsome words that carried afar, for Him to hasten, lest he perish in
+the conflict that made blind agony within him.</p>
+
+<p>And ere his wet, quivering lips had closed, and while still his eyes
+were upward, and his two arms imploring Heaven, the two forces that had,
+like live combatants, met midway of his soul for supremacy, did
+separate.</p>
+
+<p>The white purity of Righteousness had come into his evil heart, and the
+blackness dropped away and out of his life! And all the old poisonous
+venom, festering soul sores and gnawing misery ebbed out of the boy's
+being and left it receptive to the influx of harmony and heart-peace
+that he saw in Belle-Ann and which he so ardently craved.</p>
+
+<p>Panting like a spent man at the end of a long run, Lem now fell down on
+his knees in his copious gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>On his knees, his head on his arm, in a divine lethargy, he rested. With
+prayerful, oft-said words he pondered vaguely upon this miracle. So
+engrossed in his felicitude and deep thanksgiving was he that he did not
+see the gruesome spectacle at his back.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann sat upon the witch-elm block and strained her eager eyes
+upward. Aloft there on Eagle Crown she could see Lem against the
+moon-laved night. Now she could discern his figure full&mdash;now his upper
+half. Again his head only would make a blot. Moving&mdash;always moving. She
+divined the terrible struggle going on in his breast, in his will to
+renounce the hurtful creed that heredity had written in his blood, and
+she realized that the conflict was all for her own sake. She measured
+the boy's love and honor with ample adoration. He would not come to her
+with a lie on his lips to disguise the heritage of murder coiled in his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>As Belle-Ann waited and watched tensely, a pulsing anxiety swept her
+heart, like recurring waves gale-driven. Suddenly she leaped with a
+bound from the witch-elm block, her eyes full of a startling picture.
+The moon on the descent had caught Eagle Crown rock in its mystic grip,
+holding it out like a mighty bauble adorning the breast of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Lem's full figure, framed within the moon's disk, was etched in magical
+proportions, like the portrayal of a powerful night glass.</p>
+
+<p>Enraptured, she looked and saw Lem on the brink of the cliff, seemingly
+so near that she instinctively stretched out a hand to attract him. As
+she looked she saw him stretch his two arms outward and upward, and she
+understood their pantomimic plea.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant the sound of his voice, faintly audible, reached her
+ear. She heard his inarticulate utterance, as with a fervent cry he
+called out to God, from his dire distraught heart.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann's white bosom heaved and caught a sob of salient joy as she
+darted up the trail toward Eagle Crown. She would fly to his side now.
+Lem needed her now. He needed her, who was a part of his life, there to
+succor him in this the blackest bereft hour of his existence. She knew
+that God had heard his abandoned supplications. She knew that God was
+reaching down to him a staff of righteous strength. She would hurry to
+his side, with the re-enforcement of her own great love while God was
+there helping him.</p>
+
+<p>Belle-Ann darted to the rock-runged ladder that led the jagged, perilous
+way up to Eagle Crown. She climbed and climbed and climbed. Many times
+did she pause for breath. Then she climbed again and turned and twisted
+and clung on and pulled herself upward, always upward, insensible to
+fatigue. At last her eyes reached the level of the great jutting boulder
+and her gaze fell off into moonlit space. She drew her lithe self up
+and, half turning, beheld Lem's recumbent form bowed down beside a dun
+indenture in the table rock. He was unconscious of her presence. There
+was pathos in his crouching, still form.</p>
+
+<p>There was dazed, mute ecstasy in the dark violet of Belle-Ann's eyes
+which never lifted from this penitent figure. She stood, to still her
+pounding heart, and waited for him to feel her nearness, or turn his
+face to her. The satin lustre of her curls was moist and her bosom
+lifted, palpitating with the advent of the new, great joyous thing that
+stood upon the threshold of her life to enter and spread its felicity
+and untold bliss.</p>
+
+<p>All oblivious, Lem was kneeling amidst this new-found grace, and the
+quiet of a peace that cometh only to the righteous. Belle-Ann had
+suffered its pangs. She had reaped its peace. She knew the pathology of
+the pestilent revenge-sore that blights the lives of men. And she
+experienced all that Lem felt.</p>
+
+<p>With her eyes still upon him, Belle-Ann took one quick, short step
+forward. She spoke his name, low and soft and vibrant with adoration.</p>
+
+<p>As though he expected her, he looked up, smiling and tranquil, and his
+every radiant feature told of the triumph that compassed his renovated
+soul, purged now and wholly clean of its vindictive lust.</p>
+
+<p>His apostasy was full and complete. He rose up strong now and bigger and
+taller than she had noted an hour since. And there was plain in his face
+at that instant a certain nobility and greatness.</p>
+
+<p>He stretched his eager, long arms out to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll let yo' lead me,&mdash;I'll let yo' lead me now, Belle-Ann!" he cried
+out, his happy eyes aglow with emotion and untold, deathless love.</p>
+
+<p>She tossed the curls back from her lovely be-dimpled features, all
+aflush now. With a finger upon her bowed lips she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Kiss me heah&mdash;Lem," and walked into his waiting arms.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH PROVIDENCE TAKES A HAND</h3>
+
+
+<p>He crushed her to him with a passion that bade fair to stop her breath.
+He poured out his kisses upon her lips, and face, and eyes. He kissed
+the little scar that crossed the part in her hair. And there he held her
+for long, lingering minutes, loath to untwine his arms. Her hot breath
+was on his neck, and he surfeited his senses upon the incense of her
+curls.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll all go down to Blue-Grass together now, won't we, Lem?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sho'&mdash;I'm done a warrin' now&mdash;I'm done fo' always&mdash;an', Belle-Ann, my
+darlin'&mdash;I want t' git a edication like yo'-all&mdash;eh?&mdash;I want t' make
+myself fittin' fo' yo'. I sho' will do hit, with Gawd's help&mdash;an'
+yore'n. I aimed to ax yo' again to marry me pint-blank&mdash;but I don't want
+yo' to jest now&mdash;'til I'm fittin'&mdash;I air a goin' to study th' books by
+day an' by night&mdash;I know I kin learn&mdash;I'll do hit er bust&mdash;then when
+yore sure I'm fittin'&mdash;an' kin talk nice like yo'&mdash;an' look
+decent-like&mdash;then&mdash;then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He drew her to him and buried his face in her curls.</p>
+
+<p>"Little Belle-Ann," he muttered, his joy crowding his words, "little
+gal, whut I knowed would come back&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not cross my heart, Lem?" she said, and as her lips parted to
+tell to him all that lay in her heart for the future, a swift, blighting
+look of horror dashed into the girl's face, leaving it whiter than
+moon-pallor. A half-screamed, incoherent outcry burst from her lips as
+with outstretched arm she pointed behind him. Responding instantly to
+her alarm, Lem flung himself around.</p>
+
+<p>Together, transfixed and agape, they stared. A startling sight stood in
+front of their eyes&mdash;a spectacle that filled the sensitive girl with a
+panting, sickening horror. She stood all a-quiver, her two little hands
+clutching her breast and her violet eyes swimming in terror. For a tense
+long minute they could neither speak nor move.</p>
+
+<p>Then Belle-Ann's one hand shot out and grasped Lem's sleeve imploringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lem&mdash;Lem!" she cried, "can't we get it out&mdash;oh! can't we hurry and
+take it out, Lem?" but even as she talked she knew the hopelessness of
+the intent in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'low hits too late now, Belle-Ann," returned he, in tones a trifle
+unsteady. "Hit air God's buryin' now," he added, with no trace of venom
+in his tones.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus5" id="illus5"></a>
+<img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"Hit air God's buryin' now."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"Oh!&mdash;Lem, it's too awful&mdash;too terrible to watch and think about,"
+pursued Belle-Ann in half whispers broken with emotion. She dropped her
+lids and placed her hands over her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The night wind carried an ominous groan. A dully grinding, crepitating
+sound came up to the lofty heights of Eagle Crown.</p>
+
+<p>Even now there was a tremendous gutting upheaval below them; then with a
+dynamitic cough of concussion the entire roof of the church belched
+upward and fell in and a wide black flight of smoke hurried up to the
+high heavens and blotted the scintillant stars. Then a measureless,
+flanged blanket of blood-hued flame followed, propelling still higher
+the ebon clouds above it.</p>
+
+<p>Here the flame turned to orange and split, and dropped back into a
+seething pit, where it gathered another and greater force. Then a
+lance-like turret of pure fire spurted straight upward, struggling and
+twisting and stabbing its lurid path through the pitchy volumes of smoke
+that rolled and plunged and tumbled infernally; filching with edacious
+swirls, great amber flakes of tinder, delivering them up in spiral gusts
+to the whining wilderness wind, which in turn hurtled its meteoric
+salvage, red and alive, out over the rampant waters of Hellsfork.</p>
+
+<p>The clearing was transformed into an oscillating arena of lurid light
+that eclipsed the stars and drove the moon pallid. The front wall
+supporting the belfry was last to go. Its superstructure half devoured,
+the belfry itself clung on fearfully askew, like a man skidded from a
+high cliff, hanging by a single root awaiting his strength to ebb. The
+pitiless flames duelled, raged and fought ferociously over their prey of
+fire-bitten logs that strove vainly to rise, only to be stricken, again
+to fall back, casting groans to the spectral night. They turned and
+stirred and crawled in agony, like the maimed half dead.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the sheet of flame scathing the front wall fell back again for
+another assault and, taking it thrice with blasting, mighty tongues,
+took the key-log to the belfry for its own. And as it went the belfry
+trembled and quaked on the threshold of its doom. For a minute it hung
+there like a mortal thing, having eyes to see down into the white-hot
+pit&mdash;fearing something there that this grim-hell clasped to its red
+breast, vauntingly and gloatingly. Something more scathing, more
+horrifying, more contaminating than the mere scourge of molten
+annihilation.</p>
+
+<p>The fire gnawed its trembling support away, and the belfry staggered,
+tottered and succumbed.</p>
+
+<p>As it hurtled headlong downward, the bell shrieked out across the
+night,&mdash;a throttled, frenzied medley of fear-stricken mad utterances,
+and tumbled over and over, and went screaming into the ghost-man's
+casket of destruction. And roundabout them fluted leaves of flame grew.
+And the fire made flowers that covered them over.</p>
+
+<p>Incessantly the lurid lustre of the embers died down, only to leap
+pulsing up anew, like the rhyming flush of heat lightning playing behind
+pearly clouds. As the dull red flung its cycle outward from the
+vermilion pyre of the doomed church, it caught in bold, startling
+relief, the mask of a human visage. The russet of the dancing, dying
+flames touched this pale, marcid face with a florid, sanguine flush.
+Only his peaked, lupine features were visible against the purple green
+of the laurel. He was there in the beginning, and he meant to stay there
+to the end. He meant to keep his adder-like eyes charm-fixed and unmoved
+upon this death pile, until its face was gray and cold. He meant to see
+that no treacherous, human skeleton pushed up out of the yielding ashes
+and stalked abroad. There was reverence and infinite tenderness in his
+fondling of the rifle Buddy now hugged in his lap.</p>
+
+<p>His dead father's gun. His heritage that naught would part, until the
+epoch, that came to still his little hardened heart, stepped between
+them. As the fire smouldered, thus did the boy's eyes smoulder, while he
+watched audaciously and fixedly; for deep down in his warped, puerile
+soul the curtained joy of revenge was a-sputter. Now his weazened
+countenance broke with a satanic grin, ill to behold, the while he
+mumbled things to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'low th' ol' Scratch ez a pickin' em, an' a spearin' em, an' a
+humpin' em 'roun' down below 'bout now&mdash;leastways I'll see his bones
+burn up, I will," he muttered in sibilant, soul-deep glee.</p>
+
+<p>Like a luscious, esculent morsel he rolled the words over and over. The
+sound of these disjointed phrases spelled happiness to his soul.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll see his bones burn&mdash;he cyan't cum back ef I burn his bones all
+up&mdash;th' ol' Scratch'll have t' keep em, ef I burn his bones up&mdash;he'll
+have t' keep em." The jungled hills, a-hush, were ominously empty of
+night voices.</p>
+
+<p>And all the soft-footed creatures of the wild crouched fear-crazed in
+their lairs, and peered tremblingly out at this fire-swept, fearful
+night. A furtive, fleeing wind, ocean-bound, whipped the slatternly dawn
+clouds away from the wan face of a vigilant moon. Its haggard visage
+looked pityingly down upon a boy-heart clasping a rifle to his breast
+like a brother, his dream-dizzied head, pillowed upon the soughing bosom
+of a wilderness world&mdash;fast asleep.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2><a name="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR" id="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR"></a>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">GOLIATH'S BRIDE<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">THE APOSTLE ON HELLSFORK<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A GHOST'S VENGEANCE<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">THE REDEMPTION OF ZACK McCOY<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">MR. HARTEM'S SPECULATION<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED DEBT***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 36047-h.txt or 36047-h.zip *******</p>
+<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br />
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/0/4/36047">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/4/36047</a></p>
+<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.</p>
+
+<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.</p>
+
+
+
+<pre>
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license)</a>.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a>
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a>
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a>
+
+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
+</pre>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/36047-h/images/illus1.jpg b/36047-h/images/illus1.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a5557ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-h/images/illus1.jpg
diff --git a/36047-h/images/illus2.jpg b/36047-h/images/illus2.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d313bc9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-h/images/illus2.jpg
diff --git a/36047-h/images/illus3.jpg b/36047-h/images/illus3.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..77e2ada
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-h/images/illus3.jpg
diff --git a/36047-h/images/illus4.jpg b/36047-h/images/illus4.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b404251
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-h/images/illus4.jpg
diff --git a/36047-h/images/illus5.jpg b/36047-h/images/illus5.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f688481
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-h/images/illus5.jpg
diff --git a/36047-h/images/tp.jpg b/36047-h/images/tp.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e99bdc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047-h/images/tp.jpg
diff --git a/36047.txt b/36047.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..76ebb6b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10130 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Red Debt, by Everett MacDonald,
+Illustrated by William Oberhardt
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Red Debt
+       Echoes from Kentucky
+
+
+Author: Everett MacDonald
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 6, 2011  [eBook #36047]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED DEBT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Garcia, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
+available by Kentuckiana Digital Library (http://kdl.kyvl.org/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 36047-h.htm or 36047-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36047/36047-h/36047-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36047/36047-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Kentuckiana Digital Library. See
+      http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;view=toc;idno=b92-232-31280811
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RED DEBT
+
+Echoes from Kentucky
+
+by
+
+EVERETT MACDONALD
+
+Illustrations from Original Drawings of William Oberhardt
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+G. W. Dillingham Co.
+New York
+
+_The Red Debt_
+
+Copyright, 1916,
+By G. W. Dillingham Company
+All Rights Reserved
+
+Published April, 1916
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+Linotype Composition, Electrotypes, Presswork and Binding
+By the J. J. Little & Ives Company
+425-435 East 24th Street
+New York City
+N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+    WITH UNUTTERABLE LOVE I DEDICATE
+            THIS VOLUME TO
+              My Mother
+             _THE AUTHOR_
+
+
+[Illustration: "... use me as best you can for a grandfather?"]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+         I A Mighty Man
+
+        II Belle-Ann Benson
+
+       III The Traitor
+
+        IV An Ultimatum
+
+         V Orlick's money Spurned
+
+        VI Upon the Altar
+
+       VII Dedicated with his Blood
+
+      VIII "Lessen he kills the Revenuer"
+
+        IX Orlick works Evil
+
+         X In Prison
+
+        XI A Friend in Need
+
+       XII The Stigma
+
+      XIII Rubric Drops
+
+       XIV "The onlyest Lutts"
+
+        XV Buddy forces an Issue
+
+       XVI The Murder Partners
+
+      XVII Circuit Court
+
+     XVIII The Graveyard Massacre
+
+       XIX Hatfield overtakes the Traitor
+
+        XX In the Hands of the Enemy
+
+       XXI "Draw--now--Coward!"
+
+      XXII The Mission School
+
+     XXIII Belle-Ann visits Lexington
+
+      XXIV The Guest of a Grandee
+
+       XXV Know Ye the Truth
+
+      XXVI Belle-Ann has a Vision
+
+     XXVII A Grandfather
+
+    XXVIII A Confession
+
+      XXIX The Red Debt
+
+       XXX The Shooting of Peter Burton
+
+      XXXI In which Slab prophesies
+
+     XXXII The Near Assassin
+
+    XXXIII Belle-Ann comes back
+
+     XXXIV The Reunion
+
+      XXXV The Downfall of Sap McGill
+
+     XXXVI Belle-Ann's Recanted Creed
+
+    XXXVII The Ghost-Man
+
+   XXXVIII The Haunted Church
+
+     XXXIX The Flight
+
+        XL His Rock of Ages
+
+       XLI In which Providence takes a Hand
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+   "... use me as best you can for a grandfather?"
+
+   "Yo' know where _they_ be"
+
+   "He kilt my maw--he ded--an' he kilt my pap"
+
+   "Who air th' head o' th' people--who air Cap'in heah in Moon?"
+
+   "Hit air God's buryin' now"
+
+
+
+
+THE RED DEBT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A MIGHTY MAN
+
+
+No imagery can adequately picture the profound grandeur and wide wild
+beauty of these Kentucky highlands. At the age when its purity was
+whitest, a great moon hung midway between Southpaw peak and Moon
+mountain. Its divine splendor, unalloyed with any tithe of partisanship,
+laved with a mystic luster these two primeval ranges that had scowled
+impenitently at each other, behind their mask of flowers and tinseled
+verdure, across the lethal gulch separating them, for fifty
+blood-touched, feudal years.
+
+This wondrous effulgence purged every exposed crevice, naked rock and
+open cove with its chastity. On the ground underneath the patch-quilt of
+virgin petals and emerald leafage, it peopled a theatre of animated
+pictures. And the coppice pooled the shadows, creating a hippodrome of
+transitory caricatures, fanciful, grotesque and fearful. Each sullen
+moss-hooded boulder flung its distorted, exaggerated image down and
+fixed a creeping mummy hard by.
+
+Still another white beacon leaned over the hills where, like a stellar
+flambeau, the lead-star trembled and sputtered, kindled just on the apex
+of Henhawk's knob. The chasm that furrowed between and, topographically,
+held these two warring communities apart, sunk its rock-lined bed sheer
+two hundred feet below. Through this sinuous adamantine artery the head
+waters of Hellsfork dashed in rampant flight, beating themselves into a
+madness against a troup of gigantic, orange-tinctured boulders polished
+glassy by the torrents Nature had unloosed at the beginning of time.
+
+The onrushing wavelets leaped like furious creatures at these menacing
+things which evermore preyed upon their foaming, impotent wrath; shaping
+crystal goblets that bubbled over and burst, and flung showers of
+magical frothy flowers aloft. From across the silvery expanse of
+spectral mist that overhung the mountains, near and afar, a hundred
+voices of the wilderness night were calling.
+
+That this barnacle of blood-lust should leech itself upon the fair face
+of a modern civilization; that in this nineteen hundred and twelve epoch
+of obeisant civism, hedged about with emollient Christian culture--such
+a vast stratum of malignant strife should coil here, hidden amidst a
+congress of Nature's sublime artistry, is an irony at once awesome and
+hopelessly insoluble. Nevertheless, immured upon natural ramifications
+on the shoulder of Moon mountain, old Cap Lutts, a strategist and
+mountain despot of kingly renown, dominated as the head of an implacable
+dynasty that boded ill to inimical invaders; be it agents of the
+government or spies of the shaggy Southpaw clan where Sap McGill, who
+had stepped into his father's war shoes at the end of their last fatal
+encounter with Cap Lutts, now marshalled his horde of bush-whackers,
+bent upon the speedy annihilation of the Lutts folk, kith and kin.
+
+Supported on a platform-like plot projecting from the hip of Moon
+mountain, the domicile of old Lutts stood out in the moonlight, traced
+in silver brocade against a somber ribbon of scrub timber that girded
+the waist of the mountain.
+
+From the Lutts abode the eye traveled for miles along the gorge to the
+right. To the left the chasm cut deeper into the hills, until it ended
+in the valley where Boon Creek and Hellsfork intersected; where the
+paw-paws and the ferns, the weeping willows and the familiar, unnamed
+flowers were luxuriant.
+
+Straight ahead, traversing the dry bed of a blind gulch, a train of
+pigmy peaks, left dun and naked by a river dead a thousand years, rose
+up and bared their serried spurs like hound's teeth.
+
+On the opposite side of Hellsfork, lifted the stupendous Southpaw
+range--the stronghold of the enemy--rearing its savage peaks higher and
+higher, piling upward and onward until they pierced the myriad stars;
+then tumbled downward into the russet realms of lilac mist.
+
+Beyond the Lutts cabin and towering above it, a single monster boulder
+jutted outward from the perpendicular wall of granite and hung
+perilously over sheer space. This freakish rock, known as Eagle Crown,
+looked like a ragged punctuation pause in a folk-lore story; a relic
+tossed on high by some legendary, boastful giant.
+
+The wonder was how Cap Lutts gained its forbidding lofty platform, for
+surely there was no visible means of ascent. Howbeit, Eagle Crown had
+been the old man's retreat for sixty-odd years. This imperishable shelf
+of granite offered him sanctuary when travail and sorrow, that weighted
+his life, pressed hard upon him. There he had spent his moody hours
+since boyhood. There his father and his great-grandfather had gone to be
+alone. And there to-night, high up and alone, his majestic form was
+silhouetted plainly against the sky.
+
+A mighty man, this Lutts. At seventy-six he stood six feet seven
+inches--straight as an arrow; a seasoned ball-bearing pyramid of big
+bones, mounted with iron-fibered muscles; and a drop of chilled steel
+for a fighting heart. In the premises of peace, this same heart swelled
+up to proportions of compassion and generosity that named him father of
+all the community north of Hellsfork--a man who never failed his people;
+one to whom they hurried with their woes when they needed material help,
+succor, sympathy and protection.
+
+From this height, the old man fondly turned his eyes downward toward the
+clearing that now held his sacred treasure--a log church. There, high up
+toward heaven, in the profundity of his loneness, only God knew this
+somber, silent man's thoughts--this feud-hunted, law-hounded man whose
+soul brimmed with his own religion; whose being was wrapped about with
+that which he took for the right; whose heart spurned all that he
+thought wrong.
+
+His so-called bandit-spirit was insulated with the convictions of his
+own peculiar faith. His every utterance and deed were tempered with the
+tenets of a unique creed handed down by his mountain fore-fathers. In
+his heart there murmured a runic cadence, the language of which was only
+interpreted by the omnipotent, all-merciful Over-soul.
+
+Why the menacing hand of an outer world was lifted against him was a
+problem he had long since despaired of solving. Fondly now he gazed down
+toward the spot where the new cedar clapboards of the meeting-house
+shimmered like a disk of true gold beneath the moon's whiteness;
+beckoning to him with an insistence that stirred his stoic heart to its
+depths.
+
+A tender look softened the old man's opaque mask-like features, as
+fumbling in his shirt-pocket and bringing forth a worn tintype picture
+of a woman, swathed in buckskin, he held it to the moon's rays and for a
+full minute peered tenderly at the kindly pictured eyes and smiling
+lips. Then, clasping the tintype reverently between his two mighty
+hands, he leaned against the natural buttress at his back, and his great
+head, crowned with its hoary white mane, was bowed down.
+
+"To-morry--to-morry," he whispered, and he knew that the picture smiled
+forgivingly and happily back to him.
+
+With the proceeds of moonshine whiskey, backed by the brawn of heredity
+and a righteous purpose, old Cap Lutts had at last realized the dream of
+two lives--his own and that of his dead wife, Maw Lutts. Although
+grievously late, he had now moulded this double dream into a tangible
+reality; for now before him, in the center of the clearing at the
+frowsy, feudal base of Moon mountain, and just where the rabid waters of
+Hellsfork leaped like live, wild things in their down-grade race across
+forty-odd rugged miles of Kentucky, this grizzled hillman viewed in
+sober, pious exultation, the product of his log church, all but
+finished.
+
+A church is an acquisition strangely alien to this mountain-piled
+country, where the strategy of family wars and illicit distilling is
+religiously pursued. Nevertheless, he and Maw Lutts had dreamed in
+unison for years and had longed for the culmination of this extravagant,
+divine purpose.
+
+Formerly, it had appeared to him that the propitious hour in their
+furtive existence had not arrived, although daily he had clearly
+foreseen it in the rising sun of the morrow. Always with the firm
+intention to do, he had added postponement to delay, and another broken
+promise on the creased brow of Maw Lutts and another prayer in her
+sorrowing heart.
+
+However, the belated church was finally upon the perilous premises. Then
+with the poignant achings that many desirable citizens had felt before
+him, the old man had gone to the orchard like a penitent truce-breaker,
+where on his knees in supplicant whispers he had unfolded his tardy
+atonement and laid it like a tarnished sceptre at the woman's mute,
+unseeing grave-side.
+
+Since the majority of native adults were babies, the magic name of Cap
+Lutts was mouthed in every cabin on the border range. He held the novel
+status where popularity was abreast with notoriety. Long since the
+populace had heard of his intention to build a church. Looking across
+the epitome of delay, they told themselves that this was the first
+pledge the old man had ever made, which he had not kept, so now the
+redeeming news of Cap Lutts' finished meeting-house and the day of
+dedication had penetrated the remotest habitants of the mountains. This
+intelligence had gone hither to friend and enemy, pious and wicked
+alike, with the same mysterious agency and puzzling rapidity that
+characterizes winged warnings of the on-coming revenuer.
+
+Every man and woman in the district, big enough to pull a trigger, knew
+that he held a certain latent stock in this meeting-house. It came like
+an unknown heritage suddenly delivered. While some would,
+surreptitiously, have exchanged their interest for a mustard plaster,
+they knew that it was not negotiable. They lied aloud, but in their
+hearts they knew that sooner or later they would follow that magnetic
+spark Luttsward. They knew that they would either cross the hypnotic
+threshold of that sanctuary into the halo of sacred enlightenment, or
+halt without in the darkness of superstition and feudal malice and spend
+their ammunition to help crush it.
+
+There was no intermediate platform. There was no neutral grand-stand
+wherein the indifferent could take refuge. The populace stood either for
+or against. Even the lethargic, voteless clay-eaters sat up and took
+notice like a nest of snakes in the sunshine. The relatives and friendly
+factions representing the prospective congregation, did homage to Cap
+Lutts and clamored to make the church a success. The enemy over in
+Southpaw had already advanced the prophecy that they would take the
+meeting-house. But the flapping of feudal wings did not perturb this
+veteran hawk of the hills. His one apprehension was of the common enemy,
+the "revenuer."
+
+There was now but one day between the new church and its dedication. In
+secret service circles, down in Frankfort, it had long been mooted that
+the pet aim of Peter H. Burton was to capture old Cap Lutts.
+
+Burton had, during his service, previously captured many members of the
+Lutts faction. The commissioners were ready enough to bind them over,
+but trials never carried a conviction. Burton had even juggled cases,
+alternately, on venue writs, between the six Federal Courts in the
+Eastern District, but the Lutts blood invariably cropped up, stealthful
+and rich in sympathy, in the precincts of the petit jury room. Acquittal
+followed acquittal.
+
+But now Burton, feeling himself close upon the heels of the King of
+Moonshiners, altered his procedure and, armed with a premature change of
+venue to Frankfort, he hunted Lutts with a renewed zeal, keen and
+pleasurable.
+
+Indeed, the younger attaches of the office regarded Cap Lutts as an
+historic myth. In jest, knowing Burton's affinity for wildcat skins,
+they hinted that the Lutts in question was merely a wraith-pilot
+pointing toward new skins--a favorite platitude upon which to stage
+another hunting vacation. But to Chief Burton, the subject of this jest
+was far removed from joking premises; mainly for the adequate reason
+that he himself, like many of his predecessors, had eyed old Cap Lutts
+more than once. His corporeal being had felt Lutts' lead.
+
+Although the astute Burton had toiled a part of each season for eleven
+consecutive years on the border trail of this subtle law-breaker, Lutts
+had as yet never seen the county calaboose, or the barriers of a
+blue-grass jail. Burton had surprised him time and again, but inventory
+of these encounters always told the same trite story--the moonshiner had
+simply melted into absence.
+
+After the smoke of some of these sorties, Burton had either limped or
+loped away with hopes mounting over a trail of blood. But these red
+splotches never led to the man. This feud leader and distilling
+chieftain of the range still reigned and the stereotyped report to
+headquarters was simply dated and signed with open blanks, a form to
+apprise headquarters that the officer was still alive.
+
+Under pressure the county authorities periodically sought old Lutts. The
+times when they did find him, they merely flirted mutually with the
+faction and subsided harmlessly.
+
+With the completion of the meeting-house, Cap Lutts had attained his
+goal; nor had he suffered the neighboring denizens of the foothills to
+raise an axe, or donate a single clapboard toward the erection of this
+infantile sanctuary. It was an enshrined monument to Maw Lutts. It was a
+mural hanging against Moon mountain, the place of her birth and the
+scene of her death. It was her own cherished endowment to the
+rifle-toting, tobacco-swallowing, snuff-chewing community. It was Maw
+Lutts's and his individual, holy triumph. All Cap Lutts expected of the
+people was, he told them:
+
+"T' cum when th' ridin' pahson rid up t' ded'cate th' gawspel-house; an'
+tote thar sins t' th' altar, an' donate 'em at th' cross t' be wyshed
+'way with th' blood uv Calv'ry--an' keep on a comin' thet they mought be
+clean an' onspotted an'--Gawd an' my gun'll damn ary hillbilly what
+darst lift a han' to hender."
+
+The church represented months of hard toil, interrupted only when Cap
+Lutts fled up to the rock-ribbed pockets of the mountain or down into
+some untrodden ravine to escape Burton, the revenuer. Even in such
+intervals, the old man had sallied out into the night like the
+crag-panther, when the moon had turned white; and climbed high, with
+rifle ready and the hollow-flanked hound at his heels, to visit the
+clearing and gloat in solitude beneath the trembling stars over the
+progress of his sacred enterprise.
+
+The church itself stood on "squatted" soil. Crowned with rhododendrons
+and laurel blossoms, it reared its exotic head in defiant challenge to
+Satan, like a single star upon the horizon of feudal gloom.
+
+The level space had cost Lutts nothing but labor. The logs had cost him
+nothing but work. With his own hands and crude appliances of the back
+forests he had split, shaped and trimmed eleven thousand cedar
+clapboards; but when it came to interior finish he was extravagant and
+fastidious.
+
+The white-pine tongue-and-grooved boards that he used to make the
+platform and the altar, the window and door plates; and the wide, smooth
+planks turned into benches, all represented cash--and cash was a rarity
+in the sterile Moon mountain district. And, too, the new gold-hued bell,
+which now nestled in its cotlike belfry, about to utter its virgin
+exhortation across those Godless hills, cost money.
+
+Cap Lutts had paid this money ungrudgingly, for it was his own. Had he
+not, together with his son Lem, and Slab, the negro, and the two red
+steers, plowed the slanting plot that hung on the hip of the mountain
+and sown the grain, and tilled it, and reaped it, and carried it to the
+hidden still, where he had brewed it into money?
+
+It was Lutts's own scant, hard-earned dollars that had bought the
+boards, the nails, and the bell.
+
+True, it was not a regular church bell; but it was the largest farm bell
+he could procure and it had taken the steers five hot days to go to Flat
+Gap Junction and haul back the bell, and the nails, and the polished
+boards and glass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BELLE-ANN BENSON
+
+
+Beneath Eagle Crown the four-room cabin reposed in a shelter of
+spruce-pine, hemlock and cedar. Its plot was covered with countless
+quaint flowers and its rock-hemmed path to the horse-block in front was
+lined with pink wild roses and forget-me-nots. Here the creeping ivy and
+honeysuckle ran wild.
+
+Although the mound of Maw Lutts, in the scrub orchard behind the log
+barn, was green again for the third time, her beloved flowers had come
+back to earth each year with reassuring, tender messages for Belle-Ann
+Benson, who had adopted them and had nourished and tended and cherished
+them with a pathetic devotion.
+
+Belle-Ann knew their language well. And when they died--more than at any
+other season--the kindly, smiling face of old Maw Lutts followed the
+girl all through the chilly fall days.
+
+It was Belle-Ann who had folded Maw Lutts's two hands, one upon the
+other, back on that terrible day. It was Belle-Ann whom the men found
+after the battle, crouching in despair over the dear, still form lying
+in the yard, and crying out to God for Him to make the mute lips speak
+back to her.
+
+Belle-Ann had never known her own mother, but she had found a mother in
+Maw Lutts. So it was Belle-Ann who fed the martins, and encouraged the
+wild birds, and the tame squirrels Maw Lutts had loved.
+
+The Lutts family now consisted of the old man, two boys, the adopted
+girl and an old negro who had fled from Lexington when a boy, in the
+first days of the Rebellion, and who subsequently had found sanctuary at
+the Lutts abode. He had been permitted to remain because no form of
+persuasion could induce him to leave the premises, once fed, and had the
+distinction of being the only negro on Hellsfork.
+
+Belle-Ann was a daughter by proxy, since her own mother had died in her
+babyhood and Maw Lutts had opened her heart and home to the child.
+Belle-Ann was now some months past sixteen and her unusual physical
+beauty was noted throughout the mountain community and wondered at by
+the few strangers who chanced to reach the isolated cabin on Moon
+mountain.
+
+To-night the girl dropped a wooden bucket and gourd after watering the
+plants, and walked briskly over the carpet of shadows, stepped out under
+the radiant moon and stood gazing intently up to Eagle Crown, where she
+saw the magnified outlines of Cap Lutts against the sky.
+
+Near by a huge witch-elm butt, sawed into three steps, shaped a
+horse-block. Upon the topmost step of the block she seated herself. Her
+brow puckered slightly and she waited with an expectant air. Even the
+pale moonlight revealed her marked loveliness.
+
+Her form was tall for sixteen, with that subtle grace wholly
+undefinable. Clinging about her head and mantling her shoulders, a mass
+of natural curls clustered in riotous abundance, shimmering like
+polished ebony in the moon's rays.
+
+Her features were chiseled with a delicate, hellenic touch, and sweetly
+oval. Her thin nose was straight and short and small; and her red mouth
+told of unfathomable depths of emotion. Her wide, limpid eyes were like
+two blue patches of early June sky.
+
+Her sleeves were short of her dimpled elbows, and her skirt reached
+scarce below her knees. Her graceful legs were bare, but her little feet
+were incased in neat, cow-hide moccasins with the hair on, laced and
+thonged about her round ankles.
+
+A great measure of the girl's physical beauty had been transmitted by
+her mother, who had been a gentle blue-grass woman, of noted beauty and
+lineage, and who had in a fit of pique, married the picturesque trapper
+of the Cumberlands and buried herself in her unloved husband's
+wilderness existence.
+
+Many pathetic tales were told of the great-hearted Tom-John Benson's
+patient struggle to make his wife happy; but the most beautiful woman
+the mountain people had ever seen had pined away and had gone to an
+early end.
+
+Belle-Ann's father now worked for a lumber company, down on the Big
+Sandy. It was only now that he had saved sufficient money to send
+Belle-Ann to the mission school at Proctor, and so fulfil his wife's
+last request.
+
+Belle-Ann had heard the news only three hours ago.
+
+Jutt Orlick, returning from one of his mysterious, periodical visits
+abroad, had stopped to say that her father had sent word that he would
+come for her the following week and take her to the school at Proctor.
+And Orlick, whom the girl distrusted, had not departed without the usual
+flattery she always half resented.
+
+As Belle-Ann sat on the horse-block her little heart was prey to many
+emotions, and she was well-nigh reduced to tears.
+
+Impatient to tell the tidings, she was waiting for the boys, who had
+been away since early morning, and for the old man to come down from his
+lofty station. From the cabin door a vague, lank shape came toward her
+through the shadows.
+
+"Yo', Slab!" she called.
+
+"Heah me!" responded an old treble voice from the dappled path.
+
+When Slab reached the horse-block, although he said nothing to the girl,
+he took a posture that indicated pointedly that he expected something of
+her; and she slipped from the horse-block and sat down on the big
+grapevine family bench a few feet distant.
+
+Here a blind hound appeared and, feeling his way slowly and uncertainly,
+laid his old muzzle in the girl's lap and raised his sightless eyes to
+where he knew her face must be.
+
+Then Slab took Belle-Ann's place on the witch-elm block and produced his
+beloved instrument--a cross between guitar and banjo, self-made of gut
+and a gourd. Just as he had done every fair night for years, he was
+ready to sing his favorite song.
+
+He maintained vigorously that if he sat elsewhere than on the
+horse-block the banjo fell bewitched and refused to answer its master's
+fingers.
+
+Tentatively, he plucked the strings; then launched abruptly into the
+song he had rendered for years--a sad and stirring melody, telling the
+early love-story that had been his before the days of emancipation:
+
+    "You ask what makes this darky weep,
+      Why he, like others, is not gay?
+    What makes the tears roll down his cheek,
+      From early morn till close of day?
+    My story, darkies, you shall hear,
+      For in my memory fresh it dwells,
+    'Twill cause you then to drop a tear
+      On the grave of my sweet Kitty Wells."
+
+When the notes had died away Belle-Ann spoke up:
+
+"Slab, ef pap er th' boys don't cum short now, I'll blow th' horn, I
+reckon."
+
+"No--no, honey; doan yo' blow dat horn. Yo' let dat horn blow itse'f if
+it's got t' blow; but doan you blow it, honey. Yo' jist let pap
+be--he'll cum heah soon. 'Sides, ain't Slab heah wif yo', honey--ain't
+Slab heah?"
+
+The old negro picked the strings with a preface to the second verse of
+"Kitty Wells," his condolence being entirely lost on Belle-Ann.
+
+As he gathered a solemn breath to begin, the disconsolate girl, sitting
+on the vine-bench in the moonlight, raised a protesting hand and stopped
+him.
+
+"Slab, ef I don't blow th' horn I jest got t' cry."
+
+Slab settled the banjo jerkily between his long, thin legs and rolled
+indulgent eyes upon her.
+
+"Now, looky heah, honey; yo' ain't gwine t' take on so, is you? Yo'
+oughter be tickled inter a keniption fit, yo' ought, 'stead of actin'
+up. Why, honey, jist give praise to de good Lord dat yo' at las' got de
+chanst! Yo'll cum back home powerful smart an' edicated, like my missus
+wus 'fore de war.
+
+"An' when a li'le gal gits edication, she naturally gits purttier; an'
+if yo' gits purttier dan yo' is now--why, honey, yo'll shore cum back er
+angel! Now, doan be pesticatin'. Smile up, smile up! Gwine t' school
+ain't gwine t' kill nobudy."
+
+As Slab concluded these cheering words, he poised his banjo again and as
+his lips parted the girl stopped him with a gesture.
+
+"Slab, air thes my heart heah--right heah?" she queried, pressing a hand
+upon her breast.
+
+"Sho', honey!" Slab assured her testily, striving to disguise his own
+impatience. "Now, tell me why yo' ax dat--jist tell Slab what fer yo' ax
+sich er sorry question noways?"
+
+"Slab, I 'low my heart'll burst in two when I got t' go 'way!" she
+returned unsteadily, her black-fringed lids blinking bravely to keep
+back the mist that would creep across the violet of her eyes.
+
+Slab gazed at her speechless, and heaved a hopeless sigh.
+
+Tenderly, Belle-Ann lifted the blind hound's reluctant head from her
+lap, stepped nearer to the old negro, and held a profound, exacting
+finger close to his face.
+
+"Slab, will yo' promise me somethin'? I kin trust yo'-all, Slab, ef yo'
+promise ag'inst the witch. Will yo' promise Belle-Ann somethin', Slab?"
+urged the girl, and her sweet bell-voice fell subdued and imploring.
+
+Slab's mouth opened slowly and he hesitated. He would have died for
+Belle-Ann; but he was much opposed to dragging in the witch, because he
+feared to make his sacred witch a party to any contract that carried the
+slightest chance of rupture, and thereby hold him to eternal reprisal.
+
+"Will yo' promise thes, Slab?" the girl urged solemnly.
+
+"Air yo' sho' I kin do it, honey?" he probed, loose-lipped and with eyes
+that rolled wider.
+
+"Sho' yo' kin!"
+
+"Ez yo' say I kin do it, me promises," he assented dubiously.
+
+"Cross yo' heart on th' witch-block!" she demanded.
+
+He solemnized the pledge with a gnarled and bony hand, and the girl's
+eyes welled full and her throat pained.
+
+"Slab, yo' must promise to be good to ol' Ben heah--feed em an' bed em
+reg'lar, but don't give em no cracklin's. An', Slab, yo' must promise to
+pick the flowers every Sabbath, jest like I alers do--yo' knows the ones
+well's I do--pertic'lar th' for-get-me-nots over yon by th' grind-stone.
+Yo' must pick 'em in th' mornin' early, Slab--every Sabbath--an' put 'em
+on Maw Lutts's grave. Will yo' fergit?"
+
+A deep breath relieved Slab's tenseness as he agreed effusively.
+
+"Lord, goodness! Yo' jist leave it t' Slab, honey! He do dat ebry single
+Sabbaf!"
+
+"An', Slab, when hit gits cold an' th' leaves air gone an' th' flowers
+air all daid, yo' must pick th' geraniums outer th' boxes inside an' put
+'em on Maw's grave--an' when hit gits powerful cold an' snows hard an'
+th' snow gits piled up on Maw's grave--would yo' care--would yo' go,
+Slab, an'--an'--an'--push hit off--an'----"
+
+Her petitions thickened, tumbled together in her aching throat, and
+refused to cross her trembling lips.
+
+She turned away quickly. At the log bench she sank slowly down with her
+black head in her arm. The heavy curls clustered around her face and
+caressed her neck. She sobbed in soft, whimpering outbursts.
+
+The blind hound thrust his nose questioningly into her lap, licking her
+free hand, and caught the tears from her young heart warm upon his gray
+face. He whined aloud and reached for her wet cheek.
+
+The old negro fumbled at random and did not speak.
+
+Turning, he looked upward to where Cap Lutts sat in the flood of
+moonlight on the palm of rock; as silent and motionless as the inanimate
+pillar of granite under him. Slab's eyes wandered down to the trail and
+he spoke hastily to the distressed girl.
+
+"Honey, heah cum de boys!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE TRAITOR
+
+
+Belle-Ann jumped instantly to her feet, looked, brushed her eyes with
+her hand, and hastened to meet them, her curls bobbing and her bare legs
+and arms gleaming in the moon's luster.
+
+Little Bud turned off toward the cabin, but Lem's tall figure came
+straight ahead.
+
+"Lem," she cried excitedly, "I got t' go--dad sent word by Orlick. Dad's
+a comin' heah t' take me t' th' mission school. Air yo' sorry, Lem?"
+
+Lem halted as if struck. Then, recovering from the surprise, he took her
+hand and they continued toward the witch-elm block. Slab had
+disappeared.
+
+"Sho', I'm sorry, Belle-Ann," Lem answered. "Yo'-all don't 'low I'd be
+tickled t' lose yo', do yo'? But I 'low hit's fer th' best, an' yo' know
+Maw wanted hit, too," he ended, with a touch of sadness.
+
+"Yes, Lem," she agreed, "thet's why I'll try t' be brave, 'cause Maw
+Lutts alers talked t' me 'bout my schoolin' same's she did 'bout th'
+church. Lem, I do wish Maw could jest see th' new church now thet pap's
+got hit finished! Hit looks jest like she said, Lem. I 'low she'd jest
+cry fer gladness, wouldn't she?"
+
+Lem nodded absently and quickly put a question that had been waiting
+from the instant he heard of Orlick's visit.
+
+"What time ded Orlick cum?"
+
+"He cum short past sun-down," returned Belle-Ann as the two sat down on
+the bench.
+
+"Ded he parley 'bout long?"
+
+"Jest a short spell. I wouldn't talk t' em much."
+
+Lem stood up. He was long and lank, but broad of shoulder for a boy of
+eighteen. He had a pleasing, intelligent countenance, with light,
+steadfast eyes that never looked askance. He removed his wide, soft hat
+and gazed up to Eagle Crown.
+
+"Ded pap see Orlick?" he asked.
+
+Belle-Ann shook her curls in the negative.
+
+"Belle-Ann, ef yo' takes pertic'lar notice, every time Jutt Orlick cums
+t' Moon mountain somethin' alers happens--somethin' goes wrong. 'Peers
+like things starts back'ards."
+
+"I 'low he air a hoodoo," observed Belle-Ann: "but he do look
+soldierfied, don't he, Lem?" she added, with a subtle regard for
+Orlick's military aspect and his bombastic airs.
+
+Lem shot a jealous, reproachful look at the girl, turning sharply as she
+rose, and pointed down to a gap in the scrub timber, which was half
+lighted by the moon. They caught the fleeting shadow of a horseman
+mounting the trail to the cabin.
+
+"Hit's Orlick!" Lem announced.
+
+The sound of metallic hoof-strokes came rapid and distinct. When the
+rider had looped the spur they beheld the front of Orlick's horse coming
+head on up the moon-path, his hocks now in the air. As always, Orlick
+had flank-spurred his mount on the last lap, and the animal plunged,
+panting, to the horse-block, and brought up stiff-legged, with
+red-rimmed nostrils and distended jaws, fighting a cruel Spanish bit.
+
+Orlick rolled out of the Mexican saddle, laughed shortly, and drawled:
+
+"Howdy, yo'-all?" and smirked as he always did. "I hain't seen yo'-all
+in a coon's age, Lem," he added cordially, though his evil eyes were
+upon the girl as he extended his hand in greeting.
+
+Lem Lutts touched the outstretched hand briefly.
+
+Belle-Ann stood aloof with a look of suspicious admiration on her lovely
+countenance.
+
+"I hain't seen yo'-all 'bout much nuther," answered Lem, with a
+contemptuous scrutiny of Orlick's brave trappings. Orlick chuckled.
+
+"Yes--I'm gittin' over th' country a little nowadays. But, say, Lem, I
+cum up to tell ye thar's a stranger down at th' cypress cut what wants
+to come up. He's down yonder now a waitin'. He's got some business with
+the cap'n."
+
+Belle-Ann shrank away, shuddering.
+
+"I rec'on hit's Burton, th' ghost-man," she muttered under her breath.
+
+Always since that memorable day when she had knelt beside Maw Lutts'
+dead body in the yard did the coming of a stranger thrill her with a
+great fear--a fear that stirred the venom that already tenanted her
+heart; a vivific thing, spawned at the killing of Maw Lutts. Time had
+never healed this wound. Time had only nurtured its corrosive, growing
+poison. Time that came to others of mankind to succor and heal, had
+never assuaged Belle-Ann's heart-hurt.
+
+Struggle as she would to forget, she only remembered that she had
+struggled, and the aching grew on. It was a silent, self-contained
+suffering,--a hatred for the law that sneaked into their home and dealt
+death. This supernatural hulk, Burton, embodied the law. Burton, this
+lupine, leering lover of blood--this killer of women.
+
+When Orlick announced that a stranger had business with the old man, the
+revenuer's ugly visage popped before the girl more vividly than ever.
+That grim hated shadow of prey darted upon her tensioned senses and made
+her shiver, sending a-scutter and a-scurry all the innate righteous
+instincts whose home had been her heart; leaving in its void a well of
+hate that congealed and turned into a live thing, that squirmed,
+burrowed, and crawled to and fro in her soul; armed with a hundred claws
+to goad and agonize and spread a misery through her young life. All this
+warped the girl's spiritual being and imperiled the beauty of her
+countenance, for at times it mingled the lettering of its presence with
+the charms of her face.
+
+Without a word, but with a significant look at Belle-Ann, Lem took the
+cow-horn suspended over his shoulder by a rawhide, pointed it upward
+toward the lone figure on the cliff and gave a long, sonorous blast.
+Instantly the solitary figure on high moved and disappeared from view.
+
+Belle-Ann drew apart, while the two men stood together, Orlick doing the
+talking, and watched for the old man to come out into the trail.
+
+There came a slight sound behind and, like a shadow, old Cap Lutts
+stepped forth under the trees and confronted them, his polished rifle
+gleaming in the moonlight, and a big, spotted hound hugging his heels.
+
+His straight, powerful form rose to giant proportions. His very presence
+pulsed keen discernment, subtle alertness, an agile, seemingly
+implacable strength and aggressive tenacity.
+
+He listened in silence as Orlick told his mission and then said quietly:
+
+"Lem, you an' Orlick go down yonder an' lead th' party up heah ef he's
+alone; if he ain't yo'-all blow the horn. An' yo', Orlick," the old man
+added, with eyes that bored into Orlick's smirking face, "what air thes
+I heered about your trapesin' around over yon in Southpaw?"
+
+Orlick shifted his weight to the other foot.
+
+"Yo'-all ain't 'lowin' to fix nothin' on Jutt Orlick--on a Orlick,
+cap'n?" he cried huskily. "Where's my pap an' four brothers--where's
+Hank an' Bill an' Tom Orlick, an' Tod an' old Elijah Lutts Orlick?
+
+"Shot to pieces heah on Hellsfork, fightin' the revenuers an' th'
+McGills! I kin lead yo' to their bones down yonder!" He pointed his
+trooper's hat trembling in his outstretched hand.
+
+"An' whut air I heah fer t'-night? Yo'-all ain't 'lowin' to fix nothin'
+on the onlyst Orlick left, cap'n?"
+
+Throughout this fervent defense not for one instant did the piercing,
+chill eyes of old Lutts leave the boy's face.
+
+"Orlick," he began slowly, "I hain't studyin' 'bout the past. Hit's the
+time a comin'. I jest axed yo', have yo' been over in Southpaw?"
+
+"Naw, I hain't!" declared Orlick, flushing slightly.
+
+"Have yo' snooked with the revenuers below?"
+
+"Not by er damn sight!"
+
+"Leastways," observed the old man as he drew back, "I 'low yo're in bad
+company, son; but ef yo' ever cross Hellsfork er I know plumb sho' thet
+yo' snook with th' revenuers below, don't never 'low me t' git eyes on
+ye', Orlick."
+
+"Don't force th' old man t' lift a hand agin' yo' pint-blank, git out o'
+th' mountings first. Now, yo' boys go an' fetch th' stranger party up.
+Ef hit's thet infernal ghost-dog revenuer, don't skeer em off--bring em
+up, quick! Ef hit's a sheriff, don't hurt his feelin's--bring em up,
+cose I'm lonesome like."
+
+Orlick fully understood the import of Cap Lutts' parting words, and,
+casting a covert look toward the cabin where he knew Belle-Ann lingered
+in the shadows, he swaggered along after Lem, leading his horse. And the
+while a bold design shaped itself in his perfidious heart as he
+pretended loyal friendship to the silent boy trudging beside him.
+
+A cloud of dark suspicion hung over the head of Jutt Orlick.
+
+Things had happened in the mountains the past two years which
+subsequently pointed accusing fingers in his direction. Unless he was
+present no one ever knew just where Orlick was.
+
+Two years since he had disappeared and come back after nine months,
+wearing soldier's garb, which he had affected ever since.
+
+He told lurid tales of his conquests and adventures with the Mexican
+revolutionists. He elaborated on the gilded splendor and the beautiful
+things that the big cities held.
+
+He recounted deeds of heroism abroad in which he was sole hero and he
+poured these fabulous tales into Belle-Ann's ears at every opportunity.
+
+At the end of his periodical migrations he always returned with a new
+horse, and sums of money that astounded the humble mountaineers.
+
+For more than two years, Orlick had been determined to possess himself
+of Belle-Ann Benson. But he resolved first to free himself of Lem Lutts.
+
+He had noted of late the subtle little courtesies exchanged between
+Belle-Ann and Lem, and he knew that they had arrived at the realization
+that they were not brother and sister. Was it not reasonable to conclude
+that, in view of the girl's beauty, it was only a matter of time before
+Lem would take Belle-Ann for his own?
+
+The mere thought stirred Orlick's hot blood to a fury, as with a scowl
+he fixed his eyes upon the figure leading the downward trail and he was
+seized with a mad impulse to shoot Lem in the back.
+
+His hand crept downward. The cool contact of steel in his holster woke
+him to his folly and he trailed along, curbing his impatience, resolved
+to follow to the letter the plan he had worked out to get Belle-Ann out
+of the mountains and away, or bring ruin down on the whole Lutts family.
+
+When Lem Lutts returned to the cabin an hour later, with a large, tired
+man and a fagged-out horse, Orlick was not with them.
+
+Old Lutts was pacing to and fro in the moonlight. He was occupied mainly
+with thoughts of his new church and the dedication on Sunday.
+
+The stranger below was to him a matter of secondary concern. He had been
+a hunted man all his life. Therefore, there was neither novelty nor
+consternation in the reflection.
+
+The old man stalked up to the horse-block and greeted the stranger.
+
+"Howdy? Sort o' warmish t'-night. Whut mought be yo'-all's business
+seein' me?"
+
+"This is Mr. Lutts, I take it?" ventured the newcomer.
+
+"Thes air ol' Cap Lutts, o' Moon mountain," corrected the old man in a
+precise tone.
+
+"Yes, certainly," continued the man hastily. "Well, captain, I'm a
+deputy sheriff. I was despatched to see you and deliver a message from
+the sheriff."
+
+Here he revealed his shield, then unbuckled his belt, containing a pair
+of pistols, and hung them over the saddle-tree.
+
+"And, captain," he pursued wearily but genially, "I'm dog tired. I've
+been five hours coming up the last five miles. Can I talk with you a
+bit, captain?"
+
+The old man, who had listened intently, spoke up now, and there was a
+touch of sarcasm in his drawl.
+
+"Yo' air a new deputy, I 'low--hain't yo', sheriff?"
+
+"You are right. I was appointed two weeks ago, and I'll get even with
+somebody for sending me on this Godless trail--I smell some spite
+somewhere."
+
+"Wal, set down heah, sheriff, an' perceed," invited Lutts, with a
+generous gesture toward the bench.
+
+"I can state my position and my errand, captain, in very few words,"
+began the new deputy, who had plainly lost a measure of his official
+zeal along the almost impassable trail, and now appeared disgruntled.
+
+"The sheriff, the district attorney, and the collector of this district
+have gotten together and have drafted an ultimatum and I was chosen to
+deliver it to you and get your answer. They propose to quash all the
+various indictments now against you for illicit distilling and for
+shootings alleged through warrants by some of the McGill faction."
+
+"Both the Commonwealth, the civil and Federal authorities stand as a
+unit to clear the dockets of these charges, providing that you come down
+and sign an agreement to cease all further operations pertaining to feud
+wars and the illicit distilling of liquor and turn over all your present
+distilling property to the government. That's it in a nutshell. I just
+want your answer--yes or no, captain--and my work is done."
+
+The sheriff looked up into the inscrutable face for answer. The old man
+smiled good-humoredly and tossed his long hair backward.
+
+"I air all-fired sorry, sheriff," he responded calmly, "thet yo'-all hit
+heah so late. I want t' show yo' th' gawspel-house. I built hit all
+myself--every dang lick an' cut, sheriff; an' I air a givin' hit t'
+Kaintucky, pertic'lar these parts whar hit's needed bad like. Lem, tote
+thes hoss back an' rub em an' fresh em an' fill em an' stir thet Slab
+roun'. Tell em t' step like a catamount an' hash up a hot snack fo' th'
+sheriff. Pull a yaller young pullet offen the south limb o' th' burnt
+cedar over yon. An', Lem-boy, yo'-all tell Belle-Ann t' jog thet Slab up
+a pinch. Sheriff, yo' hain't a goin' 'way from heah, leastways till
+mornin'.
+
+"Ez I wus a sayin', sheriff, we-uns air bin a needin' a gawspel-house
+hyarbouts fo' a hundred yeers--now hit's arriv'. Thar's some powerful
+pesky folks hyarbouts, sheriff," with a deprecating gesture towards
+Southpaw.
+
+"Th' McGills mought hev j'ined in ef they'd ac'ed right. Maw wus fo'
+peace--Maw Lutts wus--Maw alers hankered fo' peace. She air up yon in
+th' groun' now. Thet damn ghost-man, Burton, kilt her!"
+
+Lutts turned his face quickly away and was silent. A huge hand slid
+coaxingly over the gleaming surface of the rifle-barrel between his
+legs.
+
+"Sheriff, hit hain't thes rifle-gun's fault--hit hain't my eye ner my
+hand, I'll swear. Sheriff, I've hit thet damn ghost-revenuer ez many
+times ez yo' see rocks at yore feet thar. He air holler inside, sheriff.
+
+"Yo' know outside shoots hain't a hurtin' nobuddy--hit's when th'
+bullets gits down in a buddy's in'ards an' gits tangled up with his
+insides thet counts. Thet revenuer hain't got no insides. He air holler,
+sheriff."
+
+The old man paused in silence, his auditor pondering the manner of man
+before him.
+
+"Ez I wus a sayin', sheriff, th' McGills mought 'a' j'ined my
+gawspel-house ef they had ac'ed half right. One Sabbath mornin', 'fore I
+built th' gawspel-house, I follered Maw Lutts down t' th' brink of
+Hellsfork, Maw a totin' a truce-flag.
+
+"I hollers across t' ol' Sap McGill; an' I says, 'Sap McGill,' I
+says--'seein' thet we-all air even up now on th' killin', ef yo'-all
+lays down I lays down.' An' Maw Lutts up an' hollers across, too, an'
+says: 'Sap McGill, ef yo'-all lays down yo' kin jine th' gawspel-house
+pap 'lows t' built on Hellsfork, an' we-uns 'll all have our sins wyshed
+away an' stop a fightin'.'
+
+"Sheriff, ol' Sap, he hollers back, quick like, an' onery ez a varmint,
+an' says: 'To hell with yore gawspel-house on Hellsfork! Hyars yo'
+answer.' An' he shot me twice 'fore I could believe he wus so low-down
+onery an' pesky as to do hit, an' Maw a holdin' up th' truce-flag! So I
+had t' kill em."
+
+The old man's eyes swept the moonlit distance that embraced the church
+as he went on.
+
+"I 'low we-uns 'll show yo' th' gawspel-house early in th' mornin',
+sheriff. Ef yo' don't 'low t' go I'll pick yo' up in my arms an' tote
+yo' down thar. Yo' got t' see hit. Thar hain't no purttier gawspel-house
+down Blue-grass."
+
+Belle-Ann stood before them.
+
+"I 'low yo'-all kin be comin' along now, pap, 'fore th' snack gits
+cold," she said shyly in her low, sweet drawl.
+
+As the men rose the sheriff caught himself ogling. Following the
+gliding, moccasined feet, he noted the grace and loveliness of her
+lithe, round form. He assured himself that he had never beheld such
+artless, unusual, natural beauty in a girl.
+
+And he pondered soberly upon a lineage of blue blood manifest in her
+face, her form, her voice, and manner.
+
+A restless murmur rippled through the cool cedars where the birds had
+gone to sleep. Cautiously a small shape with wizened face slid from out
+the mystic shadows, lugging a rifle twice his length. Even for his
+eleven years, Buddy Lutts was undersized.
+
+His body was thin and small. His reasoning was little. But his heart was
+big with hate for that devil-thing, the law. He vanished as noiselessly
+and furtively as he had come. Little Bud had overheard every word the
+sheriff had uttered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN ULTIMATUM
+
+
+A veil of azure morning mist lingered at the apex of Henhawk's knob. A
+young eagle--aggressively bold in his youth--sallied forth into the
+mystic dawn, setting himself high on Eagle Crown rock, and surveyed the
+dim world with a challenge in his blinkless agate eye. The air was
+fragrant with the perfume of a thousand blossoms.
+
+Splashes of crimson and gold dappled the east, and a great sun shot its
+lances of molten glory beyond the mountain-tops.
+
+Before the sun showed half its russet disk the deputy sheriff sat his
+horse at the witch-elm block in front of the Lutts cabin, preparatory to
+departure.
+
+The Lutts household, including Slab, was on hand with hospitable
+farewells--though little Bud hung back suspiciously.
+
+At no time during the sheriff's stop had Cap Lutts uttered a word of
+reference to the business that had brought the officer to his door. Nor
+had the sheriff broached the subject again. With keen understanding and
+quick insight he waited patiently for the answer to his mission.
+
+But now, as he sat his horse on the verge of departure, he looked at old
+Lutts expectantly and with direct inquiry in his eyes. Lutts caught the
+import, and answered with small concern.
+
+"Oh, yes! Yo' jest tell th' sheriff an' them revenuers down below thet
+ef they want th' ole man bad 'nough, t' cum up an' root em out."
+
+The deputy knew this was final, and as the old moonshiner's great hand
+closed over his in parting the officer secretly hoped that the arm of
+the law would fall short of the Lutts domicile.
+
+"Well, captain, I'm afraid they'll start something below--especially
+that man over from Frankfort--that Burton. He's awful determined, and he
+blames us some. Good-by!"
+
+A short distance away the officer pulled up short and, turning in his
+saddle, beckoned to the old man.
+
+The deputy leaned over and spoke in undertones, as though the rocks and
+trees had ears.
+
+"Captain," he asked significantly, "is that fellow, Jutt Orlick, a
+friend of yours? Remember, I haven't said a word, captain; not a word!"
+
+For a full minute the old man stood looking after the rider. Then a new
+light was added to his fixed suspicion of Jutt Orlick.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+High noon of the following day found Orlick riding slowly, with loose
+rein, up the twisted trail toward the Lutts cabin. His horse was
+lathered and blown.
+
+He had covered the rugged distance from the junction since dawn, where
+he had held all-night counsel with Peter Burton, the revenuer.
+
+With astuteness and cunning Orlick had instigated a conspiracy that
+would have done credit to a city-bred malefactor, and for which Burton
+praised him extravagantly and, incidentally, liquorously.
+
+Burton had offered to secure Orlick an appointment as deputy marshal in
+the eighth district at Danville as recompense for his espionage and
+treason against his people. But even Orlick's audacious spirit cast the
+thought of this honor out of his mind decisively, and not without a
+shudder.
+
+Providing the raid succeeded, upon the plea that Orlick feared the
+Luttses, Burton had pledged himself to keep Lem and old Captain Lutts in
+jail to the last technical hour. He further promised to frustrate any
+attempt at communication with the Lutts faction and intercept any
+messages that they might attempt to launch from the prison.
+
+Burton confided to Orlick that his chief aim now was to capture and take
+the Luttses to Frankfort, out of the jurisdiction of the county, and
+isolate them from the subtle influences that had always favored them in
+the surrounding counties.
+
+The revenuer admitted that he entertained grave doubts as to taking old
+Captain Lutts alive; but he hoped to capture Lem Lutts, at any rate, and
+break the boy's stoic spirit and coerce him into disclosing the
+whereabouts of the old still that had flooded Hellsfork with moonshine
+for two decades.
+
+But Burton did not know Lem as Orlick knew him, and to Orlick the
+prospect of a long term of confinement for Lem Lutts was very pleasing.
+Notwithstanding, Orlick knew that Lem would get out of jail
+subsequently, and that he--Orlick--might by then be a marked man.
+
+Orlick was fully aware that when the suspicions already against him on
+Hellsfork had shaped themselves into convincing proofs of treason, his
+life would be worth nothing in Kentucky.
+
+The Lutts faction would follow him even into the blue-grass precincts.
+They would dog him to the very threshold of the sheriff's office. His
+undoing would be swift and certain--and pitiless.
+
+But all this was now a remote contingency in the face of his unbridled
+passion for Belle-Ann, and it was with a sense of bravado that he
+realized it was a mere matter of time before the calamity of exposure
+would overtake him.
+
+But against the advent of this unerring nemesis, he banked on at least a
+few weeks, and probably a few months, during which, he told himself, he
+might win out and have Belle-Ann ensconced safely in some big city, far
+removed from the arm of the law and the limits of Kentucky.
+
+After that he did not care.
+
+He had cast the die, and had staked his life upon the outcome. If by any
+ill luck the outcome demanded his life, he stood ready to pay the toll.
+That Lem Lutts should never get Belle-Ann he had fully determined.
+
+He regretted that Peter Burton had not killed Lem long ago, as he had
+always hoped.
+
+He would have risked the chance and steered Burton up to the Lutts
+still, but he could not do so for the ample reason that he did not know
+where it was. He had known, so long as he had remained a mountaineer in
+good standing; but old Captain Lutts had moved the still in the early
+stages of Orlick's mysterious sojourns, and the faction had not since
+volunteered to tell him its whereabouts, and he was loath to jeopardize
+his own skin in looking for it.
+
+However, while Orlick was serving Burton, he had served himself doubly.
+The smooth, unruffled manner in which his plans were unfolding up to
+date filled him with high glee, and his spirits soared to the skies.
+
+Wild and desolate as this wilderness country is, it is nevertheless
+almost impossible for an outsider to invade its precincts without his
+presence being mysteriously communicated to the denizens of the hills.
+Whenever an invasion is accomplished secretly it is invariably
+engineered by some traitor who knows every nook and cranny in the
+mountains.
+
+But Orlick had determined to double-cross Burton and circumvent his
+plan, if Belle-Ann manifested any substantial symptom of requiting his
+suit for her hand or yielded to his persuasions.
+
+To-day as Orlick halted in the shade of a poplar to rest his spent
+horse, he rolled a cigarette contemplatively with a half smile on his
+lips. If Belle-Ann favored him, he told himself that he would remove
+every seeming obstacle that promised to come between them. This was a
+compact ratified with himself when he rolled the cigarette and smiled;
+and if he could not win her, he would at least deprive her of Lem Lutts,
+through the medium of a quick, desperate coup, the details of which he
+had already confided to Burton.
+
+As Orlick lit his cigarette, cast the match away, and hooked his right
+leg over the saddle-horn, he gave himself up to the favorite meditation
+upon which his fancy had fed for months. With a vain-glorious grunt he
+regarded his new trooper's outfit.
+
+He was exuberantly conscious of the great roll of bank-notes bulging in
+his pocket. And, too, it was all easy money. He confessed this as he
+muttered above his breath:
+
+"Dead easy--easier 'n easy!"
+
+In truth, he had never imagined that one man could get hold of so much
+money so easily as he had done since his lucky affiliations with a
+certain one-eyed gentleman known as Red Herron, who engineered a
+nocturnal business in Louisville.
+
+Money was a necessary adjunct, especially to a lover, and lent an
+atmosphere of reality to this lover's stock of artifices.
+
+Moreover, Orlick nurtured a robust desire to see Belle-Ann's physical
+beauty adorned and enhanced with smart attire in emulation of the
+handsome girls that met his admiring eyes in the streets of Louisville.
+Orlick's fancy, furthermore, had the hardihood to picture his wedding
+tour, with Belle-Ann as his wife.
+
+Their trip on a luxurious Pullman train to Omaha! Ah, how the people
+would stare at this lovely, stylish girl--his wife! And he had the money
+in his pocket at this moment, and knew where to get more.
+
+So excited was he by this scintillating dream of requited love that, as
+if to hasten to its glorious reality, he threw his foot suddenly into
+the stirrup, rolled the spur against the horse's ribs, and proceeded
+toward the Lutts abode, flushed with a mighty confidence.
+
+Nearing the cabin, Orlick's brow grew black as he thought that Lem
+Lutts's possible presence at home might thwart his conquest.
+
+A young hound, with a fore-leg bandaged in splints, lay in the shade
+near the horse-block. The dog, emitting barks of alarm, sidled up on
+three legs and sniffed suspiciously.
+
+The Lutts' dogs knew Orlick well enough, but they had always met him
+with growls of distrust, and had never become reconciled to his
+presence.
+
+Orlick cast his eyes about, but he saw no signs of the family. He
+stripped the horse; and, picking up a cob, made shift to clean the
+animal's hind quarters, where the lather had congealed into hard, salty
+cakes, while his eyes were searching the premises for the object of his
+visit.
+
+Leaving the horse to follow his own will, Orlick sat down on the bench
+and waited.
+
+He remained there for a full half-hour, in compliance with ethics of the
+mountains, which prescribes that a caller shall wait at a distance,
+especially where there are womenfolk, until invited to advance.
+
+When the dogs bark and the inmates fail to appear there is all the more
+reason why he should wait.
+
+With the peculiar instinct a horse has for locating water, Orlick's
+animal had taken himself off at a brisk trot toward the log stable.
+
+Missing his horse, Orlick looked about and caught a fleeting glimpse of
+him through the vista of trees, and, knowing that if he got to the water
+in his heated condition he would founder, Orlick dashed away in pursuit.
+
+Thus it happened that he came unexpectedly upon Belle-Ann, who stood at
+the horse-trough, urging Orlick's animal away from the water. Orlick
+stopped short, regarded her confusedly; then, removing his trooper's
+hat, executed a bow and smirked copiously.
+
+His heart thumped wildly in that instant. Each time he saw Belle-Ann he
+vowed mentally that she was more beautiful than before. The sight of her
+invariably threw him into a state of nervous flurry, and drove from his
+mind the pretty things he had previously decided to say to her.
+
+Small wonder then that he stood abashed before her. Never in all his
+travels had he seen her equal.
+
+"Yo' wusn't jest a lookin' fo' me--eh--Belle-Ann?" he managed to say
+awkwardly. She scanned him deprecatingly.
+
+"No--I jest wusn't," she agreed. "Th' boys hain't home, Orlick," she
+added pointedly, seating herself upon an inverted wagon-bed near by.
+
+Orlick sauntered over and sat down, too, now regaining his poise.
+
+"I didn't know I wus comin', either--till a short spell 'fore I
+started," he said tentatively.
+
+Belle-Ann eyed the horse, now standing under a poplar, too tired to
+crop.
+
+"Yo' must hev started frum th' ocean, didn't yo'?" she asked, with a
+gesture toward the animal.
+
+"Aw--he's soft, Belle-Ann. I 'lowed I'd rest em up a bit--till th' boys
+cum," he ended lamely.
+
+"Why don't yo'-all buy a mountain hoss? Thes hoss wasn't cut out fo'
+thes country," observed Belle-Ann.
+
+"Mabby hit's 'cause I hain't aimin' t' stay in thes country, Belle-Ann."
+
+She shot a quick look at him. He met her eyes and noted a glint of
+suspicion in them, so he hurried to forestall any utterance in reference
+to his mysterious sojourns the past two years.
+
+"Yo' see, I'm layin' off t' git married, Belle-Ann," he explained,
+watching her oval features narrowly; "an' when I do, I 'low t' settle
+down below, whar th' folks stan's t' give a honest man a chanst."
+
+Belle-Ann turned wondering eyes upon him.
+
+She had never before heard anything coming from Orlick but arrogant
+self-praise; hence she marveled at his meek voice and doleful aspect.
+
+"Whut makes yo' look so sorry--air yo're gal so powerful ugly?" Try as
+she would, she could not restrain a sudden burst of mirth, and she
+laughed outright.
+
+Now, if Belle-Ann's accents were soothing and captivating in speech,
+verily, her laugh rivaled the rippling sweetness of the lute. It trailed
+across Orlick's mood like a tonic and fired his face with a hot flush of
+anticipation.
+
+"Ugly!" he ejaculated--"ugly--no, Belle-Ann. She air th' all-fired'st
+purttiest gal in all Kentucky--an' she hain't fer away, either, I 'low!"
+
+Saying this, he came perilously near to overrunning the ethics of the
+mountains and seizing her in his arms and smothering her with his
+kisses.
+
+With an effort he restrained himself.
+
+His vehement words had startled her. She scrutinized his countenance
+keenly. What she saw brought the hot blood to her cheeks and left no
+doubt in her mind as to the significance of his eulogy and his
+impassioned eyes.
+
+His look was an insult. She rose and tossed the elf-curls back from her
+dimpled face. Orlick sat a moment speechless, his mouth open, and
+studied the graceful length of her back.
+
+Now she faced him again and spoke, and her words carried a volume of
+reproach.
+
+"Orlick," she began, "why do yo'-all cum t' see th' boys fo'--when
+you're a drinkin'?"
+
+By way of denial he suddenly gave vent to a raucous guffaw and whipped
+his knee with his hat, which artifice he calculated would enhance his
+prestige off-hand. On the contrary, his strident laugh grated strangely
+upon the girl's mood.
+
+"Drinkin'--drinkin'!" he cried out, amazed. "Why, Belle-Ann, I hain't
+teched a drap o' liquor fo' six months! An' what's a heap sight mo',
+Belle-Ann, I hain't never a goin' t'!"
+
+Here he stood up and raised his hand high over his head. "An' I hope
+Gawd'll paralyze me daid ef I ever touch th' stuff agin!" he declared
+with a profound, solemn flourish, calculated to emphasize a pledge.
+
+A sudden look of pity grew in the girl's eyes as she studied his face, a
+look which Orlick mistook for interest.
+
+"Yo' hain't a gittin' down on me like th' tuther fools, air yo',
+Belle-Ann?"
+
+Belle-Ann smiled ambiguously, lifted her pretty arched brows, and
+centered her azure eyes upon a red-head which at that instant was
+hammering a hole into a dead sycamore hard by. Orlick sighed.
+
+"Yo' orten t' git down on a feller lessen he's done somethin' pesky," he
+resumed tentatively. "What hev I done more'n cum an' go peaceable--an'
+make more money than any of 'em? Yo' see, Belle-Ann, our people hain't
+got no use fer a feller whut's got spunk enough t' git out o' th'
+mountains an' make money. Hit's hard draggin' when a feller's tryin' t'
+do right an' everybuddy ag'in em."
+
+His words stopped. Belle-Ann gazed his way. Orlick looked like a martyr,
+the very picture of persecuted righteousness. The left corner of his
+mouth, usually tilted, descended in emulation of its mate.
+
+His woebegone eyes followed the sky-line, and he appeared to be on the
+verge of an oral prayer.
+
+Belle-Ann's tender, unsophisticated heart was momentarily swayed with
+compassion. She glanced covertly at his averted, forlorn face, and her
+frigidity thawed a trifle as she was cognizant of an element of truth in
+Orlick's claims.
+
+She knew that a mountaineer was respected and eligible only while he
+stayed closely in the mountains.
+
+Orlick sat rigid, immobile, with eyes afar and apparently utterly
+oblivious of Belle-Ann's presence at that moment. She walked back to the
+wagon-bed.
+
+Her low, dulcet voice roused him out of his lethargy.
+
+"Orlick," she said, "why don't yo'-all stop traipsin' round an' snookin'
+below--an' cum Sabbath an' jine pap's church? Don't yo'-all want t' be a
+Christian?"
+
+If all the sins of Orlick's past had taken life and come up out of the
+ground at his feet to confront him he would have been less shocked. He
+flushed guiltily.
+
+He started perceptibly and squirmed in speechless discomfort.
+Belle-Ann's wide, clear eyes were upon him, and as he hesitated her lips
+parted to speak.
+
+"Eh?" he gurgled.
+
+"I say--don't yo'-all----"
+
+As though not daring to hear that seductive voice repeat its query, he
+spoke up hastily.
+
+"Why, sho', Belle-Ann!" he blurted in confusion. "O' course, I'd like t'
+be a Christian--an' I'll sho' be at th' ded'cation Sabbath. Belle-Ann,
+air yo' down on me 'cose I go below t' make money what I can't make th'
+likes of hyarbouts?"
+
+Orlick suddenly produced the roll of bank-notes, and, shuffling them up,
+rained them down in one greenish, crisp pile of opulence upon the
+wagon-bed.
+
+This unexpected spectacle staggered the girl's senses for the moment.
+She had never seen so much money in all her life before. Her eyes grew
+round with astonishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ORLICK'S MONEY SPURNED
+
+
+"Oh, Orlick!" she breathed in amazement.
+
+Unconsciously she sat down on the wagon-bed, with the pile of money
+beside her; and thus, wholly enthralled, she muttered faint
+exclamations. Orlick's eyes glittered in their devouring scrutiny, fixed
+upon Belle-Ann's beauty.
+
+"Oh, Orlick," she reiterated, "is thes all yore money? Where did yo' git
+all thes money, Orlick?"
+
+For an instant he fumbled blindly for words; then found them at the end
+of his short, ingratiating laugh. He lied with a gusto that reddened his
+face.
+
+"Git hit!" he echoed blatantly. "Why, Belle-Ann, I worked fo' hit! I'm
+trainin' hosses below, I git a hundred a month, Belle-Ann; an' I don't
+drink, an' I 'low t' save my money, I do, 'cose yo' know I 'low t' git
+married, Belle-Ann; an' hit takes a powerful sight o' money t' keep a
+wife like I'm aimin' t' do.
+
+"I hain't aimin' t' keep my wife in these mountains. She'll dry up an'
+blow away 'fore a buddy kin git to her to bury her. I air a goin' t' buy
+a nice house in Louisville an' fill hit up with fancy fixin's, an', talk
+about fine, fancy clothes--well, mebby my wife won't hev some fine
+things, 'cose I got th' money t' git 'em with, Belle-Ann!"
+
+"Orlick," she said, "how much do yo' 'low is heah?"
+
+So engrossed was she in lifting the bills one by one out of the tangled
+heap, examining both sides minutely, and laying them in one smooth
+stack, that she had heard little of Orlick's discourse, being vaguely
+conscious only that he was talking.
+
+"Why, Belle-Ann," said he, "hit's fo' hundred dollars!"
+
+He chuckled immoderately and pressed his cowlick down, which defiant
+tuft popped instantly back to its position of attention.
+
+"Yes," he went on, noting every look that crossed her lovely face as she
+proceeded, deeply absorbed in handling this dazzling pile of wealth.
+"Yes--an' a hundred a month comin' long all th' time. Thet hain't
+powerful bad fo' a boy like me--air hit, Belle-Ann?"
+
+Orlick rubbed his hands in the throes of self-exaltation and added a
+laugh that grated upon the girl's senses, inspiring her with a sudden
+impulse to end this conversation without delay.
+
+"I reckon I'll be a goin'. Slab'll cum soon from th' mill, an' I got
+some bakin' t' do."
+
+She made as if to rise. With a swift stride Orlick stood close to her,
+defeating this move. The money lay in one even, smooth pyramid on the
+wagon-bed.
+
+With one hand he snatched up the bills and laid them in Belle-Ann's lap.
+
+She tossed her curls, lifted her face, and fixed an inquiring look upon
+him. Above her his face had changed to something evil. His features were
+shot with a dull red from chin to brow. His lips were a-quiver with the
+words that clamored in his throat.
+
+"Belle-Ann, thet money 'is all yo'ren," he blurted out, "an' all I
+make's yo'ren, Belle-Ann; an' I want yo' t' run away with me an' marry
+me, eh? I want yo' t' go now!"
+
+This effrontery brought her to her feet, and the money spilled out on
+the ground. He stepped quickly in front of her and held up a restraining
+hand, blocking her intent to move away.
+
+"I bin a lovin' yo', Belle-Ann, I hev. I bin a lovin' yo'-all fo' mo'
+than two year gone. I'm a goin' t' keep on a lovin' yo', I air, an' I
+hain't 'lowin' t' let any man take yo' away from me. I make mo' money in
+a month than Lem makes in six, Belle-Ann. Yo'-all hain't got no business
+in these mountains noways.
+
+"Yo' belong down below where th' worl' kin see yo'--down in Louisville,
+er Lexington, among th' fine folks where yo' maw wus born, an' all
+dressed up like I'm lovin' t' dress yo', with a diamond ring, an' a
+watch, an' a gold bracelet; an' a trap with a cob-hoss which has a hock
+fling t' em--an' a fine house full o' fixin's."
+
+"Thet's the place yo'-all belongs by rights, an' thet's th' place I'm a
+goin' t' take yo'. I bin in all th' big towns below, an' in Mexico, an'
+I'll swear t' Gawd I hain't never seen a gal with yore purtiness! They
+hain't no gal a livin' with curls fixed aroun' a face like yo'ren! Gawd
+only made one pair o' blue eyes--yo' got 'em! Heah, Belle-Ann, I want
+yo' t' marry me, eh? Cap an' th' boys air gone, an' Slab's away. Let's
+hurry off now, eh, Belle-Ann?" he urged in breathless tremor, his eyes
+afire with the quest that trumpeted in his heart.
+
+Throughout this impassioned discourse Belle-Ann had covertly maneuvered
+inch by inch toward the cabin. But Orlick had hedged in front, and they
+now stood scarce twenty feet from the wagon-bed.
+
+His words stirred her to a resentment that at first suffused her neck
+and face with a flood of crimson indignation; a humiliation that ebbed
+slowly away before the chill of a fear that now crept into her
+countenance, leaving her sweet, bowed lips a trifle pallid.
+
+"What ails yo', Belle-Ann--don't yo' 'low t' go?" he blurted out
+fiercely.
+
+She pointed toward the wagon-bed. In his voice she had sensed a note
+that boded ill.
+
+"Pick up yore money, Orlick; yo' mought need hit," she advised with calm
+dignity, while he stooped and gathered up the bills in a flurry of
+haste, stuffing them in a tangled mass into his pocket. When he turned
+about Belle-Ann was walking leisurely, but directly toward the cabin. He
+was at her side in a trice.
+
+He kept pace with her, dinning into her ears an avalanche of torrid
+appeals, urging her to flee with him. To his onslaught of frantic words
+she maintained a stoic silence.
+
+This apparent indifference seemed to enrage him beyond all
+self-restraint. At a point near the open door of the kitchen, he
+suddenly grasped her wrist and pulled her toward him. With a dexterous
+turn she put her back to him, twisting her arm so a cry of pain rose to
+her throat, though she closed her teeth hard upon it.
+
+He held on, and she felt the wheeze of his hot, fierce breath beating
+against her shoulder.
+
+She could not alter her position without throwing herself face to face
+with him, so she leaned outward, and then slowly turned her head and
+their eyes met; and in that instant Orlick loosened his grip as though a
+hot bar had been laid across his two hands.
+
+Sin had long been Orlick's adopted brother. Since early boyhood odious
+temptings and wild deeds had been his running-mates. When a soul has
+known naught but abasement and evil the sight of good is appalling. He
+stood away now, puzzled at first and strangely disturbed.
+
+She still stood half smiling. It was a pitying smile. Orlick was
+dismayed and crestfallen, and in that minute he knew that he had
+jeopardized his last hope.
+
+With a tenacious persistence, born to the breed of his kind, he ventured
+a lame apology. With his perfunctory laugh he suddenly stammered the
+fragments of words, confused and inarticulate.
+
+"Sho'," he was muttering. "I wus jest a funnin', Belle-Ann. Yo' thought
+I wus a goin' t' kiss yo'. I warn't. Ha! ha! ha!--thet's one on yo'-all!
+Yo' thought I wus a meanin' thet. I wus jest a funnin', Belle-Ann," he
+ended in a faltering attempt at vindication.
+
+"I air powerful sorry," she breathed in her soft tones, "I've hearn lots
+th' folks says, Orlick; but I wusn't a believin' thet yo'-all'd hurt a
+gurl thet-away."
+
+Her mild reproach stirred him to a vehement defense. He sprang forward.
+In two strides he was beside her.
+
+With a hand that shook perceptibly he strove gently to touch her hand.
+But she deftly raised her hands and locked them safely behind her head;
+a posture which seemed to fix the crucifixion of his one last, fleeting
+hope.
+
+"Good Gawd, Belle-Ann," he cried, "yo' hain't hurted! I wus only
+foolin'. I wouldn't darst kiss yo', Belle-Ann, lessen yo' let me. I'd
+die daid ten times 'fore I'd hurt yo'-all! Don't be mad, Belle-Ann," he
+pleaded guiltily.
+
+"I air powerful sorry--sorrier than I kin say--thet I ever knowed a
+man's name whut'd hurt a gurl. I don't know what pap an' Lem 'll say."
+
+The terrible look that flamed up into Orlick's face stopped her words.
+The mention of Lem's name had a galvanic effect upon him.
+
+It seemed to rake across all the rampant, violent passions of his
+nature.
+
+He was transformed instantly from a penitent subject to a dangerous
+animal-thing that knew naught but the power of its own brute strength. A
+scowl of jealous rage distorted his features. He stepped near to her.
+
+"I want yo' t' marry me, Belle-Ann," he panted. "Air yo' a goin' t' run
+away an' marry me? Jest say yes or no."
+
+The desperate, unbridled fury in his eyes sent a chill to her heart.
+Notwithstanding this, she preserved her outward calm and smiled back
+serenely upon his menacing grimace.
+
+"Well--yo' better saddle up. See, yore hoss is at th' trough. I'll wait
+at th' block."
+
+For a moment he stood nonplused. His shifting eyes lighted with the back
+tide of hope that had all but ebbed away.
+
+"Yo're a meanun' t' go?" he cried out in a voice husky with new
+exultation.
+
+"I said fo' you'-all t' saddle an' I'll meet yo' at th' block," she
+repeated.
+
+He started away, then jerked about and looked searchingly into her face,
+the light of a sudden suspicion a-glitter in his eyes.
+
+"Yo're aimin' t' run in an' shet th' door on me, hain't yo'?"
+
+Indignation was now in her eyes as she tossed her mass of curls and
+regarded him with a sense of outraged veracity.
+
+"I said I'd wait fo' you'-all at th' witch-block," she said once more.
+
+He turned quickly and hurried after his horse.
+
+True to her word, Belle-Ann was waiting for Orlick at the horse-block.
+She sat serenely, watching his advance. At the ends of a rawhide thong a
+cow-horn dangled at her side, and there was no longer any fear in her
+heart.
+
+When Orlick caught sight of the cow-horn he stopped as though a gun was
+leveled at him. A flash of fury swept his face. Then she raised the horn
+to her lips.
+
+"Lord!" he ejaculated; "don't blow, Belle-Ann. They hain't no need--I'm
+a ridin' now."
+
+His rage had instantly given place to a sudden meekness, and he came on,
+his twitching features the hue of chalk and the gloom of utter defeat in
+his eyes.
+
+Belle-Ann slowly swung the horn to her side. She leaned against the
+horse-block and watched him saddle. Her look was neither triumphant nor
+scathing. Orlick did not glance at her, nor did he speak, being
+strenuously engaged with the horse which, having recovered its spirits,
+fought the bit determinedly. The saddle was double-cinched, and when
+Orlick tightened the flank girth the animal revolved, kicking in a
+circle like a bucker.
+
+When he had leaped into the saddle Orlick wheeled about facing the girl,
+grinning, arrogant, and bombastic. The only sign of his thoughts was a
+peculiar glitter playing in the depths of his eyes.
+
+"I'll say good-day t' yo'-all, Miss Benson," he said, with mockery in
+his tone and giving vent to a laugh, though it carried a threatening
+note.
+
+"I 'low yo'-all'd be happier, Orlick," ventured Belle-Ann, "ef yo'd
+change a bit an' jine pap's church thes Sabbath a comin', an' settle
+down in th' mountains an' marry some gurl thet's better matched t'
+yo'-all."
+
+His vibrant laugh cut into her words.
+
+"Belle-Ann Benson," he cried, glowering down upon her placid face, with
+one arm pointing downward across the sunlit valley, "yo' know where
+_they_ be. My pap an' my fo' brothers air asleep down yander under th'
+willers on Pigeon Creek. They died fo' the Luttses, they ded--shot t'
+pieces a fightin' fo' yo'-all!
+
+"Who knows hit better 'n yo'? An' this day yo'-all run th' last Orlick
+off en yore place. Whut fer--'cause I'm a lovin' yo'? Whut fer air
+yo'-all so stuck up? 'Cose yore beaut'f'l, an' 'cose yore mother wus a
+blue-grasser, an' 'cose yore a goin' below t' school?
+
+"Yes, I reckon yo' an' Lem Lutts 'll be satisfied now--yo'-all run th'
+last Orlick offen yore place."
+
+[Illustration: "Yo' know where _they_ be."]
+
+With a vicious jerk he turned the horse's head around and spurred the
+animal so cruelly that it reared and plunged away down the steep, rocky
+trail at a gallop that threatened disaster to both horse and rider. And
+above the jumbled clatter of the horse's shod hoofs the echoes of
+Orlick's wild, defeated laugh came back to Belle-Ann's ears.
+
+She lingered a while at the horse-block, and pondered soberly upon the
+advisability of acquainting the old man and Lem with Orlick's visit.
+There could be only one consequence if she did this.
+
+Presently she decided humanely to keep her own counsel, and, slipping to
+the ground, she walked slowly toward the cabin.
+
+She walked slowly to allow the two unfortunate dogs tagging at her heels
+to keep pace with her. One was old Ben, the blind hound, the other a pup
+with a broken fore-leg which Belle-Ann had bolstered up with splints. As
+she approached the kitchen door, she beheld Slab standing in the yard,
+rigid, and looking at her with a beaming countenance. Slab, always an
+optimist, ever presented a hopeful face. But at this moment when she
+noted his presence with the tail of her eye, she glimpsed something so
+extraordinarily illuminating as straightway to pique her curiosity, and
+she stopped short and regarded him inquiringly. A prodigious grin now
+lured the corners of his mouth beyond sight; inspiring the freakish
+suspicion that they met at the back of his head.
+
+"Lan's sake'--what ails yo'--Slab?" she interrogated.
+
+The sound of her voice seemed to fuse some combustible deposit of
+exultation cached within him. Instantly he began leaping up and down in
+a most frantic and alarming manner, yelling in loud outbursts, causing
+the girl mentally to question his sanity.
+
+"I tol' ye so--I tol' ye so--I tol' ye so----"
+
+"What ails yo'-all?"
+
+"Halliluja'--halliluja'----" he answered, keeping time with a grotesque
+dance.
+
+"Slab--have yo' gone plum offin' yore haid?"
+
+Belle-Ann watched his antics curiously. Presently he ceased this
+puzzling exposition as abruptly as he had startled her, and advanced,
+smearing the sweat over his seamed face with one gnarled hand, and she
+noticed that he kept the other hand concealed behind his back. His
+unique plaudits having subsided, he stood before her. He screwed his
+head around and looked furtively about, his sable features now drawn
+into a visage of deep and profound solemnity. He spoke in low,
+mysterious accents.
+
+"Lil'le gal," he began softly, "lil'le gal,--sompin' hev drap--some
+mammon hev drap--some mammon, lil'le gal--drap plunk inter de ole man's
+han's. I got sompin' heah ter show yo'-all,--sompin' whut makes dis ole
+man nigh bus' wif gratatudness an' praise fo' de good Lo'd,--no--no--now
+yo' jest wait, honey--Slab'll show yo'--I mos' bus' when dis mammon drap
+down ter de ole man--drap down ter Slab, lil'le gal,--jest like olen
+times when de good Lo'd drap mammon down ter his starvin' chillens--de
+good Lo'd do sho' love dis ole niggah man, same ez he do good white
+folks. Belle-Ann--fo' seben nights Slab, he pray jes' ez hard--he pray
+de good Lo'd fo' wharwithal ter buy some flannel shirts wif. I done pray
+fo' seben nights, lil'le gal--den las' night, er big ole owl he sot on
+dat sycamore, an' he call me outen ma sleep--den I snuck down dar by dat
+wagon-bed, an' I wait, an' when Mr. Owl say 'hoo-ho' I say 'hoo-hoo'
+back--den when owl say 'hoo-ho' seben times, he goed away--Slab, he know
+zacly what dat mean--den I look roun' an' fine er lil'le bitty
+obeah-stone, an' lay it on de wagon-bed. Den dis morn'n' 'fore I goed
+ter de mill, I tuk er peek--but de obeah-stone war jes' zacly whar I lay
+him--den on ma way back jes' now, I tuk er nudder peek--obeah wus goed
+away. Den I look all roun' an' ma eyes see sompin' layin' clost up ter
+de wagon-bed--den ma han' reches down an' picks it up--an', lil'le gal,
+I mos' bus' wif happiness--whut yo' think I pluck, lil'le
+gal?--looky--looky--jes' look at dat bull, feedin' on dat green."
+
+A triumphant, gloating grin broke over his face again, as he exhibited
+to the impatient girl a crisp, new five-dollar bill, with a buffalo
+engraved thereon.
+
+As Belle-Ann took a bucket and gourd, and proceeded to water the flowers
+on the shady side of the house, a knowing smile lingered at the
+up-turned corners of her little red mouth. Again she was holding her own
+counsel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+UPON THE ALTAR
+
+
+The following morning, being Saturday, Cap Lutts held a conclave in the
+cavern that concealed the illicit still. When the conference was over
+half a dozen men were scattered about the mountain to watch for the
+approach of the law, which now seemed likely.
+
+Not until late in the day did Lutts and the boys reach the clearing and
+the gospel-house. By the time they had placed the last window casement
+and hung the church door nightfall was near at hand.
+
+As the old man sat rigid on a log in the clearing, at an angle where he
+could view the church--front, side, and bell-crowned roof--he was filled
+with a profound, soul-satisfying joy.
+
+Beside him sat Lem and little Bud; and the family of three regarded the
+church in silent admiration, for all was now ready for the great
+dedication to-morrow.
+
+The sun had turned from yellow to a crimson glory as it made for a niche
+in the haze-shrouded peaks. The billows of emerald, capped with frothy
+banks of blossoms that tumbled down from the savage heights above, grew
+somber as the shadows reached out and wrapped their arms about Moon
+mountain.
+
+Silhouetted across the clearing, the little church contributed a quaint
+design.
+
+In the cool laurel thickets a hidden chorus arose. A redbird dipped
+through space from across the creek, and his florid wings shed a flash
+of blood as he forded a shaft of fleeting sunlight.
+
+The long-drawn cry of a she-panther echoed up from the shaggy maw of the
+ravine, answered straightway by the quick, broken squall of her mate,
+betraying an early forage plot. With magic minstrelsy issuing from the
+thickets the wilderness evening drifted in.
+
+With common impulse the two boys awoke from their reverie and looked up
+at their father.
+
+The joy of a moment since had gone from his eyes. As he stared in blank
+pathos at the church a face rose up and blotted out the vision of the
+belfry--the smiling face of his dead wife.
+
+"Ef Maw had lived t' see thes, Lem!" deplored the old man in a faint
+voice.
+
+"Yes, ef Maw had lived, pap!" echoed Lem.
+
+"Ef Maw had lived!" repeated the small voice at the end of the log.
+
+"Leastways, Maw's better off 'n we-uns, boys," consoled Cap Lutts,
+"'cause she air up thar whar they hain't no sorry--ner pain--ner
+fightin' an' killin'--an' I 'low as how Maw air a lookin' down on hit
+all now--on th' gawspel-house an' on we-uns, boys. An' say, boys, mebby
+yo' pore good Maw hain't glad like--eh? Why, I kin jest see her now--I
+kin see Maw now jest as plain--a smilin' an' a smilin'--an' whar----"
+
+"Yes--so kin I," interrupted Lem reflectively.
+
+"I kin see Maw now," supplemented little Bud.
+
+Suddenly a look shot into the old man's eyes like the florid tongue of
+flame at the muzzle of a gun. Instantly it was communicated to the two
+brothers. If the volcanic fires reflected in the eyes of the men were
+terrible, the molten, satanic hatred that crossed the countenance of
+little Bud was appalling because of his tender years. Each knew of what
+the other was thinking. Each recalled that hillside fight when Big Pete
+Burton had again struggled to do his duty and a misdirected bullet had
+killed Maw Lutts.
+
+The old man kicked viciously at a root, then pointed to the belfry.
+
+"I kin see Maw jest this minnut," he resumed, "a smilin' an' a smilin'
+an' a walkin' 'mong th' folks an' a shakin' han's like she done down
+Sandy thet air time th' ridin' pahson stuck fo' two weeks. I kin jest
+heer her now a tellin' 'em as how Gawd an' we-uns walcums every pizen
+sinnah in thes end o' Kaintucky--an' as how th' spurrut o' Gawd 'll he'p
+we-uns an' stop all th' fightin' an' killin' an' cheatin' an' lyin' an'
+cussin' an' chawin' 'mong th' weemanfolk.
+
+"Jes' wait till Sabbath day--an' thet's to-morry; jest wait till th'
+ridin' pahson cum t' ded'cate th' gawspel-house--I bets yo'll see a
+rousin', whoppin', boostin', prayin' 'vival--yo' sho' will, boys,"
+promised the old man in the heat of growing anticipation as he wafted
+the rebellious hair backward with a jerk of his head.
+
+"Aw--my soul!" ejaculated little Bud.
+
+"An' I kin tell yo' a heap sight more, boys; I kin," promised the old
+man, rubbing his huge hands together gloatingly. "One day nigh yo'll see
+th' steers a pullin' a real slappin' new organ machine into th'
+clearin'--yo'll see th' steers cum jest in 'twix' yon two spruces an'
+pull jest roun' thar, an' stop jest a frontin' th' do'r!"
+
+At this moment the long, ominous blast of a cow-horn echoed across the
+ravine with startling import, and the utterance failed and died in the
+old man's throat.
+
+Immediately the faint note of a bell reached their ears, followed by a
+second horn-call, strong and clear, farther up the gulch. The three rose
+to their feet simultaneously, and the old man felt instinctively about
+him for something that was not there. For the first time in his career
+his groping hands encountered neither stock nor steel. The rifle was
+absent!
+
+A pallor overspread his face. With head reared like a bull elk he
+listened to the portentous sounds of mountain warfare that floated into
+his brain.
+
+The pallor was not from fear. It was the mantle of chagrin--he had
+forgotten for the moment where he had rested the rifle. He stood
+befuddled, but alert.
+
+His gun gone, he felt that a part of his big body had suddenly been
+dismembered. The thought that he had been such a fool seemed to lock his
+two feet to the ground.
+
+Again the blare of the horn followed the notes of the bell.
+
+"Sompin's sho' bust loose, boys!" growled the old man as the three
+listened through several tense seconds. In his extremity he wondered if
+he could coax the lost information out of the lad behind him.
+
+"Han' hit heah, Lem! han' me hit!" Without turning his head he thrust
+both hands behind him, his working fingers begging for the gun.
+
+The boy, as innocent of the whereabouts of the weapon as his father,
+only muttered and pointed toward the rim of the clearing. The next
+second came the crackling noise of dead brush, then the sound of a rush
+to the left.
+
+The old man clenched his teeth as a horse mouths the bit, and his
+birdlike eyes snapped when he saw the disheveled figure of a girl burst
+through the wall of laurel that bordered the clearing. She halted for an
+instant, then dashed toward them.
+
+"Hit's Belle-Ann!" cried the awe-stricken Bud.
+
+The girl fairly leaped over the space that intervened. Her black curls
+streamed in the wind. She was wild-eyed and panting. Her bare legs were
+bleeding from brush scratches, and the tatters of her torn skirt were
+weighted with burs.
+
+"He's cum! He's got through, he air! He's a cumin' now! Go! Go! Run,
+Lem! Run away!" she cried in a choking riot of fear, throwing her body
+against Lem and fairly pushing him before her.
+
+"Whar's yo' gun, pap? Whar's yo' gun? Run, Lem! Fo' Gawd's sake, run
+away! He's follerin' right ahin' o' me--thah! thah! thah!" she screamed
+in her terror, pointing, heaving, gazing with charmed stare at the spot
+where she had emerged from the thicket.
+
+Despairing, horrified at the stunned inactivity of the Lutts men, the
+frantic girl grabbed little Bud by one arm and half dragged, half
+carried him across the clearing. Together they disappeared into the
+undergrowth.
+
+Then, rousing suddenly, stung to action, the old man remembered his gun
+and started for the church, while Lem fell prostrate and lay close
+behind the log on which they had been seated.
+
+Old Lutts had no more than gained the threshold of the sanctuary when a
+giant figure, with heaving chest, sprang into the open behind the church
+and just to the right. It was Peter Burton, and the surprise was full
+and complete, for his rifle was leveled at the old man's blue
+shirt-front as he called:
+
+"None of your damned nonsense now, Lutts! I've got you at last, and I
+want you alive! Stand where you are!"
+
+His voice rang triumphantly as he hurried nearer, and he leered and
+cried:
+
+"Maybe I'll take you down Blue Grass this time, eh? Well, I guess yes!"
+
+Cap Lutts hesitated for just the fraction of a second.
+
+In that fleeting time a horde of impossibilities raced through his
+brain. The downfall that had haunted him for years was at hand.
+
+Fear of death was beyond his comprehension, but the sting of defeat was
+agonizing.
+
+Then, glaring defiance and hatred, he whirled about and fled into the
+church, and there he leaped toward the altar. With a feline bound the
+big revenue detective was through the door and into the church after
+him.
+
+And now the old man had gained the pulpit itself, and was reaching for
+the rifle he had left leaning against the wall.
+
+Through the little church an ear-splitting crash rang out that fairly
+rocked the walls!
+
+In the pulpit the war-scarred moonshiner drew gently, deliberately
+backward, leaving the rifle untouched. Straightening up with strange
+majesty, he turned half around, and the malevolence melted away and left
+his face empty of all hatred.
+
+His eyes grew very soft, gazing upward at something beyond this world;
+his lips moved in soundless speech.
+
+Then, abruptly, his legs crumpled beneath him. He sagged and swayed for
+an instant; there was a ghastly, ragged, spongy gap between his
+shoulders.
+
+Then, with a crash, the mighty form sank to the altar, and lay there
+motionless upon its back, legs close together, the arms stretched
+straight outward from the body.
+
+Burton mopped his wet features and eyed his awful work without emotion.
+
+A little the hard-breathing man-hunter pondered. Then, having taken a
+fresh quid of tobacco, he levied upon his strength and lifted the body
+from the pulpit, and placed it upon a bench. He wiped the blood from his
+clothes and shoes and, rolling his handkerchief into a ball, tossed it
+away.
+
+He stared at the pulpit for a time.
+
+The red blood had crawled upward and touched the old man's hoary crown.
+It had traveled downward toward his heavy boots. It had followed the
+coat-sleeves of his two sprawling arms.
+
+And now that the body had been taken away, the vermilion imprint of a
+ragged, dripping cross was clearly etched upon the smooth pine of the
+unpainted altar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the crash of the gun had died away, Lem raised his head and peered
+over the log toward the church, expecting to see his father emerge. He
+waited several seconds. He wondered why the old man did not call. He
+yearned for his own gun now, inside the church.
+
+Then he lay down behind the log again with a sober fear creeping upon
+him. Then he remembered whose son he was, and almost snickered aloud at
+his fears. The boy could not conceive any odds that his father, Cap
+Lutts, could not vanquish. His thoughts flew backward to the valorous
+achievements of his parent.
+
+Now he crawled to the end of the log and peered again toward the church
+door. He told himself that the old man would come out of that door where
+he had gone in. He knew that the old man would come out of the church
+dragging the revenuer after him--hauling the thing as he had seen him
+haul a half-dead, struggling bear.
+
+Lem lay on his stomach and waited.
+
+Presently he spied a yellowish-white vapor trailing out of the church
+door into the lifeless air. Instinct told him that it was not his
+father's gun that had spoken. He started to his feet.
+
+A terrible, sickening apprehension filtered into his numbed senses.
+Then, weaponless and forgetful of the prowess of the uncanny man-tiger
+within, the boy grabbed a huge wooden mallet near by and rushed inside.
+
+As he ran toward the altar his fire-shot eyes swept the church for the
+old man. He saw only the towering hulk of the hated Burton standing
+erect, with hands in his trousers-pockets, calmly eyeing his approach.
+
+When Lem reached the altar he halted short, dumb, fear-stricken,
+trembling. He stared at the bloody cross. He whirled around.
+
+His eyes fell upon the still form on the bench, and he knew. With an
+inarticulate scream he fell one step backward and aimed a terrific,
+deadly blow at the unblinking, fishy eyes of the animal-headed thing
+before him.
+
+Some minutes later Lem Lutts crouched upon a bench, hunched up, naked to
+the waist, broken, bleeding, panting, heaving, piteously weeping, his
+chin down till it touched his bare, lacerated breast.
+
+Without, amidst the darkling shades of night, the she-panther crept from
+the gloomy haunting depths of the ravine, up to the very rim of the
+clearing. Up-reared, with her bowed fore-legs upon a scrub cedar stump,
+the big cat's spotted lips parted and she cried out a tremulous
+portentous wail across the dusk. Then came the sound of the pattering of
+padded jungle feet as she skulked back to her lair down in the bristling
+bowels of the shadow-peopled gulch.
+
+The man of iron who stood scowling over the conquered, broken youth,
+felt a compelling loneliness picking upon his steely nerves.
+
+"Come, Lutts! Let's hike out of here," ordered the detective as he
+pulled the stupefied boy to his feet.
+
+He half dragged Lem to the door of the church, saying:
+
+"I guess I'll take you down to Frankfort. Mebby when you're there a
+while you'll tell where that damn whisky shop is you've been running up
+here the last hundred years."
+
+Near to the door in the dim light, a few scant feet to one side, the boy
+caught sight of a long, vertical streak of yellow rope crossing the dark
+background of the gloom. Then it was that, with a lightning-like
+quickness, Lem lunged sidewise and fastened his fingers like dog's teeth
+upon the length of hemp suspended from the belfry. With a growl of rage
+Burton sprung upon him.
+
+He rained blow after blow down upon the boy's head and body, torrents of
+resounding smashes, awful, crushing, killing blows.
+
+The terrific struggle, with the bell-rope for a prize, set the new bell
+ringing, and the reverberations carried for miles up and down Hellsfork.
+Its frantic utterances resounded across the hills like the screams of a
+woman.
+
+In despair the revenuer ceased his beating, and his fingers, reeking
+with the boy's blood, found Lem's neck.
+
+His terrible hands garroted Lem's throat flat and stopped his breath.
+With all his mighty strength, the revenuer choked him until the lad's
+face blackened and his tongue and eyes started.
+
+Then, with a great heave upward, he shook his victim as a terrier shakes
+an old boot, and cast him away and stood panting in the dark and cursing
+breathlessly.
+
+The damage was done. The revenuer knew that he could count himself lucky
+to get away alive now, far less drag a prisoner; even at that moment
+desperate men were hurrying to answer the call of that church-bell.
+
+Burton fled into the night toward the spot where he knew that Jutt
+Orlick awaited him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DEDICATED WITH HIS BLOOD
+
+
+Out into that troublous, tempestuous night a hundred alarmed militant
+mountaineers rushed down through the jungle shadows, over a score of
+savage, rugged trails. Onward they hastened, down toward the startling
+night-cry of the bell which they knew emanated from the new church on
+Hellsfork. That choking, desperate bell-scream had raked across their
+senses like the cracking of a hundred rifles. To them its importunities
+had resolved into the sanguine roar of a fusillade. It had aroused in
+them an audacious, desperate quickness to kill. They rushed hither,
+prepared to sprinkle the white-clover with their blood, and die there in
+the churchyard, or vanquish whatever the menace might be.
+
+They pictured an assault on the church by the McGills or the revenuers,
+and in their fancy saw old Cap Lutts, his great figure in the forefront,
+spouting soft-nosed bullets from his hot rifle! The ringing of the bell
+inspired those on-coming loyal mountain hearts with a red-eyed animal
+fierceness, and lent a lightness to their heavy feet that brought them
+to the church within the hour.
+
+Men and boys, and indeed a few women, with weapons of all sorts,
+descended on the church, wild and panting with the lust of conflict.
+
+When Lem Lutts opened his dazed eyes the place was half filled with
+frenzied people. Belle-Ann knelt beside him, bathing his wounds and
+uttering in her soothing, low drawl, little phrases of encouragement and
+condolence.
+
+Buddy's hard little visage protruded out of the lantern light like a
+ghostly mask done in white marble.
+
+Lem finally got to his feet and staggered toward the altar. A dozen
+lanterns were scattered about the church. The shaggy band stood around
+gazing at their dead leader. Crazed with rage, they stood and wept,
+walked aimlessly and cursed, or knelt and prayed.
+
+To a man they were for beating the mountains for the revenuers; but Lem
+held them back. He climbed upon the altar, and little Bud scrambled up
+beside him, hugging his father's rifle which he had hungrily recovered.
+
+With the realization that Lem was now their leader, the Moon mountain
+men crowded up toward the pulpit, eager for his words.
+
+Lem pointed one unsteady hand to the bloody cross at his feet, and the
+other to the dead form of his father stretched on the first bench. He
+raised his bruised, torn face upward; then, in a voice that was terrible
+in its calmness, he said the only prayer he knew, while the grief torn
+host fixed their eyes upon him and drank in every word:
+
+"God Almoughty, plead thou my cose with them thet strive agin we-uns.
+Lay a han' on yore shiel' an' buckler an' stan' up t' he'p we-uns. Let
+'em be confound' an' put t' shame, fo' they hev privily laid thar net t'
+destroy me withouten a cose--even withouten a cose hev they made a pit
+fo' my soul. Let th' sudden destruction cum on our'n enemy onawares, an'
+his net thet he hev laid privily keech hisse'f, thet he mought fall int'
+his own mischief his ownse'f. Ahmen!"
+
+And a great volume of vibrant amens rose from the hot hearts present.
+
+Lem talked from the altar for an hour; exhorting the clan to stick
+together and cleave to the tenets of his dead father. All through the
+discourse little Bud kept close to his brother on the pulpit, steadying
+the long rifle with one caressing hand and not once did a word escape
+him; his eyes were glued to his brother's face.
+
+Finally, Lem wound up his appeal with a stern adjuration. His calmness
+deserted him at the end, and his voice soared to a frenzied pitch that
+carried it through the open windows, far out into the brooding night.
+
+"Yo'-all heer me? Yo'-all heer me?" he shouted in vibrant tones. "Not a
+bein' o' yo'-all darst lift a han' t' harm the revenuer--not a han', yo'
+heer? He air my houn'-dog t' kill.
+
+"He belongs t' me, an' ef yo'-all ketch em, yore t' han' him t' me, ole
+Cap Lutts's boy whut stan's heah frontin' his pap's daid body, a callin'
+on yo'-all t' see jestus done! I'll bring th' skunk heah, my men, an'
+kill em heah--heah whar he kilt my pap!"
+
+His mouth fairly frothed as with both clenched fists he beat his breast.
+Bud beat his own thin chest and wrenched his peaked face into a terrible
+grimace, but said never a word.
+
+The watchers relapsed into dumb, stunned silence and waited with their
+dead--waited for the saddest of all days; a day crowned with a grievous
+memory that followed them through life.
+
+No Sabbath born to the mountains had ever dawned as this one. The early
+morning was charged with a sepulchral mist, impinging upon the senses
+like sounds vocal, telling of some great sorrow hanging on the crest of
+the world.
+
+The first chill light saw the gospel-house holding its dead to its
+breast--the venerable sire that begot it. The dawn-breath floated down
+from the blue-wooded ridges to the clearing and stooped to kiss the
+pallid belfry.
+
+And all the blossoms bowed down their tremulous heads and shed their
+dew-tears amidst the chanting of spirit-voices. The tumultuous cry of
+the cascade, wont to rant in the ragged throat of Hellsfork, was now
+hushed to a repining monotone.
+
+The first beam of sunlight, pallid as a candle ray, parted the vapor
+shroud enveloping the gospel-house, and a dolorous ring-dove mourning on
+the pinnacle of a dead sycamore tolled her triple-noted angelus across
+the clearing in measured, solemn accents.
+
+Before the day had fairly broken, an exodus of humanity had begun, bound
+for Hellsfork. For weeks and months the day of dedication had been
+discussed throughout the mountains. Hour after hour the rock-strewn
+highways of the hills were traversed by travel-worn crusaders. This
+stream of human souls converged at the church clearing, filling it up
+like the gradual rise of a tide.
+
+They came on mule-back, on horse-back, in buck-boards. They came singly
+and in twos and threes.
+
+Bed-ridden cripples were borne hither by their loved ones, that the
+great preacher might lay hands upon their infirmities and implore the
+merciful God to alleviate their sufferings. The halt and the maimed were
+come to sue for absolution and to be made whole again.
+
+One misshapen hunchback--a veritable Quasimodo--with stubby bowed legs,
+abnormal arms, and ape-like visage, carried his helpless offspring
+eighteen miles to this sanctuary; begging prayers to relieve the
+creature's torture.
+
+Every man and boy of them was armed in some fashion, and by high noon
+the clearing was filled with a multitude of people, sorrow-torn, racked
+with abject grief.
+
+Over in Southpaw the enemy gazed down from the heights upon this
+spectacle in amazement. As young Sap McGill stood on a crag and watched,
+his eyes met a sight unlike any which the ranges of Kentucky had ever
+witnessed.
+
+His old arch enemy's strength in death was a force that appalled him. It
+was only now that he fully realized the peculiar far-reaching power
+wielded by old Cap Lutts throughout his lifetime. The dead monarch had
+always ruled his followers through strength and love. Fear had never
+been a dictator. He repelled his enemies through a will and courage that
+never flinched, and elicited from them a meed of awesome respect.
+
+The church was wofully inadequate and would not hold a twentieth of the
+mass. A great abundance of live laurel was cut and piled beneath a tree
+in the church clearing. And hundreds of eager hands hurried into the
+byways of the vale and returned with arms heaped with blossoms. These
+tender tributes were carefully placed on the couch of laurel until it
+rose to a great bier of fragrant petals.
+
+Tender hands removed the old man's body from the church and laid him in
+this laurel-thatched casket of many-hued flowers.
+
+Later, a great yellow mule paced out of the west, bearing a tall figure
+garbed in black, and the voices were hushed to a murmur and the
+church-bell began its tolling.
+
+When the circuit rider reached the clearing the mass of awed humanity
+parted and opened an aisle leading to the mammoth bier, where smiling
+death reposed, cradled amidst billows of blossoms. The parson had been a
+lifelong friend of old Cap Lutts.
+
+His towering figure moved on toward the bier and his clean-shaven
+features were drawn in a terrible sorrow. When his anguished eyes rested
+upon the still form, a great sob convulsed him; and like an echo the
+pent-up achings burst in a horde of throats; subdued, piteous weeping
+ebbed and rolled over the dead hero of the host.
+
+Two benches had been carried from the church and placed near the dead
+man. One was for the parson; on the other sat Lem and Bud and Belle-Ann.
+Little Bud crouched like a shrunken, lifeless thing. Belle-Ann's
+beautiful eyes were swollen and her heart wrung dry of tears.
+
+Lem's eyes, too, were dry as bone; not a single tear had he shed. For
+hours he sat staring over the heads of the people, and on his bruised
+and swollen face was stamped a grief more soul-searing than words or
+tears could tell.
+
+At eventide a cortege reaching from the church to the cabin bore the old
+man to the barren orchard, and there they laid him beside Maw Lutts. Old
+Cap Lutts, monarch of Moon mountain, had passed out of feudal history,
+and beyond Federal jurisdiction; his church on Hellsfork had been
+dedicated with his blood!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"LESSEN HE KILLS THE REVENUER"
+
+
+Tom-John Benson did not come up to Moon mountain the following week, nor
+the next. But at the end of the third week he appeared to take Belle-Ann
+below to Beattyville and across the Kentucky River to the mission school
+at Proctor.
+
+He came riding a strong, mountain horse and leading another for
+Belle-Ann. He unwrapped a huge bundle, and displayed an entire new
+outfit for the girl--two blue sailor dresses with white collars, shoes,
+hat, and kindred articles of apparel.
+
+Belle-Ann dressed herself in these store things; and while Slab prepared
+a lunch for Benson, she walked out and down toward the spring, where she
+thought Lem was lingering. But Lem was not there, and she continued on
+to the old honeybee tree, where he sat on a log in deep meditation.
+
+He wished to see her alone. He knew she would find him.
+
+He looked up with a smile when he saw her trim, round figure approach,
+beautiful even in the cheap clothes.
+
+She tossed the black curls from her oval face, smiled back at him, and
+stood demurely waiting his approval of her apparel.
+
+"Yo' sho' do look purty, Belle-Ann," he observed. "Air yore pap ready
+yet?"
+
+"Yes. When he's done his snack, I 'low we-uns 'll be goin', Lem," she
+answered, with an assumed cheerfulness she was far from feeling.
+
+Although her heart ached, she had determined before she came to meet Lem
+that she would not cry. She had been steeling herself for days for the
+ordeal of this parting. Down in the depth of her heart she held fast to
+one great purpose; and if she gave way to her feelings and cried, she
+knew that it would be shattered.
+
+"I 'lowed yo'-all wanted t' say good-by, Lem," she said presently. He
+aroused himself and stood up before her, his eyes full of a meaning she
+had never seen there before.
+
+"Naw, Belle-Ann, I hain't wantin' t' say good-by; but I 'low I hev t'.
+But thar air one thing I air wantin' yo' t' promise me, Belle-Ann," he
+said soberly as he reached down and took her small, tanned hand.
+
+Belle-Ann's heart was throbbing wildly now. This was the crucial moment
+she had foreseen, and now was the time to summon all the forces at her
+command.
+
+"Mebby I cayn't promise hit, Lem," she rejoined almost inaudibly, with
+violet eyes that wandered guiltily away from his face.
+
+He stared at her. There was a timbre in her tone that startled him. He
+saw and felt instinctively that she had discerned what he held in his
+mind. The fact that she had divined correctly, and answered in this way,
+filled him with a sudden, sinking apprehension.
+
+Her words shocked him into a stupor. He thought that he knew her very
+soul as he knew his own soul. Had the years that had unfolded her young
+life before him, betrayed him and withheld deep things from his
+understanding? Things that would join in the pursuit with other searing
+grievances to sting and urge his being onward toward desperation? There
+was, in truth, a depth to this girl, whom he had known all her life,
+that his cursory penetration had failed utterly to fathom. When Lem's
+parents had been killed by the revenuer, then it was that an inexorable
+avowal had resolved itself in the soul of Belle-Ann. An inviolable
+thing, the evulsion of which could never obtain save at the shrine of
+death--the death of the hated Ghost-man. Lem had only a general and
+superficial conception of the intrinsic intensity of this thing that had
+taken hold of the girl. Little did he know of the doleful hours she had
+brooded away over this theme of vengeance. Long, brain-dulling hours
+during her waking time. Haunting, troublous hours during her dream-time.
+And always in the imaginings of her girl-heart she nurtured and built up
+an ideal, who would kill the revenuer. A hero who would hasten to her
+with the affiliating tribute, and lay the crimson laurels of the deed at
+her feet. She well knew that Lem thirsted for the life of this uncanny
+man, who had come and deprived him of his beloved mother and father. She
+knew that day and night as he traversed the hills he was ever waiting
+and watching for him. She was keen, and appreciatively sensible to this,
+and ever prayed that Lem would succeed. But all this was not the deed.
+Theoretically, it occupied the tenure of a debt. A premise that looked
+for no advancement save payment. Until this thing was done they would
+both suffer. She told herself over and over again that she would never
+betray her true feelings to Lem until he had killed Burton, and appeased
+her vengeance. Love him as she thought she did, some vital element was
+poignantly amiss. However unwarranted, and fatuous, an indefinable
+barrier would stand between them until the culmination of the yearning
+that had made ugly crosses in her heart.
+
+Never could she forget the past. As she stood now before Lem, with
+downcast eyes, the past rushed upon her more vividly than ever. That
+sun-smitten day, made dark and dreadful, when she had hovered over the
+still form of Maw Lutts in the yard. Maw Lutts, who from Belle-Ann's
+baby-days to the woman's last minute in the yard, had never uttered to
+the girl a cross word, or cast her an impatient look. Her parting smile
+was rooted in Belle-Ann's soul, climbing and wrapping its tendrils
+around her heart like an evergreen.
+
+Even at this instant in her gloomy retrospection, she could put her
+finger on her own bosom, precisely where the bullet had struck. That
+reddish-purple spot that did not bleed. Very often the vision of that
+small, round death-sore multiplied and floated in one gesticulating
+mirage before her eyes. Often they consolidated into one compact darkish
+background, against which would develop the satanic, puffed visage of
+the revenuer who had done this thing. When old Cap Lutts' spirit went
+out by the same hand, the girl's soul had sickened to a distortion of
+mingled fear and hate, which at times bade fair to drive her primitive
+mind bereft.
+
+A devouring monitor of revenge had skulked into her life, following her
+better self relentlessly, as a panther stalks a spent beast. To her it
+was all like the happening of the past hour. Three weeks only had
+elapsed since she had witnessed the last withering stroke of this evil
+creature bent upon their destruction. Across her every mood the
+prickling echoes of that frantic bell-scream raked. It filled her ears
+when she strove to shut it out, and projected its curse into her
+slumbering hours.
+
+She felt that unhallowed hour upon her--the moonlit night when the very
+trees shuddered as she and little Buddy, clinging to each other, had
+crept through the ghastly shadows back to the meeting-house after the
+mad bell's appeal had died and the demon had gone.
+
+Never, while reason held its throne, could she obliterate from her eyes
+what they two saw in the church that night. So it was that Belle-Ann had
+long since, secretly, reared a citadel within her, and down in a remote
+grotto therein, had locked away her love; isolated it from her impulses
+and fealty.
+
+With valiant, tender delicacy, she always tried not to sully and
+overshadow Lem's life with this that she knew was in her. She knew that
+Lem had a cross of his own to bear. Although she fancied, as humans are
+prone to do, that his burden did not parallel her own. But she would not
+contaminate the boy's love with the presence of this red-rare oath
+sticking like a projectile in her being. This rubric, monastic avowal of
+vengeance that now hung in her soul like a garnet etching. But always
+she prayed that God might direct Lem to avenge her, and thus tear down
+this phantom picture that overshadowed her life, and thereby redeem her
+peace.
+
+Like animated photography, all this dashed through the girl's mind in a
+trice when Lem expressed a wish that she would promise him something.
+And with it her cryptic avowal centralized and surged up strong within
+her. Taking a firm hold on her will, she raised her eyes full upon his
+supplicant figure suing before her. Lem looked, and acted like a man who
+had been stunned by a blow. He was confronted with a new and unexpected
+phase of her nature. As his own gaze met her eyes, he discerned the
+indelible lettering of some palpable, deep purpose. What strange alien
+agency had laid hold of her? Was this the call of her blue-grass blood
+asserting itself in this, the hour of parting? The celerity of the
+transition, from his romping, hilarious play-fellow, to this serious,
+solemn, sudden incarnation, who denied him so unexpectedly, the pledge
+upon which he had staked his future, was a cyclonic blow that left his
+faculties bereft and numbed. Belle-Ann was looking fixedly at him. His
+lips were palsied. His mouth moved mutely to form words. Suddenly he
+found his voice and launched forth out of a daze.
+
+"Why, Belle-Ann, yo' kin sho' promise me thes, cyan't yo' now?"
+
+"Yo' hain't tol' me whut hit air yet, Lem," she protested faintly.
+
+"Belle-Ann," he blurted out huskily, "I air pizen sho' yo'-all knows
+whut I air a firin' at."
+
+She shook the silken mass of black curls that would insist in tumbling
+down on her small face, and elevated her pretty brows negatively. But
+beneath her drooping lids a flicker of tell-tale light was playing.
+
+"Looky heah, Belle-Ann,"--his voice dropped to pleading tones--"Lem
+wants thet yo' should promise em sompin' 'fore yo'-all goes away. I want
+yo' t' promise, Belle-Ann," he went on earnestly, recovering the hand he
+had dropped in his amazement. "I want yo' t' promise thet when yo'-all
+cums back t' home thet yo'll marry me--eh?"
+
+Not rudely, but reverently and slowly she drew her hand away from him.
+With eyes averted, her bosom stirred and she struggled with the choking
+in her throat.
+
+She removed her sun-hat, and stood swinging it in her perturbation. With
+a great will she steadied her voice.
+
+"I cyan't promise thet, Lem--leastways not now," she answered slowly,
+without looking at him.
+
+He fell back, crestfallen and hurt.
+
+For a minute silence stood between them. Never before had he seen her so
+bewitching.
+
+Then she turned her matchless violet eyes upon him.
+
+"I hain't a spitin' yo', Lem," she explained hurriedly. "I hain't a
+spitin' you, cose yo' air a good boy an'--an' I like yo', Lem. But I
+jest cyant promise whut yo' want me t' now."
+
+Astounded, he stood fumbling for words. Then he suddenly tossed his long
+hair back with a jerk of his head--a gesture that had characterized his
+father.
+
+"Belle-Ann," he cried hotly, "whut ails yo', little gal; air hit some
+tuther bein' yo' love? Air thet Jutt Orlick bin a pesterin' yo' an'
+yo're afeerd t' tell me? Belle-Ann, little gal, do yo'-all love Orlick?
+Air hit em whut yo' love, an' afeerd t' own on hit? Air ye 'lowin' t'
+get shut o' me, Belle-Ann?" he pursued vehemently.
+
+She faced about and fixed her liquid eyes upon him. Her heart hurt and
+she turned away again. And he was instantly sorry that he had accused
+her.
+
+She stepped over and sat on the spruce-log, dangling her hat and
+regarding her tan shoes.
+
+"Looky heah," he burst out fervently, "cum, deah little Belle-Ann; cum
+kiss me."
+
+Very slowly she shook her raven curls.
+
+"I cyant, Lem," she said; "not now." At this refusal from her a pallor
+swept his features. Utterly crushed, he walked to and fro, a prey to
+conflicting emotions.
+
+Her mysterious mien and unaccountable frigidity drove the chill of
+another fear into his being. Could it be that this was the first bud of
+a fruit that had already started to thrive in Belle-Ann's heart, before
+she had even reached the school?
+
+She was going out into a new world away from him. Did she already regard
+herself exalted above the things that made up his humble life?
+
+He looked at her sitting on the log, silent, beautiful,
+mysterious--another girl from the one he had known all his life.
+
+Abruptly he halted before her. Her eyes sought his face. He fell back a
+few paces, now white to the lips with feelings that tore him. He
+stretched his two arms toward her beseechingly.
+
+"Looky heah, Belle-Ann! Look t' me now, little gal!" he cried out in
+words that tumbled over each other, "Hain't I fittin'? Gawd cyan't find
+th' bein' thet loves yo'-all like me, Belle-Ann! Hain't I honest? Hain't
+I knowed yo' all yore little life, Belle-Ann? Whut would maw say, seein'
+yo'-all driftin' away from me like thes? Do yo' 'low t' go below an'
+never cum back, Belle-Ann? Hain't I alers fit fo' yo'-all, Belle-Ann?
+Hain't I fit for yo' all my life?"
+
+He took a step nearer, and with his two strong hands ruthlessly ripped
+his flannel shirt open and exposed his naked breast to her eyes.
+
+Transfixed, the girl stared at the twenty wide, white scars that
+criss-crossed his bosom. At sight of this, with sheer will and gallant
+courage she fought back the tears into her aching heart--fought them
+back desperately, just as he had fought off the she-bear that had made
+those marks when they two were children--fought her off single-handed
+with a club, and saved Belle-Ann's life.
+
+With wide eyes she regarded him as he reached out for her.
+
+His impassioned words penetrated to her very soul. She heard him on
+vaguely, struggling to control herself. The tide of emotion past, his
+petitions came now in low, entreating accents.
+
+"Gawd 'lows I air honest, Belle-Ann. I hain't pesky, Gawd 'll tell; I
+hain't sneakin', Gawd 'll tell. Lem wus rise up 'long side o' yo', deah
+little gal; an' he loves yo' now, same as alers. Why, I'd stan', ef yo'd
+say th' word, with a laff on my face an' let yo'-all fire on me, an' die
+a grinnin'--cose I knowed yo' done hit, Belle-Ann.
+
+"I air jest pore regular Lem, little gal, whut has loved yo' all yore
+life--frum a little bitty gal up t' now. An' my heart's jest heah whar
+hit alers was--jest heah fo' yo', Belle-Ann, with nothin' hidin' out!"
+
+With back-flung head he paused, his pleading eyes still upon her.
+
+Throughout this, Belle-Ann did not meet his eyes directly. She dared
+not. She prayed he would stop.
+
+She could no longer withstand his pleadings. She rose up from the log
+and, in her turn, though more slowly, her little feet trod where Lem had
+walked.
+
+Unconsciously, her hat dropped to the ground as her fingers relaxed and
+she placed her two hands upon her bosom. She looked full into his eyes.
+
+"Lem," she breathed, the carmine leaving her cheeks, "yo' axed me t'
+marry yo' when I cum back. I cyant promise. Yo' axed t' kiss me, Lem;
+oh, please, please don't kiss me. I--I----"
+
+She shut her teeth tightly, and pressed hard upon her turbulent bosom.
+Alarmed, he sprang up to catch her. With a quick gesture she held him
+off.
+
+"Lem, I took a vow--I did," she panted. "I took a vow on th'
+witch-block. I took hit t' myself--nobuddy but Gawd knows. Now, I got t'
+tell yo' all, Lem. _I took a vow that no livin' bein' 's gain' t' kiss
+my face lessen he kills th' revenuer!_ I took a vow thet I'll
+never--never--_never_--marry nobuddy, till th' revenuer's daid; I vowed
+on hit, Lem!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ORLICK WORKS EVIL
+
+
+Lem listened in awe to her panting, hurried words, looking down into her
+pain-swept features, struck dumb with the earnest vehemence of her
+avowal. The girl went on:
+
+"I couldn't bust my vow, Lem. Hit air jest heah in my breast by day an'
+by night. Hit follers me alers, Lem--follers me like a hant. I don't lay
+no store by nuthin' till hit air gone away--an' hit'll never go away
+till th' ghost-man's daid."
+
+Lem lunged forth out of a stupor.
+
+"Gawd'llmoughty, Belle-Ann, yo'-all hain't a-lowin' thet I don't want t'
+kill em, air yo'?" he cried, in a tempest of chagrin and amazement.
+
+"No, no, no!" she interposed hastily. "I know thet yore a-watchin' an'
+a-waitin' an' a-lookin' fo' em."
+
+She took the hat Lem picked up from the ground, saying:
+
+"Yo'll do somethin' perticlar like, Lem, when yo' do kill em. Keep
+a-watchin', an' a-tryin', Lem, but don't 'low em t' git first bead on
+yo', Lem. He air a hant."
+
+"Ef I air lucky, an' kill em--will yo'-all promise then, Belle-Ann?"
+implored the boy in low, yearning tones. Side by side they were walking
+now.
+
+"Yo' jest ax me when th' revenuer's daid, Lem," she returned, looking
+up, the dimples playing and her small Grecian face aflush with the
+thought.
+
+He could not mistake the light that flickered between her fluttering
+lids. There was an answer hovering about the red, bowed lips. Her
+enhanced loveliness in the new sailor dress ravished his senses.
+
+Such a girl! She had always been his, he told himself. He knew she would
+come back to him. Then a sober fear assailed him again, that
+contradicted his faith.
+
+"Belle-Ann," he queried, "when yo'-all git yore deah little haid stuffed
+with th' larnin', an' th' high-tucked ways at th' school--an' know all
+'bout books an' sich, mebby yo'-all won't never 'low t' cum back heah
+agin? Mebby I won't never see yo'-all agin, deah little gal, eh?"
+
+She stopped and stood rigid.
+
+"I kin promise thet, Lem. Heah, watch me, I cross my heart thesaway,
+Lem--see? Now kiss my han'. I'll sho' cum back some day, Lem--I
+promise."
+
+Eagerly, ravenously, he grasped her small hand, brown, but
+fine-textured. A dozen times he kissed it hotly, fervently, wrung with
+sorrow. So much might happen before he saw her again!
+
+At this juncture, a cow-horn sounded, and they knew that Belle-Ann's
+father was waiting. The time of parting was at hand. That vibrant
+horn-call sank deep into Lem's smarting soul.
+
+"Kiss me heah, Lem," the girl said, showing the top of her head. He well
+knew what she meant.
+
+He placed his hands on her soft curls and pressed his lips to the little
+white scar that crossed the part in her hair. He had kissed it before.
+Many times now, did he press it.
+
+His throat pained terribly as he poured his fervent kisses of adoration
+upon this tiny scar that he had accidentally inflicted years ago, in the
+excitement of a sham battle.
+
+She suddenly tore away from him and ran ahead. She dared not trust
+herself to linger longer. He followed, a tribute of grief in his
+resigned, dull eyes, like a man with flowers to put on a mound.
+
+When Lem left the spot, Orlick ducked sneakingly out of a dense clump of
+laurel where he had watched the love scene with burning eyes--eyes
+glittering with hate and jealousy.
+
+Unheard and unobserved, he slunk away through the pawpaw thicket into
+the impenetrable rhododendrons. For hours he had followed Lem that
+morning. But he had been too far away to overhear anything that passed
+between him and the girl.
+
+Now that old Cap Lutts was gone, Orlick had hidden here with the
+intention of killing Lem. He had worked his way up on his stomach and
+was just inching his rifle into position, when the girl appeared, and he
+desisted for some remote reason of his own. However, he slunk away, his
+foul heart beating high with hate.
+
+If he could not have Belle-Ann, he would make sure that Lem would not.
+As she neared the horse-block, Belle-Ann turned and waited for Lem.
+
+"Will yo' sho' kill th' ghost-man, Lem?" she reminded him in parting.
+
+He nodded apathetically. He was beyond the heat of any enthusiasm in
+this tense minute. He only knew that she was going away from him.
+
+In her drawling, sweet voice she continued as they proceeded toward the
+horse-block where they could see Benson and the horses ready.
+
+"Ef yo' do, Lem, hit'll smoke all th' sorry outen my heart, an' I'll be
+glad agin, like 'fore maw an' pap wus kilt--gladness th' kind whut
+hain't a-carin' ef hit rains, or ef hit suns. Don't be sad, Lem,"
+glancing into his woful, tragic eyes. "Belle-Ann'll be a-prayin' fo'
+yo'-all. An', Lem, when I cum back, mebby yo'll kiss me heah," she ended
+with a finger on her puckered, red lips.
+
+Buddy and Slab and the dogs were mingling with the restive horses in the
+sunshine. Benson had already mounted.
+
+Forgetful of her precious dress, Belle-Ann dropped on her knees in the
+dirt beside old Ben and, with her arms around the blind hound's neck,
+she hugged the old dog to her and kissed his soft ears. Buddy hung on to
+her with appeals for her early return. Old Slab shuffled around her with
+a medley of adjurations.
+
+She turned in the saddle and called back:
+
+"Keep a-watchin' an' a-tryin', Lem--an' yo', Slab--don't yo' fergit whut
+yo' promised against th' witch."
+
+Her voice was unsteady now.
+
+Benson was leading the way a few rods ahead. As they looped the spur and
+headed down the trail toward the cypress cut, Belle-Ann could no longer
+combat her feelings. Bending low over the saddle horn, she wept
+inconsolably.
+
+At the gap below she looked back. Lem stood up on the horse-block waving
+to her. Through dim eyes she looked and flourished her wet handkerchief
+above her head.
+
+Far down in the valley, where they struck the faint wagon trail and the
+horses came out to the ford at Boon Creek, Belle-Ann turned her eager
+eyes up toward Moon mountain and there, as she had expected, she
+discerned Lem's outline high up on the apex of Eagle Crown.
+
+And as the horses paused in mid-stream to drink, she caught flashes in
+the sunlight, and she knew that Lem was waving his hat to her, and she
+knew he was straining his eyes and his heart for her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In these troublesome times, gray and somber with woe, the Lutts cabin on
+Moon mountain was a dismal and cheerless abode.
+
+Lem and little Buddy were inconsolable, and the monotonous days
+following Belle-Ann's departure were sad and long--and very lonely.
+
+Slab was tireless in his efforts to keep the boys cheered up.
+
+On pleasant nights he would sit on the witch-elm block before the cabin
+and sing "Kitty Wells." This sacred duty over, he would turn his talent
+to enlivening negro melodies, interspersed with doubtful tales, well put
+together, dealing with war times in general, and the wonders of
+Lexington in particular.
+
+And when the storms came, and the lightning crackled, and the cascade in
+Hellsfork raged, and the lashing trees soughed in the rain and tempest,
+Slab would render the same musical program in the big front room, but
+vary his plots of fiction woven about his beloved Lexington. In case Lem
+and Buddy glanced at each other approvingly, or applauded his comics
+with even a half smile, his old face showed plainly that he was amply
+repaid.
+
+Lem had eight trusty men working "The Worm" up in the secret cave, but
+spent most of the time each day, after counting the demijohns to be
+turned over to the bootleggers, in wandering aimlessly over the
+mountains. He was always alert and watchful.
+
+Over in Southpaw there were evidences of unrest, and Lem looked for an
+attack from the revenuers at any hour.
+
+Indeed, so furtive had this habit of vigilance become, that in these
+days he rarely traveled the trails, but moved under cover parallel with
+the paths.
+
+One day he stepped out in the open trail and picked up a fledgling hawk
+that had tumbled out of its nest. Ahead was a group of boulders, one of
+which was immediately under a spruce sapling.
+
+To these he walked leisurely and, resting his rifle against the first
+rock, he climbed up to put the youngster beyond reach of the badgers and
+razorbacks.
+
+He was in the act of reaching up when, at a slight sound, he turned and
+looked straight into the round, black end of a rifle, less than six feet
+from his chest!
+
+Down at the stock was the big bull-dog face of the ghost-man, leering at
+him triumphantly.
+
+The peculiar, erratic impulses of the psychological moment are ever
+puzzling and insoluble. Lem gazed calmly, almost unconcernedly, down
+upon Peter Burton. Indeed, at this instant, there was no more evidence
+of excitement in Lem's face and mien, than had the revenuer been a
+venturesome fox squirrel gamboling about.
+
+Lem almost grinned pleasantly, as he turned and reaching up, placed the
+young hawk safely on a low branch.
+
+The little creature threw out his wings. Lem steadied it with careful
+deliberation, then leaped down from the boulder. The instant his feet
+struck the ground it seemed to shock his very blood into icy currents
+that congealed and left him befuddled and shivering.
+
+As he stared into the revenuer's insolent face, the earth looked like a
+pinwheel.
+
+Suddenly the film lifted from his brain and he was conscious for the
+first time that the revenuer had taken his rifle. The man's thick lips
+were moving. He was talking to him. Lem's poise came back. Fully
+aroused, his face went livid with rage. The revenuer perceived this and
+thrust the rifle muzzle closer.
+
+"You don't doubt that I'll shoot, do you?" he inquired, with his eyes
+fixed savagely upon Lem.
+
+"Naw, houn'-dog," returned the boy in low, quavering tones. "Yo'd kill a
+female baby."
+
+The revenuer laughed.
+
+"Don't you know when I first saw you on that rock training that hawk to
+sit up, you kind of scared me?" He expelled a volume of tobacco juice.
+"You scared me some, Mr. Lutts. I thought you was fixing to ring a
+church bell on me."
+
+He let loose of Lem's rifle and it fell behind him. He held his own,
+pistol-fashion, under his arm, with his finger in the guard, as he
+stepped nearer and shook a huge menacing fist in the boy's pallid face.
+
+"You'll have a swell chance ringing anything on me again unless you've
+got a church bell in your pocket. You pulled a swell trick on me that
+night, didn't ye? You thought the bunch that galloped down to your
+dog-house would get me that night, didn't ye? Young man, I'm going to
+bust this gang of thieves up here, or I'll drink Hellsfork dry! And
+you--you--you're not only carrying on your daddy's business----"
+
+A blinding, reckless fury that fired Lem with the strength and savagery
+of a tiger propelled his body through the air like a catapult. He landed
+on the revenuer's neck and with his naked hands he tried to kill him.
+
+He learned speedily why Burton had not fired, for a second man who had
+been concealed behind the boulders, together with Jutt Orlick, sprang
+out and upon him. These two heavyweights soon overpowered and handcuffed
+the boy, while Orlick lay with gloating eyes, peering out at the scene.
+
+Burton rolled Lem over on his back, and left him to exhaust the
+maledictions he was heaping upon their heads.
+
+As Lem scrambled to his feet, Burton launched forth as he deftly cut the
+leather thong and relieved Lem of his cow-horn.
+
+"Lutts--your family owes the government a million dollars and then some.
+And you're going to pay in some shape or form--you're in the hands of
+the law now. You ain't monkeyin' with these county people. You're on
+your way to Frankfort now--and I think I'll be able to send you to
+Atlanta for a while. Eh, Tom?"
+
+Burton turned to his perspiring companion.
+
+"Sure--they say the punk tastes like cake down there, too."
+
+"Now, Lutts," resumed the revenuer with his bullying insolence, "you've
+got one chance, and if you could see what's ahead of you, you'd take it
+quick! You lead us to that layout of yours and you're free. Otherwise,
+you're going to jail for a year anyway. I got the evidence all right.
+What you going to do about it?"
+
+Lem's brain was busy.
+
+If he had been sure that there were only the two of them he would have
+been only too eager to comply with Burton's proposition--because he knew
+that these two men would never again report for duty. But how was he to
+know how many men Burton had hiding to trail them.
+
+Upon second thought Lem declined to put his own people in jeopardy.
+
+"Well," growled Burton, "don't be afraid to talk. Are you going to lead
+me to that liquor hole?"
+
+"Yo' kin blow my brains out first," replied Lem scornfully and
+emphatically.
+
+"Well, fool, you're on your way. Tom, let's get busy. Bring his gun."
+
+The revenuer produced a length of strap and, tying one end to the short
+chain connecting the iron cuffs, he motioned Tom ahead.
+
+The iron cut into Lem's flesh at the slightest pressure, and acted like
+a bull-ring. In their desire to get the prisoner away with as much
+secrecy as possible they avoided the trails, traveling cautiously under
+cover.
+
+A few minutes after the revenuer and their captive had departed, Orlick
+crept out from the rocks like a reptile, and warily dodged along in
+their wake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IN PRISON
+
+
+At high-noon the next day Lem Lutts was landed at Frankfort, a United
+States prisoner. This dismal trip represented the first ride Lem had
+ever made on a railroad. The terrible chagrin and consternation that
+obsessed him, and the bullying presence of his furiously hated arch
+enemy made it one that lingered long in his memory.
+
+In the early hours of the trip the revenue officer and his deputy had
+plied the boy with a torrent of questions in their vain attempt to break
+him down. This cross-fire finally wearied Burton, as Lem acted like a
+man deaf, dumb, and blind; and the surly officer desisted with a series
+of dire predictions, mingled with some exquisite punctuations of choice
+profanity.
+
+A pall of far-stretching clouds obscured the sky and a film of drizzling
+rain veiled the atmosphere. Through this thin downpour Burton walked his
+shackled prisoner to the Federal Building.
+
+After a wait of almost an hour--which added nervous agony to Lem's grim
+speculations--he was led into the austere presence of the commissioner.
+
+A row of ornate heavy chairs was lined up against the east wall of the
+high-ceilinged room. Across the room on the west side, the commissioner
+sat at a long claw-footed table, hemmed about with various other pieces
+of massive office furniture, while to the left of him a pale, icy blonde
+woman hammered a typewriter.
+
+On the walls were the portraits of five men, presumably former
+commissioners.
+
+The whole atmosphere of the chamber was charged with a chill that went
+to the heart of the prisoner. When they first entered the room the two
+officers escorted Lem to one of the chairs against the wall. While the
+deputy remained seated here with Lem, Burton swaggered his damp hulk
+across the room and halted before the commissioner, his big shoulders
+slumping awkwardly. Here he stood mopping his sweaty, heavy features.
+
+Lem's eyes were fastened upon his blunt profile. When the commissioner
+threw his pen down and looked up, Burton met his gaze with a leering
+grin, the while wetting his thick lips with his tongue and jerking his
+thumb toward Lem and the deputy with some words that were inaudible.
+
+As Burton grinned now, Lem had seen his own dog grin, and, at this tense
+moment, the analogy almost coaxed a smile to Lem's tight lips. Lem had
+seen his own hound lay a limp, dead rabbit at his feet and look up, and
+lick his lips with his tongue, and grin just as Burton grinned now.
+
+A subdued and lengthy conversation followed between the commissioner and
+Burton. From their expressions and gestures it was apparent that Burton
+was describing the killing of old Cap Lutts. Finally Burton beckoned the
+deputy, who led Lem across the great room and stood him before the
+commissioner.
+
+The latter leaned backward and slightly to one side, while with
+curiously wrinkled brow he started at Lem's boots and glanced slowly and
+critically up Lem's corduroy trousers, past his heavy belt, across his
+gray flannel shirt front, and finally rested his keen eyes upon Lem's
+face.
+
+He did not see a hang-dog criminal.
+
+He saw before him a young mountaineer, in height a good six feet; spare
+of flesh, but with back-flung shoulders that promised to develop at
+maturity into the frame of a mighty man. He saw a candid, open
+countenance, though now a trifle pale, little short of handsome, and
+absolutely free from any indications of dissipation.
+
+He noted a well-shaped, firm mouth above a square chin; a thin, hawklike
+nose leading to a wide vertical forehead.
+
+Throughout this acute examination Lem's steady gray eyes never wandered
+from the commissioner's face. He focused his own gaze upon the
+commissioner's eye as intently as he would have watched a groundhog hole
+in the hills. Then the commissioner leaned forward and, taking up his
+pen, spoke softly:
+
+"So you are old Lutts's boy?"
+
+"He's a dangerous man, Cap'n," interposed Burton. "He ain't no boozer.
+He makes the stuff, but he don't drink it himself so you can notice it;
+and that makes him more dangerous. I can hook seventeen rummy-shiners
+before I can get half-way to a sober one. Then again, he's got the nerve
+of the old man, and that helps some, I reckon. He's the old man over and
+over--he's fixin' to lead us a dog's life, Captain."
+
+The commissioner studied Lem again.
+
+"I knew your father, Lutts," he said. "In fact, I have a small piece of
+lead inside me yet that your father put there." He paused again and,
+oddly enough, the severe frown with which he had raked the prisoner at
+first now vanished. He continued evenly:
+
+"Do you see those portraits along the wall? They are men who worked
+themselves up in the service during the thirty-five years that I can
+remember. They all looked for your father; they all found him. But none
+of them ever brought him in."
+
+The commissioner shifted his eyes to Burton.
+
+"So it was left to you, eh? Well--well, of course, I rather
+expected--that is, I hoped to get old Lutts alive, but----"
+
+He broke off abruptly and added his signature to the blue printed blank
+he had filled in, then handed the slip to Burton with:
+
+"I'll continue the hearing for further evidence--take him over to the
+jail, Burton."
+
+He now looked at Lem.
+
+"Have you anything to say for yourself?"
+
+Throughout all this the boy had stood straight and unflinching. His
+features were pale but his jaws were hard set. Friendless and moneyless,
+he knew his chances were small. He knew that he stood on the perilous
+brink of some dire happening. He understood the import of the
+commissioner's order to hold him for additional evidence, and while he
+was not wholly unafraid, he stood tense and determined, boding no
+retreat, like a brave horse taking a deep, wide ditch in the dark, with
+yawning depths beneath him, and the gush of waters in his ears.
+
+"I said, have you got anything to say?" repeated the impatient
+commissioner.
+
+"I hain't got nothin' t' say--only--only----" he began, in a voice that
+split and ruptured in crowding past the lump that choked him. He turned
+his gray eyes and fixed them upon the bloated, triumphant visage of
+Burton.
+
+"Only," he struggled on, quaveringly, as he lifted his two cuffed hands
+and leveled them at the revenuer, "he kilt my Maw--he ded--an' he kilt
+my pap, he ded--an'--an'----"
+
+[Illustration: "He kilt my maw--he ded--an' he kilt my pap."]
+
+Burton grabbed one shoulder with a snort, the deputy the other, and they
+led him out.
+
+As the door closed, the blonde typist resumed her machine, and her
+chilly eyes were moist. She glanced covertly at the commissioner. His
+downward drawn mouth was ajar, and he was gazing blankly at a familiar
+ink spot on his desk.
+
+Once again Lem found himself marching through the rain between his
+captors, and all the unknown strange noises of a city consolidated and
+merged into a tumult that harried his very soul. His next distinct
+impression came when he realized that Burton was unlocking his
+handcuffs.
+
+He was now inside of a jail. He stood before a desk and a man in uniform
+was putting various questions to him in a curt and gruff voice,
+concerning his age and residence, to which Lem answered in an apathetic,
+dazed way. The man made a record of these responses in a book. While he
+was thus occupied, Lem was eyeing his awesome surroundings.
+
+Now for the first time, he was conscious that Burton and his deputy had
+disappeared, and another man in uniform stood at his side. The desk-man
+presently handed this officer a pink slip, and he in turn told Lem to
+follow, leading the way across a big rotunda of concrete to a huge
+iron-barred gate which he unlocked. He ushered the prisoner into a long
+corridor, and transferred him to the care of a second uniformed guard,
+who proceeded to search Lem's clothes with a skill and deftness that
+would have inspired envy in the bosom of a professional pickpocket.
+
+The guard seated Lem on a bench which was already occupied by two men in
+blue cotton shirts, and the perversely striped trousers of convict garb.
+
+"Blinky," said the guard, "where's Last Time?" addressing a huge convict
+with red hair, a mop and a bucket.
+
+"He's over at the bath house."
+
+"Send him front when he comes back. And you," turning to Lem, "sit there
+till you're wanted."
+
+Whereupon, with the pink slip in his hand, he walked to a small desk at
+the farther side of the corridor and sat in an arm-chair with his back
+toward the three now on the wooden bench, waiting for Lem knew not what.
+
+In the meantime, Lem's eyes roved about making a grim inventory of this
+great merciless cage that had engulfed his body. He was inside a mammoth
+arcade-like structure that stretched its repellent length out a thousand
+feet and more to a blind, sinister end. Along its sides, equi-distant,
+appeared high arched double windows, bolted and barred with a
+lattice-work of iron. Wherever Lem perceived a spot of God's light, a
+cold, forbidding hand lay across it like a blasphemy, spreading out its
+unyielding, black, skeleton fingers to enmesh a human soul.
+
+Moreover, this stupendous, invulnerable shell incased and jealously
+protected a second structure equally strong and grisly, for as Lem
+looked, he noted this other structure occupying the center of the
+arcade. It was a tomb within a tomb, and the boy's already heavy heart
+sickened as his eyes slid down the seemingly interminable vista of small
+iron-barred doors, some four feet apart, that diminished in perspective
+toward the distant end until they shrank to the size of a newspaper.
+
+The doors in this cunning edifice were accessible by means of a steel
+skeleton-work forming lengthwise porches five stories high, where even a
+sluggish imagination could visualize convenient gibbets stationed just
+outside these black, mysterious doors, awaiting the condemned necks of
+the inmates.
+
+While Lem made further notations in undisguised wonderment, convicts
+were constantly passing to and fro. They were "short time" men who had
+their allotted duties, working about the tiers and corridors.
+
+Presently, Lem became suddenly conscious that the two men at the other
+end of the bench were eyeing him curiously. Their interchange of looks
+and low words to each other made it obvious that Lem was a subject of
+comment. Now that Lem was looking straight at them, the man nearest slid
+along the bench, smiled good-humoredly, then whispered:
+
+"What did ye draw, bo?" The man watched Lem's mute lips for response.
+
+"What did they give ye, pal?" he repeated, while the second man slid
+over and craned his neck for the answer. Lem still looked puzzled, but
+finally answered.
+
+"Nothin'."
+
+The other started a laugh which was squelched with an elbow punch in the
+ribs from his companion.
+
+"I mean, pal," pursued Lem's inquisitor, "did ye git a sentence in this
+jail, er did they bind ye over?"
+
+"I air continued," replied the boy gloomily, "wherever thet takes me."
+
+"Oh, yes--is this your first pinch?"
+
+Lem risked a nod, with only a vague notion of what "pinch" meant.
+
+Presently the man spoke again.
+
+"Say, pal, you ain't never been in jail before, have ye?"
+
+"Naw," responded Lem without hesitation, "an' I 'low I want out o' heah,
+too."
+
+He delivered this earnest sentiment with such guileless sincerity that
+both men snickered.
+
+"Don't you care. You'll feel dopy for a day er two--then ye won't mind
+it. It'll git your nanny the first time. This is my fifth time in this
+joint," he volunteered. "I got eight spots ahead of me. Say, pal, sneak
+me th' makin's, will ye?"
+
+Lem did not answer.
+
+"Have ye got any tobacco on ye?"
+
+"Ef I had, yo'd be welcome to hit--I never use hit."
+
+The man looked disappointed.
+
+"Say--when the bull frisked ye--did he git all your matches--ain't ye
+got no matches either?"
+
+"I haint got nary a match."
+
+Here a big, husky fellow in stripes, who walked as if he had springs for
+shoe-soles, passed by. Then he stopped, and turning back, looked keenly
+into Lem's face. Lem met his gaze and noted that he wore a livid scar
+from the right cheek-bone down to the chin. He did not appear to see the
+other two men on the bench, but stood looking with open interest at Lem.
+
+"Hello, Last Time," greeted the man next to Lem. Wherefore, the newcomer
+shifted his gaze searchingly, then grinned. With a furtive backward
+glance toward the guard's desk, he thrust his hand out.
+
+"What did you draw, Rox?" he probed.
+
+"Eight."
+
+"A mere speck--I could stand on my head that long. I may see you
+to-night." He hurried on with his elastic tread toward the guard's desk.
+
+"I'm dead sure we'll git some tobacco now," predicted the man beside
+Lem. "That's 'Last Time'--he's a time-lock expert--believe me,
+gents--he's some cracker, too. I met him in Joliet, and I met him agin
+in San Quinten. Say, Monk, do ye remember readin' about that back-track
+stunt Last Time pulled off five years ago? No? Well, that was a funny
+caper. You see, Last Time touched a big joint in Cincy and got four
+thousand bucks. Then he beat it west. Two days later he got stewed in
+Chi--then he boarded a train with a bottle of booze, thinkin' he was
+bound fer Omaha; but he woke up that night and walked smack into the
+arms of the fly cops in Cincy. What do ye think of that? They didn't
+prove it on him very strong, but he drawed two spots at Columbus on
+general principles. I wonder what he turned this time. I met him last
+winter in St. Louis and I was up aginst it good and strong, too, but
+Last Time slipped me fifty as easy as dirt. He's got a heart as big as a
+cow's. Don't you worry--we'll git tobacco now. I wonder how much longer
+they'll keep us here," he faced about and addressed Lem. "I'm waiting to
+git my top-knot clipped--I reckon ye wouldn't want to lose your hair,
+would ye, pal?" he observed, regarding Lem's flowing locks.
+
+"I reckon he will lose 'em, though," projected a raspy voice.
+
+The three looked up. Blinky was standing over them with a pair of
+clippers in his hand.
+
+"What are you, anyhow," chided Blinky, sneeringly. "Are you a cowboy or
+a preacher?"
+
+Lem felt a warm sting rise to his cheeks, as he fixed his eyes
+inquiringly upon Blinky's insolent face.
+
+"What else could he be," interposed a new arrival, "but a preacher? He
+ain't no convict--the Captain jest sent fer him. He's goin' to live here
+amongst us and reform a lot of you bad guys."
+
+At this juncture, still another convict came up, bearing a blue cotton
+shirt and a pair of prison trousers over his arm.
+
+"Is this the new duck?" he queried.
+
+"Duck--duck," echoed Blinky. "Ain't ye got no manners? I'm ashamed of
+ye--ain't ye got no respect for a preacher? This is Brother Silsand--he
+got a call--here."
+
+"Oh, excuse me. Well, Brother Silsand, you'll carry these elegant pants
+and this fancy shirt on your arm when Last Time comes to escort you to
+the beach. When you come back, you'll feel like a gentleman sure
+enough."
+
+Other men were attracted, and now a little group clustered around the
+bench, all eyes turned upon Lem, as though he were some strange animal.
+And all in turn contributed their jest calculated to furnish fun for the
+others.
+
+"Here comes Brizz now," announced Blinky. "Ha, there, Brizz--I brought
+your clippers down. Pipe this guy's hair--you'll never git that reaped
+twixt this and sun-down. Say, Shorty, you been bellerin' for a mattress
+ever since I knowed ye--now's yer chance--rake this pretty hair up as
+fast as Brizz mows it, and feed it to that hungry tick of yourn. I'll
+bet my plug Saturday to three matches that the bell won't wake ye up."
+
+At this moment, Brizz, a heavy man with a ponderous paunch, crowded in
+and took the clippers out of Blinky's hand. Brizz was the official
+reception room barber.
+
+"It do look uncommon extensive, don't it?" said Brizz.
+
+All this while, Lem had grown more and more uneasy, and his first
+resentment was rapidly amounting to real anger under these unkind
+criticisms, and the jeering faces that now encircled the bench.
+
+"I'll swear it do," reiterated Brizz. "Still, I'm a regular old rip when
+it comes to mowin'--come here young feller," he urged with a
+business-like flourish of the clippers. "Let's start early so's we'll
+get done for supper."
+
+He laid a hand on Lem's shoulder. Whereupon, Lem rose up, his jaws set,
+his muscles tense, while a steady light shot his gray eyes.
+
+"Ef yo'-all tech me with them things," he said, low and steady, "I'll
+take em away from yo' an,'--an' hit yo' with 'em."
+
+The men were so enthralled with these festive proceedings that they
+failed to notice Last Time sneak up from behind, where he was taking it
+all in. When Lem stood up and showed fight, a chorus of low derisive
+laughter rippled around the circle which was instantly disrupted as Last
+Time burst ruthlessly into their midst, throwing one of the convicts
+completely off his feet.
+
+"What you fixin' to do, Brizz?" he growled.
+
+"Who--me?--I'm here to cut this man's hair," wherefore, the barber
+applied the clippers so unexpectedly and so roughly to the head of the
+man who had been seated next to Lem, that the unlucky fellow protested
+loudly. Last Time turned upon Blinky. He scowled at him for a second,
+his lips curled away fiercely, emphasizing an under-shot jaw.
+
+"You old clothes thief," he hissed, "you rod-ridin', cheap, ugly
+leather-snatcher--you forgot the hammerin' I handed you last month, eh?"
+Last Time shot a quick look across the corridor at the guard's back.
+Then he reached out and took a clutching handful of Blinky's
+shirt-front, and thrust his right fist close to Blinky's nose. Blinky,
+who was a head taller, now hung away, white and dumb.
+
+"You let this new man alone--do you get me? You let him alone. The next
+time I get at you I'll take your jaw off--I'll send you across the lot
+for many a day--get away--get," he snarled, with a violent, contemptuous
+push.
+
+The minute the other onlookers had noted Last Time's attitude toward
+Lem, they faded noiselessly away like so many rats. All except Shorty.
+He stood meekly, holding the shirt and the trousers across his arm.
+
+"That's the bully of the jail," said the convict, following Blinky with
+a belligerent look. "He's got 'em all bluffed--but one," he added with a
+scornful laugh.
+
+"What you waitin' on?" he demanded of Shorty.
+
+"Here's his clothes," replied Shorty, indicating Lem with a jerk of his
+head. Last Time scathed him with a withering look.
+
+"Say, I had a trained cockroach once that could learn things quicker
+than you--you get dumber and dumber day by day. This man is on the court
+side--he keeps his own clothes. Take them things back to the
+dud-cubboard, and put 'em back where you got 'em from. Let's see--you're
+Lutts, ain't you?" he broke off, producing from his pocket the pink slip
+Lem had seen the guard have when he was first brought into the cell
+house.
+
+"Yes--I air ole Cap Lutts' boy o' Moon mountain."
+
+The convict shot a curious look at Lem.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A FRIEND IN NEED
+
+
+"Sure--that's right," he assented. "Well, Lutts, come with me now. You
+have to take a bath--everybody that comes in here has to take a bath,
+the first dash out the box. You ain't never been in a place like this
+before, have you? A blind man can see that," he conjectured, gnawing a
+chew off a very black prison plug. "Have a chew?"
+
+"I never hankered fo' t'baccy," declined Lem, smilingly, with a gesture
+which he meant for a polite curtsy in lieu of thanks.
+
+As they proceeded across the graveled prison yard, toward the bath
+house, Lem's keen inherent sense of penetration had analyzed the man
+beside him as accurately as Last Time had read the artless, simple soul
+of the big mountain boy, and notwithstanding that Lem knew instinctively
+that this bull-necked, scar-faced fellow was a bad and desperate
+character, he at the same time felt a warm feeling springing up within
+him toward this man. He felt that he had a friend in Last Time, who was
+the first and only one to give him a kind look or word since his arrest,
+and a sympathetic look or a cheering word coming from any quarter was
+indeed a welcome offering to a person in Lem's unfortunate and
+distressing position.
+
+As they walked, the convict talked along in a friendly way, and noting
+Lem's roving eyes, he proceeded to tell the boy about the various
+buildings scattered about the great lot.
+
+"That's the Chapel over there," he said. "That's where you will go to
+church on Sunday, if you want to. If you don't, you'll stay locked in
+your cell. There's the dining-hall back there by the left wing of the
+cell-house. That long shed over there open on all sides is where the
+shop men stop to wash up. There's three hundred men over there now at
+work. They make brushes and wire fences and shoes and a lot of other
+things, but you won't work there--cause you're held for Court--but I'd a
+damn sight rather work than stay locked up all day--night's bad enough.
+
+"I hope you don't come back here after your trial. Any man with as much
+intellect as an oyster can see that you don't belong here. And there's a
+few more like you here, that don't deserve bein' in a place like this--a
+waller for the scum of the earth. Don't look at me, Lutts--that don't
+include me--I got off damn light. I was due for five spots in the pen.
+You see that little brick coop over there, Lutts--without any windows,
+and a solid iron door? That's Calcutta--the dungeon--they call it the
+'hole.' That's where they put the bad actors. Inside, there's a solid
+sheet-iron cell, with an iron cot, and an iron bucket in it--that's
+all--not a crack of light. They chain 'em to the bed an' leave 'em--once
+a day they give 'em fresh water and toss in a piece of punk. When the
+men march in at night, you'll notice the Captain standing at the
+cell-house door making the count, and you'll see a bull standing by him,
+pullin' men out of line. When you see a guy pulled out, it's Calcutta
+for him."
+
+"I've been here nine months, and I've been in that 'hole' five times,
+'cause I can't stand these fresh stiffs around here. The last time was
+for makin' hamburger out of Blinky. See them little wooden houses away
+'cross there up on the wall? Them's for the lookouts. See, there goes
+one now, walking on the wall with his cannon in his hand.
+
+"Here's where you get your bath, Lutts. Upstairs over here is the
+Hospital. That's where I sent Blinky and a couple more of his cowards."
+
+Last Time's laugh predicated a deep, pleasurable reminiscence, as they
+entered the bath house. There was no one in the bath house at this time
+save the convict attendant. He handed Lem a towel which in dimensions
+resembled a large table napkin, and a piece of yellow soap which in size
+looked like a chewing-gum wafer. Here, Last Time reached out and took
+the mite of soap and the meagre towel out of Lem's hands.
+
+"Hoggie, I'll look after him. You stay up at the door and watch the
+big-top. If you see the bull come out and pike over uneasy, you squeak.
+Wait, Lutts--I'll get you a decent piece of soap."
+
+With this he climbed up on a box, and reaching up behind a series of
+steam pipes, he produced a half-bar of white soap and a towel of coarse
+fabric, but clean and ample. Lem then busied himself with the bath,
+which was sunken into the concrete floor. As this new-made friend talked
+along, trying to acquaint Lem with the rules of the prison, he noticed
+that the boy fumbled, and hesitated, and was plainly abashed when it
+came to divesting himself of his clothes. Last Time thoughtfully left
+the mountaineer to himself, saying:
+
+"I'll help Hoggie watch for old Caladadac--you can wash your hair if you
+want to--that soap is O. K."
+
+Some fifteen minutes later, when Lem had concluded his hasty bath and
+joined his conductor at the door of the bath house, a high-keyed bell
+suddenly pealed out. It was the first familiar sound Lem had heard since
+he left the mountains.
+
+"That's the recall," said Last Time. "Stay back in the door a minute and
+you'll see the file come out--they've stopped work now--it's four
+o'clock."
+
+The celerity with which these convicts got out of the shops was
+remarkable. Hardly had the tower bell ceased when five long rows of
+stripes stood ready to march. The guards each blew a mouth-whistle in
+turn, and the columns moved across the plaza toward the wash-shed like a
+great dragon with hundreds of legs. Then out of the wash-shed the
+columns crawled, bent around the dungeon-house, and marched into the big
+dining hall, with the scraping rise and fall of the lock-step--a
+peculiar, sinister sound.
+
+Lem had peeped out at the bath-house door upon this spectacle with
+awesome eyes. He stood in open-mouthed wonder, and was aroused only when
+Last Time spoke and touched his arm.
+
+"The night bull 'll come on now, and he'll be hollerin' for me--we
+better git along," he said. "You won't eat with them men. You'll git
+yours in the dining hall inside."
+
+Upon reaching the cell-house, Last Time conducted Lem to the tables at
+the front end of the basement corridor where the Court prisoners were
+already at supper, and then left him. A soup-bowl, filled with a
+substance that at least resembled coffee; a plate of beans, and a thick
+piece of bread were placed in front of Lem by a convict waiter.
+
+Lem felt at the moment that he never again would want to eat anything.
+Not only was his appetite wholly gone, but the mere sight of this food
+was nauseating, although he had not tasted anything since he had eaten
+breakfast at home the day before.
+
+While he sat looking about him with lugubrious eyes, the man next to
+him--an uncouth individual indeed--whispered surreptitiously:
+
+"Ain't ye goin' to eat your punk?"
+
+Lem shook his head.
+
+"Kin I have it?"
+
+Lem pushed the whole fare over to him gladly. Presently a gong rasped
+out two harsh, reverberating notes. At this the men, some forty in
+number, rose, fell into line and straggled up the basement steps to the
+main corridor. At the head of the steps Lem met Last Time, who was
+apparently waiting for him.
+
+"I'll show you your cell now. You're 420--right next to me on the first
+tier."
+
+Here a great commotion of hurrying feet sounded below and overhead on
+the tiers above, mingled with the metallic ring of keys and the cold
+clanking of steel doors and the rattle of iron. And from far up the dim
+corridor Lem heard a sound that, somehow, filled him with a strange
+dread. It was the rising and falling of a scraping, tide-like
+rhythm--the muffled rhapsody of a hundred-legged lock-step. The last
+column of convicts was marching into the cell-house from the dining hall
+on the plaza.
+
+It was the on-coming of a grisly, striped, argus-eyed multiped, with
+fifty heads. This ugly sound reverberated soft and stealthful at first;
+like the padded feet of some fabulous, carnivorous monster sneaking into
+this cavernous mortuary to gloat over the dead souls it had cached here.
+Then again, beneath the nearer tumult, this natant, ill rhythm died down
+to a measured, sinister moan, echoing through the stone corridors in
+soughing jabs, like sounds marking the visitation of some maimed Hydra.
+
+The denotation of this eery evil tread of ruined lives grated terribly
+on Lem's highly tensioned nerves. And oddly enough, he did not seek to
+shut it out--this revolting, dreadful scrape, that nothing can ever
+imitate. On the contrary, he strained his ears for it, impelled by the
+same indefinable, weird influence that charms one to turn again and look
+back upon a horror that has fascinated the eyes. Thus was Lem fascinated
+by this hateful noise. Enthralled in this that had dominated his senses,
+for the moment, he had unconsciously ascended the skeleton iron stairs.
+
+When he aroused himself, Last Time was pointing into the cell allotted
+him, and looking at him pityingly. Lem shot one swift look into this
+dark hole, then withdrew his startled eyes and fastened them upon the
+convict's scarred visage. The boy's eyes were freighted with the igneous
+luster of some unnamable terror that seemed to stultify his senses,
+leaving his manly instincts in the grip of some perverted agency that he
+did not know was there.
+
+If Lem Lutts had possessed a pistol, he would have killed himself in
+that instant. Quaking perceptibly, he hung back from the cell door. His
+hand trembled as he held to the railing of the iron porch. His lips
+moved, and he tried to tell the convict something. The world seemed to
+be falling about his ears, carrying his soul down into the fumes of
+hades. Of all the subtle, dormant influences that awake, and invade the
+scheme of human life to sway the impulses of men, there is none so
+bewildering as this phase of psychological prompting which holds its
+profound mystery intact, and baffles solution.
+
+Where is the abode, and what is the origin of this plenipotent conjurer?
+Certainly Lem Lutts trembled at the threshold of this stone cell. Last
+Time could see that. What sweeping, pillaging power was this that
+assaulted Lem's will, causing him to quake thus like an aspen. Surely it
+was an abstruse form of fear.
+
+Verily, it could not have been the stigma of cowardice. Lem Lutts had
+never known fear. From the very cradle his life had been enveloped in
+danger. Deeds stood out boldly to refute this suspicion of weakness.
+Scores of times in Lem Lutts' life he had looked into the grim teeth of
+on-coming death unflinchingly and unafraid, with a self-forgetfulness
+that spells sublime courage. But here he stood now, on the brink of a
+moment that was in some strange, exaggerated way, awful to him. He
+stood, pale and shaken, in front of this black jail-cell, undeniably
+fear-stricken.
+
+Perhaps this was the same quality of fear that caused Napoleon to
+dismount, cursing his horse, pale, sick, and unsteady for an hour,
+because his steed had crushed a camp cat with its hoofs. Possibly it was
+the same subtle thing that inspired the late C. K. Hamilton, the most
+daring of all aviators, to rush in panic from a dental chair. It may
+have been the same brand of unknown dread that impelled one of the
+greatest war conquerors in American history to shun a graveyard after
+nightfall. Some time or other this strange power lays hold of the
+bravest hearts. It had Lem Lutts now, and he was backing away and trying
+to get down the stairs. Last Time spoke to him gently, as he took his
+arm and urged him slowly into 420.
+
+"Hurry up, Lutts--don't you hear 'em? They're lockin' up now, and I've
+got to run the tier for the bull--there now--I know just how you
+feel--I've forgot all the other times, but I've never forgot the
+first--and God knows I never will. You can't tell me--but you'll be all
+right--I'll come and talk to you after a while. They don't lock me up
+until eleven o'clock."
+
+Lem had stepped inside gingerly, as if he expected the floor to collapse
+and engulf him. There was a dull rolling, a click, and the iron-barred
+door was closed upon him.
+
+"Stand up at your door until the bull makes the count," imparted Last
+Time, as he hurried along the tier looking into each cell. Then he came
+back, and pulling a great lever at the end of the tier, locked all the
+doors automatically. Now he started back, again calling into the cells
+as he passed.
+
+"Stand up--stand up--stand up!"
+
+A big guard followed close behind the convict, with a gliding tread that
+did not give forth the slightest sound. He dashed a cold, penetrating
+stare in at the faces that hovered at the bars. When the guards had made
+the count for the night, a babble of conversation began between the
+prisoners all over the place. They called to each other by the cell
+numbers, or nicknames; and the talk waxed to an incoherent, mixed medley
+that tangled itself into nothing intelligible. Though strange to record,
+this did not seem to bother or confuse those talking.
+
+The door of Lem's cell seemed to be as sensitive to every sound as a
+telephone receiver. A voice at the farthest end of the corridor trailed
+into Lem's cell as distinctly as a voice two cells away. Thus, a sound
+two cells away might be interpreted as emanating from the remotest cell
+in the place. Lem, sad, dejected, and with a weight of gloom at his
+heart that submerged his spirit and held him in a lethargy, still stood
+at the door with his fingers twined around the chill bars. His eyes,
+starry with the emotions that swept over him, were fixed upon the only
+thing he could see--the blank stone wall opposite, laced with a series
+of steam pipes, and the high windows blotted with a skein of iron.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE STIGMA
+
+
+He was in jail now--he, Lem Lutts,--old Cap Lutts' boy--was gunless
+to-night; hanging on to the bars of a jail door. His father, seventy-six
+when he fell in the Church of Hellsfork, had never been in a jail.
+Crowding up amidst other lamentations, and superseding them for the
+moment, Lem felt keenly the stigma and sting of this scandal. It was a
+disgrace on the whole Lutts faction that he, their leader, now should
+stand behind the iron bars of a jail door. The irony of it was deeply
+excruciating--that he, their chieftain, should succumb to a revenuer.
+
+Moreover, was it not unspeakably shameful that this revenuer who took
+him was the man who had invaded his home and killed his mother? He had
+waited a little and killed his father. Then he tore him away from his
+domain and his people; and caged him where he stood to-night--gunless,
+in an iron and concrete hole, with the cold, unyielding bars between him
+and his free, wide, high Cumberland Kingdom.
+
+Lem probed his conscience for the hundredth time in quest of the crime
+he had committed to bring him to this hell. And when a small voice
+answered back from out its castle of inherent chauvinism, and told him
+that he sinned against no man--then it was that the smouldering, dormant
+hate, sleeping in his heart, stirred and welled up into a mighty tide,
+effacing all other kindred emotions that had traversed his being upon
+being jailed. This new force aroused him to action, and somehow he felt
+better.
+
+How strange are the workings of that mystically mated pair--the human
+heart and brain! How appallingly strange that a phase of hate should
+assuage the pain in any heart. But this was a truism that for the time
+inspired Lem to action and forgetfulness of his environments, for now
+his previously dull eyes were afire, as he turned back into his cell for
+the first time. He felt his way to the limits of the wall. The distance
+was a mere three steps for him. Then he turned and took the three steps
+back to the door. Then back again he went. And thus he took up this
+three-step march, the while the ugly visage of the revenuer projected
+itself against the gloom, and he saw Burton's dog-grin. He saw him smear
+the sweat off his leering face, and fancied he heard his vaunting words
+of triumph to the commissioner, gloating over the killing of Lem's
+father, and the taking of himself.
+
+And here, while Lem paced to and fro, he forgot all else save his thirst
+for revenge. And through these walls he heard dim voices from two graves
+in the hills urging him onward, and he invoked God to give him strength
+to endure. He vowed that he would be patient and endure, even to the
+crack of doom, that he might stand face to face with this man-brute,
+when he, Lem Lutts, would hold the upper hand, in that great day, over
+this wanton blood-lover who had done these things.
+
+Lem's life was linked to this Nemesis by an inexorable blood-debt. He
+was bonded to the revenuer, with the rigid, unmalleable nexus of hate
+that naught but annihilation of one or the other could sever. Thus, with
+these hurtful thoughts whirling through his brain, Lem forgot in a
+measure, which mitigated the dejection and chagrin imposed by his
+terrible predicament.
+
+Wherefore, he continued to follow these stormy thoughts as from door to
+wall he paced--three steps backward, then three strides to the bars,
+walking, turning, walking and turning again--until presently he stopped,
+transfixed, startled, and blinking. A flood of brilliant light, had
+dashed into his cell. The boy had heard of this wonderful invention, but
+he had never before seen an electric globe. This magic effulgence that
+rushed in and drove the darkness from his cell was a most welcome
+visitation, but it added to his strange, uncanny surroundings, and
+perplexed him deeply. He stood rigid for a long minute gazing intently
+at the incandescent globe that stuck put from the wall, irradiating its
+brightness in so mystifying a manner. He approached this bottle-like
+device, and examined the wall around it minutely. He raised one hand
+cautiously and with a forefinger touched the globe gingerly, as if he
+feared it might burn him. While he was thus engaged pondering upon the
+necromancy of this light which smacked so strongly of witchcraft, and
+upon the avenue that conveyed it hither and the puzzling power that
+sustained it, he heard a slight sound at the door. Whereupon, he wheeled
+quickly and met Last Time's scarred face grinning through the bars at
+him pleasantly, and obviously amused. Knowing that the fellow had been
+watching his antics around the electric globe, and acutely conscious of
+his own crudeness, Lem stepped to the door with an abashed smile.
+
+"How are you now?" inquired the convict.
+
+"I ain't powerful happy," returned Lem lugubriously. "This air the
+all-fired'st cave I ever been into. I 'low I'll never git used t'
+hit--leastways I air glad thet yo'-all come round t' talk. I ain't much
+on th' talk myse'f--I never could talk much, someways,--th' folks up my
+ways air all putty much thet-away--they don't any of 'em spill over with
+talkin'--'pears like they got so much to think about thet hit keeps
+their tongues stalled all th' time, most--but ef I can't say much--I air
+glad yo'-all come round, 'cause I like to heer yo' talk. Gawd'll
+Moughty! hit's powerful lonesome-like in heah."
+
+"Sure," sympathized the convict. "It's lonesome'ern hell; but it ain't
+that altogether thet hurts a first-timer, Lutts--it's the gang of
+old-timers he's bound to meet inside every jail."
+
+Lem smiled wearily, in a mirthless way, and delivered his short,
+eloquent gesture, implying acquiescence and approval, as he watched the
+convict's face with interest. Silently, Last Time produced a small tin
+box containing a bit of woolen rag and a tiny piece of flint, together
+with a button through which two cords passed through separate holes.
+Standing, he lifted his knee, placed the box thereon, and with dextrous
+skill started the button like an improvised buzz-saw against the flint.
+The spark flew and ignited the woolen rag. He then lighted his
+cigarette, replacing the box, and leaning his big shoulder against the
+bars, forced the smoke through his nostrils reflectively.
+
+"I don't know what brought you here, Lutts--I ain't askin' you--it's
+none of my business--but I hope you don't come back here after your
+trial--it's the old-timers, like me, that the cul meets in jail that
+makes the criminals of this country. Just listen to that talk now--that
+ain't up-liftin', is it?--Sure not. Just hark to that swearing and them
+rabby songs--sure, that's all aginst the rules of the prison, but what
+can they do to stop it? Nothin'. They'd have to keep a bull at each
+door. The men are allowed to talk a little while to each other from
+their cells before the lights go out. They can't speak during the
+day--they got to let them talk some time or other in a place like
+this--if they didn't, they'd all go crazy--then where would the
+politicians and the prison contractors be?
+
+"Then when these guys start in to talk, what do you hear? But there
+ain't much of that stuff comin' from the first-timers, Lutts--they're
+too thoughtful to-night--they ain't hard enough yet--but wait till they
+come back--very soon. If they do, they won't get any jobs when they get
+out, believe me--it's me that knows. What happens when a guard starts
+out to catch some of these cursers? A bull's got to be almost in front
+of his cell to be sure. And you take three hundred convicts with
+two-thirds of them cussin' all at the same time, and the echoes all
+jumbled up--he might as well try to take the ocean up in his arms--they
+get them--sometimes. When a bull slips up and starts along the tier, he
+don't no more than get started, when the guys that he's already passed
+gives out the signal and you won't hear a peep until the bull's gone
+down again--then they'll all give him the merry ha-ha, and cuss him for
+sneaking up. It's the people you meet here that makes the criminals,
+Lutts. I hope you don't come back here. If you do, you're gone--not that
+you want to be gone, but the world 'll sizzle you to a frazzle--they
+will want none of you--it's me that knows."
+
+Lem was profoundly attentive. He pressed against the door and listened
+to the convict's words with growing interest. Last Time rolled another
+cigarette, manipulated the tinder-box, lighted up, and continued:
+
+"It makes my gizzard ache," he said, "every time I see a first-timer.
+Their stories are all the same. If you'll listen, Lutts, I'll tear off
+nine rods of my own life, right at the spot, where I first got in jail."
+
+"Once I had one of them good mothers--like everybody has or had. My
+daddy was killed in a mine, and my mother died three months later. They
+sent my little sister to an orphan asylum, and I went to work for a
+dairy-man for my board and clothes. I sure did sling the work--from four
+in the mornin' to eight at night, sometimes later. He fed me good
+enough, but the old stiff wouldn't give me a cent to spend--only two
+jits on Sunday to toss to the preacher. Course he didn't agree to give
+me any money, but if he had just a slipped me two bits on Saturday he
+could have squared my feelin'. I didn't kick out loud, and wouldn't a
+felt so bad at that if he had let me see my little sister once in a
+while. I begged him every month, but he turned me down cold."
+
+"Well, I got to wantin' to see my sister so damn bad after a year that I
+swiped a set of single harness from the old guy. I kept them hid for two
+weeks, then I dug them up, sold them, and skated. I left a note tellin'
+ole Storman that I had gone West to make my fortune, like they say in
+books. Well, I see now that I hadn't ought to a stole the harness--I
+hadn't ought to a throwed that trick. Anyhow, them two months was the
+happiest I've seen since.
+
+"When I left I meant to work for some one near the asylum who would pay
+me till I got money enough to pay for the harness and go back, as the
+old man had promised to pay me wages when I was eighteen, but I struck
+such luck that I forgot to go back; but I paid him for the harness--like
+a dub--and what did I get for it?
+
+"I was a husky lad and knew the dairy business. I got a job near the
+asylum--saw my sister every day--and got twenty-five bucks a month. The
+harness was my first bad break, and it worried me. The second month, I
+sent old Storman a postal order for twenty dollars and told him I took
+the harness and was sorry. He cashed the order and had me pinched the
+next day. They tried me and slammed me into the booby-hatch for six
+months; so I was on my way.
+
+"Lutts, I'll never forget that first night--not me. When I got out I
+went back to my last job and got the throw-down. He said it was good for
+me to confess and pay for the harness, but that every one knew I had
+been in jail, and he couldn't have me around. Then I went back to my own
+town like a fool--everybody gave me the go-by--even the church that I
+had carried money to every Sunday wouldn't have me. I saw then I was a
+dead one. I hiked out then. Every time I'd get a good grip on a job,
+long would come that convict-hunch, and I'd have to make my by-by. I
+ain't tellin' you how hard I tried for a year, Lutts--but I'm tellin'
+you now that I ain't tryin' any more, and don't mean to. I quit tryin'
+and hunted up a guy I met in jail, and when I found him in St. Louis I
+was hungry and ragged and ugly as a wet dog.
+
+"He was the whitest guy I ever met. He staked me and I stuck to him, and
+worked with him until he got shot dead the night I got this scar you
+see. Believe me, Kid, Morgan was the smoothest blower that ever lifted
+the front off a safe--and I want to tell you, Lutts, when I'm outside I
+ain't ragged and hungry any more--not me--and I don't mix with tin-horn
+trash like Blinky and this gang in here. I live right, Lutts, when I'm
+out. I got twenty-three hundred bucks planted right this minute, where
+no one will get it but me--at that, Lutts, I'd go back and work for five
+dollars a week if I could, but I know I can't--there's no turning back
+for an old-timer--he's gone.
+
+"I know as well as I know I'm talkin' now, that in the end they'll plant
+me in the potter's field, and the chances are that I won't die
+natural--they wouldn't even let a guy like me into a decent
+graveyard--the life has big draw-backs--and when you get out, Lutts, you
+remember the advice from a party that knows--you side-step anything that
+looks crooked--even if you do see ready money--you blow it--it's a
+boomerang--I'd rather die a beggar than a rich thief--blow it, Lutts--it
+ain't too late for you--if you don't come back. Say, Lutts, you must be
+hungry--I know you didn't eat anything downstairs--wait a minute----"
+
+Last Time broke off abruptly, and slipped into his cell. He returned
+with a paper sack which he thrust through the bars to Lem.
+
+"Here's some crackers and cream cheese--the bull gave it to me--you eat
+it all--I got all I want. Hello--there goes the quarter--the lights 'll
+go out in fifteen minutes. 'Creepin' Jesus' 'll wake up now. I got to
+bring the night bull's lunch from the kitchen and take the towels over
+to the Hospital, and turn the hot water off at the bath house, and a
+string of other old-woman stunts before they lock me up--so-long."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+RUBRIC DROPS
+
+
+Lem ate the cheese and crackers thrust upon him by the generous convict,
+more to assuage the acute pangs of hunger that now assailed him than to
+indulge his palate, the while he pondered over the convict's story.
+
+Suddenly the electric lights went out and left his cell in darkness save
+a glimmer across the corridor. The scores of obstreperous, profane
+tongues that had scathed the fetid atmosphere now subsided, and Lem sank
+on the side of his cot and gazed with empty eyes between the bars at the
+dim light across the stone hall, and the full force of his unlucky
+predicament rushed upon him again.
+
+This gas jet, which burned all night, was some fifteen feet from the
+corridor floor, bringing it up to a level with the tier porch. The jet
+flung a faint, orange-hued ray obliquely toward Lem's cell door.
+Although he was mentally worn out and weary of body, still he could not
+bring himself to lie down. Finally, he took the straw pillow from his
+cot, placed it on the cement floor close to the door, and sat down with
+his mind astray and his unseeing eyes fixed blankly upon the gas light.
+
+At this instant, he was suddenly blinded, as "Creeping Jesus" flashed
+his lamp in his face, turned a cold stare on him, and glided on like a
+ghost. Lem clutched the bars and tried to look after the apparition that
+seemed to be borne along on air. While he was pressing against the door,
+a sudden medley of noises disrupted the quiet. As it came nearer, it
+gathered volume, and the somber stillness was quickened with the discord
+of voices, and the shuffling of padded feet, accompanied by the baser
+scrape of a heavier tread. Seemingly, this confusion stopped and
+centralized directly over his cell, but what tier it was on he could
+form no conjecture.
+
+In a momentary lull came the rasping of a key; then the subtle roll of a
+cell door, followed instantly by a frightened voice that rang through
+the dead corridors with a jumble of protesting, begging utterances that
+rended the solemnity of the place.
+
+"Oh, no, no! Not in there! Not there! I--I----"
+
+"Shut up--you'll wake every dog in the place--get in."
+
+"I won't go in there! I won't! I can't go in there!"
+
+"Will you get in there? You get in there--you damn fool!"
+
+"Don't put me in there--don't--don't! I won't run away--how can I? I'll
+stay right here--but please don't put me in there."
+
+"Take hold of him, Sam--throw him in--get hold of his leg."
+
+"Wait--wait--wait--please listen just a minute--I'm not a
+criminal--don't put me in--my parents don't know where I am--let me stay
+out here--my father is rich--he will send for me--he will pay you--he
+will come for me--please don't put me in that place--I----"
+
+"Say, Kid--you're the limit! For the last time--are you goin' to get in
+there? If you don't--we'll throw you in."
+
+"I won't!--I can't!--I'll smother in there. I'll die there and my mother
+will never know--oh--oh--you're choking me--stop--you're
+chok--cho--ch----"
+
+For a scant minute there came the panting hiss of labored breaths,
+heaved through clinched teeth; a combat of footsteps, mingled with the
+sound of ripping garments. Then came a dull thud overhead, a slight
+rumble, the click of a cell door, followed by an agonizing groan, ending
+with the pang of a sob that impinged cruelly upon the awesome, dead
+solitude.
+
+While these hateful sounds still lingered hurtfully in Lem's ears, two
+feet and a pair of striped legs confronted him. He looked up from his
+position on the floor. It was Last Time.
+
+"Ain't you asleep yet, Lutts?" he whispered, then went on, "Did you hear
+them slam that first-timer in? He's right over you in 520. God, but he
+hated to go in there--but he went in. He's no mongrel--he's a swell
+looker--only a kid--the poor devil. It's eleven o'clock--there's the
+bull lookin' now--night."
+
+The convict stepped into his cell and slammed his door noisily as a
+signal to notify the guard, who stood waiting at the end of the tier,
+that he had closed the door tight. Then the big lever ground back into
+position, and Lem sat motionless with a horde of curious thoughts
+trailing across his benumbed brain. It seemed like an age that he sat
+there, throughout the pitiless hours like a distorted image; the
+deserted habitat of a soul with its tenant gone. He was only aroused
+momentarily when hour after hour "Creeping Jesus" hung at his door for
+an instant, like a great nocturnal humming-bird, then darted away like a
+winged phantom.
+
+The boy had the comforting, though fatuous notion, that the nearer to
+the door he managed to get, the nearer to freedom was he. Under an
+apathetic spell his thoughts fled back to the hills. With quick, wistful
+breaths, each a cry from a stifling soul, and his hot forehead pressed
+against the iron, he crouched there on the floor by the cell door. His
+body was imprisoned between these grim, impassable walls; but his soul
+was yet uncaged. For in spirit he was once again back amidst the
+beauteous wild hills of the Cumberland with the feel of his rifle,
+hunting and hunted in turn, but with the pungent aroma of odoriferous
+blossoms in his nostrils; the purl of crystal waters in his ears; and
+the illimitable arch of opalescent sky over him, and the free fraternal
+rocks beneath his feet.
+
+And in his vision, framed in blissful hours, his retrospection conjured
+a seraphic face--a luring, misty vision, with a bowed red spot for a
+mouth, and great black-fringed eyes--eyes tinted like robins' eggs--eyes
+that held an unworldly baby look; and curls--a riotous billow of satiny
+curls. Ah, even as he crouched here, he could see the little pale scar
+that crossed the part in her curls--his scar--his scar to kiss,--that
+little scarab-like mark that fascinated his lips.
+
+The longer he stared at the rufus halo that encircled the gas light, the
+wider it expanded; and as it grew, its burning gamut embraced a
+multiplicity of changing scenes representing hours of his life. Like
+cinematographic pictures, it held a stirring pantomime boldly up to his
+intent gaze.
+
+As he looked again, a beautiful nascent wraith slowly developed and
+occupied the nimbus of the buff light. Her meaning lips were slightly
+parted, her eyes saw him, and there was a specific message therein. He
+knew that if some sorceristic agency could put her down by him now in
+this black midnight hour, that she would put her hands in to him and
+would give her lips between these unbreakable iron bars. The price of
+her kiss to-night would be one look at his haggard, haunted face.
+
+In fancy, he took her in his arms and fled, galloping across the clouds
+to the Cumberlands, racing with the shadows that traversed the valleys
+like eagle wings. Once again his eyes were gladdened with the vast
+colored panorama that crowded in one limitless circle around Eagle
+Crown. Now the cascade in Hellsfork was beating in his ears, the
+soothing rhyme of its endless monotone, a cadence he loved so well. And
+now the sun had followed a shower, and he was sitting with Belle-Ann
+under the big magnolia tree on the spot that was ever dry, and they were
+holding out their hands and catching the crystal raindrops that rolled
+off the leaves overhead.
+
+Half consciously, he now thrust his hand out toward this scene his own
+imagery held before him. And even now the warm drops came down from
+overhead--dripping, dripping, dripping. He could feel them splash and
+burst now on the back of his outstretched hand, just as they did in the
+joysome days agone when the drops tickled their palms, and he could hear
+the music of the girl's dulcet laughter. Again he caught more of these
+drops.
+
+Suddenly and rudely, Lem was jerked out of this beatific reverie by the
+fearful howls of some convict, night-mare ridden. These hideous
+screeches aroused Lem's senses, and he blinked and rubbed his hands. His
+hands were wet. Instinctively he looked up and discerned the crack in
+the tier porch overhead from whence these warm drops trickled down and
+splashed in front of his cell. Wherefore, a shock of suspicion jerked
+him out of his rambling thoughts. He leaned close and stared at the back
+of his hand, getting to his feet at the same time. It was smeared with
+red. Even in the semi-darkness, Lem knew that the stain on the back of
+his hand was blood.
+
+In an under-tone he called repeatedly to Last Time in the adjoining
+cell, but the convict slept on and did not respond. Lem searched for
+something with which to knock on the wall to wake him. Failing in this,
+he backed up against the wall and hammered with the heel of his heavy
+boot. Presently, Last Time's voice awoke sleepily and from afar.
+
+"What's the matter--is that you, '20?"
+
+"Yes," returned Lem in a whisper. "Yo'-all come t' th' door."
+
+"What's the matter, Lutts?"
+
+"They's blood a comin' down overhaid."
+
+"Blood!"
+
+"Yes--hit's a drippin' down heah."
+
+"You sure it's blood?"
+
+"Yes," reassured Lem. "Hit's sho' blood--'cause I got some on my han'."
+
+"Wait a minute."
+
+Lem heard him rummaging around in his cell. The convict made a long,
+rigid roll out of a newspaper and thrusting this out and around at arm's
+length he said:
+
+"Here, Lutts, get the end of this--stick it in the blood and hand it
+back."
+
+Lem manipulated the paper. Reaching as far out as he could, he rubbed
+one end in the dark pool in front of his cell, and handed it back to the
+convict. Lem heard Last Time exclaim:
+
+"The hell--I thought that guy'd do something."
+
+The next minute the convict was scraping a tin cup across the bars of
+his door, a performance that sent metallic echoes from end to end of the
+corridor. A guard responded with surprising alacrity.
+
+"What's the rumpus here, Last Time?" he demanded.
+
+"That cul up in 520's croaked himself--pipe the blood in front of next
+door."
+
+The guard turned his reflector upon the pool, then hastily unlocked Last
+Time's cell.
+
+"Come along," he ordered.
+
+He then ran to the end of the tier, and pulled the lever to allow Last
+Time to open his door and follow. After that, Lem heard nothing overhead
+save subdued whispers, cautious steps, and guarded movements. He did not
+hear Last Time return to his cell.
+
+When the first gray light of dawn filtered through the high arched
+windows of the cell-house, and drove the gas light pallid, it found Lem
+still awake. Without, the English sparrows set up their garrulous
+chirpings, and like a draught of some blessed elixir, a faint breath of
+early morning, dew-damp air was wafted through the outer bars into the
+sodden cells. The bell on the prison tower rang, and there was a great
+stirring of convicts, mingled with a multitude of harsh jail noises.
+
+While the keys were grating on the tiers above, Last Time hustled up to
+Lem's cell with a bucket of water and a mop, and in silence washed every
+vestige of the blood-stain away. As he took up the bucket to go, he
+turned to Lem.
+
+"He's over in the dead-room now. Ain't it hell, though?--and him only a
+kid at that. He had a fine face, too,--he cut his throat with a broken
+pocket mirror. There comes the bull for the count--so-long."
+
+As the cracksman went, Lem saw a film of moisture glisten in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"THE ONLYEST LUTTS"
+
+
+Up on Eagle Crown, dim crest of his benighted world, Buddy Lutts' small
+shape made a vague shadow, fusing with the dawn-mists that dipped and
+lifted and swathed the peaks like a nun's veil. The boy crawled far out
+on this majestic point that divided night from day. On one side the sun
+had poised its jewelled lance against the east. On the other, the
+vanquished morning moon was hiding his pallid face amidst the naked
+peaks.
+
+Buddy crawled farther along the dew-chilled brink of the ledge like a
+young, lean catamount whelp. Here he sprawled at full length upon his
+stomach with his thin face propped up between his hands. Here, alone on
+the sanctum-rock of Eagle Crown, he lay, his moody eyes gazing beneath
+and across the limitless expanse of purple fog.
+
+There was a great ache in his heart, and he was lonelier than any boy
+could well be and live. By and by he discerned the top of the church
+belfry floating on the sea of fog like a buoy, and the mere sight of
+this replenished the fires of vengeance that had reduced his puerile
+being to a hard cinder of hate.
+
+No human foot had ventured across the door block of that death place
+since that serene Sabbath morning, more than a year since, when they had
+lifted the dead body of his father off the virgin altar and laid him on
+the pyramid of flowers built up in the clearing by the hundreds who had
+come to witness the dedication of the church. Although this deed stood
+foremost and fresh and even more vivid now in his memory, still, the
+calendar day of its enactment, seemingly, held a grim unforgettable spot
+on the apex of a grievous avalanche of immeasurable vengeance.
+
+The boy wearily withdrew his truculent gaze and his eyes softened with
+an unutterable sadness as he fixed them on the tops of the apple trees,
+behind the log barn, grouped about the two sodden graves of his father
+and mother--both dead at the hands of the despised law. His heart was
+dead to all else save one hope--to avenge the death of his parents and
+his brother Lem, whom he now believed to have been murdered by Sap
+McGill. He would not count his young life amiss with all its hardships
+and heart-aches, if only he could see the dawn of this triumphant day
+for which he lived. He was hoping and waiting and watching--waiting
+evermore.
+
+It seemed that the torturous days, weeks and months that he wandered
+through the hills furtively and alone, waiting and watching since his
+father's killing and since Lem and Belle-Ann had slipped away and out of
+his life, was time enough to make a decrepit, aged man. An insufferable
+loneliness had wrapped its tentacles around his being, and had, like a
+cruel tourniquet, crushed all the joy out of his soul. At times in
+retrospective indulgence he felt that his soul could not endure. Tears
+might have alleviated the misery within him, but Buddy's grievous
+repining and loneliness was of a tearless brand.
+
+Buddy Lutts was a boy in size and in years only, for it was with an
+adult stoicism that he valiantly fought this creeping madness. In his
+weaker moments this brooding would seize him and drag him back to the
+brink of utter hopelessness and despair; but always his purpose would
+fly to his rescue and beckon a renewed promise, and he would awake out
+of these lethargies armed with a buoyant sense of patience and inspired
+with a mighty will to wait and watch.
+
+In these periodical relapses it was his wont to humor his fevered fancy
+with lurid and extravagant sequences to his protracted term of
+espionage. Among these vagaries was a pet dream representing the
+revenuer and Sap McGill creeping upon him in single file; whereupon, he
+fired and his single ball tore both their hearts out and made him dance
+and clap his hands with sheer joy, and he was merrier than any orphan
+had ever been before him. His conscience acquitted him blithely, and his
+spirits soared skyward.
+
+Deprived of these monopolistic creations of reprisal to alleviate the
+tension of his hate, the bonds of his perverse reason would have burst
+asunder and left him bereft.
+
+But now again, there arose a cheering prophecy in the advent of spring.
+Since Lem Lutts had dropped out of the mountain so mysteriously, the
+bitter nights and days had rolled into weary months. And the brooding
+months had waxed into riotous winter tempests and had dragged in
+endless, eternal deluges of ice and snow, adding cold agony to Buddy's
+already misanthropic heart. But finally the crows rode up on the soft
+winds out of the South, and a benign sun broke the grip of these
+frost-bound hills, and gradually emptied their pockets of snow. The
+ridges and coves, and the emerald hulks of the mountains smiled
+gratefully back. And through this expanse of tangled scenic splendor,
+the rhododendrons and laurels wove a banner of multicolored tones. The
+sassafras and poplar and dogwood bloomed and the cascade sang a new ode.
+The calling of the lark came up from the lowland, mingled with the
+blatant scream of jay-birds in the orchard. And the warble of the
+blue-birds filled the odoriferous somnolent air.
+
+Buddy lay motionless out on the crag with his thoughts, and watched the
+sun unveil the spurs below him. Then he divided his gaze between the
+distant splash of water that marked Boon's Ford, shining back like the
+glint of a sun-perch, and the yellow length of trail across Hellsfork
+that marked the path to Sap McGill's stronghold. Then he twisted his
+head around unconsciously, and his eyes caressed the rifle that rested
+behind him--his father's rifle. And an inarticulate muttering answered
+the reiterated avowal in his heart, inspired each time he looked at
+this, his father's rifle--a sacred relic bequeathed to him and vested
+with a stupendous responsibility. He reasoned that now as he was the
+last of the Luttses, he was rightfully the Captain of the faction. In
+view of this heritage he argued that he should at least have a voice in
+the counsel of the clan.
+
+But Johnse Hatfield had a smooth, persuasive mien with him, and while he
+and all the men facetiously recognized young Buddy as their "Captain,"
+they had, through Johnse, kept Buddy artfully in the background. The
+disgruntled boy did not relish this lack of due recognition and these
+periods of inaction. He did not favor postponements. Time and again he
+had appealed to Johnse Hatfield to issue a call and muster every man and
+boy in the Moon mountains range, and cross Hellsfork and storm the
+McGills, win or lose. Ultimately, Johnse always twisted this sanguine
+project away from him, through flattery and cajolery; making amendments
+bit by bit, until Buddy's pet scheme had petered down to another
+postponement to which he readily acquiesced at the time. But always his
+truant acumen told him later that Johnse Hatfield did not consider him
+"fitten."
+
+This morning Buddy crawfished backward away from the brink of the
+overhanging rock. He threw the rifle-strap over his shoulder, and as he
+made the dangerous descent, there was etched on his grim little face the
+outlines of some new, inexorable resolution.
+
+The type of man who now stood as dictator and leader by proxy, of the
+Lutts' faction in the Moon mountain range, was an individual possessing
+a peculiarly complex and many-sided nature. In stature Johnse Hatfield
+was of medium height. He was deep-chested and thick of neck, but his
+legs were straight and incongruously slender in comparison with his
+shoulders. His face was a mask of black, close-cropped hair, save the
+complete exposure of the mouth.
+
+The hair growth halted below the lower lip and, from constant biting or
+use of the shears, the hair on his upper lip held aloof; hence, the
+mouth, thick-lipped and wide and tilted upward at the corners, bore the
+aspect of one perpetual smile. But, oddly enough, the eyes were a total
+and surprising antonym of this smiling mouth. They were markedly small,
+close set, and of a singular amber hue, glinting like needle points and
+carrying the fire of direct and instant demand. Thus, these closely
+coupled, unwinking eyes contradicted and specifically denied the
+smiling, placatory, diplomatic mouth so prominent across his black
+visage.
+
+It was said of Johnse Hatfield that at the moment marking his advent
+into the world he had interrupted his mother who was working a pump-gun
+from behind a grind-stone, in her will to help the men-folks repulse an
+attack upon their home cabin. She claimed that she "sho' wud a fetched
+thet 'onery Tod McCoy," whose head she was angling for behind a turnip
+mound, "ef little Johnsie hed a waited an' hadn't bin so all-fired
+anxious t' git hisse'f into th' rumpus."
+
+As a lad Johnse had carried arms with his notorious father and brothers
+against the McCoys. Then he had drifted up Hazard way and had, through
+blood relationship, become entangled in the French-Eversole war. Eight
+years since he had come up to Moon mountain to visit "Maw" Lutts, who
+was a blood cousin, and he never went back.
+
+While his life had been practically one prolonged fight, there was,
+nevertheless, a commiserating, gentle side to his nature. This
+incorruptible fealty and trustworthiness was an element that had
+attracted old Cap Lutts, and in time Johnse Hatfield had become the old
+man's first lieutenant. He had since served gallantly through many
+fierce sorties with the McGills and the revenuers.
+
+Johnse's friends pretended that he was a source of deep anxiety to them
+when near the water, because if he unfortunately fell in, there was
+enough lead in him to take him to the very bottom and keep him there.
+
+Hatfield had a smattering of education, and was reputed as upstanding as
+a mountain fighter could well be. Certainly, Johnse did not stand up and
+invite hot pellets of lead. He did not scorn a rock or a tree any more
+than did his opposing belligerents. But throughout his life the value of
+his given word was equal to a fulfillment. Those who bargained for this
+man's word felt that on the spot where Johnse defaulted they would find
+his dead body.
+
+When Lem Lutts had disappeared so inexplicably from the mountains,
+Hatfield had, after a hasty search, hied himself out and visited every
+calaboose and county jail in the surrounding country. He knew the
+cunning of Burton, the revenuer, well enough, but little did he
+anticipate such a flagrant irregularity as the transfer of a
+"moonshiner" to the capital of the State, with a dozen counties
+separating the place of offense. Such a procedure was depriving a
+defendant of all constitutional rights, and an effrontery to county
+jurisprudence, the enormity of which Hatfield could not ascribe to the
+power of even the wily, murderous revenuer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+BUDDY FORCES AN ISSUE
+
+
+After getting authentic information from the offices of the six Federal
+commissioners in the eastern district, and finding, to his deep chagrin,
+absolutely no trace of Lem Lutts, Johnse returned, and calling fifty
+men, he instituted a search that lasted for weeks. He beat every
+mountain side up to its crest. He scoured every cave and cove, and creek
+bottom. There was not a square yard of rock or earth or tangled brush
+that had escaped his search for Lem. But they did not find Lem's bones,
+and finally, Hatfield had resumed the regular routine amidst daily
+conjectures and prophecies, and dire maledictions from the men, directed
+toward the McGills.
+
+While Johnse made no outward preparations for hostilities, his mind was
+busy. This disappearance of Lem Lutts was not a closed incident to be
+relegated to forgetfulness. On the contrary, as the months passed, the
+temper of the Lutts' faction waxed to such a stage of suppressed fury
+that Hatfield knew it was only a matter of time, and a brief time at
+that, before he would be compelled to head a massacre over in Southpaw.
+It was while Johnse was making preparations after careful deliberations,
+to force a fight with the McGills and square for the supposed
+annihilation of Lem Lutts, that an unlooked-for incident occurred which
+hastened the conflict, but changed the site of battle.
+
+Prior to the death of old Cap Lutts, he had moved his distillery to a
+new site. Some fifty yards distant from the blind mouth of a cave he
+drilled a hole downward through forty feet of rock and earth and into a
+cave. Then he ran a channel pipe up through this hole and directly over
+the outlet he built a two-room cabin. This pipe was merged into the
+structure behind the fireplace in the cabin and continued upward some
+feet to where it opened out into the chimney proper; wherefore all the
+pungent odors and smoke from the distillery in the cave beneath the
+cabin followed this pipe and issued into the atmosphere through the
+chimney in a most natural manner.
+
+Nothing short of destruction of the cabin could have disclosed the
+presence of this ingenious device. Moreover, in the improbable event
+that prying eyes had been permitted to scrutinize these premises, it is
+highly doubtful that the mouth to the cave would have been discovered
+after the most minute and careful search. Because the entrance to this
+underground region was barely spacious enough to admit one man on his
+hands and knees.
+
+Furthermore, this entrance would be wholly and snugly closed by a huge
+boulder several tons in weight, or more than twenty men could displace.
+This great rock had the innocent appearance of a hundred other rocks all
+about it, and was so trussed up and balanced that one man could knock
+the prop out with a single blow, thereby releasing it and allowing it to
+drop back with its concave side fitting over the mouth of the cave in a
+manner that defied detection. When this precaution was resorted to, it
+required the labor of thirty men and two steers to truss it up again.
+
+It was here in this cabin that Johnse Hatfield kept "bachelor's hall"
+and maintained a "residence."
+
+When Buddy Lutts climbed down from his solitary reverie on Eagle Crown,
+he made for Johnse Hatfield's cabin as straight as crooked trails that
+"back tracked" themselves could take him.
+
+When he arrived at the "still," the "night force" was just crawling out
+of the cave to repair to their respective shacks. Buddy stepped within
+the cabin and cast about for Johnse. He stepped toward the adjoining
+room, but halted inquiringly, when he saw Hatfield's broad back and the
+profile of a man he did not know.
+
+Johnse looked behind him, got to his feet, and as he closed the door
+between, tossed a meaning gesture to Buddy, who rolled into a
+split-bottom chair to wait, opposite a row of ten Winchester rifles
+along the wall.
+
+The men from the cave now pushed into the cabin. They all wore holsters
+with twin Colts, but had stepped in to get their rifles. As they lagged
+about, got their guns, and straggled out again, they all in turn had an
+indulgent look or a playful nudge or respectful pleasantry for "little
+Cap Lutts." Their manner, however, made it plain that they did not
+expect any effervescent response from Buddy.
+
+Bud was known to be not a voluble lad. Some had ventured that "little
+Cap wus jest a pinch tuck in th' haid," but down in their rough hearts
+they pitied and loved him, for who knew better than they the train of
+barb-tipped circumstances that had crushed down upon this boy to harrow
+his young life with their eating misery?
+
+Hatfield soon appeared, followed by the strange man, who continued out
+the door without words. Johnse faced Buddy.
+
+"Howdy, little Cap--how's pickin's?"
+
+Buddy sat speechless with the newcomer in his mind, and questioning eyes
+upon Johnse's face, but Hatfield volunteered no enlightenment, and his
+hairy mask with its naked, smiling lips and frowning eyes was
+unreadable.
+
+"Foller me in, Buddy--I'm aimin' to kick up some breakfast 'bout
+now--maybe yo'll have a snack, eh?"
+
+Bud did not open his mouth, but his pale eyes followed Johnse as he
+began hacking at a raw shoulder of pork. Buddy knew Johnse, and Johnse
+knew Buddy, and the boy knew that there was something particular in
+Johnse's mind. And Hatfield knew just as well what Buddy would say as if
+the boy had already condescended to speak. After a minute's unbroken
+silence, Johnse said:
+
+"What ded yo' say, Buddy, eh? Ded yo' say yo'd have a hank o' corn
+bread, an' a slab o' po'k, eh?"
+
+"Naw," answered the boy sullenly.
+
+With the knife poised Johnse cast a covert look at Bud. Then he laid the
+knife down gently, threw his wide hat down on the red oil-cloth table
+cover, and sprawled down on a chair in front of the boy. With one hand
+he reached out and squeezed Buddy's shoulder solicitously, and
+pretending not to know what was coming, he inquired in his inimitable
+soft, smooth voice:
+
+"What ails yo', little Cap--hain't yo' feelin' peert like thes nice
+mornin', eh?"
+
+Buddy's lips were tightly compressed and his eyes, which had not
+wandered from Johnse's face, were now eloquent with reproach. Johnse
+waited.
+
+"I 'low yo' haint a treatin' me right, Johnse Hatfield."
+
+The man simulated a profound density.
+
+"Whut--whut--hain't a treatin' yo' right?--Why now, Buddy--now--come
+now." Johnse forced a soft placatory laugh. "Come now, little chap--whut
+hev I done t' yo'--eh?"
+
+Bud straightened up with a jerk and his mouth began to twitch with the
+heat of some vehement words that stood just behind his lips, but
+Hatfield quickly forestalled him as he intended to do.
+
+"Now--now--don't git riled, little Cap--why, haint I tuk th' best care
+uv yo' as I know how--an' every month after I've paid th' men, don't I
+bring yo'-all half o' whuts leftin'--every month since Lem's bin gone I
+han' over yore part reg'ler--an' last month wus better 'n any--why, I
+give yo' fifty-one dollars last month, Buddy--whut yo' got to pester
+yo'--eh?"
+
+At Hatfield's first words, the boy had settled back in his chair,
+plainly disgusted.
+
+"Whut do ail yo' anyways, Buddy--eh?"
+
+When Buddy straightened up again, Johnse relaxed in his seat and
+expressed a willingness to listen by plucking his beard with two fingers
+and a glint of amusement in his small eyes.
+
+"Johnse Hatfield," began the boy vigorously, "ef yo'-all wusn't honest,
+I 'low we-uns wouldn't a hed yo' heah--thet ain't whut I'm aimin'
+at--hit hain't--yo' alers treated me like pap ded--yo' alers ac'ed like
+a dad t' me--only one thing, Johnse Hatfield--jest one thing--I air a
+tellin' yo'."
+
+He had slid out of his chair and was now holding an admonitory finger up
+to Hatfield's face.
+
+"Only one thing, Johnse Hatfield--an' yo' done me pesky on thet, yo'
+ded."
+
+Hatfield regarded the end of Buddy's finger for a moment--then softly
+inquired:
+
+"How ded I do yo' pesky, Buddy?"
+
+"Hain't I th' onlyest Lutts?" he fairly yelled, falling back a step,
+with head tilted backward, and an unmistakable note of pride trembling
+through his piping voice.
+
+"Shore."
+
+"Warn't ole Cap Lutts my dad?" he demanded.
+
+"Shore."
+
+"Then who air leader by rights--who air th' head o' th' people--who air
+Cap'in heah in Moon?"
+
+[Illustration: "Who air th' head o' th' people--who air Cap'in heah in
+Moon?"]
+
+While Johnse was gathering response with slow deliberation, the boy held
+his ground with unswerving eyes, the while tapping his own little thin
+chest with his finger tips, and with an emphasis that boded no denial.
+
+Hatfield perceived that to argue with him now would be like taking a
+bone from a starved dog.
+
+"Why, Buddy!" placated Johnse, "ded I ever 'low yo' warn't?"
+
+"But yo' don't think I'm fittin'--yo' don't--yo' don't think I'm
+fittin'!" he shouted hotly.
+
+Mentally Johnse told himself that it was time to launch what he held in
+reserve and end Buddy's turbulent tirade, which was carrying the boy to
+the verge of distress. Hatfield's attachment to old Cap Lutts had been
+fused with a ligature of fealty little short of blind idolization, and
+it did his soul good to watch this outburst of virility and aggression
+that flamed up in the boy, reflecting the blood and stamina of the old
+man. And Hatfield loved this little human tiger that had come to-day to
+arraign him with the iron gusto of a born ruler and all the plenipotent
+fire of a vice king and despot.
+
+"I hain't fittin'--I hain't fittin'--be I?" he reiterated vociferously.
+
+"Shore, yo're fittin', Buddy. Course yo're a little feller yet,--shore
+yo're fittin'--ef ary hillbilly says yo' hain't--why, I'll turn his face
+down out o' these mountains, I will--yo' never heard me say yo' wusn't
+fittin', Buddy, eh?"
+
+"Naw, but leastways yo' ac' hit Johnse Hatfield--yo' ac' hit--yo' do.
+You won't listen t' me."
+
+"I alers listen t' yo', boy," contradicted Johnse quickly.
+
+"Well, yo' listen, but yo' don't heed--yo' don't," he stormed.
+
+"Whut do yo'-all want me to do?" petitioned Johnse naively.
+
+"Tear em up--tear em up--tear em up!" he cried, with an arm stretched
+toward the south. "Hain't I begged yo' t' tear em up--hain't I begged
+yo' fo' a yeer t' tear em up--hain't I prayed t' yo' t' wade in an' make
+em pay fer killin' Lem? Gawd'll Mighty----"
+
+Here the boy's fury broke all bounds of self-restraint and he tore up
+and down and across the puncheon floor, bandishing his two fists,
+distraught and choked with an avalanche of impassioned, inarticulate
+words. After a minute he went on.
+
+"Th' men won't foller me 'cause I air a boy--an' I hev begged yo' t' git
+em fo' killin' pore Lem. Don't I know they kilt Lem--don't I know they
+kilt Lem an' tuk em across Hellsfork an' made a hole fo' em in Southpaw?
+Efen yo' wus afeered I'd know whut t' do--but yo' hain't askeert, yo'
+hain't. Ef th' ole Scratch wus t' cum in thet door now t' git yo',
+Johnse Hatfield, yo'd smack em over and wring his neck--yo' hain't
+askeert--yo' got some tuther reason ahidin' out--yo' air--an' I don't
+'low t' swoller hit no longer! Whut ud my pore daid pap say--an'
+maw--an' pore Lem, whut Sap McGill kilt an' hid away?--we cyan't keech
+th' revenure--he's gone--but we kin keech Sap--Johnse Hatfield--efen yo'
+don't heed me now--so he'p me Gawd--I'll fire yo'--I'll fire
+yo'--karnsarn yo', I will--I'm a tellin' yo'--I hates t' do hit,--but
+I'll pay yo' anything I owes yo'--an' I'll fire yo' shor'n hell."
+
+The boy pulled his eyes slowly off Johnse's face and, sagging with
+passion, backed against the wall and turned his quivering face to the
+logs. Hatfield stood up and pulling his Colt gun twirled it lovingly and
+laughed like a man who had won something.
+
+Buddy started and twisted a look over his shoulder. Then he turned about
+and fairly crept back upon the man, and looked searchingly up into his
+face. There was a timbre in Johnse's laugh that told the boy something.
+There was a note in that laugh that mated with a solitary hope in his
+own heart. It sounded like a knock for which he had been listening for
+ages.
+
+"Whut--Johnse--whut?" The boy's whisper trembled and he laid two
+pleading hands on Johnse's sleeves and peered eagerly up into the man's
+eyes.
+
+Hatfield grabbed Buddy's wrist and dragged him outside the cabin. Still
+holding him, he pointed the gun down across Hellsfork and over to where
+the balmy, warm sunshine made soft, dreamful pictures in black and white
+amid the tinted spurs and ridges of Southpaw.
+
+"Buddy," he said, with profound, succinct accents, "yo' 'lowed I wus
+layin' back--but I wusn't, little Cap--I bin busy all th' time--an' now
+I got th' gates o' hell open fo' em--an' Tuesday when co't meets down at
+th' Junction, we'll drive em in with th' ole Scratch."
+
+Overwhelmed, Buddy stared open-mouthed at Johnse, but he could not
+mistake. He knew that Johnse spoke true, and not waiting for further
+details, he broke loose and capered in a circle. He tossed his hat up in
+an abandonment of joy and kicked it about when it came down. He grasped
+a big rock in his exuberance, and tossed it several feet, astounding
+Johnse with his strength, and he rung Johnse's hand, too overjoyed for
+words.
+
+Johnse returned to the kitchen, lighted a fire, and while the corn bread
+was warming he busied himself slicing the pork.
+
+"Ded yo' say yo'd hev a pinch o' breakfast, Buddy?" he invited.
+
+"Shore," answered Buddy. "I didn't 'low I was so hungry--lemme he'p yo'
+git th' snack, Johnse--I cud eat a bilt owl."
+
+When the corn bread and the cane-molasses and the pork and black coffee
+were all on the table, the two sat down to the repast together, and
+Johnse proceeded to take Buddy into his confidence.
+
+"Yo' hain't t' open yore haid, Buddy--nary a word, yo' heah?"
+
+With his mouth full, Bud nodded understandingly. "Yo' seed thet feller
+whut went out o' heah? Thet's Plunkett--he's bin a spyin' down at th'
+Junction fo' me, goin' on fo' months now. I brought em up from Hazard
+jest fo' thet purpose. I tol' em to git a job at Hank Eversole's store
+ef he hed to work fo' nothin'. Well--Eversole doddled along with em fo'
+two weeks--then th' old sore-eyed dog offered Plunkett twenty dollars a
+month an' Plunkett tuk hit, yo' bet--he'd a tuk ten dollars, 'cause I
+bin a payin' em twenty-five a month out o' my proceeds from thes works,
+Buddy. I'm a goin' t' tell yo' all frum th' start, an' 'fore I finish
+yo'll be surprised. Yo' see, Bud--I alers knowed thet some skunk traitor
+led th' revenure on to yore pap, an' I alers hed a mind who hit wus, but
+I never said nothin'. I wus so shore I wus right thet three times I hed
+my gun on em--then somethin' told me maybe I wus mistaken--an' I let em
+go--but I learnt this mornin' thet I'm right----"
+
+Buddy gulped, dropped his tin cup of coffee, and strained forward over
+the table.
+
+"Who--who, Johnse--who?" he blurted, straining his ears as though a
+river separated him from the answer.
+
+"Jest yo' set down an' eat yo' meal--yo' jest wait til I git to
+thet--I'm aimin' t' tell hit all as hit comes along--eat yo'
+breakfast'--I learnt thes mornin' thet I wus right," Johnse went on
+evenly. "Thet was Plunkett heah thes mornin'--I saved his life down at
+Hazard one night ten years ago, an' Plunkett 'ud take a message to hell
+fo' me an' git an answer--besides, I pay em--an' I don't want yo' to
+shoot em--he air apt to slip up here any time now, day or night--I give
+em the countersign and to' th' men to let em up--an' I want yo' to look
+sharp 'fore yo' go t' pullin'--yo' mought slide th' pork thes way,
+Buddy. Plunkett air worth all I pay em, an' more too--an' I'd starve
+myse'f fo' ten years jes t' git th' information he's brung me."
+
+Buddy had suspended eating, and, conscious that he dare not interrupt
+Hatfield now, he sat tight-lipped and listened like an image, with one
+hand gripping the other and holding it down under the table.
+
+Johnse proceeded with his recital with a deliberation that grated
+insufferably on the boy's nerves and made him shiver with impatience and
+excitement.
+
+"Maybe yo' rec'lect Buddy, when Don Perry wus laywayed on Pigeon Creek
+two months arter yo' pap wus kilt? Sap McGill an' Pete an' Stump Allen
+done thet job. An' now we cum t' th' main louse, Buddy. It was Jutt
+Orlick that led th' revenure t' th' church when yo' dad wus kilt, an'
+last night down at th' Junction, jest as Mart Harper started home, Sap
+McGill stepped out o' old Eversole's store an' Jutt Orlick out o' th'
+blacksmith shop opposite an' fired on Mart an' kilt him 'fore he could
+wink two eyes. An' down at old Eversole's Post-office ther's a passell
+of letters writ to Lem--old Eversole an' Sap an' Orlick tore th' letters
+open an' read 'em, an' Orlick hid 'em in th' store. Thet's bin mor'n
+three months ago. Plunkett learned that fo' sho', but hain't never heard
+one word 'bout Lem. Maybe McGill didn't git Lem, maybe Orlick done
+hit--but we'll charge 'em with hit, anyway; besides, hits more'n time to
+collect fo' their other divilment. Now yo' jest keep yo' haid
+shut--don't even peep, Buddy, 'cause ef th' men heer all thes news they
+won't wait--they'll bust out an' spile my plans. Jest keep quiet an'
+leave hit t' me, an' Mistah Hatfield 'll show yo', Buddy, whut cums o'
+laywayers an' traitors--an' yo'll hev a chanct t' see with yore own eyes
+how sich sinners crowds up t' git their crimes washed away with their
+own blood. I never kilt a man in my life lessen hit wus t' save my own
+life er some tuther body's life--I kilt 'em a fighten'--I never
+laywayed--thet's 'bout all I got t' say on th' subject--damn nigh
+enough, hain't hit?"
+
+Johnse pushed his tin plate away, settled back and wiped his mouth on
+the corner of a blue handkerchief he had knotted around his neck. He
+lifted his eyes to Buddy's chair, but the boy had left the table. Johnse
+looked around and beheld a solemn pantomime that he well understood and
+which he did not interrupt. Buddy had slipped noiselessly into the
+adjoining room, where he occupied the center of the floor. He stood
+there swaying, his lips moving mutely, and his two invoking hands lifted
+upward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE MURDER PARTNERS
+
+
+A bird's-eye view of Junction City would inspire even a jaded wayfarer
+to continue on and forfeit what measure of scruffy, uncouth hospitality
+its lazy, primitive confines might hold for him. On high, it looked,
+physically, like a monstrous spoiled egg, dropped from a great height,
+and halted in its desolation and turned back by a narrow, swift river
+that wrapped itself half around the town like a horseshoe. Its ill
+complexion was clay-yellow, and its adornments were pitted and streaked
+with a somber, sickly, worm-eaten gray. The very atmosphere that
+permeated this hole between the hills was at once forbidding, repellent
+and sinister. And up from the mad throat of the river, choked against
+the boulders in mid-stream, there issued a warning which never died.
+
+From eminences of the hills that crowded this town into a mere ragged
+plot, the most prominent institutions observable were the Courthouse and
+the graveyard, with the second look favoring the latter.
+
+One marvelled at the population of this habitat of the dead, sprawling
+on the side of a hill. Their countless pale hands thrust up out of the
+ground, seemed to have frightened the river, for here it turned sharply
+and dodged away between the mountains.
+
+The Courthouse was in the upper end of the town. It was framed and
+roofed with clapboards. In front, a crude attempt of hypostyle was
+visible in the two huge pillars of poplar logs that supported a balcony.
+The structure bellied out at the sides and oddly, at each corner of the
+roof, two mansard windows projected like ears, while above all a pigmy
+dome arose covered with unpainted tin. Withal, from afar the Courthouse
+looked like a decrepit bull dog squatting amidst a scattered litter of
+pups. The dome of this temple of justice looked up askew at the sun with
+the bluish-yellow glaze of a blind eye.
+
+Topographically, young Sap McGill and old Hank Eversole owned this town.
+Morally and spiritually they were paupers, and their souls were as
+pitted and yellow and gray as the town looked to be. Moreover, the
+McGills "said" they owned five thousand acres in the Southpaw range
+abutting Hellsfork, where they lived. Their verbal deed to these acres
+was sustained by a cavalcade of rifle men and a squad of wary, creeping
+bush-whackers.
+
+Old McGill and old Eversole had fought the Lutts faction for twenty
+years, but old Lutts had ever proved a most formidable antagonist, and
+when he brought the fearful Johnse Hatfield up to Moon mountain as aide,
+there was both renewed caution and consternation in the McGill camp.
+Then, when old Cap Lutts finally killed the elder Sap McGill on
+Hellsfork, one Sunday morning, they foresaw an eclipse that would bedim
+their day of power and their impotent chagrin and rage was unbounded.
+Where his father had left off, young Sap then took up the feud with a
+re-enforced vengeance.
+
+Then one day when the tidings came down to Junction City that the old
+King of Moon mountain had been killed by a revenuer, the exultation of
+the McGill faction was unconfined. Following closely upon this, a
+traitor sneaked down from Hellsfork and whispered to old Eversole the
+news of the arrest and spiriting away of Lem Lutts. The accrued glee of
+Eversole and young Sap with this opportune turn of affairs reached a
+stage that demanded expression. Wherefore, they celebrated with a public
+barbecue on the Courthouse lawn, and great rejoicing was mingled with
+sanguine prophecies, and the drunker Sap became the louder his avowals
+to annihilate the Lutts faction.
+
+Eversole and young Sap plotted, then, to waylay Lem Lutts as soon as he
+was released from prison, and during the interval they killed three of
+the Lutts' sympathizers, and took Jutt Orlick into the fold. But
+throughout this apparent upperhand in the war, Sap and Eversole had an
+apprehension that grew day by day, and of which they exchanged serious
+comments.
+
+The very silence of Hatfield, the man who now marshalled the Lutts
+faction, was significant and alarming. If old Cap Lutts' war-name was an
+awesome enunciation, the name of Johnse Hatfield was equally fearful.
+His name was scoffed at in public, but secretly he was a haunting
+bugbear to these murder partners.
+
+In one respect, Hatfield was unlike old Cap Lutts. Lutts would fight so
+long as the enemy was in sight and then quit. All the old man wanted was
+to be left alone and unmolested. But not so with this Hatfield. He had
+the reputation of following his enemy up, and he did it with a
+confidence and deliberation that was little short of uncanny. He had
+been literally shot to pieces in other family wars, but always survived
+and always followed. It was the shadow of this relentless Nemesis that
+filled Sap and Eversole with a nervous unrest. These two conspirators
+not only owned practically all the realty in Junction City, but they,
+moreover, owned and controlled the Judge of the Court, the County
+prosecutor, and the Sheriff, and through Sap McGill old Eversole was the
+dictator supreme in Junction City.
+
+He was postmaster and the post-office occupied one corner of his
+merchandise store. In the event that any citizen appeared lax or
+half-hearted in his partisanship, Eversole would accost him with a
+leering, soft-spoken reminder, which mild petition pounded more like the
+pungent echo of a gun-crack than a voice, and the delinquent always
+heeded.
+
+In a sense, old Hank Eversole was a philanthropist of no mean
+generosity. Anybody could get a tombstone out of old Hank. These
+ornaments were a sort of hobby of his. If the deceased's relatives could
+not pay cash, he procured one and took a mortgage on the stone. If they
+rejected all overtures on the pay plan, he furnished one and placed it
+at his own expense, and gave it gratis. He maintained that plain boards
+were a disgrace to a well-ordered graveyard, and not meant for Junction
+City.
+
+It was the second Tuesday in May, and the sun shone brightly and the air
+was scented with the mingled odors of spring. Junction City had taken on
+a sudden new life. The May term of circuit court was in session and the
+activity and life astir here was more animated than that which attended
+a court term for many a year, for the reason that there was a murder
+trial in progress.
+
+In this festering crime-stained town, where hired assassination brewed
+under contract by day, and was returnable at night with its toll of
+blood, a murder was not a sensational episode, but a real murder trial
+was. Here the chief conspirators, who had made the Judge and the
+Prosecutor and the Sheriff, had the law by the throat; and they dumped
+the offal of their deeds into subservient arms of the law, and burdened
+and shackled it with collusions it dare not drop. Wherefore, the law
+winked and connived with these murder lords in brazen malfeasance
+inflicted upon the commonwealth, and trials assumed all the aspects of a
+hurried laugh-provoking comedy, despite the grim fact that its elements
+involved human life. The swearing out of warrants had long since fallen
+obsolete. In times past, charges had been made and warrants issued, but
+when the day of trial arrived, there were no witnesses at hand, and the
+prosecuting witness was usually the farthest distant.
+
+Thus, it transpired that the trial which opened the circuit court at
+Junction City on this May day was to the denizens a memorable one.
+Although the trial itself, which was never finished, was not a factor in
+what followed, still, this trial was remembered as having opened a day
+that ended with a scrambled, tragic event which ground the
+McGill-Eversole combination to a pulp, and marked an era of new
+political and social ethics in Junction City.
+
+Three months since a young German named Daum, and hailing from below,
+made his optimistic appearance in the town. After alighting upon a
+four-room shack that seemingly suited his wife, he cast about to locate
+the landlord. As there was only one landlord in Junction City, Daum
+found his way into old Hank Eversole's store. Daum was even more than
+loquacious--he was effervescent, and in no time old Hank had pumped him
+dry. Daum claimed that he would receive ten thousand dollars from
+Germany six months hence,--that he wished to fish and hunt and live as
+cheaply as possible until his money arrived.
+
+Old Eversole finally decided that the newcomer was simply a harmless,
+dumb Dutchman, and before Daum left the store, old Hank had given him a
+receipt for six months' rent paid in advance. The German paid cash for
+his groceries at Eversole's store, and hunted and fished to his heart's
+content, while his young, round-faced wife made baby clothes on the
+porch.
+
+Withal, Daum was not an undesirable citizen until the end of the first
+month, when apparently tiring of fishing and looking at the hills and in
+response to his native thrift, he took to himself a quick notion to make
+some money. A week after this economic inspiration the energetic German
+had converted the front room of his shack into a general store.
+
+Notwithstanding that the display he scattered on his porch was a
+melancholy exhibit compared to that of old Eversole, it was sufficiently
+competitive to lead old Hank's footsteps directly to Daum's
+establishment. Old Eversole was not as irate as his temperament might
+suggest. He was, in truth, stirred with a deep amusement as he wended
+his way Daumward and pictured how this presuming German would leave the
+town in haste after this first interview.
+
+When Daum understood the purport of this un-neighborly call, he
+explained that he had never intended to remain in Junction City a day
+after he obtained his money from Germany, but protested that, insomuch
+as he had paid his rent for six months and being in a free land, he
+would do business until that time.
+
+The interview opened mildly enough, but ended with a mandate from old
+Hank, commanding Daum to close up his store within the limit of six
+hours. Whereupon Daum grew very angry, and as old Eversole swaggered
+out, Daum hurled his determination and sentiments after old Hank in a
+few wrathful, terse words.
+
+"Mit you I vont nuddings--I standt py mine piziness--to hell mit you
+also--ulch!"
+
+At daybreak the following morning Daum's wife was in her garden with a
+sprinkling can when she espied one Steve Barlow, a loafer around
+Eversole's store, sneaking out of her woodshed and slipping away along
+the picket fence hemming the potato patch. She pondered curiously upon
+the man's actions and, her suspicions giving way to fear, she returned
+to the house, but Daum had already gone after his usual morning fry of
+fish. The wife, then impelled by an apprehension that grew momentarily,
+followed after him; and found her husband stark dead at the end of the
+street.
+
+After the burial, the widow departed from Junction City, fully bent upon
+devoting her forthcoming estate to the trailing down of her husband's
+slayer. The day she left old Eversole sent word by Plunkett, his
+"clerk," that he would erect a tombstone for her husband, and that she
+could pay for it later or not, just as she chose. Ten days later, the
+widow Daum appeared in Junction City accompanied by a lawyer named
+Logan. Logan was a man with a state-wide reputation as a criminal
+practitioner, and old Hank Eversole pricked up both his ears.
+
+Logan proceeded to the Sheriff's office with his client and swore a
+warrant for Steve Barlow. The warrant was issued with reluctance; the
+entire court personnel being loud in their defense of Barlow. But there
+was a grim directness and aggression about this Blue-grass lawyer, that
+with his inconceivable temerity and a reputation which awed even their
+callow senses, they pretended at last to agree to catch and try Barlow.
+
+Logan visited the Courthouse the next day and found the Eversole-McGill
+faction had done just what he thought they would do, and precisely what
+he wanted them to do. Logan's youth had been spent in the hills, and he
+knew the proclivities of these mountain men. They had hedged Barlow with
+a formidable and insurmountable alibi.
+
+Logan then made a concession, and stated that while he meant to try the
+case, he would suggest that Barlow, if he be apprehended, be admitted to
+bail. He said that he realized that this procedure was a trifle
+irregular in such cases, but that if the townspeople were so morally
+certain that the alibi would stand, he did not wish to impose the
+hardship of several weeks in jail upon the defendant.
+
+To this generous proposition they agreed with pleasure and alacrity. And
+the next day Steve Barlow was "apprehended" and quickly released,
+pending trial the second Tuesday in May. Then the astute Logan took to
+hunting, and incidentally watching for a chance to catch Barlow alone.
+He had acquainted himself with Barlow's history and felt that he could
+wean him over. Barlow was an ignorant vagabond with no permanent home,
+living from hand to mouth, and a crinkling tool in the hands of old
+Eversole.
+
+After four days' prowling around the adjacent hills, Logan surprised
+Barlow in a by-path across the river. The lawyer opened the interview by
+handing Barlow a new twenty-dollar gold certificate, which the lout took
+eagerly with an idiotic grin, before he even inquired what it was for,
+and Logan knew he had him.
+
+At the end of an hour's persuasion Barlow confessed and agreed to make a
+clean breast of the affair in court. Logan in turn promised to give him
+one hundred dollars in money, and help him out of town.
+
+Barlow said that old Hank Eversole gave him ten dollars for killing
+Daum, and promised him a month's board beside. That night Logan left
+town and took Barlow with him. Just what became of Steve Barlow was a
+matter of divided conjecture to the idlers around Eversole's store. Some
+'lowed that Steve had just "mosied" off and would be on hand trial day.
+Others ventured that he had "done leapt his bail."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CIRCUIT COURT
+
+
+However, Barlow's disappearance was a matter of small concern to old
+Hank. If Steve did not show up, Hank knew that he would never pay the
+bond and would be a month's board in to boot. If he did show up, he
+would "cum cl'ar" with the alibi concocted for him.
+
+In the meantime, rumors of the determined stand taken in this case by
+the noted Blue-grass lawyer, Logan, had spread throughout the hills, and
+added to the usual interest of court days a morbid impetus that brought
+the people down to Junction City in droves. And be it said, that among
+these mountain folk, there were not a few who would hail with joy and
+secret plaudits any visitation of reprisal that would put a dent in the
+tyrannical reign of the Eversole-McGill combine, under which they had
+suffered and been coerced beneath an iron heel.
+
+The dent was delivered on this May day when the sun was bright and made
+pictures against the mountain sides, traced in pigments of emerald and
+white and carmine. And the buoyant air was charged with the stirring
+odors of spring and rife with rapturous bird voices. The town was agog
+with armed mountaineers of every age. They all arrived early and during
+the hours preceding the opening of court they swapped news that had
+accrued since last court week, while their dogs fought the hostile
+canines of Junction City, mingling snarls and yelps with the braying of
+mules and the neighing of horses.
+
+Old Hank Eversole was resplendent in a new pair of light store trousers
+and a maroon shirt, and his rubicund face was illuminated as he divided
+his smirks between the groups outside and the high festivities back in
+his noisome bar where Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick were the star,
+hilarious spirits.
+
+When the sheriff leaned out the Courthouse window and rang a blatant
+bell, all within earshot made for the Courthouse. In a remarkably short
+time the court room was filled to overflowing, leaving scores who had
+been less sprightly on the outside, unable to find standing room. Before
+anybody could get fairly settled the Court announced that Logan had sent
+word that he could not be in court until four o'clock, and that they
+would proceed with the minor business on docket and hold court until
+five o'clock.
+
+Whereupon the jury and more than half the eager spectators, who crowded
+the court room, having no interest other than the murder trial of
+Barlow, now straggled outside, disgruntled and thirsty. In the interval
+that followed many wagers were laid and hinged upon the appearance or
+non-appearance of Steve Barlow. The odds favored Barlow's absence, but
+promptly at four o'clock there was a great stir among this motley,
+impatient throng.
+
+A two-horse rockaway hove in sight, drew up and stopped at the outer
+limits of the Courthouse yard. The curtains of the vehicle were closely
+drawn and Logan, who was riding outside with the driver, alighted and
+opened the carriage door, whereupon three men climbed out, leaving a
+fourth man inside. Two were newspaper men from Frankfort, one from
+Lexington, and the fourth man was Steve Barlow.
+
+Logan exchanged a few brief words with Barlow, who sat back smoking a
+stogie as unconcerned as if he were simply waiting to kill somebody. His
+animal brain was of too low an order to know fear, or his senses too
+dull to impress him with the danger that imperiled his life in the
+forthcoming hour.
+
+The advent of Logan and the strangers was quickly passed around,
+followed by a wild pell-mell rush for the court room. When the Court
+rapped for order and the shuffling of feet and mumble of voices died
+down, the prosecutor directed the sheriff to call Steve Barlow, out on
+bail, and all the witnesses in the case, and in turning about, stole a
+covert, triumphant look at old Eversole, who stood near the Judge's
+bench with Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick at his elbow. Here some of the
+jurymen exchanged meaning looks. When the sheriff's joculatory
+utterances failed to produce Barlow, the prosecutor arose and, turning
+to Logan, said:
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Logan, that you got all your witnesses here for
+nuthin'--but I reckon Steve Barlow has done leapt his bail."
+
+Logan rose up with a slow, deliberate movement, and as he addressed the
+Court, his eyes were upon old Eversole.
+
+"I have little need for witnesses in this case," he began, "moreover,
+the man who is charged with the commission of this deed has not
+forfeited his bond, and I mean to show by his sworn confession that,
+while it was by his hand that Daum was deprived of his life, it was
+through bribery and threats imposed upon him by another man--a man whose
+deeds are black and numerous--that prompted him to do this murder. I
+mean to lay the burden of this crime upon this instigator who prevailed
+upon an illiterate, half-witted unfortunate, who had no grievance, to
+sneak out and do an inoffensive man to death--a wanton act from which
+his own coward's hands shrunk. Mr. Somber, bring Steve Barlow into the
+court room."
+
+The quiet of the next few moments was not unlike the stillness of a
+tomb. As the reporter started to crowd his way out in compliance with
+Logan's request to bring Barlow in, his footsteps echoed like a great
+noise. Old Eversole's face had lost its flush and he stared open-mouthed
+over the heads of the astonished jury, and the people, toward the front
+door. Jutt Orlick and Sap McGill then whispered to each other with
+scowling faces, which precipitated a general babble throughout the room.
+Midway to the door Plunkett, Eversole's "clerk," thrust a note into the
+reporter's hand, and the latter immediately turned back and handed the
+paper to Logan.
+
+The attorney glanced over the sheet, then stood up and addressed the
+Court, who was too dazed to rap for order. But at the sound of Logan's
+voice there was instant quiet.
+
+"I have just been handed a message, and while it is not addressed to me
+personally, it appears to concern all present. If the Court pleases, I
+will read it aloud."
+
+The judge, who had been gazing inanely about the room, nodded his
+acquiescence. Then Logan proceeded to read the note in loud, resonant
+tones:
+
+"I hereby warn all men who don't 'low to fight fer the McGills to clear
+out of town within five minutes--I hev arrive. Johnse Hatfield."
+
+Fire or an earthquake could not have precipitated greater confusion and
+consternation than ensued at the name of Johnse Hatfield. The McGill
+partisans shrank away from the windows with exclamations and curses,
+while scores of non-combatants fought to get out of the rear door.
+
+Old Eversole's face now was the hue of gray moss. The unprecedented
+nerve of Hatfield in sending a warning into a house of armed enemies was
+significant, and indicated that he held a strong hand. Above the
+disorder McGill was shouting some incoherent commands. Jutt Orlick
+forced his way to the end of the long room and thrust his head
+cautiously out of a side window. Then he jumped out the window and
+started on a run for Eversole's store. Before he had gone ten feet,
+there was a rifle crack and Orlick dashed back to the shelter of the
+Courthouse with his palm full of blood, streaming from his left ear.
+With the tail of his eye, he caught sight of Buddy Lutts in the door of
+the blacksmith's shop, jerking his rifle up for another shot. A hand
+reached out and jerked Buddy back out of the door just as a dozen shots
+fired from the Courthouse windows pierced the boards of the shop. Then
+Johnse Hatfield's face showed for the fraction of a second as he yelled
+across:
+
+"Cum on out--yo' wild hawgs!"
+
+This sally was answered by another volley from the Courthouse. Hatfield
+had knocked every sixth board off the north side of the old shop, which
+afforded ample firing space. No one dared reach out and close the
+shutters of the Courthouse, and he could now see them piling benches up
+on their ends in front of the windows.
+
+The blacksmith shop, being diagonally across, commanded both front and
+side view of the Courthouse. Before he sent his terse warning into the
+court room, Hatfield had detailed a dozen men to go around and get a
+position corresponding with that of the blacksmith shop, which would
+command the rear and north side of the building. But there had been
+delay in working their way to this position unseen. Suspecting this
+move, the McGills were cautious about showing themselves, but as time
+passed and as the attack came only from the south side and front, they
+decided to venture an attempt at flanking the shop that held their foes.
+
+It was at this juncture, when a handful of men had dropped out the north
+windows of the Courthouse, that the Hatfields gained a lumber pile a
+hundred yards distant and greeted the maneuvering enemy with a volley of
+lead. Two of the McGills dropped into the grass, and the remainder
+limped and scrambled back into the Courthouse, while those inside
+instantly sent fifty or more shots toward the lumber pile, killing one
+of the Hatfields.
+
+For three hours the McGills were bottled up in the Courthouse, save
+those who had not gained entrance and were on the outside when the
+attack began. Some of these were trying their hand at sharp-shooting
+now, while others disappeared with the non-combatants. The women of the
+town had dragged their children inside and fastened the shutters and
+barred the doors of their houses. From some of these houses a towel or
+white rag appeared hanging at the end of a stick thrust out the window.
+
+For the past hour the shots from the surrounded Courthouse had dwindled
+down to spasmodic outbursts and Hatfield knew that the McGills were
+saving their ammunition, as they had not anticipated a siege. But Johnse
+Hatfield had come into this fight with the forethought of a trained
+military man. Every Hatfield man had an extra bag tied to his belt
+crammed full of cartridges. Moreover, Hatfield had stationed two mule
+wagons just beyond the hill. One of these wagons was to transport his
+dead and the other the wounded. Furthermore, with these wagons there
+awaited, with all his paraphernalia, a surgeon whom Hatfield had brought
+up from Hazard.
+
+As night came on and a brief half-moon illuminated the South road, the
+crucial hour for which Hatfield had waited was at hand. He dispatched a
+messenger around to the detachment behind the lumber in the rear of the
+Courthouse, telling them to leave three men there and for the others to
+work their way back to the South road. And the envoy Hatfield chose to
+deliver this important message was none other than Buddy Lutts.
+
+Although the air-line distance through to the lumber pile from the shop
+was less than five hundred yards, it was a full hour before Buddy crept
+back between the old wagons in the yard and told Hatfield that the men
+were waiting. Then Hatfield left three men in the shop and with the
+others joined the waiting squad. Lining these men up, he now marched
+them openly up the moonlit road toward the Courthouse. When they came
+into view, they fired a volley simultaneously into the Courthouse, and
+Hatfield yelled out derisively:
+
+"I reckon yo' got enough--yo' pack o' laywayin' wild-hawgs!"
+
+Then he retreated down the road at a brisk trot, followed by his sixteen
+men, Buddy Lutts galloping at his heels. There was a great stir within
+the Courthouse now. They had plainly heard Hatfield's jeering words
+above the patter and echoes of his last string of shots, and had espied
+his men turn and start down the road on a run. There was a noisy
+scramble and commotion now, as the McGills made haste to avail
+themselves of this apparent chance to get outside and pursue and fight
+their enemy, but with due precaution they waited until several
+volunteers had slipped out and made a hasty reconnoiter of the lumber
+pile and the blacksmith shop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE GRAVEYARD MASSACRE
+
+
+The three Hatfield men had crawfished back into a dense dewberry patch,
+while the three in the shop had crawled into the loft and hidden among
+the miscellaneous rubbish. As there was no more shooting, and as the
+Hatfields could be seen in the moonshine fleeing down the white road,
+the McGills decided to overtake them and wipe them from the earth, and
+the Courthouse now quickly disgorged its mob of eager, infuriated
+militants.
+
+Regardless of ownership, men unhitched and mounted the first horse or
+mule they came upon. Old Eversole dashed across the street and banged on
+his store door for admittance. His women folks having barred and bolted
+the doors, he called loudly for his clerk, but Plunkett had disappeared.
+Presently a woman admitted him at the saloon door. He rushed into the
+bar and gulped down a glass of liquor--then, gathering all the
+cartridges he had in the place, he ran out and distributed them among
+the men.
+
+Sap McGill and Orlick were astride their own mounts, and McGill was
+crying for the men to make greater haste. McGill rode a light dun
+animal, and Orlick a powerful dappled gray with a bobbed tail. With
+thirty-odd horsemen and twoscore or more rifle men afoot, they now
+dashed after their fleeing opponents, who made a dark splotch in the
+moonlit road far ahead.
+
+This road ran straight until it reached the graveyard, where it made a
+short, sharp turn to the left, looping around the base of a hill that
+jutted outward. This abrupt turn in the road was directly opposite, and
+midway of the front length of the graveyard, which was elevated some
+fifteen feet above the road-bed and occupied the slope. Hatfield's
+horses were hitched just around the bend in the road. When the sixteen
+men were mounted, he ordered them back along the rail fence for a
+distance of fifty yards.
+
+Buddy Lutts, clinging to his ready rifle, was eternally at Hatfield's
+heels. Johnse had ordered him back three times; now he took him by the
+collar and fairly dragged the protesting boy back and told the men to
+keep him there. Buddy's peaked face was flushed with a look that
+partially expressed the wild exultation that obsessed him. Hatfield
+mounted his piebald mare and, advancing, drew in close to the clay bank
+that jutted into the road, and here he waited, tense and rigid.
+
+When he heard the clattering hoofbeats thundering down toward the
+graveyard, he urged his horse a few yards nearer the point, then with a
+Colt gun in either hand, his habitually smiling lips broke into a brutal
+grin, and his little reddish eyes snapped murderously.
+
+The stillness was quickened again, on the brink of this Waterloo, with
+the stuttering wail of a screech-owl watching from the dead yard. Always
+wary, the McGill cavalcade drew up short at the bend and waited for
+their panting horde behind. Then they pushed boldly around the bend.
+
+It was just then that the indescribable, tragic scene took place that
+stamped its grim memory ineffaceably in these mountains, and made a
+crimson stain on feudal history, known ever afterward, as the "graveyard
+massacre."
+
+When Johnse Hatfield saw the noses of the McGill horses, he uttered a
+wild yell of triumph that pierced the far-reaching hills, and called up
+an invocation to the mute tombs above.
+
+"Now drive 'em in, boys--drive th' wild hawgs in with th' old Scratch!"
+he yelled.
+
+And in a trice, Hatfield had turned that hillside graveyard into a
+seething crucible, whose moulten maw opened and sucked the living in
+with the impotent smothered dead. Seemingly, every soul tethered in the
+confines of that silent dead-plot came to quick ghostly life, and pushed
+up out of the ground into the moonlight, wielding a lance of darting,
+destructive lightning. Up from a hundred sodden graves, a hundred human
+forms sprang, and the tombstones belched out liquid death. And the May
+night was ruptured with a deluge of gun-shots, and harried with a chaos
+of curses, and death-groans, and the frenzied squealing of horses. And
+the air was rife with a pungent odor, not unlike brimstone, as over this
+seething disaster the powder vapor lifted and arose against the moon
+mist, studded and starred with spurting tongues of alternate flame, and
+twisted an ephemeral arch that, seemingly, framed the gates of hell.
+
+The McGills afoot had some show at seeking cover and retreat, but not so
+the horsemen. They became inextricably jammed into the narrow turn in
+the road, and the harder they struggled to turn about, or go forward,
+the more entangled they became. To jump from their mounts in this
+instant of turmoil and surprise meant sure death.
+
+Into this struggling, tangled mass of plunging, besmeared horses, and
+fighting, snarling, bleeding men, Johnse Hatfield had plunged his own
+horse, followed by his ferocious riders, now blind-mad with the lust of
+battle. And all the while the lead rained down from the graveyard
+without cessation.
+
+Hatfield had only one object in view now. He knew that the old coward,
+Eversole, was not there. He had seen the sheriff go down, and knew that
+he was under the horses. In the rise and fall of the conflict, he could
+not locate Sap McGill, but he did see Orlick, and Orlick saw him at the
+same time, and tried vainly and frantically to force his horse out of
+the melee.
+
+As Hatfield forged his way nearer and nearer, Orlick raised his pistol
+and fired at him. But at that instant a horse reared between them, and
+the animal received the ball in the head and fell back against Johnse's
+mount, knocking it to its knees. When Hatfield saw Orlick again, he was
+on the outer edge of the combat, and would have been away had not a man
+seized Orlick's bridle and held on. Johnse saw him fire in the man's
+face, and saw the man's head disappear.
+
+Free at last, Orlick turned and drove his horse up the road toward town
+like the wind. Hatfield now stabbed his horse cruelly, and forced it up,
+over and through the fighting mass, and followed Orlick, leaving the
+battle behind. But Orlick's horse was a swift and powerful animal, and
+Hatfield lost ground.
+
+All this while Buddy Lutts had been busy. He had climbed to the top of a
+clay bank, forty feet above, and was sharp-shooting with telling effect.
+Looking down in the moon mist upon the struggle, it was hard for him to
+distinguish the enemy from his own people, but every time he saw a man
+break away and run back toward the town, he knew it to be a McGill and
+he fired with careful aim.
+
+It was while thus engaged that the boy discerned Orlick's big gray leap
+out and gallop toward town. Buddy raised his rifle and pulled the
+trigger, but there was no report. His gun was empty. While he was
+fumbling nervously in his haste to reload, he saw the piebald break out
+and dash up the road, and he knew that Johnse was after Orlick. When
+Buddy had loaded the rifle, he crept along the brow of the hill and
+started to run after Hatfield. He had not gone far when he came
+unexpectedly upon four men. The boy, startled, jerked his rifle to his
+shoulder, when the men in his path threw up their hands, one holding a
+white handkerchief above his head and calling upon the boy not to shoot.
+
+Ignoring their friendly overtures, Buddy circled around them and ran
+onward at top speed toward town. The men were Logan and the three
+newspaper reporters, following the progress of the fight at the risk of
+their lives. Johnse Hatfield already had five bullets in his body and
+was bleeding profusely, but he spurred ahead unmindful of his wounds,
+keeping the fleeing gray in sight.
+
+When Orlick turned the corner and vanished, Johnse called upon his mare
+for all the speed that was in her. As he made the corner and swerved to
+the right past Eversole's store, old Hank jumped out and fired upon him.
+The ball broke Johnse's left arm and his pistol slipped from a nerveless
+hand to the ground.
+
+Undaunted, and without slacking his pace, Hatfield wheeled in the saddle
+and fired two quick shots with his right. He saw old Eversole pitch
+headlong into the horse-trough. Because of a line of trees that cast a
+black shadow along the main street, he could not now see Orlick's gray,
+but he could hear the tattoo of the horse's hoofs. Determined to
+overtake this traitor, Hatfield urged his mare to her utmost. In a few
+seconds the big gray came out into the moonlight again, and Hatfield saw
+that Orlick was headed for the river.
+
+As Hatfield divined Orlick's intentions, a savage joy stirred within him
+and mitigated the torture of a shattered arm and other bodily wounds. He
+knew that if Orlick attempted to ford that swift, roaring river that he
+(Hatfield) would get the shot for which he thirsted and, as he spurred
+his horse after Orlick and felt his strength fast failing him, he fought
+this weakness off with a mighty will, buoyed up with the thought of how
+he would at last take toll from this traitor for his part in the killing
+of old Captain Lutts.
+
+As Johnse flew along, he saw the gray disappear down the river bank. The
+next minute he was surprised to see the horse plunging back up into
+sight. Then the horse pivoted and went down again. Then back up the bank
+he lunged a second time, and Hatfield could hear Orlick cursing the
+animal, and he knew that for some reason the horse had balked and would
+not take to the water.
+
+A shock of delight instilled new strength into Hatfield, whose blood had
+been ebbing away for the past three-quarters of an hour. At this
+particular spot on the river bank there were no trees, and the rim of
+the river was destitute of rocks sufficiently large to offer protection
+for a man's form. But, standing back from the road and some four hundred
+feet distant from the river bank, there was a deserted old shack with
+sagging porch and dismantled windows. And just outside the broken picket
+fence at the near corner of the yard there stood a huge chestnut tree
+with a thick body.
+
+While Orlick was wrangling with his refractory horse, his actions made
+it plain to Hatfield that he had marked that tree. Then, evidently
+despairing of controlling the stubborn animal, he slid to the ground,
+obviously bent upon making the shelter of the chestnut. Hatfield now
+bore down upon him, swerving to the right of the road to thwart Orlick's
+attempt to reach the tree. Whereupon Orlick ran back and along the bank,
+and dropped in the high weeds.
+
+Hatfield, weak and totally exhausted from pain and loss of blood, now
+stopped his horse and fell out of the saddle. He gripped his Colt and
+tottered toward the spot where he had last seen Orlick, but he knew that
+Orlick would not be on that exact spot. He knew that the man was
+bellying away like a snake through the grass somewhere. Knowing that he
+would not last much longer, and desperate in his eagerness to flush
+Orlick, he stumbled recklessly about through high weeds with his gun out
+before him and his eyes darting here and there.
+
+Suddenly Orlick jumped up fifty feet to the right in the direction of
+the chestnut tree and fired. Hatfield also fired at the same time. The
+two reports seemed to consolidate and make a single echo that quivered
+across the river. Hatfield pulled the trigger again, but it only clicked
+emptily and did not respond. Orlick was still upright, but motionless.
+Hatfield wondered why he did not shoot. Orlick's shot had struck him in
+the arm that already hung useless and limp at his side. He stood
+watching him curiously. Then he saw Orlick thrust his gun in its holster
+and sit down on the ground, as if to rest. He held this position for
+several seconds--then lay back slowly, flat on his back.
+
+Hatfield suspected Orlick of treachery and hastily proceeded to break
+his gun with his good hand. This he contrived to do, and while he was
+fumbling for cartridges, of which he had a countless number, a blinding
+faintness seized him and, thinking that he was falling backward into the
+river, he threw up his good arm suddenly to catch his balance. The gun
+flew out of his grasp and rolled down the embankment.
+
+The next instant he fell forward and lay still on his face in the weeds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HATFIELD OVERTAKES THE TRAITOR
+
+
+By and by, Hatfield opened his eyes to find that his horse was nosing
+his face with his warm, rough lips as if bent on waking him up. Johnse
+lifted his aching eyes toward the moon. He calculated that he had lain
+there fully an hour or more. His left arm held him in an agony of
+torture. His whole body was racked with shooting pains traversing from
+his head down and back again. His smiling lips were now cracked and
+bloodless. Gladly he would have exchanged the life left in him for a cup
+of water. All the events of this night filtered back into his
+consciousness. He felt instinctively for his guns; then recalled what
+had become of them.
+
+Remembering where he had seen Orlick lie down in the weeds, he wondered
+if he was still there. Impelled by a consuming curiosity to know what
+had become of this hated enemy, he struggled up and, dragging his dead,
+limp arm along, he hobbled on his knees and one hand toward the chestnut
+trees. At the end of a few tortuous minutes, which seemed hours of
+suffering, he saw the bottom of Orlick's feet.
+
+Orlick must have heard this ominous, heavy breathing, for suddenly he
+raised on his elbow and looked.
+
+"Aw--hell!" gasped Hatfield. "I 'lowed yo' wus daid--yo' wild hawg."
+
+His voice carried a volume of reproach and disgust.
+
+"Where yo'-all bin--hain't I got ez much right to cum back ez yo' hev?"
+snarled his weak, wounded foe.
+
+"Naw, yo' hain't--yo' hain't never had no right on earth," growled
+Hatfield in tones that dwindled feebly to a malevolent hiss. "Traitors
+like yo' hain't hardly fittin' fo' hell--yo he'pt kill Cap Lutts, didn't
+yo'--eh?--didn't yo'--eh? An' yo' he'pt kill Mart Harper, didn't
+yo'--eh? An' yo' spied fer Sap and them fellers thet kilt Don Perry,
+didn't yo'--eh? An' thet hain't all, yo' bin a traitin' up Moonway fo'
+five year--I'm goin' t' finish yo' now--I'll finish yo'--jest wait til I
+git my breath an' I'll settle yo', shor'n hell."
+
+Hatfield's head dropped down in the grass and he lay panting.
+
+Orlick then struggled to his knees, impelled by some cryptic terror that
+imparted to him a measure of astounding vitality, and crawled away
+toward the deserted shack like a turtle. Hatfield, determined not to
+lose sight of him, crawled along tenaciously ten feet in the rear.
+
+The ground under the chestnut tree and along the picket fence of the old
+shack had been stamped and worn bare by roving stock. When Orlick
+reached this bare spot, he tumbled flat and inert. In a few minutes more
+Hatfield came up, spent and heaving and unable to go another foot. He
+fell prone with his good arm stretched out and his clutching fingers
+within twelve inches of Orlick's throat. Orlick's body was in the shadow
+of the chestnut tree, but his head and neck were plainly visible in the
+moonlight. He turned his face and looked wearily at the impotent hand
+that was reaching for him--then his dull eyes followed the arm down to
+the dark visage with its smiling marble-white lips, and he wagged his
+head indifferently. Hatfield spoke again between teeth that gritted down
+upon the agony of his wounds:
+
+"Coward--what yo' a runnin' fo'?"
+
+He got no response.
+
+"Wait 'til I rest a minute, an' I'll finish yo', shore--leastways, I
+plugged yo' gud--eh?"
+
+Orlick's bloodless lips moved now.
+
+"Yo' don't look so damn peert," he groaned back.
+
+"Yo' didn't do hit--by Gad--yo' hit me in th' arm, an' hit was already
+busted--ha!--ha!--I didn't feel what yo' done," Hatfield laughed weakly,
+but derisively. "Leastways, yo' won't be a traitin' up in Moon again so
+soon. I plugged yo' gud, eh?" he ended jeeringly, venting a sound that
+in health would have mounted to a loud laugh, but which was only a faint
+gurgle in his throat.
+
+"An' yo' 'lowed yo'd git Belle-Ann, eh? Yo' mouse-dog--yo' 'lowed
+Belle-Ann 'ud parley with sich as yo'--eh? Ef I wusn't so tired I'd
+laugh 'til I'd bust--say, skunk--yo' 'lowed I didn't know--but I knowed
+all 'long--I had my eye on yo'--yo' karnsarned wild hawg. I was a
+watchin' yo'--say--yo' 'member when yo' grabbed Belle-Ann in th' yard
+thet time--I was ahind th' corn crib, an' I hed a bead on yo'--I'd a
+kilt yo' then pint-blank ef Belle-Ann hadn't bin so clost--I started
+after yo', an' when yo' let her loose I got ahind the wagon-bed an'
+waited. Say--Belle-Ann give yo' the run, didn't she--eh? Didn't she run
+yo'--eh? Say, louse--Belle-Ann wouldn't spit on yo', she wouldn't--not
+her. Did she run yo'--eh? Gawd'll Moughty!--I wish I could laugh gud an'
+plenty--I'm aimin' to finish yo' in a minute--when I rest--then yo'
+he'pt kill her pap--an' I reckon yo' he'pt kill Lem--eh?"
+
+Orlick now seemed to be beyond all fear of the hand with its menacing
+fingers that wriggled toward him, and the malicious dying face below. A
+half grin touched Orlick's pallid lips and curled into the symbol of a
+pleasing memory as he said:
+
+"I--I--'low--peaches'll be 'round--'fore Lem air----"
+
+This amazing insult threw Johnse into a fit of rage. He mumbled curses,
+but could not budge. The fingers within a foot of Orlick's neck worked
+convulsively and rigorously. A siege of coughing choked his maledictions
+and blood issued from his mouth. His fingers clawed into the soil and
+closed and, with a mighty effort, he tossed the dirt into Orlick's face.
+Presently he again found breath and words.
+
+"I'm a cummin' after yo' now--now, I'm a cummin'--I'll guzzle yo'
+now----" but he did not move.
+
+"Why don't yo' shoot?" inquired Orlick, with no show of concern.
+
+"Why don't yo' shoot--skunk--coward?" wheezed Hatfield through clinched
+teeth.
+
+"Lend me a cart'age an' I'll shore 'commodate yo'," returned Orlick.
+
+"Yo' shove thet gun down an' I'll shore help yo' 'long a pinch,"
+suggested Johnse, struggling vainly to drag his body just a foot that
+his hand might close upon Orlick's throat.
+
+The facilities for wreaking final vengeance upon each other was a
+disjunctive irony divided equally between them. Neither had sufficient
+strength or vitality left for bodily combat, and Orlick possessed the
+gun, while Hatfield had the cartridges. Had fate favored one, at that
+instant, with the possession of both, he could not have possibly missed,
+with their faces less than four feet apart.
+
+"Say--skunk--we'll draw fo' em both--heer me?" suggested Hatfield. "I
+got th' cart'ages--we'll draw--I know yore a traitor--but I got t' take
+a chanct on yo'--we'll draw--heer me? Ef I win, yo' shove me the gun--ef
+yo' win, I'll shove yo' a cart'age--damn yo'--"
+
+"Damn yo'--I'll take yo' up," agreed Orlick thickly.
+
+While these two helpless belligerents lay in the moonlight, slowly
+bleeding to death and scowling at each other, Johnse, at length, laid
+his fingers on a twig which he broke into two parts, attended with
+infinite pain. Then where his hand lay he clawed up more dirt into a
+minute mound. Into this he stuck the long stick and beside it the short
+one. Then he pulled them out again and hissed a scathing reprimand at
+Orlick.
+
+"Yore a lookin'--traitor----!"
+
+Orlick slowly averted his face.
+
+A brief silence ensued, broken only by the roar of the river and the
+wheezing of their breaths. Again Johnse stammered:
+
+"Now draw--draw now, coward--take yore pick--heer me?--draw----"
+
+Over in the road a roving hound squatted his gaunt shape, and lifting
+his muzzle up to the moon, howled long and piteously.
+
+In the meantime Buddy Lutts had dodged along, avoiding the road until he
+reached a narrow plot of underbrush that separated him from the first
+row of frame houses. Here he lay and watched for a chance to proceed
+along the road. He could not see the road directly beneath him, but
+through an aperture he held a diagonal view of the highway for a
+distance of some fifty yards.
+
+Like projections of a cinematograph, he saw the forms of men flitting
+past this moonlit gap, running toward town. But he could not distinguish
+the pursued from the pursuers. He also saw some horses gallop past with
+empty saddles. One of these derelicts stopped short, framed in the light
+of the gap, and turned to cropping at the roadside with reins dragging
+about his hoofs. Far behind him the noise of the conflict echoed back in
+desultory, straggling shots. These reports emanated also from a remote
+quarter of the tobacco field opposite where Buddy lay, and from the
+direction of the Courthouse.
+
+The boy instinctively knew that the real battle was over; he knew that
+his people had crushed and annihilated the main body of the McGill
+forces in less than ten minutes, at the gate of the fated graveyard. He
+furthermore knew that the tail of this fight was backing toward the
+town, where it would quiver and stir, and would not die until sunrise.
+It had dwindled down to a "bush-whacking" contest. It was now a
+nocturnal game of hide-and-seek, with death lurking in the shadows and
+behind every object that offered refuge.
+
+As the boy lay concealed, watching and listening with his rifle beside
+him, his untaught soul was profoundly exercised with the triumph of this
+victory. In truth, he would have been almost happy had he not been
+assailed with a sudden, acute apprehension concerning Hatfield. He had
+seen Johnse's horse tear up the road after Orlick, but he had not, as
+yet, seen any signs of Hatfield's returning. At the rate the two were
+going, he deemed it time for Johnse to be on his way back.
+
+Buddy debated as to whether he should continue on beneath the shadows of
+the trees which skirted the rear gardens and out-buildings of the frame
+houses just ahead. He was now deeply perturbed about Hatfield. After a
+minute's deliberation, he quickly arrived at a determination to face the
+dangers presented at every turn and push onward and look for Johnse.
+
+With this quest firmly in mind, he reasoned that to pass behind the
+houses was, on that hand, taking a great risk. He knew that every house
+in Junction City was in darkness, barred and bolted, with shutters
+closed and blinds drawn, the inmates not daring so much as to peep out.
+But he did not know what these back yards held for him.
+
+In hours of strife, mountaineers can never be found in their houses with
+the women, but they are often found near their homes, hiding out.
+Besides, Buddy knew that he could not mislead the sagacious senses of
+the ever-present hounds. Growing more anxious momentarily, he at length
+decided that it was less perilous to take the open road, where he could
+at least see around him, and rely upon the wayside shadows for
+protection.
+
+To this end, the boy crept out of his concealment, making his way
+noiselessly down the slope through the brush tangle and saplings. He
+crept down to the corner of a house which had no enclosed front yard,
+and looked furtively up and down the street. The road was apparently
+clear now, save the vague outlines of a few wandering horses. Buddy
+slipped across the highway, to the vista of sable shadows that followed
+the rail fence and then, in a half-stooping posture, ran toward the main
+street as fast as his legs could propel him.
+
+As he hastened along with his eyes furtively ahead, a sow jumped out
+from the thistles in a fence corner and gave Buddy an awful fright. He
+finally reached the Courthouse square, and hiding behind a wagon, cast
+his eyes around in every direction. The Courthouse doors and windows
+were open, and the building was plainly deserted. A sepulchral stillness
+pervaded the square, and there was no visible sign of the conflict
+which, the boy knew, was still smouldering, for the night wind still
+carried the muffled sounds of rifle-shots from the South, and from the
+distant end of the street westward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY
+
+
+Buddy knew that Hatfield would be compelled to return southward by the
+same route he had gone. But here the boy was confronted with the problem
+of the route Orlick had led his pursuer, when the two had reached the
+square. It was gravely essential that he decide quickly upon some
+action, for the boy realized fully that his life was in jeopardy every
+moment he lingered here in the midst of the enemy.
+
+While he hoped vainly to catch sight of some of his own people, and
+appealed to his judgment to point out to him the direction Hatfield had
+taken, he suddenly discerned two men trotting down the middle of the
+road, running close together with rifles at ready position. Buddy fell
+down flat on the ground and watched through the spokes of the wagon
+wheels.
+
+The men halted at Eversole's store, and looked up at the windows
+overhead. Then they whistled softly. Then they went around to the front
+of the store, and Buddy heard them knock several times on the closed
+door. Evidently getting no response, they turned about, and the next
+instant Buddy heard a loud, profane exclamation and saw them pulling
+something out of the horse-trough. At this distance, in the
+semi-darkness, Buddy could not distinguish what the object was they
+labored over, and did not then know it was the dead body of old
+Eversole.
+
+As the boy was straining his eyes, now for the moment half forgetful of
+his perilous whereabouts, he was suddenly electrified by voices behind
+him. He shrank close to the ground, and casting a look in the rear,
+observed the forms of three men approaching along the South road. Now
+acutely alive to his danger, Buddy's eyes swept the shadows to the left,
+the only avenue open for retreat. His searching eyes lit upon a rockaway
+carriage, with the tongue propped up, standing at the roadside some two
+hundred feet distant. He crawfished cautiously toward this lone vehicle,
+dragging his rifle after him through the dust of the road. When the
+three men had advanced and were on a direct line ahead, bringing the
+wagon in between, and thereby screening him, the boy darted safely to
+the shadow of the carriage and peered out at the men, who now quickened
+their pace toward the two at the horse-trough.
+
+Thinking that the carriage would afford a reasonably safe hiding place
+for the moment, Buddy decided to climb inside, where he could peep out
+at the five men in front of Eversole's store, and at the same time watch
+the highway for Johnse Hatfield. The boy knew that, if he could remain
+unseen long enough, it was only a question of time ere some of his own
+faction would come upon the scene, affording him protection and
+assistance in seeking Hatfield.
+
+Now bent upon secreting himself inside the carriage until the way was
+clear, and, in the meantime, determine what was the most likely route
+Orlick had taken to escape Hatfield's vengeance, Buddy opened the
+carriage door, but fell back, amazed and startled, as the limp body of a
+dead man tumbled out upon him. Recovering quickly from this surprise,
+Buddy took a look at the face. The body lolled half out of the vehicle,
+one arm and the head hanging down between the wheels. Although the face
+was outward, it was at the same time downward past the step of the
+vehicle, and in this inverted position the boy could not have recognized
+his best friend in the wan moonlight.
+
+He shot a swift look around him and across toward Eversole's store--then
+laying his rifle on the ground, he lifted the dead man's head up and
+scrutinized it closely. As Buddy had never known Steve Barlow, the face
+was strange to him, and he was in the act of easing his gruesome burden
+down, when soft sounds like muffled footsteps startled him. They were
+close to him, seemingly coming from the opposite side of the carriage.
+
+Without waiting an instant or even looking a second time, Buddy jerked
+his hands free, grabbed his gun, and made a headlong dive across the
+plank-walk and sprawled against the picket fence, at bay, but with gun
+pointed toward the carriage and ready to die fighting and take a toll
+for his own life.
+
+His little heart beat wildly for the next few seconds. Affrighted, he
+had dropped his burden so suddenly that its weight had jerked the other
+arm outside, and now the inverted dead face swung to and fro, and
+gesticulated between the wheels in the moonlight. Then under and behind
+this grim pantomime, the boy could discern the vague outlines of legs in
+the dense shadow cast by the carriage.
+
+Buddy did not court shots from the front, but he had always dreaded a
+shot in the back, and he knew that the McGills would show no quarter,
+not even to a boy, much less a Lutts boy. In reality, it was less than
+fifteen seconds that Buddy lay with finger in the trigger-guard, staring
+at that veiled, menacing shadow stirring near at hand, but it seemed
+very much longer to the boy. He could not endure the suspense, and just
+as he began to crawfish stealthily along the fence, a riderless, unshod
+horse stepped leisurely from the gloom and walked noiselessly through
+the thick dust.
+
+Buddy heaved a long breath and leaned back against the fence. The horse
+was a light dun, with black mane and tail. He wore a saddle and the
+reins dragged. The animal stopped and pricked up his ears in Buddy's
+direction, then strolled over in the Courthouse yard, champing his bit
+noisily, a preface which Buddy thought the horse had previously omitted
+with mischievous intent.
+
+In an instant Buddy was all action. He slipped across to a tree and
+peered toward the store. The five men appeared to be carrying something,
+as nearly as Buddy could make out, into Eversole's side gate. Now was
+his time to leave this spot. Here he committed a very boyish and
+extremely indiscreet act. The dun horse stood idly by, waiting for some
+one to ride him. The empty saddle invited Buddy to mount, with an
+insistence that the boy could not resist, in the stress of the moment,
+and his earnest desire to get away quickly. The animal being unshod and
+the dust being dense, his chances of escape looked favorable, while the
+men were in Eversole's yard.
+
+Without another moment's deliberation, Buddy succumbed to this sudden
+impulse. Wherefore, he pulled his gun strap over his head and thrust his
+arms through, making the weapon fit snugly at his back, and in a jiffy
+he was in the saddle.
+
+He reached up to an overhanging bough and possessed himself of a keen
+switch and, wheeling the dun horse, was ready for a dash down the road.
+As a precaution, he urged the horse up close into the shadow of the
+Courthouse to make sure the men had disappeared. The horse, eager to be
+away, was prancing now and rattling his bit noisily. As Buddy leaned out
+from the saddle, with his eyes fixed intently on the store, a shot
+echoed up from the distant river, and oddly enough, Buddy determined in
+that instant to take toward the river, instead of the north road. But in
+that same instant a disastrous thing happened which sent Buddy afoot
+down that river road faster than he had intended to go, and sorely
+worsted.
+
+When he turned his head, a man was standing at the horse's head with a
+firm hold on the bridle. Without a word, the man led the horse out of
+the shadows into the moonlight. This man was hatless, and his head was
+swathed about with bandages, and his right arm was trussed up in a
+sling. When he lifted his face and scowled up at Buddy, a shiver
+traversed the boy's spine and made the perspiration start in his hair.
+
+Buddy could not mistake. It was the evil, murderous visage of Sap
+McGill. The boy was in the hands of the enemy at last. The hand that
+held the rein also clutched a pistol. Dropping the rein, McGill pulled
+Buddy off the horse.
+
+"So besides bein' a Lutts--yore a hoss thief t' boot, air
+ye?--well--by-damn!"
+
+Sap cursed Buddy eloquently and long. Buddy said not a word. He felt
+that his time had come. He only gazed fixedly at the ugly face over him,
+convulsed and working with passion. McGill jerked the boy around and
+called out loudly toward the store:
+
+"Hey--Stump--yo', Stump--cum out!"
+
+After calling several times, two men appeared in response, at the side
+gate, back of the store.
+
+"Cum on over, Stump--I keetched this fuzzy little Lutts runt a stealin'
+my hoss--hain't thet th' all-firedest beatenst nerve ye ever heerd tell
+on--cum git thes hoss while I ring thes little cuss's neck."
+
+Sap's left hand clutching Buddy's shoulder, also retained the pistol
+which encumbered his grip, and as the two men advanced, Buddy threw all
+his strength into a sudden twist, breaking loose, and fled down the road
+toward the river with all the might that was in his skinny legs.
+
+In his flight he stooped, and straightened, and ran azigzag; performing
+every trick known to him calculated to dodge a bullet. Buddy did
+artfully dodge two balls which Sap sent after him, but the third bullet
+tripped between his arm and his body, burning a furrow on both sides,
+and the fourth pinched a piece out of his shoulder. But these sensations
+only lent wings to Buddy's feet, and handicapped as he was, with his
+rifle double hitched over his shoulders, he fairly sailed.
+
+When he reached the black shadows of the line of trees that reached out
+toward the river, he ventured a look over his shoulder. Sap had stopped,
+but the other two men were in hot pursuit. Buddy could not possibly
+travel any faster than he was going then, but his pace soon distanced
+his pursuers. When the boy observed that they were losing ground, he
+darted across a vacant plot between the shacks and continued on,
+stumbling now along the darkened, unfamiliar paths back of the houses,
+leading toward the river. Finally he paused and stood panting and
+listening. Amid these shades it was too dark for him to see more than
+fifty feet distant. He could hear nothing but the barking of hounds and
+the beating of his own heart. The men who had started out after him had
+evidently given up the chase. But wishing to place a safe distance
+between himself and these prowling enemies, the boy ran onward, and did
+not stop until he was a quarter of a mile past the last house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"DRAW--NOW--COWARD!"
+
+
+Here he slackened to a walk and, turning over, crossed into the road. He
+felt of his shoulder gingerly. It did not appear to be bleeding much,
+but the wound under his arm stung and burned and he could feel the warm
+blood trickling down his side, and along his arm, also.
+
+As he stood in the road extricating himself from the unusual manner in
+which he had harnessed his rifle to his shoulders, he was startled by
+the rapid hoofbeats of an approaching horse. Believing that the McGills
+were coming after him again, Buddy ran across the road, then hurried
+toward the river under cover of the wayside brush. He came suddenly upon
+a broken-down shack, and as the sounds of the galloping hoofs grew more
+distinct, Buddy dropped to his knees and crawled through a rent in the
+dilapidated fence and lay down in the weeds with his face toward the
+road, and waited for a few seconds.
+
+Then he thrust his head between the broken pickets and looked up the
+road. A horse was coming onward at a fearful, breakneck pace, and behind
+him followed three or four other horsemen. In the moonlight, Buddy could
+plainly see the white cloths around the foremost rider's head. It was
+Sap McGill on the dun horse. Judging from the terrific rate at which the
+lead horse was leaping over the road, Buddy felt sure that they would
+pass him by. The boy drew his head in and waited, breathlessly. Then Sap
+McGill dashed past, and just as he did so two shots rang out, and McGill
+tumbled out of the saddle and sprawled in the middle of the road, where
+he lay still, while his horse continued on.
+
+At this unexpected turn, a great light broke in upon Buddy, and his
+heart went apatter with joy. He knew now that the men following McGill
+were his own people. He scurried through the aperture in the fence, but
+the men had wheeled about and were galloping back as swiftly as they had
+come.
+
+Buddy hallooed at the top of his lungs, but the noise of their horses'
+feet drowned his voice and they raced on and away. As Buddy reached back
+through the fence and pulled his rifle to him, preparatory to running
+after the men, he was arrested by the sound of a human voice. He stood
+puzzled and mystified. He could see nothing, but the voice was uncannily
+near; seemingly at his very feet.
+
+Buddy cast an awesome look toward the battered, deserted shack with its
+yawning, sinister windows, and a grave suspicion stole upon him, and
+mounted to a fear that embraced his soul, and set his knees atremble.
+The house was haunted!
+
+Buddy shrank away from the fence, moved by a fear that nothing else
+could inspire, and which has no kindred terror, but he only made two
+steps. The same voice held him rooted to the spot. This time there was a
+timbre in the inarticulate utterance that was strangely familiar to
+Buddy. Then the mysterious voice formed words that were clearly
+intelligible: "Now draw--draw now--coward--take yore pick--hear
+me?--draw----"
+
+Buddy knew that voice too well to question it further. He hurried around
+the corner of the fence, and out under the chestnut tree, where he
+stopped short for the space of a moment, spellbound and dismayed, mutely
+gazing at the two prostrate forms stretched eerily before him in the
+gleam of the moon. The next instant Buddy was on his knees beside
+Hatfield.
+
+"Johnse--Johnse--air yo' kilt--air yo' hurted bad----?"
+
+"Air thet yo'--little Cap?" inquired Johnse feebly.
+
+"Sho'--I bin a huntin' yo'--air yo' hit bad, Johnse?"
+
+"I'm scratched up some, boy; twixt us two, I don't feel as skeetish as I
+ded 'bout sun-down. Say, Buddy, th' coward won't draw--I knowed he
+wouldn't--I jest knowed he'd throw in some ornery trick. Say, Buddy,
+give me yore rifle-gun down heah--an' fix th' muzzle in his ear fo'
+me--I lost my Colts--hurry long--han' yore gun down, Buddy----"
+
+The boy had been making a hasty examination of the familiar form that
+lay inert beside Hatfield. He now leaned over Johnse again.
+
+"Orlick's daid," announced the boy.
+
+"Oh, air he?" said Johnse. "I 'low I'll scuse em then fo' not drawin'--I
+knowed I hit em hard--but I didn't think he 'lowed to die--th' way he
+jest naturally hung on--he air so karnsarned tricky. Say, Buddy--how is
+hit a goin'--air th' fellers at em yit?"
+
+"Sho'--we'uns licked 'em bully, Johnse--they's jest a playin' tag now up
+in town--Sap plugged me twict up by ole Hank's store, as I cum
+by--Johnse, I got t' rack out now an' git th' men to tote yo' to th'
+wagons--I reckon th' doc-man kin peert yo' up a pinch--does yo' hurt
+bad, Johnse?"
+
+"Ded Sap plug yo', Buddy?"
+
+"Yep--hit don't hurt powerful bad though--an' our men jest plugged Sap,
+jest now--didn't yo'-all heer th' shoots?"
+
+"I mought hev, Buddy,--but I wus powerful busy arguing with Orlick--yo'
+sho' they got Sap?"
+
+"Sho," reassured Buddy. "He air a layin' up on th' road yonder now--I
+got t' rack out an' git yo' away from heah now."
+
+"An' I got ole Hank--Gawd'll Moughty!--hain't we'uns in luck?"
+
+Hatfield's voice sunk now to a thin, lingering whisper.
+
+"Buddy," he muttered wearily, "'fore yo' go--kin yo' fetch me a speck o'
+water--jest a mouthful o' water somehow----"
+
+The boy hurried behind the old shack in quest of something that would
+hold water. He found an old tomato can, but there was a rent in its
+bottom. Presently, he caught sight of a rusty tin bucket hanging by a
+wire, against a rotting porch post. He dumped the earth and dried roots
+out of this and held the bucket up to the moon. Then he ran toward the
+river. When he returned a few minutes later with the water, he was
+trailing Hatfield's piebald mare after him. The wounded man gulped the
+water greedily and Buddy unknotted the handkerchief about his neck and
+bathed his head.
+
+"I air goin' now, Johnse," said Buddy. "Yo' jest lay easy like, an' I'll
+be back with somebuddy 'fore a goat kin wig his tail."
+
+Whereupon, Buddy mounted the mare and galloped toward the courthouse,
+unafraid. In less than half an hour, Buddy galloped back, accompanied by
+six horsemen. They lifted the maimed, unconscious Hatfield and bore him
+away. As the cortege moved slowly up the moonlit road bearing their
+wounded leader, little Buddy turned the mare back, and cantered down
+toward the river to the spot where he had seen Sap McGill tumble out of
+the saddle when the Lutts' had fired upon him. But the boy was acutely
+disappointed. McGill was gone. And three bony, starved dogs with
+ravenous, wolfish eyes that gleamed in the moonlight, wore licking at a
+pool of blood in the road.
+
+The immeasurable canopy above the hills was clear and pearly, save a
+narrow reef of low clouds that anchored over the serried peaks of
+Southpaw. Clouds frowning against the sun, grim and somber and splotched
+with a sable film that seemingly reflected a stratum of despair and
+gloom that tides of time could not erase.
+
+Down upon the Moon mountain range, the sun smiled with an affiliating
+mellowness that found grateful response in the hearts of the denizens,
+despite the fact that the coves were scarred with new-made mounds, and
+their cabins were not without the wounded.
+
+And dividing these two mighty ranges of victory and defeat, the frenzied
+waters of Hellsfork dinned a neutral warning, reiterating an idiom that
+boomed like the omen of a tom-tom.
+
+For the past three weeks the Lutts' cabin had been utilized as an
+improvised hospital. Three of the men who had lingered there had
+departed to their respective homes, leaving Johnse Hatfield propped up
+in the "four-poster" alone.
+
+Buddy Lutts' hurts, while painful and stubborn, were flesh wounds, and
+the boy had spurned the bed. Slab, the negro, was a willing and deft
+helper. And Buddy attended Johnse with the devotion born of idolization.
+In Buddy's boyish appreciation Johnse Hatfield was now a hero, seconded
+only by his dead father's memory. One bullet had gone entirely through
+Hatfield, leaving six lodged therein. The surgeon from Hazard had
+extracted every other one, leaving three inside of Johnse. The doctor
+did not advance any prophecies direct, because he was not interrogated,
+but he told the "Ridin' parson" who had been up to the Lutts' house,
+that in two weeks more Johnse would be up and out, a little heavier, but
+sound as a grind-stone.
+
+Just at dawn each day, Johnse would open his eyes, yawn and vent an
+observation he had repeated regularly for three weeks:
+
+"Well--I 'low I'll go up t' th' still long 'bout noontime, Buddy--air
+yo' a goin' long?--little Cap?"
+
+Whereupon, Buddy would bring in the breakfast which old Slab had ready
+for him. Then Buddy would go to the "what-not" and get the treasured
+newspaper, and without protest, Johnse would read it all over to the
+boy, just as he had done each day since the paper had arrived. Logan,
+the audacious lawyer from the Blue-Grass, who had bearded the McGill
+faction in their own courthouse, had, thoughtfully, sent Johnse Hatfield
+a Frankfort newspaper, as a significant token of some sort of respect.
+The front side of this daily bore a picture, gotten up from description,
+of Johnse Hatfield. And under this spurious representation were three
+full-length columns presenting a graphic description of the "Bloodiest
+Clash in the History of Feudal Warfare," followed by details of the
+"Graveyard Massacre" by an eye-witness.
+
+According to these reporters, out of some eighty-eight men, who dashed
+down the road on that fateful night to slaughter the Lutts clan,
+forty-two of them never got away alive from the graveyard facade.
+
+To Buddy Lutts' keen appreciation, the only flaw in this wholesome
+narrative was the printed rumor that Sap McGill had escaped and was
+slowly recuperating over in Southpaw.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE MISSION SCHOOL
+
+
+'Twas some days ere Belle-Ann fitted her mood to her strange
+environments. The Mission School at Proctor was a beautiful place--a
+great rambling structure on the apex of a hill overlooking the
+picturesque Kentucky River. The building was girded with a continuous,
+spacious porch, and hemmed about with flowers, the identity of which was
+unknown to her. The grounds behind were unstinting, and reached half a
+mile back to the mountain abutting it.
+
+Flanking the building proper, on the verdant esplanade, stood a superb
+statue of Daniel Boone, embellished with a gurgling fountain which the
+State had recently reared on this spot where Boone had built his
+historic fortress.
+
+Belle-Ann was allotted a cozy little room with white enamel furniture,
+and pretty curtains, and quaint Japanese matting, the like of which had
+never met her admiring eyes.
+
+Withal, Belle-Ann was deeply pleased with her new surroundings--with the
+other scholars and with the teachers. But so much had been crowded into
+her young life of late, coupled with the pang of parting from her home,
+that it was days before her mood aroused itself to the necessity of
+application.
+
+When she did begin her lessons, it was with an assiduous energy and
+receptive aptitude that not only attracted the teachers, but the other
+pupils likewise. From the outset, she developed an inordinate thirst for
+grammar. Indeed, a great part of the time out of study hours, she
+carried her grammar about with her, peeping into it anon, spelling,
+repeating, and pondering over its phrases--never tiring of its dawning
+mysteries and vast possibilities.
+
+The Mission School, familiarly designated as the Chapel, was not an
+academic institution of classics and national renown, but it was of
+State-wide repute and an oasis of preparatory learning amidst the barren
+lives of mountain youth, hitherto isolated and deprived of the
+advantages of his more fortunate Blue-Grass cousins.
+
+Miss Virginia Worth, in charge of the Chapel, was as agreeably impressed
+with Belle-Ann as the girl was pleased with the charming teacher. Miss
+Worth was a woman of thirty-seven, with an abundance of perfectly white
+hair and the fresh, smooth face of a girl of twenty. Upon this benign,
+wholesome countenance there dwelt an ever-present sympathy and love for
+mankind. In her gray eyes was a look of succor that beckoned suffering
+to her. Oddly enough, a woman of private wealth, she had made the uplift
+of the mountain folk her life work.
+
+Moreover, Miss Worth was a woman of deep and unerring penetration,--of
+careful and soothing diplomacy--she had made a life study of the ways of
+the human heart. With true divinity, she had stepped out into the world,
+smiling, amidst the trivialities and dissensions, and weaknesses that
+assail and tempt and twist and scar the lives of humanity.
+
+In the fountain of her spontaneous Christian soul, she had a lotion for
+them all. From the first, it was this benevolent woman's smile that drew
+Belle-Ann to her--a look that reminded the girl keenly of Maw Lutts'
+perennial smile, and spread an aftermath that carried her back to days
+of utter happiness.
+
+Ill things of the soul are oft concealed through the measures of a
+lifetime. Thus, when its tenancy is predestined,--but when a spirit is
+unmated to evil, its odious residue gravitates like cork to the surface
+and speedily floats in the eyes.
+
+From the beginning there was an indefinable underlying something
+permeating this sweet-faced girl that had come to her from out of the
+wilderness--a something that sorely puzzled the good Miss Worth. It was
+like a single elusive carbon spot hidden away in the core of an
+otherwise perfect diamond--a spot that reflected through the eyes in
+fleeting transitory glints--a mote-flash that could not be
+located--baffling discernment only under powerful, expert analysis.
+
+Miss Worth loved the girl. She loved her straightway from the minute
+that she had held her small, shapely hand, and listened to the timbre of
+that shy, dulcet voice. She had never seen eyes tinted like these. She
+marvelled at her curls. Her perfect delicate, Grecian features filled
+Miss Worth with a lasting wonder.
+
+Through the Reverend Peterson she heard the tragic history of the girl's
+comely mother, but she could not conceive a heredity sufficiently
+generous to give the beauty made adorably manifest in this girl of the
+hills. In every movement her natural artless grace was as a rhythm of
+poetry.
+
+Miss Worth then recognized an extraordinary character--the fibre of a
+beautiful, wonderful, lovable womanhood--a girl who could, with the
+embellishments of education and adornments of fashion, go into the
+sphere of any secular circle of society in any municipality and create a
+furore. She was quick to foresee an interesting future for her new
+protegee, if she could only discover the elusive defect that she could
+not name, but which was palpably present to her keen senses, versed in
+thought reading and the pathology of organic character ailments.
+
+Very many times, as the days slipped by, she observed flashes of that
+sober, mystifying light in Belle-Ann's eyes--a sudden quick, almost
+vindictive dropping of the sweet lips that showed, otherwise, a dimpled
+upturn. It followed that Miss Worth devoted extra care to Belle-Ann's
+tutorage--all the while bent upon deftly angling for that alien,
+shifting thing that a casual observer would have passed unnoticed.
+
+The second Sunday following Belle-Ann's arrival at the school, Miss
+Worth presented to her an elderly gentleman of distinguished mien and
+marked personality, and of whom the girl was destined to see much
+thereafter. This engaging personage was Colonel Amos Tennytown, who
+resided down Blue-Grass way, and who visited the school, sometimes
+during the week, but most generally on a Sunday.
+
+Belle-Ann ever remembered her first meeting with this man, whose
+deferential manner was rich with little original courtesies which were
+innate manifestations of gentility that were born with the man. And his
+voice, in particular, carried a charm that was soothing and totally
+irresistible.
+
+All this appealed to a certain latent delicacy that wove its hereditary
+fibre through this untaught mountain girl's being and stirred a response
+which had hitherto been dormant. She had known true hearts, honest and
+courageous, but she had never known polished mannerisms in men.
+
+She recalled the radiant face and the suppressed tremor in Miss Worth's
+voice when that lady glided into Belle-Ann's room and announced that she
+wished to introduce her to a gentleman friend. Belle-Ann remembered her
+poignant embarrassment as she stood before him on the porch, shyly and
+acutely conscious of her own glaring deficiencies and simple gown, and
+of her determination at that first instant to excuse herself quickly and
+slip away--and of the manner in which she was instantly reassured.
+
+Later, she recalled the keen interest he took in her at this first
+meeting, and how her case of blues vanished temporarily as she listened
+to his pleasing voice and was distracted by his courtly, cheery, easy
+manner. Her shyness forsook her straightway and she experienced a sense
+of having always known him. He came, ostensibly, to see Miss Worth, they
+being friends of long standing, and Belle-Ann remembered how he had
+gallantly bowed to Miss Worth, on leaving that first day, when he
+laughingly removed the nosegay from his lapel and stuck it into
+Belle-Ann's curls.
+
+She remembered that she was sorry when he departed, and stood on the
+porch with Miss Worth's arm around her, and helped her tutoress watch
+the tall, commanding figure of the Colonel receding down the sinuous
+path toward the ferry.
+
+Many months had elapsed since that day, and it had come to pass that now
+Belle-Ann looked forward to Colonel Tennytown's coming with an eagerness
+that rendered her almost wistful. This had grown upon her in a subtle
+way, and in these days he was seemingly a vital connecting link between
+herself and some indefinable but palpable mystery that hung over her
+life, veiled by the opaque future.
+
+Tom-John Benson had always, in his rough way, been thoughtful of his
+only child. Of late years, through necessity, he had been compelled to
+be away from her, working for a paltry wage. The Kentucky spirit, ever
+ready to give, is slow to take and, though sorely pressed, stands aloof
+from charity.
+
+Long since, the good Reverend Peterson of the Diocese of Lexington had
+volunteered to give Tom-John Benson a free scholarship for his girl--an
+offer influenced mainly by the Christian spirit of his true missionary
+heart, and partially because he was sympathetically familiar with the
+pathos that enveloped the life of Belle-Ann's beautiful mother, who had
+deserted a luxurious home in Lexington and immured herself in the
+cloister of the Cumberlands, never to emerge. But free scholarship did
+not appeal to Benson. His pride was less crude than his exterior. He
+bided his time, and by dint of saving from his meagre wage, paid in full
+for Belle-Ann's schooling.
+
+The fruits of Belle-Ann's close application to her studies were now made
+manifest in a way little short of marvelous. It was plain from the
+outset that she possessed a natural aptitude for the tasks set before
+her. She developed a love for books that grew into such ceaseless,
+indefatigable zeal that Miss Worth and Miss Ackerman, her under teacher,
+were often obliged to remonstrate with her. While the other girls were
+at tennis or some other diversion after hours, Belle-Ann was poring over
+her books with as deep absorption as if it were play. Very many times in
+the night Miss Worth, knowing her propensity for night study, would slip
+into her room and implore her to retire. She was fast winnowing out her
+mountain dialect, but there were some words that clung to her tongue
+tenaciously, despite her efforts to eliminate them.
+
+She was the recipient of a letter each month from her father, always
+containing a small sum of money, calculated to maintain her simple
+wardrobe. Then one day she was delighted to receive a postal order for
+fifty dollars from her father, who stated that the company for whom he
+worked had given him entire charge of the mill at Catletsburg, and had
+advanced his pay. He stated, furthermore, that he wished her to buy some
+nice clothes with the money accompanying the letter.
+
+Miss Worth, having three other schools to supervise in different
+sections of the county, was unable to spend more than two or three days
+at a time at Proctor. She being absent now, Miss Ackerman accompanied
+Belle-Ann across the river to Beattyville, where they purchased two very
+neat and becoming dresses for Belle-Ann, together with various other
+needful articles. And now being able to write an intelligent and
+commendably legible letter, Belle-Ann indited an epistle to her father
+which abounded with original expressions of love, and wherein she
+expressed her gratitude to him, describing at length the things she had
+purchased with the money he had so thoughtfully allowed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BELLE-ANN VISITS LEXINGTON
+
+
+One evening after class hours, Belle-Ann was in her room engrossed in
+the pages of her grammar when Miss Worth entered. As the girl leaned
+over her book, her black curls tumbled about her face, she did not look
+up until Miss Worth spoke.
+
+"Belle-Ann," said Miss Worth, with a twinkle in her clear eyes. "I see I
+shall be obliged to lock all your books up in the closet."
+
+"And I shan't complain if you-all allow me to carry the key," returned
+Belle-Ann.
+
+"But I would guard the key, dear," declared her teacher, pushing the
+grammar aside and drawing Belle-Ann over to a sofa.
+
+"But I can whittle--Lem taught me to whittle--I can make lots of funny
+things--and I would make a key with my pencil knife and open the door."
+
+"Then I would take away your wooden key and lock you, together with your
+books, in the closet."
+
+"Then I would pull the shortest hair from my crown and blow on both ends
+and make a wish and turn into an elf--no, a gnome,--no, that isn't it
+either--anyhow, I would turn into something very thin and flat and slide
+out under the door."
+
+"But you couldn't get your books out, dear--and it would be too lonesome
+and dark to study in the closet."
+
+"But I would catch some fire-flies out thah and slide back under the
+door--then I would have a light, and when I study I don't get lonesome."
+
+"Then a sad thing would happen, my dear--I would be compelled to switch
+you----"
+
+Belle-Ann vented a peal of pent-up glee and pulled the prematurely white
+head toward her.
+
+"Then I would kiss you thah and thah and thah--I would do what you
+always tell me--I would give good for evil--and I would not switch you
+back, and would only squeeze you hard--like this----"
+
+The woman in turn touched the dimpled, mischievous face fondly and
+kissed the red mouth, so temptingly close to her. Miss Worth the while
+had held a free hand behind her and in this hand she secreted something.
+
+"I really didn't come in to frolic, Belle-Ann," she said. "I came to
+tell you something--rather to ask you to do something for us."
+
+"Who's us, Miss Virginia?" quizzed Belle-Ann, her roguish, child-like
+curiosity superseding her levity.
+
+"I mean for me--of course, I have talked this matter over with Colonel
+Tennytown--in fact, we have had it in mind a long time. As you already
+know, I have private means and an income that accumulates until I hardly
+know at times where to place it."
+
+Miss Worth toyed with the ringlets of silky jet that crossed the girl's
+low brow.
+
+"I love all my pupils," she went on, "but your little self has taken a
+hold upon my affections in a way that no other pupil has ever done--and
+we feel--I feel that you have gifts and natural aptitudes that should
+not be neglected--and cultivation costs money, Belle-Ann, and I want you
+to borrow some money from me."
+
+Belle-Ann's round violet eyes had grown wider with wonder, as she
+studied the youthful countenance of the woman with the white hair.
+
+"But am I not at school heah?" she observed. "Besides, I don't need
+money--deah daddy sent me fifty dollars last month and I have lots of
+that left, and heah it is near the end of the month and he will send
+more, too. I thank you-all so much, Miss Virginia--but----"
+
+The teacher placed her hand over the ravishing mouth and left only the
+eloquent eyes protesting.
+
+"You don't seem to catch the import of my suggestion clearly,
+Belle-Ann," admonished Miss Worth. "Your kind father is not in a
+position to afford you the kind of training and education that your
+energy and latent talents warrant. At the rate of your present progress,
+you will soon outstrip the advantages which a school like this can offer
+you. In less than another year, you will know all that we have here. I
+well know that you are not the girl to grow vain--but your voice has
+always stirred me like a miracle. I should accuse my own conscience if
+your voice went amiss for want of culture. You plainly possess musical
+instincts that are suffering now. We think that you should go, very
+shortly now, down to Lexington to the Seminary, where the facilities for
+your musical training are sufficiently good for the beginning--and
+eventually you can go abroad--to Germany--and the means will be
+forthcoming!"
+
+"You mean--mean across the ocean?" cried Belle-Ann in amazement.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Alone--by myself?" she ejaculated.
+
+"Well, we can't tell--I may go with you," predicted Miss Worth with an
+amused smile.
+
+As the import of Miss Worth's proposition filtered into her
+comprehension, an efflux of joy and gratitude bubbled up from the girl's
+heart and tinged her dimples with carmine and overspread her cheeks. She
+sat for a minute beyond words. Her eyes strayed to the open window, and
+her gaze continued on over the pine tops, as though fixed intently upon
+a tiny mote that had bobbed about and gesticulated on the horizon of her
+child-dreams, but which was now resolved out of mythical vagueness into
+a poignant reality that was growing and speeding toward her with her own
+humble life for a goal, and with a pageantry of opportunity that dazzled
+and overwhelmed her senses.
+
+Slowly, very slowly, she turned her flushed face and fixed her eyes, now
+moist and brimming with love, gratitude and homage upon Miss Worth. Her
+bosom lifted as she looked mutely into the face that smiled down upon
+her. Then Belle-Ann's round chin lowered and her curls were on the
+woman's breast and her arms crept up and around and locked about the
+neck of her benefactress. Miss Worth patted her shoulder, and whispered
+words through her curls, and presently Belle-Ann whispered back to her.
+
+"But can I be worth it--could I ever--ever--be worth it? Besides, I
+could never, never, pay you-all back," she deplored tremulously.
+
+"Surely you can, sometime--you will have money of your own--that is, you
+may become a great prima-donna," she ended optimistically. Belle-Ann sat
+up straight.
+
+"Prima-donna," she repeated uncertainly.
+
+"Yes--you know, Belle-Ann, even in your simple old-timey song, 'Kitty
+Wells,' I have wondered at the volume and peculiar quality of your
+voice, and have compared the strength of that peculiar cadence to that
+of great singers I have heard. I believe that your voice holds all the
+fundamental requisites of an operatic singer. Anyhow, we are going to
+have your voice cultivated to its highest perfection--and who can
+tell--you may in time become a prima-donna."
+
+Belle-Ann hung upon Miss Worth's utterances with an intentness that lent
+to her an attitude of listening to some seductive melody coming from
+afar.
+
+"Prima-donna--prima-donna," she murmured softly and wonderingly.
+"Prima-donna--but don't tell me--let me find it, Miss Worth--I am not
+sure of its meaning." Whereupon, she skipped across the room and
+returning with her dictionary, flurried over its pages eagerly and
+swiftly.
+
+"P-r--p-r-i--prima--prima-donna--heah, I have it," she said.
+"'Prima-donna--the principal female singer in an opera;'--and do they
+make lots of money?" she inquired quickly.
+
+"They surely do," responded Miss Worth with growing amusement. Belle-Ann
+reflected for a moment.
+
+"Maybe--fifty dollars a month?" she ventured timidly.
+
+"That sum wouldn't interest a prima-donna, Belle-Ann. It is said that
+some of them enjoy salaries of one thousand dollars per week and more."
+
+"One thousand dollars!" she cried, aghast.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Belle-Ann slowly closed her dictionary and a look of deep disappointment
+touched her pretty oval features.
+
+"Oh, no, Miss Virginia," she sighed, clasping her little hands
+hopelessly. "I could never make one thousand dollars in one week--I just
+know I couldn't."
+
+Miss Worth laughed outright--then kissed her twice.
+
+"Let's talk about what we are to do to-morrow," suggested Miss Worth
+cheerily. "I have another pleasant surprise for you, dearest." Belle-Ann
+showed her winsome dimples and waited expectantly.
+
+"It is very necessary that you have some nice clothes and have them
+immediately. I mean some stylish apparel suitable to appear in city
+society, because you have some friends in Lexington who are anxious to
+have us visit them shortly, so to-morrow morning you and I are going to
+the city and I will take you to a modiste and have some pretty gowns
+made up for you. Here is the money." At this juncture, Miss Worth
+dropped five one hundred dollar bills into Belle-Ann's lap. The girl was
+utterly stupefied with a surging joy, and her exclamations of delight
+were varied and many as she tossed her curls in sheer exultation and
+rapture.
+
+The mere anticipation and the purpose of this intended sojourn filled
+Belle-Ann's untutored, pleasure-starved heart with ecstasy.
+
+She talked volubly along, her cheeks aflush, in a transport at the
+prospect of possessing herself of an assortment of pretty modern dresses
+for which her girl-heart now yearned,--particularly since she came to
+the school and observed the dainty, modish clothes of some of the girls
+who came over from Beattyville on Sunday to visit Miss Worth and Miss
+Ackerman.
+
+And thus it was that a new and alluring vista of probabilities opened up
+before her imagination that set her blood a-tingle and made her eyes
+sparkle with anticipation. The elusive dimples came and went, and she
+was very beautiful in this sudden, new happiness. Belle-Ann never forgot
+the joys of that shopping sojourn to Lexington.
+
+That night her mind teemed with processions of fantastic imaginings
+that, strive as she would, she could not dispel. Notwithstanding that
+her slumber had been scant, she arose earlier than usual fresh and
+bright and charged with an enthusiasm profuse and spontaneous. At
+eight-thirty the following morning, Belle-Ann and Miss Worth crossed the
+ferry to Beattyville. Here they took the train for Lexington and
+Belle-Ann had her first ride in a Pullman car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE GUEST OF A GRANDEE
+
+
+Arriving at Lexington, the girl was confronted with her first sight of a
+city. Belle-Ann was agreeably surprised to meet Colonel Tennytown, who
+had been awaiting their arrival at the station. The Colonel was plainly
+as pleased as was Belle-Ann, and helped the two into his big limousine
+with many courtesies and a radiant countenance. And here the girl whose
+head was a-whirl with child-like rapture, was treated to her first
+automobile ride.
+
+The Colonel's first thoughtful act was to present Miss Worth and
+Belle-Ann with a great cluster of roses he had in the car for them. He
+then directed the liveried chauffeur to drive out to his homestead, but
+in this he was artfully thwarted by Miss Worth, who hastily and firmly
+protested with a meaning look, declaring that their time was limited and
+that by complying with his kind invitation, the shopping would suffer.
+In lieu of that pleasure, the persistent Colonel, not to be denied, took
+the ladies to a big hotel where they had luncheon and spent an enlivened
+hour in his company, after which, Colonel Tennytown went his way,
+sending the ladies onward in his car to do their shopping.
+
+The wonder and mysteries of the big shops inspired Belle-Ann with
+amazement and delight unbounded, and her spontaneous and original
+comments and profuse inquiries concerning these sights kept her
+companion's face in one perpetual wreath of amused and happy smiles.
+
+After purchasing a number of suitable fabrics, Miss Worth took Belle-Ann
+to a modiste where they were detained for more than two hours. By the
+time they had completed their shopping, it was dusk and their automobile
+dashed up to the station barely in time to make the train. Colonel
+Tennytown was there to see them off, and had only time to bid them a
+hurried good-by.
+
+Miss Worth had arranged for all her minor purchases to be delivered to
+the school the same day that the gowns were sent. In the meantime,
+Belle-Ann had made three hurried trips with Miss Worth to the modiste in
+Lexington for fittings. Then, one memorable day, a horde of boxes
+arrived at the school for Belle-Ann. There were four exquisite dresses
+cut in the latest fashion. There were three beautiful imported hats.
+There were delicate veils and gloves and shoes and three dainty pairs of
+pumps embellished with oddly carved silver buckles. There were lingerie
+of the finest texture and stockings of many hues, so soft and fine that
+Belle-Ann marvelled at their resiliency. Also, there was a great
+brass-bound trunk, with compartments, with Belle-Ann's name stamped
+thereon, and a smart buff-leather traveling bag.
+
+There was everything calculated to inspire a girl-heart to the heights
+of inexpressible happiness,--particularly a girl who had never before
+known a luxurious life. Miss Worth and Belle-Ann spent half the night in
+the girl's room amid a deluge of tissue paper and boxes.
+
+The following Tuesday Miss Worth and Belle-Ann went to Lexington to
+visit Colonel Tennytown and his sister. The girl's figure had rounded
+and she had grown a head taller during the past winter. Her appearance
+in a city in her simple mountain garb would have challenged
+attention,--not because of the quaintness of the garb, but by merit of
+her natural grace and fresh, startling beauty. But to-day this wealth of
+beauty was enhanced a hundred fold. When she alighted at the station in
+Lexington, she presented a vision of loveliness that arrested the
+admiring eyes of people who had become inured to the sight of pretty
+girls, from the nearby newsboys, up to a group of loquacious old ladies
+who wore suffragist badges.
+
+Belle-Ann wore a dark blue creation that fell in clinging, Parisian
+grace about her supple form. The yoke and sleeves were trimmed with
+pleated lace of exquisite richness, and a jabot of lace fell down the
+front from the yoke midway to the waistline. On her feet were dark blue
+pumps with silver buckles and hose to match. She wore a large Panama hat
+caught up at one side, drooping at the other side and back and girded
+with a wide Persian ribbon knotted at the back and ending in a silk
+fringe that trailed toward the hair. Her mass of black, lustrous curls
+were caught up in the back in the embrace of a large Oriental clasp of
+unique design.
+
+In one hand she carried a beautiful Oriental purse suspended by a
+dragon-skin thong, which was hemmed with a camel's-hair braid. In the
+other hand, she balanced a long-stemmed white silk parasol. The apparel
+might have been duplicated; but the oval face under the Panama hat had
+no replica. There was no vestige of powder or cosmetics on the girl's
+complexion, which was left in all the rich purity that nature decreed to
+her.
+
+The chin was indescribably fascinating. A little mouth with curved
+carmine lips that turned upward at the corners flanked by dimples. A
+short, thin little nose, white like the soft white of a rose petal.
+Above that, a pair of round, wondrous eyes--eyes that harbored a depth
+of unfathomable eloquence--black-fringed, steadfast eyes, of a peculiar
+deep violet hue, merging into that matchless pigment that tones the blue
+of a robin's egg. Above that, were exquisitely penciled brows, and then
+the soft, shiny, raven-black ringlets that rippled beneath the hat.
+
+It was this beautiful Grecian countenance that inspired even the
+well-bred people about her in the station to pause for a second covert
+look. They had waited several minutes in the station when Colonel
+Tennytown's tall figure appeared coming toward them. He apologized
+contritely for his tardiness, stating that his car had suffered a
+"blow-out" which had delayed him.
+
+They were whirled along the shell road four miles outside of Lexington
+to the Colonel's magnificent homestead surrounded by acres of level
+pasturage and numerous modern out-buildings. As Belle-Ann learned
+afterward, this estate represented the highest type of a modern stock
+farm and was one of international repute. Colonel Tennytown's pedigreed
+horses were periodically shipped abroad.
+
+The Colonel was a gracious and fascinating host. He was a widower and
+had now in his household his maiden sister a few years his junior. There
+was no conceivable hospitality these two did not lavish upon their
+guests. Colonel Tennytown's proud prototype is met frequently throughout
+Kentucky.
+
+He was tall and of commanding carriage and manner and attired
+immaculately. He was a polished man whose courtesy was effervescent. He
+wore the regulation broad-brimmed hat, white moustache and goatee, and
+while his thin face was florid, it was at once refined and intellectual.
+His hobby was horses bred in the purple, but there was an utter absence
+of horsey vulgarism about him, his very presence irradiating breeding
+and culture.
+
+It was made convincingly clear, by every look and word and gesture, that
+the Colonel's stately maiden sister had fallen in love with Belle-Ann at
+first sight. The house was a great square structure and one could walk
+around its four sides on a broad, spacious porch. A wide hall ran
+through the center directly to the back. This roomy hall was appointed
+with massive, quaintly carved furniture of colonial design. The walls
+and ceilings throughout the house were paneled and frescoed in artistic
+and unique patterns and painted in harmonious tints that indicated taste
+of the highest order.
+
+In the center of the hall, midway, was stationed a great fountain, some
+six feet in diameter, where the crystal drops rained down upon myriad
+fishes and the moss and coral-built submarine castle. Magnificent
+paintings and various rare statuary subjects and huge palms and foreign
+plants and flowers abounded on every hand. And the sweet notes of an
+enraptured mocking-bird came from somewhere mingled with the silvery
+tinkling melody of unseen music.
+
+Profusely scattered about were pieces of odd furniture, strange
+bric-a-brac, curious pottery and miniature idols, relics collected from
+every quarter of the globe. Big Turkish couches and willow rockers and
+cane sofas with red and green velvet pads, and little upholstered stools
+and bamboo tables were everywhere. Mammoth gilt-framed mirrors reached
+from the floor to the ceiling, and the wide doors and windows were
+draped in various-colored portieres and curtains of silk and velvet in
+gold brocade.
+
+The great dining room was a spot that awed Belle-Ann with its intrinsic
+resplendence. The mahogany and the dazzling array of silver and mirrors
+and prismed chandeliers and greenery held this demure mountain girl
+entranced. She caught herself wondering what Lem would say, if he could
+look in upon her at this moment, and behold her dressed in "Blue-grass
+style," being entertained in this mystic realm of a grandee, the
+opulence of which even her own active fancy had never pictured.
+
+After luncheon, the Colonel conducted his visitors to the stables where
+he pridefully exhibited a hundred or more blooded horses. Straggling
+groups of horses and colts were observable grazing in the rank pastures
+that stretched beyond as far as the eye could reach.
+
+While en route through the stables, Belle-Ann thoughtlessly gave the
+party a scare. Colonel Tennytown had directed a hostler who followed the
+party to bring out a sorrel gelding of which he was especially proud.
+All of the compartments for the animals on one side were box-stalls.
+Before the man had time to bring forth the gelding, Belle-Ann noted an
+extra-high compartment built of heavy oak boards with an iron gate.
+Attracted by this, she stepped away from the others to see what this
+strong box-stall contained.
+
+The girl beheld a most magnificent black stallion. An ardent lover of
+horses and naturally fearless, she was so delighted at sight of this
+proud, silken-coated animal, that she drew the iron pin and slipped
+inside with the horse. The animal stood for a moment as though deeply
+and curiously surprised at this effrontery. Then his fire-rimmed eyes
+flashed. His little ears lay flat to his head. With a snort, he started
+toward her. Belle-Ann advanced a step to meet him, and at sound of her
+voice the great beast paused and pricked up his ears. Talking to him the
+while, the girl walked unhesitatingly over to him and laid a hand gently
+upon his massive neck. The feel of his satiny body pulsing with salient
+power was a joy to Belle-Ann. The stallion nosed her clothing with mild
+little snorts. With soothing, coined horse-words, the girl ran her hand
+over him. She then lay one hand on his back and with the other slapped
+his side playfully. To this ticklish overture the horse responded
+instantly.
+
+He reared on his hind legs. He clashed his bared teeth, he plunged,
+pawed the straw, and kicked and squealed. Belle-Ann stood perfectly
+still and laughed outright at his antics. Then the animal threw his ears
+back and his fore feet in the air and lunged toward her, only to pluck
+at her sleeve with his rough lips and push her gently with his shoulder,
+taking care not to tread upon her feet.
+
+The sorrel gelding had been brought out and the Colonel was deeply
+engrossed in rehearsing his pedigree to Miss Worth and did not at the
+moment notice Belle-Ann's absence. The girl had her arms about the
+stallion's head and was smilingly engaged in scratching his ears, when
+Colonel Tennytown's white face appeared at the iron gate of the
+box-stall, together with that of the scared, shaky hostler.
+
+"Come out--come out!" importuned the Colonel in hoarse, unsteady tones.
+Through the thick boards Belle-Ann heard Miss Worth's appeal.
+
+"Belle-Ann! Belle-Ann! come out of there, dear--this instant--do,
+please."
+
+The horse, catching sight of the faces at the gate, jumped forward,
+wheeled like a flash, and lashed out with his heels, striking the gate a
+terrific whack with both feet. The gate, which opened inward, clashed
+against its iron sleeper with a frightful noise. The horse then returned
+to Belle-Ann's side and lowered his head for her to resume the
+scratching process.
+
+"For God's sake, Miss Benson, I beg of you to come out," called the
+distressed Colonel. Then Belle-Ann stepped safely and serenely without.
+
+Miss Worth, who knew the stallion's reputation, stood with hands
+gripping each other tensely and with averted, pallid face. The hostler
+was quaking visibly, and the Colonel seized her arm as though rescuing a
+drowning person.
+
+"Miss Benson," said the Colonel, "I implore you never to do that
+again,--please, never, never go near that gate."
+
+"My dear," spoke up Miss Worth, "I shall have to hold you by the hand
+until I get you out of here. Whatever prompted you to go in with that
+vicious horse?"
+
+The hostler mumbled to himself:
+
+"I'll sho' slap er padlock on dat hoss 'fore sun-down."
+
+"Why," said Belle-Ann laughingly, "you-all talk as though he were a big
+tiger instead of a big, beautiful horse--I love him."
+
+"Ponce is the meanest horse I have ever owned," interjected the Colonel.
+"I would not dare go in to him. If it were not for for his strain, I
+would have gotten rid of him long ago--he killed a hostler last summer.
+The men have to feed him through a trap door--the men could not be
+induced to go in to him as you did, Miss Benson. They have to rope him
+from both sides to lead him. He not only kicks, but he fights with his
+fore feet and bites like a dog. You have had a narrow escape, I assure
+you, dear Miss Benson. How happy I am that you were not hurt."
+
+"Why, Colonel Tennytown," interrupted the girl, "he was only playing
+with me--why I can go in thah now and make him walk around on his hind
+legs."
+
+"Tut-tut! No you can't, my dear," interposed the Colonel monitively,
+"not while we are here to watch you, I assure you."
+
+"Oh, I would love to ride him--may I ride him some time, Colonel?" she
+persisted laughingly.
+
+"It pains me deeply to refuse you any request--I have any number of
+others you may ride, but never Ponce," he declared emphatically.
+
+After dinner it developed that there was plainly a conspiracy afoot to
+have Belle-Ann sing. Without the slightest demur or embarrassment the
+girl took her stand beside the piano while Miss Worth played the
+accompaniment. She sang an excerpt from Il Trovatore which Miss Worth
+had taught her with infinite care. The voice held the listeners
+spellbound.
+
+When her last lingering notes had swelled and died away, the Colonel's
+sister hurried to her with profuse praises that were plainly sincere and
+kissed her cheek. The Colonel strode to her side and pressed her hand,
+and Miss Worth beamed upon her.
+
+As dusk approached, the visitors climbed into the big limousine en route
+to the train, and rolled through the richest plateau in the world,
+flooded with the erubescent splendor of a setting sun. At the station
+Colonel Tennytown carried the handbags into the Pullman, and here he
+lingered until he heard the hiss of the reservoir that released the car
+brakes. With his farewell, he lifted Belle-Ann's white soft hand, and
+slipped a ring on her finger. Concealing it under his own hand, he said:
+
+"It is there with a wish which I hope will come true," and he hurried
+out and away. As the train pulled out, the lights were turned on in the
+car, and Belle-Ann was holding one hand up before two pairs of admiring
+eyes. It was a marquis ring with an oval turquoise in the center, hemmed
+with eight rubies and bordered with ten beautifully cut diamonds. And as
+Belle-Ann gazed at this lovely present, her violet eyes emulated the
+sparkling lustre of the ring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+KNOW YE THE TRUTH
+
+
+That night Belle-Ann indited a letter to her father, dwelling upon the
+kindness of Miss Worth, who had proposed to give her a higher education.
+She told of her delightful visit to Lexington and of the beautiful
+present Colonel Tennytown had given to her. She asked again, as she
+always did, if he had heard anything from Lem.
+
+She also ventured another letter to Lem. During the past winter she had
+written several letters to him; as yet, she had received no answer to
+these. However, she supposed they were still uncalled for. She knew that
+Lem could write sufficiently legible for her to decipher it, but she
+also remembered the fact that the nearest post-office was thirty miles
+distant from Moon mountain. Moreover, she knew Lem was not accustomed to
+visiting Junction City, because he never received any mail, and because
+the denizens of Junction City were rank sympathizers with the McGill
+faction.
+
+And always she yearned for sight of Lem's honest face. Not a day passed
+but what she cherished thoughts of home. When she was apparently in her
+gayest mood, Lem's tall shadow stood in the background waiting for
+her--always waiting. While occupied in her tensest study hours, down in
+her subconsciousness lay a memory that stirred like a thing having life.
+And ever more overshadowing this dominating vision of Lem Lutts was the
+haunting presence of the revenuer. From her waking hours these thoughts
+trailed into the night to pollute her dreams and, not infrequently,
+pilfer her sleep away.
+
+Oft times, in the presence of others, she would abruptly lower her book
+or suspend anything at hand, only to come out of an ill reverie, to find
+her eyes fixed blankly at nothing, and her lip in the grip of her upper
+teeth. These uncontrollable abstractions had caused her many
+embarrassments and had grown upon her, as the months slipped by, instead
+of diminishing.
+
+Now that she stood on the threshold of a new life, a mystic, fascinating
+world, the vague dreams of which had gesticulated and beckoned to her
+childish fancy in the hills, foretelling its beautiful emoluments of
+which she now had dazzling, palpitating glimpses--she was dismayed at
+her own disquietude. She had made very many dear friends. She had an
+array of beautiful clothes. She was forgivably conscious, without
+vanity, that she was an unusually beautiful girl. The refinements of
+education for which she had an inbred craving were filtering into her
+brain with the mellow, rich residue of a rare wine. The whole atmosphere
+that enveloped her was charged with all the pedagogic influences and
+wholesome blithesomeness calculated to inspire a girl of her temperament
+to utter happiness.
+
+But Belle-Ann was not happy. The fear that had eroded its path into her
+being stood over her young life to menace and alloy every new-born
+pleasure. Her soul trembled now lest the revenuer had killed Lem
+instead. Then her life would not only be broken, but the revenuer would
+still live on to project his hated shadow across her heart, and her
+agony would go on and on with another and more potential impetus.
+
+When the human heart throbs against the barbs of an eating agony through
+a measure of years, there comes a time when the soul staggers and cries
+out.
+
+One night Miss Worth awoke and following a habit, she got up and slipped
+across the hall, bent on seeing if Belle-Ann were sitting up in bed with
+her books, as was her wont.
+
+She opened the door softly. As there was no light in the girl's room,
+she was about to close the door and go to bed when she caught a sound
+that half startled her. Quickly and noiselessly she stepped over the
+threshold. A shaft of moonlight fell athwart the bed. It was empty. She
+cast a searching glance about the room. At the window-seat she saw a
+mass of black curls above the white of a night robe.
+
+Crouching on the floor, her face buried in her arms, alone in this small
+hour, Belle-Ann was crying in the half gloom. Alone with some great
+grief that was undoing her. Her shoulders shook with its racking
+on-coming. Then again, its vortex of agony swept across her lips in
+piteous supplicatory sobs, vibrating in the stillness like the bleating
+of a dazed, lost creature enmeshed in the tentacles of some merciless
+destroyer.
+
+Motionless, Miss Worth stood for a minute, her mind divided by two
+opposing conjectures. One, a deplorable apprehension that this girl she
+had come to love so dearly was assailed by some new sudden visitation of
+suffering. The other, a keen, pungent joy that perhaps that for which
+she herself had striven and labored for months was coming to pass. Maybe
+after all the blighting soul-fistula she had so deftly and tirelessly
+probed for had burst and its poisonous feculence was now eddying away.
+
+Until a month ago Belle-Ann had, with the natural reluctance and
+reserved suspicion of the mountain-born, withstood and parried all of
+Miss Worth's gentle approaches to discover her secret woe. The mountain
+spirit nurtures a bitter antipathy for revelations. Then a day came when
+this dear friend broke through the barrier, and Belle-Ann poured out her
+whole life to Miss Worth. There was no detail or memory that she did not
+vividly picture before Miss Worth's understanding. Then Miss Worth,
+knowing where to look, reached out with all the potent power of her
+subjugating diplomacy to extirpate the roots of this melancholy plant
+that grew and threatened to overrun a beautiful soul.
+
+Miss Worth hurried across the room and spoke her name. With distress
+undisguised, Belle-Ann lifted her tear-wet face.
+
+"Oh!--I can't--I cannot endure it longer," she declared between the
+tremulous sobs that convulsed her.
+
+Miss Worth knelt beside the girl and with her arms around her, she
+talked in soothing undertones. For almost an hour the two sat clinging
+together. Not a minute had Miss Worth's voice ceased. As the girl
+huddled, listening tensely, the tears ceased and dried on her distressed
+face. Presently, she arose and walked aimlessly around the room.
+
+"But you-all don't believe as we do," she said. "Our people are shot
+down in their own yards, and when we call upon the law, the law only
+turns the assassin loose. Then the law itself comes to kill. Oh--Oh,
+dear Miss Worth--you can never understand--you can never know what this
+is. Only we up thah who suffer these things know its sting. Who could go
+on and live without redress and not strike back? If you had suffered
+this as I have--if you could see what I have--if you could see now--this
+minute--what I see--thah--thah----" she ended in stifling utterances, as
+she stared at a spot of moonlight that had strayed across the floor.
+
+Now, totally oblivious to her whereabouts, and utterly unconscious of
+Miss Worth's presence, she fell to her knees on the floor, stretching
+her arms out over the pallid beam, in benediction, and lowered her hands
+to fondle the face that her fevered fancy held there; and to touch the
+still, immobile bosom with its bullet-spot. And again her grief broke
+loose beyond restraint and she sobbed aloud. A great lump had brought an
+ache into Miss Worth's throat, and she, too, was crying. She lifted the
+girl up and led her back to the window-seat. Here she whispered solace
+to her for a time.
+
+Finally, Miss Worth arose and left Belle-Ann at the window. When she
+reached the door she turned back.
+
+"Remember, dearest," she said, "Know ye the truth and the truth shall
+make ye free. I'll be waiting up for you--I shall not retire until you
+come. If you see the light--come to me--I'll be waiting and praying,
+too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+BELLE-ANN HAS A VISION
+
+
+After a time Belle-Ann arose wearily to retire. Then she laid her
+troubled head on the pillow and closed her tear-wet eyes and finally
+dropped into a restive sleep. And in this furtive slumber a titanic,
+stirring dream came to her. The ethereal universe convulsed and burst
+asunder, and opened up to her startled vision a celestial theatre of
+glory that gripped her heart with its untold resplendence.
+
+And roundabout, leagues high, gloss-buffed walls of amethyst, and
+gleaming pillars of pearl girded this splendor. And above this
+scintillating heavenly realm an amphitheatre of sinuous clouds
+circulated, charged with pigments and prismed lustres; shot, lanced and
+plumed with a woof of multi-colors that no tongue could tell; and out
+from this spectacle of molten glory, a multitudinous horde emerged,
+trooping through its liquid opalescence.
+
+And the angels reveled, flapping their wings in the starlight to the
+throbbing rhythm of ten thousand silver lutes. And out beneath the
+proscenium arch of this fantastic gilded dream, an archangel rode and a
+beloved face looked down upon the girl. It was a chaste, smiling face; a
+sacrament of love, replete with amity and forgiveness.
+
+And the knowing eyes were diademed with a specific message. And the
+vision bore straight down to earth upon her; and she lifted up her arms
+to meet it. And the whir of its pinions awoke her. She slipped out of
+bed and stood erect, her bosom lifting and her eyes looking through the
+dark after this receding apparition.
+
+And there as she stood alone in that small hour of the night, a great
+Presence came into the room and an unseen hand reached out and touched
+her soul.
+
+Beside the little white bed Belle-Ann bent her knee and bowed down her
+head until the curls spread out on the coverlet. And lo! a sword of
+divine light dipped down and penetrated the cryptic catacomb hidden in
+her heart and pierced its gnawing, pillaging tenant, and killed her ill,
+uncouth creed; and drove her lingering sorrow out, purging her being
+free of the chaotic fires of revenge-thirst that was slowly but surely
+searing her soul.
+
+And when she rose up, a plenipotent strength of understanding had lifted
+her crying spirit out and up to a sanctuary of truth; and she stood in
+the early hour of coming day, serene and triumphant, with the lustre of
+a conquering light in her purposeful eyes, and faced a new world.
+
+It was dawn. Amid a theatre of opalescent clouds reefed in the east, the
+sun diffused its glory, and shaped rubescent coral columns, edging its
+facade with azure and gold. The air was rife with the musks of the
+blossomed mountain-sides, and a medley of bird-music emanated from a
+hundred species, flitting and flapping their wet wings in the morning
+dew.
+
+Belle-Ann tapped gently on Miss Worth's door. She stepped lightly into
+the room. Miss Worth was wide awake and paused, struck with the pure
+radiance of the girl's face.
+
+"At last!" ejaculated Miss Worth triumphantly. She kissed and hugged
+Belle-Ann in the exuberance of her joy and enthusiasm. Belle-Ann's eyes
+were clear and wide with a new light. The mote that had floated in their
+depths was gone for all time. And Miss Worth saw before her the most
+charming character and perfect specimen of young girlhood that fortune
+had ever led her to. "At last--you understand now, Belle-Ann?" she said,
+drawing her over to the edge of her bed.
+
+"Yes, I do understand, Miss Worth," answered the girl, her face dimpled
+with smiles that betokened the calm and serenity of a new-found peace
+and faith.
+
+"I understand, deahest Miss Worth," she repeated, "but I don't
+understand how I understand--it is all so deeply mysterious--so
+wonderful--to think of these wasted years! Oh!--if I could only see
+Lem!"
+
+"And now," observed Miss Worth, "is it right for Lem to kill the man?"
+pursued Miss Worth tentatively. Belle-Ann arose quickly from the bed,
+spurred by the thought that she now miraculously regarded as a two-edged
+wrong, and a direct offense against God.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed regretfully, "how could I ever have thought it
+right--how could I? It's ignorance--it's downright ignorance--I see it
+all plainly now, my deah, sweet, true friend. I see it all just as
+you-all promised me long ago that I would see it--instead of lightening
+Lem's sorrows I was adding to them--I was making his burden harder to
+endure--I was dragging him down to misery, not knowing any better--it's
+terrible, Miss Worth--it's pure blind ignorance--I can't believe now
+that I did that. I'm guilty--guilty--guilty--if Lem kills the revenuer,
+I, too, am guilty, for I will now tell you, Miss Worth, I not only asked
+Lem to kill the man, as I told you-all--but I demanded it against Lem's
+love for me--offered a prize--a reward for the revenuer's dead body. Lem
+begged to kiss me on parting--I wouldn't even kiss him good-by--he
+kissed my hair, not my lips--I can see him now standing up thah holding
+out his arms to me--I was mad for the sight of that officer, dead. If
+Lem kills him it will be I who helped to chain an anchor of crime to
+Lem's poor wretched life--to drag him down. I did nothing to uplift
+him,--nothing to incite him to look for bright things in the future--my
+whole heart was aflame with revenge. Oh! what a miserable thing it is! I
+was mad; weak-spirited; blind with ignorance--and to think that I
+boasted of it to you! As I stand heah now, I can't believe I did that
+monstrous thing. And Lem up thah, his eyes and thoughts fixed
+downward--down on the trail of revenge, a path that leads to eternal
+unhappiness. I can't wait, Miss Worth--I won't rest until I see Lem. I
+hope nothing has happened to him. I'll lead him out of it all. I'll show
+him the way to life as God meant us to live. I'll lead him out, just as
+you, my deahest, kindest friend--just as you have led me away from the
+pit around which I had beaten a path with all of my foolish years of
+life--you led me away from a seething pit of misery, Miss Worth; a
+cauldron into which I would surely have tumbled, soul and all, in time.
+Now--now--it's different; now--it's all changed--life looks like a
+beautiful picture to me now. But, oh!--how I pity the benighted
+sufferers up thah in the mountains--if there was only a way to show
+them--to show them the emoluments of life with the misery of feudal hate
+eliminated."
+
+Too much overcome with sheer joy to speak, Miss Worth listened to
+Belle-Ann's earnest declarations and watched her smiling, confident,
+beautiful features with a sense of having, just here, achieved one of
+the greatest conquests of her missionary life.
+
+Belle-Ann walked to the window, a new exquisite incarnation of girlhood.
+With a thankful, gracious heart, ready and primed for the wonders of
+which she now had a divine intuition, she gazed across to the mountain
+summits, touched with the iridescent vapors, figured by the rising sun.
+She watched the veil-like mist gradually rise over the river where it
+lingered like a film of bluish wood smoke. She listened to the clamorous
+carols of the birds, and there was a song in her heart and inwardly she
+was stirred with all the inspirations that accompany the placidity of a
+spirit untroubled and immaculate. The chapel chimes suddenly pealed out
+their morning anthems, and its music tinkled sweetly across the senses
+of the girl whose soul was throbbing in perfect attune.
+
+From the sublimity of her momentary reverie, Miss Worth's gentle voice
+aroused Belle-Ann.
+
+"Belle-Ann," she said, "would a bit of news before breakfast be
+distasteful?"
+
+The girl cast a quick, expectant look toward Miss Worth, whose face was
+symbolical of still another revelation.
+
+"I can bear anything," answered Belle-Ann. "I can now appreciate more
+than ever any glad news--life can hold no sorrow now that I cannot
+endure bravely--don't hesitate to tell me--I am unafraid."
+
+"Well--it is not by any means fearful news, my dear; on the contrary,
+it's the most delightful surprise imaginable--the only thing I fear is
+that you will not forgive us for what will doubtless present itself to
+your mind as a rank conspiracy."
+
+Belle-Ann laughed and squeezed the hand that crept into hers.
+
+"When you are concerned, you are forgiven anything in advance--you-all
+couldn't commit anything, Miss Worth, that I could hold against you a
+second," she assured, laughingly.
+
+The older woman fell pensive for a moment.
+
+"Belle-Ann--I have known this for a long time--Colonel Tennytown asked
+me to acquaint you with this when I thought fit--I think the proper time
+is now at hand--Colonel Tennytown was your mother's father, Belle-Ann."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+A GRANDFATHER
+
+
+"Oh!--Miss Worth!" ejaculated the girl with a noticeable catch in her
+voice. "My grandfather--you-all can't mean that Colonel Tennytown is my
+really grandfather?" she pressed hastily, overwhelmed by this
+unlooked-for surprise.
+
+"Yes, truly--Colonel Tennytown is your own grandfather, Belle-Ann, and I
+am happy and proud that you have such a man for your grandfather--he is
+going to come and claim you, my dear, and you are not to rebel when he
+tells you about your legacy--you have an inheritance--it is rightfully
+yours by every moral and legal tenure--it was your mother's--although
+her proud, relentless temperament spurned it while she lived. It now
+devolves upon you, Belle-Ann; you have been rich all along and did not
+know it--money matters need never trouble your dear little head. You
+recall that first visit to Lexington? Well, we took you out to the
+Colonel's home purposely for his maiden sister to see you. You know they
+wanted to be sure of you, Belle-Ann,--they wanted to feel certain, dear,
+that they would like you. And dear old Miss Malinda was more than
+charmed with your beauty and personality--she confided to me afterwards
+that she begged the Colonel to go directly and bring you there to live
+permanently. Belle-Ann, you look like you do not believe this good
+fortune," she ended abruptly.
+
+Out of a daze the girl awake, and impulsively threw her arms around Miss
+Worth and kissed her until she laughingly protested. As Belle-Ann
+dressed for breakfast, she pondered upon the ways of Providence and
+wondered what unseen happening would come next to take its place in her
+life. She moved about in a state of bewilderment. She struggled to
+compose herself; this great good luck thrust upon her so suddenly seemed
+visionary. She, whose life heretofore had been lonesome and isolated,
+and overshadowed with unhappiness.
+
+This abrupt intervention of a kind fate bore the atmosphere of a fairy
+romance. It was difficult to comprehend off-hand, that all this was
+meant for her. So that it was only gradually that she gathered the grace
+of its realization, and then her fancy waxed busy. A glamorous vista of
+possibilities were opened up to her. She saw before her salient,
+new-born contemplation, scores of day-dreams that had invaded her
+girlhood, resolve themselves now into a semblance of approaching
+tangible realities.
+
+With superb, delicate touches she added to these mental pictures with
+the prolific imagery and exquisite mastery that only a vivacious,
+high-spirited girl can conjure. And paramount above all these
+fantastic castles were the benefits set aside to be bestowed upon Lem
+and Buddy and her father and even poor old Slab--they who had been
+fellow-sufferers in a war of strife and aching misery that had seemed
+interminable.
+
+With the tail of her eye, Belle-Ann caught a parting glimpse of her
+profile in the mirror. She noted with a little laugh that her lips were
+moving. All unconsciously she was repeating over and over the phrase
+that drifted to and fro through her half-incredulous mind:
+
+"A grandfather--an inheritance--Belle-Ann Benson--with a legacy?"
+
+Colonel Tennytown, who had been called to New York on business, had now
+returned to Lexington. To-day, when Miss Worth returned to the school
+she imparted to Belle-Ann that she had received a message from the
+Colonel stating that he would be up to see them in the evening. He had
+been absent for two weeks and Belle-Ann had not seen him since she had
+learned that he was her grandfather.
+
+With a lingering, tender embrace, twilight untwined her nebulous arms
+from the sable-lustre mantle of night and parted with a promise.
+
+The tryst place had been the dim, infinite dome of the world.
+Plenipotent, majestic night settled on the throne of the supernal
+cosmos, diademed with a million twinkling jewels to dazzle his mundane
+subjects. His ancient serfs, patrolling the heavens at his behest, all
+a-glitter, trembled in his presence. And between the limits of these
+fire-touched planets, the milky-highroad developed like a mystic wand
+leading across a vast ethereal universe, and trailing adown into
+immeasurable cyclopic spaces, fading away between the gigantic
+vapor-tombs and ghost biers of a thousand dead centuries.
+
+And all the soul-stirring agencies of rapturous nature pulsed and glowed
+down upon the night-world of mankind. A neutral moon whose fixed face,
+young yet, unsmiled and uncreased with the joys and woes upheld by the
+supplicant ages, seemed now to soften with mellow sympathy upon a
+girl-heart below. Could even a stoic moon look upon this girl unmoved?
+Belle-Ann leaned listlessly against the bronze rail that girded the
+fountain, gazing with expectant eyes, along the moonlit path leading to
+the seminary.
+
+The Chapel bells chimed out their angelus across the fantasmal gloaming,
+tinkling through the girl's mood in utter harmony with the music of her
+soul, and the supernal smiles that lingered about her cupid lips.
+Beneath the enchanting rays of the moon, Belle-Ann's wraith-like,
+relaxed form looked even taller. Arrayed in a vision of delicate blue
+silk and lace, clinging to the pronounced curves of her subtle outlines,
+she presented an unforgettable picture; a rare hellenism of feminine
+beauty. A type to ravish the senses. The shimmering blackness of the
+girlish curls that crowded around her small features, contrasted
+adorably with her eburnean skin, natural as the purity of rose petals,
+soft and fine-textured, from which the mountain tan had long since
+vanished.
+
+A bouquet of great roses was pinned at her bosom, and the musk of
+calcanthus was in her curls. Her lips parted and she hummed a soft
+ditty. The sweet dulcet timbre of her voice was a mellowed sound wafted
+straight from the realms of Dixie. Her whole palpable self irradiated
+and pulsed with the subtle witchery and glamour of the South.
+
+As she stood in the half-shadow of the fountain gazing intently along
+the hedge-hemmed path, a sudden gladness stirred her as she discerned
+what her eyes had sought. Two vague forms descended from the porch,
+coupled perilously near together. Then, as they halted beneath the
+dappled shadows of the rose-tree, Belle-Ann fancied she saw a white
+sleeve against a sable shoulder. It may have been the trick of her
+imagination, but it seemed that the man stooped his head and lingered
+over the white-clad figure.
+
+She knew it was Colonel Tennytown and Miss Worth who tarried there.
+Belle-Ann had known all evening that he would seek her out. She had not
+laid eyes on him since the Sunday preceding that memorable dawn when
+Miss Worth had revealed his relationship. But now with a heart full to
+the brim with gratitude she awaited his coming, and to acknowledge her
+grandfather.
+
+Presently, the Colonel's tall figure emerged from the shadows and came
+toward her. With his broad hat in his hand he halted before her and
+smilingly bowed in courtly grace. As Belle-Ann looked straight into his
+eyes, her face was now all aflush with pleasure and the baffling dimples
+were at play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A CONFESSION
+
+
+"Belle-Ann," Colonel Tennytown began gently, with a strange new
+exultation noticeable in his tones, "I have come to ask you to do me a
+favor--a very great kindness--do you deem me deserving of a kindness in
+view of my grim shortcomings?"
+
+"Isn't it singular, Colonel Tennytown," interjected Belle-Ann
+laughingly, "that when I saw you coming down thah, I thought how happy
+I'd be if I had the power to do you-all some kindness?"
+
+"Ah!" rejoined the Colonel, "now we have it--happily, you possess a
+naturally charitable spirit, Belle-Ann," he said. He had never called
+her Belle-Ann before. His Southern chivalry had never permitted him to
+diverge from the prefix of Miss to her surname. "As you now know all,
+Belle-Ann," he continued, "I wish you, henceforth and onward, to call me
+grandfather--I beg you to forgive me for my seeming tardiness in coming
+to the front to acknowledge my granddaughter--my approach has doubtless
+appeared to you masked in a form of deception, and now that I am here to
+inflict the brazen audacity of a complete confession, you can plainly
+see, Belle-Ann, that I am in need of your uttermost indulgence. The
+truth is, I regret to say, that we never knew of your existence until
+you came here to school when my esteemed friend, Reverend Peterson, made
+me acquainted with the fact.
+
+"Then, the moment I laid eyes on you my heart melted and my soul went
+out to you--I instantly saw in you purity and beauty--indeed you are
+even more beautiful than your mother was, Belle-Ann--your mother whose
+sole offense was her stubborn refusal to marry the man whom we thought
+best fitted for her; and then she ran away and married a mountaineer far
+beneath her station, doubtless a good man--but practically a stranger,
+and one to whom she gave her life, and her duty, but not her heart.
+
+"We struggled for years to reconcile her, pledging absolute forgiveness,
+but her blood told, Belle-Ann--the blood of her father--her high-bred
+spirit met our pleadings with unbroken stoic silence. She lost herself
+completely--the grand young man who had just been elected to the state
+senate of Kentucky, and who loved her, declined from that day and died a
+broken man. The remorse that gnawed at my heart for years, Belle-Ann,
+has left its scars--is a skein of secret, silent woe, untold, my dear
+little girl--a blight across the old man's life that no language is
+sufficiently adequate to reveal.
+
+"Bah!--what an awful lesson I have had--and then I found you. You were
+sent by a kind Providence to assuage my great sorrow, Belle-Ann. You
+see--my daughter--we wished to be certain that you inherited your
+mother's lovable traits. I did not wish to take a step which might,
+perforce, have to be retraced later; to be plain, we sought to make sure
+that we liked you, and I can say to-night that we do like you,
+Belle-Ann--we do more than that, we all love you--we do more than love
+you; we idolize you; we worship you; we all adore you. Will you adopt
+us? Will you take me with all my arrant failings and use me as best you
+can for a grandfather?"
+
+He dropped his hat on the grass and stood erect before her in the
+moonlight the image of a southern nobleman, holding his hands out to
+her. All throughout his earnest words she had been deeply and happily
+moved. Her bosom rose and fell, riding the roses pinned over her heart.
+Her star-like eyes were misty, and there was pathos in her sweet treble
+utterance as she thrust her two hands into his waiting palms.
+
+"Col--grandpa," she corrected, "it is a proud distinction to claim you
+for my grandfather--I feel wholly unworthy. I feet almost like an
+interloper--I owe you so much--I shall struggle with all my heart to
+take and fill my mother's place."
+
+The Colonel stooped and pressed his lips to her forehead and kissed the
+curls near the little wreath of flowers.
+
+"Belle-Ann," he went on, a new line of serious thought suggested to him,
+"you must promise me one more thing--in fact, if you don't promise, it
+will disrupt my plan of years--it will--well--it will place me in a very
+unhappy position."
+
+"What is it, grandpa?" she quizzed through her smiles.
+
+"Well--you see--that is--of course it's a secret," he ended lamely, with
+a furtive look toward a dim white figure beneath the trees. "As I said
+before--it's like this----Oh!--plague--take it!--to-night I asked Miss
+Worth to marry me, and she said she would if she could; but that she
+couldn't unless you promised to come immediately with us to Lexington
+and make your home with us--so you see where the whole thing hinges.
+Will you do me this favor, Belle-Ann?" he pressed anxiously.
+
+Belle-Ann could not restrain herself and laughed outright.
+
+"Don't look so solemn, Grandpa--go tell Miss Worth I said to marry you
+by all means--I'll do my part."
+
+There was a boyish ring in the Colonel's laugh as he picked his hat up
+off the grass and with Belle-Ann's arm through his, started toward the
+porch.
+
+"But--Grandpa," protested Belle-Ann, as her lovely face suddenly
+sobered, and a grave note crept into her voice, "I must go up to Moon
+mountain before I think of anything else--some hearts up thah are
+beating against my return--but I'll promise to come back heah, in three
+days, Grandpa."
+
+Colonel Tennytown stopped short on the path.
+
+"Ah!--now we have it," he exclaimed. "I know all about those folks. Tell
+me, my dear, plainly--do you love that boy, Lem?"
+
+Belle-Ann's cheeks turned visibly crimson in the moonlight as she looked
+up quickly upon this unexpected query.
+
+"I might--might learn to--Grandpa," she murmured grudgingly.
+
+"Now," said the Colonel decisively, "you shall start up there Monday
+morning--and you tell that Lem Lutts for me that I want a good, steady,
+dependable man. I'll give him charge of my entire stock farm--seven
+hundred acres--and three hundred head of the best horse-blood on the
+face of the earth. I'll train Lem and make him manager. If he will, he
+can go to school and polish himself up first. And that little Buddy
+Lutts--you tell him I'll give him a pony all for his own, and keep him
+in clothes and spending money if he'll come down to Lexington and go to
+school once in awhile."
+
+"Now, I want to ask you, Belle-Ann--about that old negro chap, Slab. Is
+the lobe of his left ear missing?"
+
+"Oh, yes--yes!" exclaimed the mystified girl.
+
+"And is he a very long, narrow gentleman?"
+
+"Surely--he's quite tall----"
+
+"Did you ever hear him sing 'Kitty Wells'?"
+
+Belle-Ann clapped her hands in childish glee.
+
+"I've heard that song every night all my life, Grandpa; how did you-all
+know Slab, Grandpa?"
+
+"Ah! now we have it--when Miss Worth mentioned him, telling me things
+about him as you had told her, I would always say that he is the same
+old Slab--and I'll bet the best horse I've got that he is the same. He
+belonged to my uncle who lived on the plantation adjoining my father's.
+Slab was asleep in the shade of a porch one day when I, a boy of seven
+years, meaning to startle him, slipped up and held a snapping turtle
+close to his face. When I started to arouse him with one hand, the
+turtle suddenly shot his neck out and gabbed old Slab by the ear. Then
+Slab woke up. You ask him about that; and you ask him if he remembers
+the time old Hickamohawk ran away with him--and you bring him down here
+with you. Just tell him that Amos Tennytown wants him and he'll
+come--bring the whole family--there's room for us all, Belle-Ann."
+
+She had listened to his warm-hearted suggestions with growing enthusiasm
+that sent her blood bounding, as she pictured the surprise and gladness
+the Colonel's message would inspire in those lonely, isolated hearts up
+on Hellsfork.
+
+"Grandpa," observed the girl, out of her unutterable joy and gratitude,
+"God made your heart awful big."
+
+"And God made you the gentlest and most beautiful of all granddaughters,
+my dear," he answered gallantly. "Monday I will have here the best
+single-foot saddle beast in this country for you to ride, and I will
+send a man to escort you, who will guarantee your safety."
+
+"Oh, Grandpa! I don't wish him to go any further than Boon's Ford. He
+can turn back thah. I feel sure Lem and Buddy and Slab will come back
+with me."
+
+"Just as you will, Belle-Ann," he agreed, and the two mingled their
+mutual, uncontrollable outbursts of ecstasy as they joined the figure
+lingering amid the mystic vacillating shadows of the rose-tree.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE RED DEBT
+
+
+All through these wretched months, Lem Lutts had weltered in jail.
+During the first hideous weeks of his incarceration he thought his
+reason would not serve him longer. He felt that he would surely go mad.
+Night after night he stood with dull, hopeless eyes at his cell door,
+his fingers twined around the mercilessly cold iron bars, gazing across
+the dim corridor at the blank stone wall.
+
+When "Creeping Jesus" glided up to his cell door like a phantom, and
+flashed his lantern upon Lem, he found him hour after hour wide awake,
+his eyes burning and starry with the unquenchable fire of a throbbing,
+wild, mad unrest. The keepers wondered how he kept alive, considering
+the amount of food he took and the sleep he had.
+
+Belle-Ann's face was ever before him. Her beautiful vision floated
+evermore through the dark confines of his cell. Many times he had
+scribbled letters to Belle-Ann, with fond hopes that some word from her
+would come back to him, not knowing that these missives had never
+reached the outside of the jail.
+
+He had lolled upon the iron cot through the soul-wrenching hours of
+countless nights, staring up through the black toward the concrete
+ceiling. His groping mind saw no solution written in the dark. Merciless
+assumptions in default of proofs had opened the great loathsome cage
+whose maw had gulped his body.
+
+True--he had helped his father work the "still" that his
+great-grandfather had worked with a free conscience. That was all--the
+"still" that the despised law had never yet unearthed. The aspect of the
+law conformed with the teachings of his father. It fitted unto the
+sights that his own eyes had beheld. Where was its equity? He had seen
+his own relation shot down in cold, cruel blood. This law had never come
+forward to punish the wrong and champion the right. This law only
+hovered like a python above its prey, and struck when it had advantage.
+
+The law was a mangy, fanged reptile--a monster that bit the honest
+rights of the people out of their hearts; then clawed and rolled and
+mauled their bodies. He had heard that God inspired the wise men who
+made the law. Surely, the Almighty had not lent His seal to this curse.
+The God that Maw Lutts had told him about--He, who would some day make
+all things right in Kentucky--was not a party to this law that had
+finally taken the lives of his parents and had taken him. It was all the
+evil, godless work of men. It was the plot of a city faction. He was in
+the hands of a gang. In the last days of his jail life, the boy's
+philosophy had reduced the blame to a unit, until it fixed the whole
+responsibility upon a single man--"Big Pete" Burton--leader of the gang.
+
+The boy, who had never in his life before been outside the limits of the
+Cumberland, had gone to jail, on that eventful day, innocent. He came
+out guilty. The mountain tinge had long since deserted his cheek and
+left it jail-hued. The simple-souled eyes now shone with the flinty
+stare, the designing needle-glints, the relentless play from eye to eye
+that traverses the orbs of the jail-man. He came out guilty, not of that
+which he had knowingly already done, but guilty of the added thing now
+stored away in the core of his being that he meant to do.
+
+The heart-breaking midnight loneliness and the nerve-stabbing "third
+degree" had not sucked the fire from his feudal veins. His religion now
+measured by his capacity for revenge, Lem Lutts came out of prison, his
+young heart and soul and strength obsessed by a sacred quest. His
+suspicions ratified in jail, he came out tarnished and arrayed against
+the world. In the centre of this flaming theatre of vengeance there ever
+stalked one leading figure, one solitary actor--a huge animal-headed man
+flaunting a frayed precept, called law--the monster law-man reaching for
+the rights and the blood of the people--he of the shadow-built body and
+the charmed life--that fearless ghost-spawn who never backed away from
+the mouth of a gun--he who always plunged toward the flame and the smoke
+and fought in the open--he whose skin was tattooed by the Winchester
+stencil of the mountaineer; but who still lived, and pursued, and fought
+on--the man who forged always onward with uncanny precision, ever
+stalking the hillman, ever reaching for his sanctum with merciless,
+untiring law-biting fury.
+
+The vision of this supernatural man, who had killed his parents, stood
+in front of the boy's life and blocked his untamed spirit with taunts.
+Loyal to inherited instincts; guided by the influence of environment;
+handicapped by ignorance; fanatically brave in his peculiarly educated
+understanding of justice, and property rights--the boy saw only this
+man. This hated enemy had not deserted him in jail. "Big Pete" had
+visited him time and time again. He had coaxed, abused, threatened,
+cajoled. He had even "manhandled" Lem, but never an utterance had
+crossed the boy's lips to betray. Finally, they had put him in the
+dungeon. When he emerged from the "black hole of Calcutta," he was
+thinner, chalk-hued, and benumbed of brain, but unrelenting, and "Big
+Pete" knew there was a demerit across his record. He did not make an
+informer.
+
+To-day they had released Lem Lutts in disgust. The revenuer, Burton, was
+on hand with that same despicable stare, and followed him from the
+warden's office to the street.
+
+"I'll get you yet, Lutts," predicted the detective. "I'll bust that
+gang, and I'll send you to Atlanta the next time. I'll bust you, or I'll
+get you like I did your--your----" his temerity broke. "I'll get you all
+right--I'll be on your trail in a week." To this gentle benediction he
+added a gentle push as emphasis.
+
+Slight as the push was, Lem lost his balance and went to his knees, his
+hat falling to the walk. When he gained his feet and faced about, the
+officer stared in dumb amazement at the savage figure before him. Lem's
+stoicism had left him. His immobile features yielded to the volcanic
+hatred within. His light eyes glinted like full sockets of quicksilver.
+The froth fermented and bubbled off his twitching lip.
+
+"Yes--yes--yo' houn' dog!--yo' kilt my pap, an' my maw--yo' did!" he
+shrieked out in a riot of rage. "Yore 'lowing t' git hain't a gittin',
+hit hain't'--yo' kin 'low, an' 'low, an' 'low--thet hain't a
+gittin'--yore a pesky coward--yore a damn woman-killer--an' th' day'll
+cum when we'uns 'll run th' cow-brutes acrossin' yore snaky ole grave,
+we will! An' our'n hawgs'll root parsley offin' yore ole houn'-dawg
+grave, they will--yo' kilt my pap an' my maw, yo' did--an' hits we'uns
+what'll make a stinkin' hole fo' yore ole carcass,--what'll run the wild
+skunks out o' th' mountains--a hole what'll make th' buzzards puke.
+
+"Yo' kilt my pap an' my maw--yo' he-skunk!--an' ef they's a God up in
+th' clouds, He'll see yore ole bones a-burnin' up in hell 'fore long--He
+will."
+
+He bleated out his imprecations, his frothy, distraught utterances
+tumbling together and stifling his speech. His wrist-band became
+loosened, and he stretched a sleeveless, naked arm high over his bared
+head to solemnize an oath that had sealed itself in his tempestuous
+heart. The sullen officer scowled at him, speechless; then grimly,
+silently, turned his back upon the lava of this mountain boy's impotent
+frenzy.
+
+Panting and dazed, Lem walked in a circle around his hat, which lay on
+the walk. Finally picking it up, he backed away from some curious eyes
+that had gathered, and ambled off toward the Kentucky river. Near two
+hundred miles from Moon mountain, forlorn, soul-sick, friendless,
+moneyless, but free, with one steadfast, consuming purpose fixed in his
+heart,--an organic purpose which he kept protected with prayerful
+importunities to Providence that it might not go amiss!
+
+When Lem got his bearings, he started cross-country afoot. At the end of
+the ninth day he found himself on the skirts of the Big Sandy country.
+With that tireless wolf-gait, he put the rugged miles behind him. All
+through the moonless night he tramped with eager eyes fixed toward the
+east where the hills piled higher and higher, and penciled a sable,
+ragged border against the paling, myriad stars.
+
+At length the atmosphere grew heavy and a flume of languid clouds
+straggled up where they hung upon the distant mountain peaks, pregnant
+with pulsing heat lightning. When, in the loneliness of that weird hour,
+the darkest epoch between night and morning, Lem beheld, silhouetted
+against the incessant flashes of lightning, the sombre dome of Moon
+mountain--that sullen watch-dog of the Cumberland--he pushed ahead
+unmindful of fatigue, while out of the wreckage of his battered soul,
+and aggrieved senses, there rose up a semblance of his old self as he
+lessened the distance between him and his beloved home.
+
+Before the sun was up, and while the transparent jewels still trembled
+on the damp face of the wilderness, Lem was on the last half of his
+climb. He forged onward, his head aflutter with a multiplicity of
+anticipation that precedes the sight of a long absent home. Presently he
+espied a thin column of smoke aloft, which he knew issued from his own
+cherished habitat. He pulsed with a savage delight. With the pungent
+odors of a horde of familiar, endeared growing things in his nostrils,
+he throbbed with the salient, rabid joy of an escaped jungle animal back
+again to its own. In a vortex of ecstasy he viewed the wild, enchanting
+scenes developing through a film of early morning mist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE SHOOTING OF PETER BURTON
+
+
+When finally Lem reached the narrow twist where the trail jutted out and
+clung to the dew-damp breast of the mountain, he halted and dropping his
+torn shoes, which he had carried in his hand the past hour, he gazed
+along the ragged channel of a blind gulch that bit into the base of the
+mountain. The tree-fringed mouth of this gulch framed a picture below
+that entranced him. Upheld on the grass-grown palm of the distant
+clearing, he saw the squatty outlines of the meeting-house.
+
+Like a blow from a bludgeon the tragic details of that unforgettable
+tragedy hissed and rankled anew in his brain;--that red, accursed
+half-hour amid the naked shadows of a lugubrious dusk, with death at his
+elbow; the cry of the panther in his ears, and a ghost that breathed and
+scowled and cursed over him.
+
+Motionless, he looked at that wooden magnet below with a rapt,
+breathless stare. When he seized his damaged shoes and started onward,
+two stinging tears, hot with the acme of bitterness, fell off his chin,
+through his open shirt-front, and rolled across the white scars that
+dappled his breast.
+
+When he made the next turn he was in full view of the cabin. He saw the
+blue-black martins, swirling around and chattering over their box. He
+heard the crowing of the cocks, and the see-saw music of the guineas
+behind the log barn. He saw the red steers reluctant to leave their warm
+wallow in the be-dewed stable yard. He placed his fingers to his mouth
+and gave two shrill whistles. In an instant his father's spotted hound
+bounded from behind the cabin, followed by four other obstreperous dogs.
+While the dogs were yapping and mobbing him with their boisterous
+welcome, Slab appeared at the cabin door, followed by Bud half-dressed.
+
+"Hallaluyah! hallaluyah! hallaluyah!" shouted the old negro,
+gesticulating joyously and shambling pell-mell down the descent.
+
+On the backward path to the cabin there followed a noisy and gladsome
+reunion. Hanging to his brother's arm, Buddy kept crying crazily:
+
+"Lem hain't daid--Lem hain't daid--air yo', Lem?"
+
+While Lem ate his breakfast, he told his own sad story and, in turn, Bud
+and the negro poured into his ears the happenings of the past months.
+Nor did Buddy omit a single detail of these events. He began with the
+trapping of a brown bear, and ended with the rehearsal of that terrible
+fight at Junction City, as he exhibited the scars of that sanguine
+combat.
+
+"I air ole Cap Lutts' boy--hain't I, Lem?" he ended pridefully, probing
+for his brother's commendation.
+
+"Yo' sho' air, Buddy--an' I air powerful happy t' own yo' fo' my
+brother--yo' kin show pap's blood in yore veins any day--I 'low yo' kin
+hold th' mounting some day," lauded Lem, with an affectionate slap, "an'
+yore brother Lem'll git thet onery low-down Sap McGill fo' shootin' a
+boy--fo' shootin' my brother. He'll answer--same's th' revenuer. I was
+thinkin' o' leavin' fo' a spell, Buddy, but I'll not leave heah, as long
+as God Almoughty holds th' clouds over these hills, an' my heart
+beats--I'll not leave til' I kill 'em both--I won't--I won't leave."
+
+Worn and weary as he was, Lem did not wait to rest. He bathed his
+aching, swollen feet, and slipping on a pair of cow-hide moccasins, he
+hastened away with Buddy, to surprise Johnse Hatfield, and the faithful
+men at the still. And as he passed Eagle Crown, his eyes sought its
+lofty apex and his heart throbbed with a deep yearning. The vision of
+the absent girl who had gone out of his life and carried with her every
+fibre of joy that had hitherto woofed his existence--now stood before
+him with a vividness and insistency that eclipsed all previous
+visitations.
+
+In a measure, the surprise was turned upon himself, for they heard a
+shot and came suddenly upon Johnse Hatfield on the trail, crouching
+behind a boulder, his rifle still smoking, and peering keenly over into
+the laurel thicket below. When he looked up and beheld Lem, back again
+alive and well, he almost collapsed. Then the wild joy of Johnse's
+greeting merged swiftly into a grimmer enthusiasm as he said:
+
+"I plugged em at last, Lem."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Th' revenuer--I jest plugged em," enlightened Johnse.
+
+"Burton?" cried Lem, unwilling to believe the news.
+
+"Shore," returned Johnse, "I stopped 'em thes time--I did."
+
+"Air yo' sho' he's kilt?" eagerly, as the three crouched behind the
+boulder.
+
+"He air," assured Johnse emphatically. "I kin tell the way a feller
+flops his wings when he air kilt an' when he air jest hurted--he war a
+snakin' round--an' I 'low he war a spyin' on yore house--he looked up
+an' seen me a watchin'--then he pulled on me--but I fired quicker'n
+him--I got em shore thes time, Lem."
+
+"Gawd'll Moughty!" muttered Lem, under his breath, "air thet cuss back
+thes quick--a houndin' me agin, thes soon?--but he tol' me he'd do
+hit--he said he wouldn't parley any----"
+
+"Who tol' yo?"
+
+"Burton."
+
+"When--yo' hain't meanin' thet yo' talked to that devil?"
+
+"I been in his jail all thes time."
+
+For a moment Hatfield's face was a picture of dismay. He was dumb and
+plainly beyond any expression. Presently Johnse spoke.
+
+"I see thar game--course thar's a traitor, but I 'low it hain't
+Orlick--they wanted t' beat yo'-all back, thinkin' yo' wouldn't be a
+lookin' fer 'em so soon--an' he war a spyin' on yore house, aimin' t'
+foller yo'-all to th' still--then raid us--but I changed his tune."
+
+"I hope yo' hain't kilt em--'cause he belongs to Cap Lutts's boy--to
+me----"
+
+"I kilt em, Lem--I had t'."
+
+Lem still stared incredulously at Hatfield's grim, bearded face.
+
+"Come 'long, Johnse!" exclaimed Lem decisively. "I 'low yo' believe yo'
+kilt em--but yo' can't lead me t' his daid body--yo' can't," declared
+Lem dubiously. Gripping his Winchester, Lem started away down the trail
+on a run, with Hatfield and little Bud loping along after him.
+
+When they arrived within sight of the place indicated by Hatfield as the
+spot where he had seen the revenuer's head disappear, the trio fell upon
+their knees, and crept cautiously along, with rifles ready and eyes
+alert. In a dense clump of laurel brush between two great dun rocks,
+they came upon a tan felt hat lying in a wide circle of dark blood. A
+few paces away lay a silver-mounted Winchester rifle. Lem knew the gun;
+the instant he laid eyes on the piece, he knew it was the property of
+Pete Burton, the revenuer. The front of the hat, just above the band,
+was slit open for six inches or more, as if cut with a knife. Lem's eyes
+glowed like fire-balls, as he examined the gun and passing it to Bud to
+carry, he turned upon Hatfield, who stood speechless eyeing the blood.
+
+"Yo' said yo'd show me his daid body, Johnse--do yo' see hit?" Lem
+emitted a bitter, derisive laugh.
+
+Hatfield's hairy visage was the picture of dumb bewilderment.
+
+"Johnse Hatfield," began Lem solemnly, "could any man thet Gawd'll
+Moughty made human lose all thet blood and not stay heah, on thes
+spot?--eh? I kin tell from his hat yore bullet swiped em 'long th'
+forehead,--yo' hain't kilt em--yo'll never kill em--I'll never kill
+em--nobuddy'll ever kill em, Johnse Hatfield!--ef he wus a human bein'
+my pap would a got em 'long 'go--Johnse, when yo'-all kills a eagle yo'
+takes a bead on em pint-blank first, don't yo'?--sho'--yo' don't shoot
+at his shadder skimmin' along on th' ground under him, do yo'?--no. But
+when yo' shoot at this cussed revenuer yo' mought as well shoot at his
+shadder's fer's killin' him goes--he air a ghost. But I'll never stop
+tryin' t' git em anyways--I feel that I'll never git em--leastways hits
+soothin' t' be always a tryin'--cum 'long, Johnse."
+
+They twisted in and out through the laurel and rhododendrons, between
+bald rocks, mighty and pigmy, and over crumbling logs coated with
+liverwort. Through walls of tangled thorn brush; out and along paths
+beaten by the wild razorbacks, and down, always downward, the three
+followed the erratic zigzag trail of blood for four miles. Down to the
+very water's brink of Boon Creek, where they lost it.
+
+They traversed both sides of the creek up and down for miles with no
+signs of the lost trail. Hour after hour they searched until night came
+upon them, and they returned home, with the uncanny feeling that the
+wounded revenuer was likely to rise up out of the ground, or step out of
+the granite heart of some boulder at any moment.
+
+At dawn the following day, thirty armed men gathered at the cabin. Lem
+spread them out, beginning at the canyon of Hellsfork, and they beat the
+rugged country systematically, working upward. Each day at sunrise they
+resumed the search where they left off until the eighth day, when they
+left all growth and foliage behind and came high up amid the naked,
+forbidding peaks of the range; precincts to discourage a mountain goat,
+much more a wounded man. They were rewarded with no signs of the
+revenuer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+IN WHICH SLAB PROPHESIES
+
+
+They disbanded, and Lem Lutts returned to the cabin, melancholy and
+morose. This futile hunt for his elusive arch enemy was prophetic of
+some strange, dawning evolution. He felt the tang of it in his blood. He
+saw it lettered in the patchwork of the shadows that tried to wrap their
+arms about him. Amid the swaying branches of the trees the sympathetic
+night winds lisped incoherently, and tried to tell him something. The
+feral night-hawks dropped their shrill cries ominously down from the
+sky; utterances seemingly meant for him. From down in the jungle realms
+of the deserted church the faint whimpering of a panther whelp floated
+up to his attuned ears, like the sobbing of a tired child, carrying the
+warning of an oracular omen he could not deny.
+
+The tree-frogs piped the spirit of this premonition to him with a
+monotonous insistency that filled the boy's soul with an alien, restive
+turbulence not comprehensible. The katydid purled its mysterious
+cadence. To his keen interpretations all the subtle, nocturnal elements
+of nature united upon one portentous theme. A significant, adjuring
+symphony; the prelude of some miraculous happening that stood very close
+to his life; inspiring him with a wild, palpitating unrest that puzzled
+his reason and stirred him like the touch of an unseen hand.
+
+A week after his abandoned search for the ghost-like revenuer, Lem's
+haunting broodings resolved themselves into a quick, sudden action.
+
+One morning, when Bud and Slab justly supposed Lem was still asleep, he
+appeared at the witch-elm horse-block with Johnse Hatfield's piebald
+mare. He gave to the mystified Bud and Slab a few brief instructions,
+absolutely distinct from any inkling of his intentions, and rode away
+through the chill mist and disappeared westward. He came back at
+nightfall of the fourth day with a bulky package strapped to his saddle.
+When he carried this bundle inside the cabin and exhibited its contents,
+Bud and Slab looked on in open-mouthed wonderment.
+
+There was a fine blue-serge suit of store clothes, shirts, linen
+collars, ties, socks, underwear, tan shoes, and a direct insult to the
+etiquette of mountain head-gear--a slick derby hat, which Buddy regarded
+with open scorn; but which he speedily forgot when Lem unwrapped a
+lesser package and presented his brother with a pearl-gray, wide-brimmed
+Stetson hat for himself, and half dozen soft shirts, all of which were
+grotesquely over-sized. Lem also gave Slab a half dozen flannel shirts,
+two of which were a brilliant red, and which filled the old negro's
+mouth with a score of assorted exclamations that left small doubt of his
+gratitude and appreciation. Lem was non-communicative until after
+supper. Then it was that he called Buddy and Slab out to the horse-block
+and took them into his confidence, after Slab had sung "Kitty Wells."
+
+"Now--Buddy," Lem was saying with profound emphasis, "to-morry yo'll be
+th' man o' th' house, understan'?--an' yo' got t' be a man--and run
+things like a man--'cause yore brother Lem'll be gone away from heah
+to-morry, Buddy--do yo' 'low yore brother kin trust yo'-all, Buddy?--eh,
+kin he trust yo'?"
+
+Bud stood with a solemn, peaked face, into which had suddenly crept an
+apprehensive, wistful look. He had lost no time in donning his new
+things. Although his skinny little boy's figure was undersized, he had
+on a man's shirt; likewise a man's hat. He had in his grasp a man's
+rifle, a gun that had belonged to a very great man; undeniably the
+greatest man that had ever lived. That look of dull puerile doubt
+vanished instantly as the realization dawned upon him that his brother
+was now about to honor him with a man's commission. He straightened
+valiantly as he looked full into his brother's steadfast eyes and said:
+
+"I reckon ole Cap Lutts o' Moon mountain was my pap, Lem--same's he was
+yo'n."
+
+Lem bestowed a beaming look of pride upon him.
+
+"I jest hoped yo'd say thet, Buddy--yore a game lad, an' yo' kin show
+pap's blood in yore veins any day."
+
+"Air yo' a goin' fer off, Lem?" questioned Bud. Slab edged nearer, his
+old ears eager for the project.
+
+Lem reached out and laid a hand on his little brother's thin shoulder,
+as with a jerk he tossed his chestnut hair backward.
+
+"Buddy," he said in measured tones, "to-morry I'm a goin' away--I cyan't
+tell how fer--I mought be gone a week--I mought be gone a month--mebby a
+year--mebby ten years--I mought never cum back, Buddy--but when I do cum
+back--yo'll know thet I seed Belle-Ann."
+
+This intelligence jarred Buddy's hard, tight-lipped mouth ajar and fired
+his cold, misanthropic heart with a vibrant yearning. How he would love
+to see Belle-Ann! Slab slid gently off the witch-block like a turtle,
+and rubbed his gnarled old hands together in hearty approval.
+
+"When yo'-all see Lem agin, Buddy," repeated Lem, "yo'll know I seed
+Belle-Ann--I air agoin' below, an' I air agoin' t' find Belle-Ann ef th'
+trail leads aroun' th' worl'--I aim t' see her face onct mo'--jest onct
+mo' 'fore I die----
+
+"Ef I see her, I'll cum back heah t' Moon mountain, an' never leave 'til
+yo' all lay me down 'side maw an' pap--ef I don't cum back--yo'll know
+thet I'm still a lookin' fo' our'n deah little Belle-Ann--er I'm daid."
+
+"Mebby yo'll find her, Lem," predicted Buddy, "an' mebby she'll cum back
+home long o' yo'." An unwonted smile lingered on his countenance for a
+brief moment in this anticipation. Then Slab with deep solemnity
+advanced a sorceristic theory, drawn from his prognostic acumen.
+
+"Lemmy--Lemmy," he began in a confidential, sibilant, half-whisper,
+"las' night--las' night," he peered cautiously into the gloom, peopled
+with gesticulating shadows. "Las' night er han' recht out an' tech me on
+ma foot--an' I wake up--an' er li'lle voice say, 'Slab, git up'--an' I
+git up--an' th' li'lle voice say, awful soft an' low like, 'Slab,' it
+say, 'Slab look out'--an' I peek ma haid out--an' thar set Mr. Owl--not
+er onery li'lle screech owl, what snoops wif de debil--but er big,
+yaller, honest ole owl, whut de Obeah-spirit send t' tell Slab er
+message, whut de good Lord hev in mind whut's gwine t' happen. Dah set
+Mr. Owl up in de daid cedar, wif de big moon right ahind him--den I
+snuck out an' slip up t' de daid cedar, an' stand jist as still, an'
+wait t' see ef owl say somethin'--'cause ef owl say first--den dat means
+bad--but ef owl wait fo' me t' say first--den dat means good--so I stand
+jist as still--an' owl he don't say nuffin'--an' I wait agin, an' owl he
+don' open he mouf--den I fix my hands, an' I say--'hoo! hoo! hoo!' an'
+jist ez quick ez lighten' Mr. Owl he say 'hoo!--hoo! hoo!' Den I say
+'hoo! hoo! hoo!' seban times, an' ebery time Mr. Owl he answer me--den
+when I say 'hoo!--hoo!--hoo!' de las' time--Mr. Owl he flop his wings
+an' goed away--den I knowed shore dat somethin' gwine t' drap--den I
+looks 'round an' finds er li'lle bitty Obeah-stone--er li'lle white
+stone, wif er li'lle black speck on hit--an' I fetches hit heah an' lays
+hit down on de witch-block right heah--an' I turned 'round an' started
+back t' bed, when somethin' whispered ahind me--den I jump 'round--but I
+warn't skeert--an' dah she were--dah she were, Lemmie--dah she were
+settin' up on dis witch-block right whar I put de Obeah-stone,--dah set
+our li'lle Belle-Ann lookin' at Slab--I seed her just ez plain,
+Lemmie--jest ez plain ez I see you des minit--all dressed up white ez
+snow--an' all dem curls er hangin' down roun' her shoulders, an' her
+li'lle mouf wus er smilin' at me--an' her beau'ful eyes wus er lookin'
+right at me--an' I drap down on ma knees--right heah--right heah, whar I
+stan' now--an' I hollers out: 'Hallelujah!--I allers tol' dem dat yo'd
+cum back, li'lle gal'--an' she stretch her hands out ter me--an' I bust
+out er cryin'--I couldn't he'p hit--I bust out er cryin'--an' I heer her
+voice just ez plain ez I heer ma own now,--I heer her voice like er
+nightengale's voice,--she say, 'Whar's Lem--whar's Lem--whar's Lem?--yo'
+Slab--whar's Lem?--blow de horn fo' Lem,--yo' Slab--blow de horn fo'
+Lem'--an' I git up off ma knees an' go t' tech her han' an' she warn't
+dah--she goed away jist ez quick ez lighten'--an' I look an' de li'lle
+Obeah-stone I lay on dat witch-block wus goed away, too--Lemmie--dat
+means dat we's gwine t' see li'lle Belle-Ann 'fore a great spell--yore
+due t' find li'lle Belle-Ann, Lemmie,--yo'll sho' see her--Buddy'll see
+her--Slab's ole eyes'll see her--yo' know, Lemmie,--de good Lord hev His
+pertic'ler ways t' tell good folks 'bout all des things--He kindy tells
+dem 'forehand--so's dey hearts won't break--so's dey'll hev c'urage, an'
+trus' in Him--Slab knows He do--Slab knows."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE NEAR ASSASSIN
+
+
+The following day Lem Lutts arrayed himself in his newly purchased store
+clothes and prepared to face a strange, unfriendly world of which he
+knew little. Not a week, not a day, scarcely an hour had elapsed since
+Belle-Ann had gone to Proctor that thoughts of her were not uppermost in
+his mind. Indeed, it was the sustaining hope of seeing her that had held
+his unhappy being together. It was seemingly a wretched measure of years
+since that unforgettable day when he had kissed the little scar that
+crossed the part in her curls, when she had stood before him and crossed
+her heart, and pledged him that she would surely come back to him. But
+the day of her return, as he had marked it in his mind, a scintillating
+goal, promising an epoch of luxuriant life, had come, and long since
+passed. He had, while in prison, written half a dozen crude letters
+addressed to Belle-Ann at Beattyville. His credulous mind had always
+supposed that these missives had reached their destination. As he had
+never received any reply to his letters, he had deducted that either the
+subtle influence of education and society had taken hold of her, weaning
+her heart away from all thoughts of the mountains, or that some
+unforeseen circumstance beyond her will had kept her silent. If it
+developed that he could not find her at the school, he had determined,
+next, to go down into the Big Sandy camps and hunt up her father.
+
+In accordance with his sudden inception of this extended sojourn, he was
+quick to realize that to mingle with the proud inhabitants of the
+strange land, into which he sallied, he would be handicapped, and
+doubtless be put to a retarding disadvantage by appearing among them in
+the crude garb of a mountaineer. He had gleaned this bit of wisdom while
+in prison. A credulous, guileless spirit can learn more of the world in
+a city jail in one month, than he can learn in twenty years out on the
+Godhead, in the geodetic domains allotted him by Providence. Therefore,
+Lem had with rare forethought equipped himself in a manner not
+unpleasing, and calculated to ward off disdain and ridicule. However, he
+had postponed having his luxuriant locks shorn to the last minute,
+deciding to sacrifice them when he struck the first big town. So that
+now he looked a bit incongruous, his shining black derby contrasting
+oddly enough with his long, curling hair.
+
+Lem had bidden Slab farewell, and after spending a time up in the
+Orchard beside the two mounds, he climbed up to Eagle Crown, his
+favorite, endeared refuge, to take what might be his last survey of the
+wild kingdom he loved so well. When he reached that dizzy height, he sat
+down to gain his breath. As he did so, his eyes fell upon a small, round
+object at his feet.
+
+Instantly he picked it up, and with a reminiscent smile pressed it
+fondly to his lips. It was a button off Belle-Ann's gingham gown.
+
+Buddy in his impatience had wandered on down the trail toward the loop,
+where he had been waiting for Lem for well on to an hour, for he meant
+to accompany his brother as far as Boon's ford before taking leave. He
+had sauntered along idly and had reached a point opposite the gap in the
+spur, where he could look back and view the open trail, when a young
+badger suddenly ambled out in the path and stood regarding him
+curiously, with its pink snout working inquiringly. Buddy had no wish
+for the young badger, but, boy-like, he could not resist shying a rock
+at it, and at least inspire the creature with some sense of respect.
+
+With a grin, he stepped over toward a spruce log half hidden beneath the
+foliage of laurel and wild dewberry bushes. As he stooped down and took
+up a small rock, a sight met his eyes that electrified him, causing him
+to forget the little animal and to drop the stone as if it had been an
+ember. In an instant he had his rifle at readiness. The object upon
+which he had his eyes riveted would never have been detected by a lay
+mind. But Buddy's little greenish eyes, versed in woodcraft, knew
+instantly that the two round holes he had glimpsed meant the presence of
+a shotgun! If there is anything that the mountain-born hates worse than
+a revenuer, it is a shotgun. They regard this mongrel weapon with a
+deep, cordial loathing not to be reconciled. The sight of a shotgun in
+the mountains is always a forerunner of deviltry and treachery.
+
+Bud looked around furtively, then he leaned over and with infinite
+caution parted the laurel. He recoiled, stung with amazement.
+
+Sap McGill lay close up against the log, with an empty whiskey flask in
+his relaxed palm! The boy drew back and his brain began to work with
+great rapidity. The last time he had seen Sap he was tumbled in the road
+by a bullet at Junction City. McGill was now in ambush; hidden here,
+bent upon a killing, and had involuntarily fallen into a drunken
+slumber, overcome by liquor, as evidenced by the empty bottle. Then
+suddenly Buddy deducted a hypothesis that decided him irrevocably.
+McGill could be in waiting for no one other person than his (Buddy's)
+brother. McGill was hidden here waiting for Lem to come down the trail,
+when he would rise up and send two loads of buckshot into the back of
+Lem's head. Buddy's lips tightened fiercely. With a quick, deft movement
+he reached over and, taking the shotgun by the muzzle, drew it
+noiselessly out to him. Swiftly he broke the gun, extracted the two
+shells and placed them in his pocket. He then carefully replaced the gun
+in the position he had found it, and stealthily secreted himself behind
+a boulder less than thirty feet distant. Here he lay down on his stomach
+with his rifle trained through a crevice, over the spot where McGill
+lay.
+
+To Buddy's tense nerves the minutes seemed like long hours. He lay so
+long in this one position, not daring to move to another shelter, that a
+dull aching began to traverse his arm, which he feared would jeopardize
+his aim. This was the only position he could command here, where he
+could see the log held by McGill and at the same time hold a direct aim.
+From where Bud lay he could see the open trail through the gap for a
+distance of fifty yards without stirring.
+
+But for McGill to get a glimpse of the path it was necessary for him to
+thrust his head far out from his place of concealment. Just at a time
+when Bud thought that he must surely risk a change in his position, a
+half-dozen razorbacks trotted up from behind. When they saw Bud lying on
+the ground in plain view, they uttered a series of affrighted grunts,
+and dashed ahead, two of them swerved and jumped over the very log that
+hid McGill, and must have come perilously near to jumping squarely upon
+him. The next instant McGill's head was thrust stealthfully out of the
+laurel, his eyes fixed intently on the scrub cedars that jutted out into
+the trail leading down from the Lutts cabin. As McGill waited to waylay
+Lem, his life in these minutes hinged upon a seemingly irrelevant and
+insignificant act.
+
+The moment that McGill broke his gun and discovered that it had been
+tampered with, he would naturally replace the shells. And the instant
+that he replaced the shells, Buddy Lutts meant to send a rifle ball into
+his brain.
+
+On the eve of leaving his sequestered haunts in the hills, none but the
+omniscient Providence could tell for how long, Lem Lutts was loath to
+turn his eyes toward the blue-grass country. So it was that he lingered,
+feasting his gaze upon the panoramic view that lay beneath Eagle Crown,
+every spur and nook and cove and gulch of which he had been familiar
+with all his life. With a heaviness weighing his heart, but a
+determination unabated, he swept his eyes over the purple distance with
+one last farewell, and turning started his descent. His head had
+disappeared downward when suddenly, as if in response to a voice, he
+halted and, not knowing his own purpose precisely, he climbed back and
+stood up on the ledge, sending his gaze afar to the glistening patch of
+water that marked the Boon Creek ford; immortalized in his soul, with
+the last beckonings of her whom he adored with a flaming, compelling,
+deathless love that eclipsed and obliterated all else in life. His gaze
+dwelt here for a full minute. Then he turned half-way, then looked
+quickly back. Something there had attracted him. With his hand half
+raised, he pushed to the brink of the precipice. He now discerned the
+burnished coat of a blood-bay horse standing in the ford. Lem's mouth
+dropped ajar. As he strained his eyes downward, his breath paused with
+the miraculous thought that slowly filtered into his brain. From this
+vast, hazy height he could not determine whether the equestrian was male
+or female. But an exciting intuition seized his senses as he descried
+some object flashing methodically in the sunlight.
+
+Unmistakably the distant rider was waving to him!
+
+Then the signal changed to something white, flaunting against the azure
+space, and Lem's heart smote his ribs with a great bound of suffocating
+joy, as the influx of a scintillating realization obsessed him, and he
+started down that perilous descent faster than he had ever gone in his
+life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+BELLE-ANN COMES BACK
+
+
+When he reached the ground he dashed along the trail like a madman. On
+past the cabin he ran in great bounds; down the cypress cut, his speed
+increasing every second. As he rushed headlong down into the loop, a
+startling thing happened.
+
+As Lem shot around a clump of scrub cedars that marked a sharp twist in
+the trail, the form of a man confronted him with a shotgun leveled at
+his head. At the same time the ambuscader pulled the trigger with
+murderous intent. The gun snapped with no report, and the sheer impetus
+of Lem's body moving at terrific velocity bore him down in a trice. As
+Lem flashed past, unable to check his headlong speed on the moment, he
+struck the mystified face a stunning, crashing blow. The man tumbled
+backward--his head striking a rock with a crushing impact.
+
+It was only when Lem had turned back that he fully established the
+identity of his assailant, who had started to grow a beard. In his
+excitement and utter amazement, he had not heard the footsteps behind
+him. However, he received another shock when he saw Buddy run up to the
+prostrate McGill and thrust the muzzle of his rifle against the man's
+side. The infuriated Buddy was on the verge of pulling the trigger when
+Lem sprang forward and grabbed the rifle out of his brother's hands. The
+irate boy shot an inquiring look at Lem.
+
+"Warn't he layin' t' kill yo'--hain't I bin watchin' em fo' mo'n a
+hour?" protested Bud, plainly disgusted with his brother's interference.
+"Didn't I break his ole damn shotgun when he drinked hisse'f asleep, an'
+take his loads out--heah they air--now--now--see?--an' yo' hain't
+'lowin' t' kill em?--when he plugged me twict in Junction City?" Buddy
+shook his head savagely, and glared at the unconscious form lying prone
+and inert on its back.
+
+"Now yo' jest hol' yore han'," panted Lem. "Sho'--I'm aimin' to kill em,
+kill em?--I'll kill em twict er three times--I will----" He cast an
+anxious, wistful look behind him, then ran a dozen yards down the path,
+turned and plunged crazily back again, and acted like he had suddenly
+gone daft. He was mumbling muddled words that Buddy could not make out.
+Buddy had never before seen his brother in such a confused flurry.
+
+"Sho'--I'll kill em, Buddy," reiterated the flustrated Lem, "but I
+hain't 'lowin' to kill em thes minit--his haid air busted ag'in' that
+rock--he don't know nothin'--an' I want em to know who kilt em, I do--I
+want em to see me--I want em to know that Lem Lutts keetched em at
+last."
+
+"Whut yo' a runnin' roun' like a shot deer fo'?" interrupted Buddy in
+alarm.
+
+"I want em to know thet he air a payin' in to Lem Lutts fo' all his
+other divilmint--an' fo' shootin' a boy--yo'--all watch em, Buddy--keep
+your gun on em when he wakes up, an' don't yo' plug em--hold em 'til I
+git back--Gawd'll Moughty! I got to go----"
+
+The gravel scattered and there was a rush of feet. Buddy looked around
+and saw Lem tearing off down the trail like a being distraught, and even
+faster than he had appeared a few moments since. Nonplussed at his
+brother's conduct, amazed, he waited sulkily.
+
+With fiery, belligerent eyes Buddy regarded the motionless figure of
+McGill. The terrible, pitiless hate that seethed and flamed in Buddy's
+heart for the fallen foe lying on the ground before him had superseded a
+measure of his natural curiosity concerning his brother's frantic and
+lightning-like appearance and his sudden and frenzied departure. Lem, in
+his excitement, had carried Buddy's rifle away, leaving him weaponless.
+
+A thought brought a grim smile to the boy's lips, and a satanic light
+flitted across his eyes, like the shadow of a bird skimming the ground.
+He hurriedly withdrew one of the loaded shells from his pocket. He would
+surely now put an end to Sap McGill. A brute of his caliber should have
+died long, long ago. He would be dead and safely beyond all further
+deviltry in a few seconds. His eyes burning with the lust of this
+design, Bud reached down to take up McGill's shotgun to reload it, when
+he heard Lem's distant voice. His words startled Buddy, and arrested his
+hand.
+
+"Belle-Ann's a comin'--Belle-Ann's a comin'--Belle-Ann's come back,"
+echoed back to the boy.
+
+Then it was that the psychological impulse dashed upon little Bud,
+wrenching out of his mind his intent of manslaughter. His fingers never
+reached the shotgun. He dropped the loaded shell and, jerking his new
+hat off, he flung his head back and fairly flew after his brother. With
+all the might he could muster into his skinny legs, he left the scene of
+this bloodless encounter behind.
+
+McGill lay face upward. He had not moved a muscle since he fell. The
+sleepy stillness was broken only by the wild bird voices of the wood. A
+suspicious catbird dropped down on the end of a log near the silent
+figure and gave vent to his whining, petulant phrase.
+
+From under the rock upon which McGill's head had struck, the head of a
+live thing was thrust. Then a long, gorgeous body slid into view. Its
+sinuous length was embellished with beautiful pigments of gold and black
+and light canary. With the omnivorous curiosity of the reptile for all
+inanimate objects, the rattlesnake thrust his mouth, shaped like that of
+a catfish, up to Sap's ear. The two black rings circling his little
+incandescent eyes began to swell. The whole surface of his mottled head
+flattened out and pulsed. He seemed to be breathing through the top of
+his head. A peculiar half-sound, indescribable, issued forth when the
+dappled tip of the snake's tail quivered. Like a forked needle his
+tongue flashed in and out of his throat.
+
+As the rattlesnake's challenge met with utter immobility, he started a
+thorough inspection. He began at the ear and nosed on down to the feet.
+Then he came up on the other side of the unconscious man, back to the
+starting point. A cloud passed, and the sun fell straight down upon the
+man's face. With a snake's love for radiation the rattler, now
+apparently satisfied, glided up on McGill's breast. With no sign of life
+communicating, and finding warmth beneath him, and warmth above him, the
+rattler coiled himself in a jiffy and lay basking comfortably on
+McGill's bosom.
+
+At the glad sight that met his eyes, Lem Lutts checked his wild, joy-mad
+race down toward Boon's ford. He became suddenly and acutely conscious
+that such a helter-skelter approach did not compare favorably with the
+beautiful theme of sweet dignity presented ahead of him. Lem now walked
+moderately to recover his breath and to compose and regain his
+equipoise. What he saw was a magnificent blood-bay horse flashing like
+crimson satin in the sunlight, his black mane and tail rippling in the
+south breeze. The animal lifted his noble head and emitted a neigh,
+which utterance was a royal echo from the pasture realms of the
+Blue-grass. The horse stopped under a great sycamore tree, where still
+remained the quaint characters they had cut into its bark in childhood
+days, when they two were playfellows.
+
+Lem's amazed, staring eyes beheld a lovely girl dismount. She was tall
+and round, and withal more beautiful than any stretch of his imagination
+could picture a girl. She was attired in a handsome, modish riding
+costume, with dainty patent-leather riding boots. She stood now waving a
+silver-mounted whip as he approached.
+
+"Oh!--Lem!" she dropped her gauntlets, tossed back her mass of curls and
+held her hands out to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE REUNION
+
+
+"Belle-Ann!" His voice was husky and quavering. Her hands were closed
+within his mighty pressure.
+
+They were looking into each other's face. The boy with incredulous,
+wondering eyes, reflecting a heart full to the brim with adoration; she,
+palpitating, her dimples aflush, her bosom lifting, her delicious red
+mouth ajar. And in the exquisite domains of those azure-tinted orbs lay
+the lucid litany of a wondrous, beautiful parable. Those two
+violet-stained eyes were misty with the text of a miracle that nestled
+in her heart, the tendrils of which she meant to train with care around
+the boy's mountain soul. In wordless, panting silence they studied each
+other's happy face for a long minute.
+
+"I knew that was you-all up thah on Eagle Crown. Were you-all looking
+for me, Lem?" she questioned in a half-whisper, predicating an affection
+that had its inception back in the child days of yore.
+
+"I was up thah a lookin' fo' yo', Belle-Ann--th' same's I bin a lookin'
+every hour since yo'-all went away," he assured her, dropping her hands
+and with a movement to take her into his arms and kiss her bowed,
+smiling mouth.
+
+Belle-Ann quickly threw back, with a tolerant ripple of mirth, thwarting
+his intent with the guise of a half-coquettish, half-mischievous
+challenge. But her purpose in this denial was tenfold deeper than
+girlish byplay. Her motive was infinitely more profound than to
+tantalize. She meant to withhold that priceless first kiss as a leverage
+to undo that which she had done. She meant to hold that first embrace as
+a reward for the reversal of the godless compact, the tenure of which
+she had long since penitently recanted.
+
+Nevertheless, Lem was quick to divine the import of her act. He fell
+back a pace, abashed and crestfallen.
+
+"Thet's so," he said sorrowfully, "I hain't kilt th' revenuer yet,
+Belle-Ann--but I 'low I tried hard enough, Belle-Ann,--Johnse Hatfield
+shot em through th' haid three weeks back--but all we ever found o' him
+wus a hat, an' a rifle, an' a barrel o' blood--he must hev jest flopped
+his arms an' flew up in th' sky--daid er alive--he hain't on
+Hellsfork--he----"
+
+Here Buddy rushed up, perspiring and breathing hard. He seized the
+girl's hand and hung on with a tenacity that bade fair to incumber her
+forevermore. The boy was too full to speak. His lips only trembled as he
+gazed up at her. When with endearing terms she pressed his thin little
+form to her and kissed him, the tears welled up and obscured his hard
+little eyes. Although these were tributes of joy from his stormy,
+suspicious heart, it was the first signs of tears any one had seen him
+manifest since old Cap Lutts had lain white and still, amid the flowers
+on God's acre. Then while Buddy fondled and admired the salient, superb
+horse with his fire-rimmed eyes and slender legs, the other two sat down
+on a rectangular stone, all coated in liverwort, upon which they had
+lolled many times in days agone. And here they communed with happy,
+hurried words.
+
+"But Lem," Belle-Ann was saying, "you are all dressed up--but for your
+beautiful locks, you look really citified--perhaps you-all was on your
+way to visit some young lady--am I right?--come now,"--she laughed
+coyly.
+
+"Belle-Ann, ef yo' had come 'bout half hour later--yo' wouldn't a found
+me--I wus jest a startin' out on my way below t' look fo' yo',
+Belle-Ann.--I wus 'lowin' t' scour th' whole earth fo' yo'--I told Buddy
+an' Slab thet I'd never come back till I seed yore face jest onct,
+anyways--I wus goin' t' spend th' balance of my life lookin' fo' yo',
+Belle-Ann."
+
+"Lem--didn't I cross my heart that day and pledge you that I'd come
+back?"
+
+"Yes--but I wus afeerd thet somethin' had happened t' yo'-all,
+Belle-Ann,--then I togged myself up an' fixed to go below--then I
+thought I'd go up on th' Crown an' take a last look at the spot
+where I saw yo' last a wavin' at me, and pretty soon I seed
+somethin'--an'--an'--Gawd'll Moughty--thah yo' wus a wavin' right at
+me--then I sho' did make time a gettin' down off'n thah--an' as I run
+down th' trail--thet ornery Sap McGill jumped out an' tried t'
+shoot----"
+
+With a fear-fraught half-scream, Belle-Ann had bounded to her feet.
+
+"Sap McGill--McGill, here?" she cried out incredulously. Her bosom
+heaved with excitement, and her eyes were wide and starry with a sudden
+new-born terror. "Oh!--don't tell me that McGill is up heah--on this
+side of Hellsfork!"
+
+Then it was, with bated breath and hurried, fear-laden words, that she
+implored Lem to hide somewhere. When she finished, all the blithesome,
+pulsing happiness that had dwelt in her beautiful face a few moments
+previously had vanished.
+
+Lem got quickly to his feet and stood eyeing her bloodless countenance
+in a trance of blank incomprehension.
+
+"Tell me--tell me quick, where is McGill now?" she panted, her hat
+dropping from her nerveless hands and falling at her feet.
+
+"Why--Belle-Ann--I left em a layin' on his back up at th' loop."
+
+"Did you kill him?"
+
+"Naw--I didn't hev time--I wanted t' meet yo'-all--I left Buddy a
+guardin' em."
+
+There was pitiable, livid dread in her face now. Her pathetic mouth
+dropped woefully. She stood, with fingers interlocked helplessly, in the
+grip of a seething apprehension. Buddy, who did not understand the real
+cause of Belle-Ann's distress, stood with two clinched fists, and a look
+of awful destruction aglow in his eyes.
+
+"Didn't I say yo' oughter kilt em--didn't I tell yo'?" he cried in
+piping, admonishing tones. Lem had not moved a muscle, though the girl's
+whiteness was communicated to his mask-like visage. Now he frowned upon
+Buddy.
+
+"What ded yo' leave em fer?" he said.
+
+"McGill will kill you, Lem," muttered the girl, beside herself with the
+violence of this sudden new fear that overpowered her. "If he isn't dead
+now--I know that he is lurking along the trail to kill you, Lem!--Oh,
+it's awful!--It's so disheartening to live such lives--what can we
+do?--I--I----" With her hands to her face she burst into sudden tears,
+precluding all speech.
+
+Just as suddenly was Lem Lutts electrified with a quick determination.
+He grabbed Buddy's rifle.
+
+"I'll trail em down ef he's gone, Belle-Ann--I'll sho' kill em now."
+
+With a swift movement Belle-Ann clutched Lem's sleeve tenaciously to
+detain and dissuade him. But his eyes shone with a maniacal fire as he
+jerked away from her and ran back up the trail with strides that carried
+him far ahead of the nervous horse that had taken affright and had
+bolted and was now galloping up the rock-strewn path in Lem's wake. Deaf
+to Belle-Ann's appealing voice urging him to come back, Lem only yelled
+back over his shoulder:
+
+"I'll sho' kill em now!"
+
+The horse soon swerved off from the trail and plunged down toward the
+valley amidst the brush, with Buddy in pursuit. Belle-Ann ran now along
+after Lem as swiftly as her trembling, weak limbs would carry her.
+
+When Lem Lutts reached the loop he halted, struck dumb with the
+spectacle before his gaze. McGill lay just as he had left him more than
+an hour before. Apparently he had not moved a finger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE DOWNFALL OF SAP McGILL
+
+
+Thinking McGill dead, Lem made one step forward and stopped, attracted
+by a strange, quivering movement; then he beheld the rattlesnake coiled
+up on Sap's breast. Then a sudden revelation dawned upon Lem Lutts. He
+felt instinctively that Sap was not dead, although he could not have
+been whiter and more inert had he been so.
+
+To make certain Lem cautiously shrank back, and taking care not to make
+the slightest sound, he worked his way around to the opposite side and
+gained a position where he could see McGill's face. Like a shadow he
+stepped out from behind a boulder and looked at Sap.
+
+What he saw almost caused him to laugh outright. Sap was far from being
+dead. He was wholly conscious and wholly alive, but ludicrously quiet.
+His eyes were popping out of his head. They told that he would beg for
+his life if he dared so much as to speak. He hardly dared breathe. Great
+tears of terror were oozing out of his forehead and trickling in copious
+streams down across his death-like features. The only risk the dullard
+could take to express his agony was to roll his eyes.
+
+The rattlesnake's head was focused less than twelve inches from his
+chin, and he knew well that upon the slightest tremor of his body the
+rattler would stab him in the throat. He knew well that the lightning of
+the heavens could not emulate the fatal quickness and rapidity of that
+snake's poisonous blow. For well on to two hours McGill had suffered the
+agonies of a thousand hells. Lem now spoke to him.
+
+When Lem's words reached McGill's ears, his only sign of comprehension
+was an added bulge transmitted to his rolling eyes. Standing motionless
+and in even tones, to avoid startling the rattler, Lem said:
+
+"Well--so yo' got t' yore jest end at last, didn't yo'--egg-dog?
+Belle-Ann is a comin' up the trail in a short spell--an' I air a goin'
+t' kill yo' 'fore she gits heah, which is a mighty short spell t' live I
+'low--so ef a skunk like yo'-all knows a prayer, why now's yore time to
+think hit--but I advise yo' not t' git up on yore knees er stir roun'
+much." Here Lem chuckled tauntingly and gleefully.
+
+"Say--air thet a tame snake yo'-all got thah--eh? Ac's like he wus some
+kin to yo'-all--say, 'fore y'o go away--just glance yore mind over all
+th' pesky, onery divilmint yore folks has been a doin' fo' twenty years.
+'Member th' day yore old pap shot my dad under th' truce flag thet my
+maw held up, 'cause we'uns wanted t' have peace--but yore old pap didn't
+git away, did he?--he was kindy slow-like. Say--yo' know a feller in
+these mountains named Johnse Hatfield--eh? Did yo'-all ever hern tell on
+em--eh? Ha-ha-ha! Hit wus a good dance, wusn't hit? Pears like Johnse
+sort a put a crimp in yore folks down at Junction City thet night--eh?
+Say--yo' ugly groun'-dawg--I hain't a killin' yo' exactly fo' all
+thet--I air only aimin' t' kill yo' onct fer thet--but I air goin' t'
+kill yo' twict fo' shootin' a boy--yo' shot a little boy, dedn't
+yo'--eh? Yo' shot my boy brother twict an' tried t' kill em--didn't
+yo'--eh? Now I air goin' t' blow yore brains out----"
+
+With his last taunts a dull rush of red rage overspread Lem's
+countenance, as with a quick, decisive movement he jerked his rifle to
+his shoulder and fell upon one knee. A groan of despair escaped McGill's
+bloodless lips now, and the rattlesnake instantly made that fatal loop
+at the narrow of its neck. Evidently Sap preferred a bullet in the head
+to a stab in the throat from the yellow monster that was flashing its
+pronged tongue in his face.
+
+"Now I'll show Belle-Ann whut ugly brains yo'-all got," muttered Lem,
+sighting along the glistening gun barrel.
+
+A piercing shriek of horror rent the air. Belle-Ann was not a hundred
+feet away. A vivid terror stood in her eyes. She struggled for breath to
+thwart the tragedy that filled that instant.
+
+"For God's sake--oh!--for my sake--don't shoot--Lem--Lem--Lem!" she
+screamed out, terrified, in begging, forbidding, distraught utterances,
+and collapsed in the path.
+
+But Lem, unheeding, quickly pressed the trigger. There was a pungent
+crack. The rifle spat out a long, slender tongue of flame. A ragged wisp
+of blue-white smoke spread out, separated and floated languidly upward.
+There was an acrid odor of burnt powder in the air. Across the tenseness
+of that long, awful moment the soft trill of a catbird grated like the
+harsh blasphemy of a parrot. The gentle barking of a squirrel impinged
+like a nerve-shattering noise.
+
+Belle-Ann was on her knees in the trail--her face averted and her hands
+over her eyes to hide them from what lay before her. Her curls were
+shaking and trembling with the chill that swept over her body. She,
+Belle-Ann Benson, who could, in days gone by, have watched with interest
+and pleasure the killing of an enemy, and smile. But now the subtle
+crack of that gun-shot rived into her senses like a withering scourge.
+Had the bullet pierced her own vitals she could not have suffered thus.
+All through the after years of her life the reverberation of that sharp,
+little gun-noise hung about her ears, and she could never think of this
+scene without a shudder.
+
+She heard a loud, strained laugh, carrying a volume of contempt and
+scorn. She peeped through her fingers fearfully. McGill was standing
+upright, wiping his wet, pallid face with his shaking, naked hand.
+Belle-Ann's hands came away from her eyes as she regained her feet,
+dumfounded, and stared as if a ghost confronted her. She doubted her
+senses.
+
+"Belle-Ann," shouted Lem, "cum an' take a look at th' live coward!"
+
+With a sudden influx of gladness she ran forward, a thankful heart
+beating color back into her dimpled face. She looked at Lem, dazed,
+nonplussed. Then she gazed at McGill and at a rattlesnake, whose bloody
+head hung to its neck by a slender ligature of skin as it lashed the
+rocks with its dying tail. Not once did McGill look in Belle-Ann's
+direction; nor indeed did he meet Lem's truculent gaze. He stood abject,
+with downcast eyes, and the dull apathy of a sick ox. On his depraved
+features was a lettering of criminal sullenness; on his twitching lips
+the curse of cowardice. Beneath this avenging stroke of Fate his big,
+sinister hulk lopped down, and he stood stupidly licking his cracked
+lips like a spiritless dog.
+
+Belle-Ann still stood awed, nearby, trying to solve this strange
+phenomenon. McGill's guilty heart plainly dreaded this fair girl's
+presence. He did not look up, nor did he essay to utter a word of
+defense. His shallow eyes only roved at his feet. He presented the
+picture of the crestfallen criminal cornered on the premises of his last
+losing stand.
+
+"Pears like yo' hain't a carin' t' say much--eh?" taunted Lem, as with a
+sudden rising fury he stooped down and grabbed up McGill's shotgun from
+the ground, and with a series of terrific blows upon a nearby boulder he
+reduced the weapon to a broken, twisted wreck in no time. Flinging what
+was left of it out into the rhododendrons, he advanced and stood before
+his erstwhile dangerous enemy.
+
+"Sap," he began, "how did yo'-all ever git out o' hell in th' first
+place--eh? 'Cause I know thet Gawd'll Moughty never made sich as yo' to
+be born--I don't 'low yo' wus ever born, an' I believe yo' wus too mean
+and pesky and treacherous t' live in hell--I 'low th' devil drove yo'
+out." He aimed a finger within an inch of McGill's nose.
+
+"Looky heah--yo' owe yore dirty life t' Belle-Ann thah--not t' Lem
+Lutts--'cause ef she hadn't come, yo'd be powerful daid against
+now--hit's a shame t' take thet pore snake's life away t' save sich as
+yores--now git away from heah--git out'n my sight 'fore I do kill yo'.
+Git out o' heah--an' ef I ever lay an eye on yo' agin on thes side o'
+Hellsfork--Belle-Ann and Gawd'll Moughty together won't keep me from
+killin' yo' on sight--yo' heer? Go, skunk--hit's ole Cap Lutts' boy a
+talkin' t' yo'--Lem Lutts."
+
+In the tenseness and absorbing excitement of the moment, they had not
+heard the hurried clatter of hoofs, like the tattoo of a cavalcade
+coming up the trail. They did not see Buddy ride up on Belle-Ann's
+charging blood-bay--nor the other three horsemen that crowded along
+close behind him. 'Twas only when the three men rushed in upon them and
+arrested and shackled McGill that they fully realized what had really
+taken place.
+
+The officer removed his hat and bowed in respectful admiration to
+Belle-Ann, with a smiling light of recognition in his eyes. He was the
+deputy sheriff who had spent a night at the Lutts cabin before Belle-Ann
+went away to school.
+
+"With the charges against him at Junction City, I don't think this
+gentleman will bother you for a long time. You know the McGills don't
+own Junction City any more," he said, obviously wondering at the pretty
+up-to-date picture presented by the girl before him. The last time he
+saw Belle-Ann she wore moccasins, was bare-legged, and dressed in a
+gingham gown; but he had never forgotten her beauty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+BELLE-ANN'S RECANTED CREED
+
+
+In mutual contented silence they stood looking after the three officers
+leading their sullen prisoner down the mountain trail toward Boon's
+Ford. With the first wholesome grin that had touched his face for nearly
+two years, Buddy rode on toward the cabin astride Belle-Ann's splendid
+horse. Presently Belle-Ann looked up into the pensive face behind her.
+
+"Why didn't you kill Sap, Lem?" she probed, though its answer had been
+happily divined.
+
+"I hed a bead on his ear when I heered yore voice, Belle-Ann--I heered
+yore voice a callin' 'fo' my sake'--an' I jest couldn't do hit--then I
+shot th' snake's haid off."
+
+Knowing Lem as thoroughly as she did, she knew that this humane, gallant
+act had been to him a real sacrifice. They sat down upon the log behind
+which McGill had hidden. She was waiting for him to speak. With covert,
+abashed glance, he was regarding her handsome costume. She knew that he
+was puzzled and wondering at this astounding exposition of wealth.
+Presently he spoke up:
+
+"Yo'-all look powerful beautiful, Belle-Ann--I never 'lowed they wus
+sich fine things in th' worl'."
+
+Her merry, sweet laugh rippled out now as she laid a white hand on his
+arm and looked up into his face with a challenge in her eyes. He did not
+press her for an explanation. Then with a toss of her curls, she
+launched forth and poured her fairy-like tale into his amazed ears, all
+about her wondrous discovery of a lovable, priceless grandfather.
+
+Then in wretched contrast to Belle-Ann's glittering conquest below, Lem
+recounted his capture by the revenuer, and his tortuous measure of
+months in prison. He told of how he had written letter after letter to
+her, hoping, always hoping, hourly, daily, monthly, to hear from her.
+And the girl's eyes grew misty and her heart went out to him. The very
+recital of this experience cast a gloom over him now. Wherefore she
+sought to introduce a pleasanter theme and cheer him with prospects of
+the future.
+
+"And, Lem," she was saying, "I have ever so much money--oh!--I don't
+know how many thousands of dollars--all my own, grandpa says."
+
+Lem had not digested the story of her opulence as enthusiastically as
+Belle-Ann had anticipated.
+
+"But I hain't kilt th' revenuer yet--so--so--I 'low----"
+
+"No words can tell you how glad I am, Lem--that you have not succeeded
+in killing the revenuer. God will surely lead him to his retribution,
+but it is not for you to exact, and I now take back all I said--and you
+must promise me not to kill him if you get the chance, and I can't ever
+promise you-all anything until you make me this pledge."
+
+Lem rose slowly up off the log and looked curiously down upon her. At
+the end of a long minute he spoke:
+
+"Belle-Ann," he said, "I can't understan' yo'--'fore yo' went away t'
+school I axed yo' t' promise t' marry me. Yo' wouldn't promise--yo'
+wouldn't even 'low me t' kiss yore face then--yo' said thet yo'd never
+'low nobuddy t' kiss yo'--thet yo'd never promise t' marry me--lessen I
+kilt th' revenuer--an' Gawd knows I been a tryin' t' kill em! Now
+yo'-all comes back an' tells me thet yo' don't 'low t' promise me
+anythin' ef I _do_ kill th' revenuer--I can't understand thet,
+Belle-Ann--I 'low yo'-all is hankerin' t' git shut o' me, Belle-Ann," he
+ended despairingly, passing his hand over his eyes as if to brush away
+this strange philosophy that had skeined itself in his brain in one
+insoluable tangle.
+
+She did not respond straightway. She fully understood the magnitude of
+the task she had before her. To convert Lem to her new creed would
+enlist all of the gentle diplomacy at her command.
+
+"Belle-Ann, I hev always loved yo'," he resumed solemnly. "I love yo'
+now--I love yo' mor'n I love my life--my life hain't as much as thet
+daid snake 'sides th' way I love yo'--I'd stand on Henhawk's Knob an'
+jump into Hellsfork ef yo'd ax me t'--but, Belle-Ann, I owe th' blood o'
+thet revenuer t' pap and t' maw--th' two graves up in th' orchard air a
+cryin' out fer th' revenuer's blood. I saved Sap's blood--saved him
+'cause yo' called t' me not t' shoot--I let em go, much as I hate th'
+pizon mad-dog--saved em as bad as he oughter be daid--but, Belle-Ann,
+much as I love yo', yo' can't take th' revenuer 'way from me ef he's
+alive yit."
+
+She was appalled at the terrible wave of pain and passion that now swept
+his countenance. He poised a clinched fist above his head, as he removed
+his derby hat, and casting his eyes upward he added:
+
+"I'll kill thet revenuer--I'll kill thet revenuer, I will, ef lead'll
+kill em--I'll have his blood ef I git th' chanct--I'll kill em with my
+last lick o' lead--ef I go t' hell th' next minit."
+
+She responded to this volcanic outburst with a soothing pressure on his
+arm, as she thrust her arm through his and they walked up the trail
+toward the cabin, her mind busily occupied, groping for a mode of
+procedure whereby she could convey to him the great divine law of
+universal love and charity, prescribing the return of good where evil is
+given--a practice not only to shame his erring enemies and brim their
+thoughts with penitence; but in its doing to enrich his own soul with a
+mollient peace, and clothe his life in a spiritual raiment rarer than
+gems and bullion of kings.
+
+When they reached the old honeybee tree, they saw Slab cavorting down to
+meet them. His head was back-flung, his arms akimbo, and he showed a
+hock action, despite his age, that would have inspired a coach horse
+with bitter envy. As he neared them he began yelling:
+
+"Hallalujah--hallalujah--hallalujah!"
+
+He wrung Belle-Ann's hand, tears of joy following the creases in his old
+face. He circled around and around her, chanting various adages filched
+from the tenets of his sorceristic faith, all of which compared happily
+with Belle-Ann's presence. All the way to the cabin Slab's utterances
+and antics were effervescent.
+
+"I done tol' dem yo'-all sho'd cum back," he said stoutly. "Den when
+yore deah li'lle spirrut cum dat night an' tuck er way dat li'lle
+Obeah-stone--den I shore knowed yo' war due--an' ma heart war a shoutin'
+all night so hard dat hit keep me wake--an' heah yo' be li'lle gal--heah
+yo' be--hits Slab dat knows--Slab he knows."
+
+"Slab," projected Belle-Ann, without the slightest prelude, "Amos
+Tennytown wants you."
+
+These words halted Slab with one foot raised. He cautiously let the one
+foot down. The smiles that had wreathed his visage when Belle-Ann spoke
+were frozen there.
+
+"Come on, Slab," urged Belle-Ann. "Surely you are not scared. Colonel
+Amos Tennytown sent you-all a kind message. He wants you to drop in and
+see him at Lexington, Slab. Do you remember when that cruel snapping
+turtle woke you up?"
+
+Slab was now stumbling along open-mouthed, blinking down at the girl,
+his dim eyes shot with a smoldering fire of endeared reminiscences; a
+cherished theme that had hovered in his memory since the distant day
+when the blue and the gray had dueled,--scenes mellowed by time, but
+sweetly mated with "Kitty Wells." Unbelieving and in faltering tones of
+half reproach, he said:
+
+"Li'lle gal, don' pesticate de ole man,--I's er ole man, li'lle
+gal,--yo' orter be good t' de ole man now--don' fool de ole
+man--no--don' fool Slab, li'lle gal--he--he--"
+
+"Slab, I am not fooling you. How could I know about the turtle and old
+Hickamohawk if I had not seen Colonel Tennytown? And he wants you down
+thah, Slab."
+
+"Li'lle Amos--li'lle Amos?" he repeated, measuring the imaginary height
+of a boy with his hand. "Li'lle Amos--he want Slab?"
+
+All doubt vanished.
+
+"Hallalujah--hallalujah--hallalujah!"
+
+Intermittently, Slab advanced stout volumes of oral matter to
+demonstrate that the long-looked-for millennium had arrived at last.
+
+At the witch-elm block the old blind hound staggered exultantly about.
+Obeying the instinct of his lonely dog-heart, he yelped and yelped with
+joy at the vision his senses pictured for him, though which his blank,
+sightless eyes could not behold. Belle-Ann fell on her knees and took
+his old head to her, stroking his gray face and kissing his ears.
+
+One of the girl's first acts was to gather two great sheaves of
+forget-me-nots. These she carried to the orchard. Lem walked beside her,
+and now they both fell silent. Dividing the flowers equally, Belle-Ann
+knelt down and arranged them with infinite care.
+
+"Maw loved these," she whispered. "Maw loved these best of all, didn't
+she, Lem?" She looked up through a film of mist. Their eyes met, and Lem
+turned his back and walked slowly away and did not answer.
+
+For half an hour the girl lingered there between these two graves with
+her memories. When she finally got to her feet and lifted her swollen
+eyes, she saw Slab standing looking at her. The tears were streaming
+down his ancient, creased visage. His lips moved helplessly, but no
+words crossed them. He could only point to numberless withered flowers,
+and seared wreaths scattered hard by, which he had discarded to replace
+with fresh ones.
+
+"Yes, Slab--you-all did not forget, did you?" she managed to say.
+
+The old negro shook his white head, too overcome to respond.
+
+Belle-Ann and Lem then made the rounds of the place, followed by little
+Buddy, lugging his father's rifle. They walked out beneath the
+magnolias, and the giant pines, and visited their old haunts, each of
+which stirred memories of hours agone.
+
+When they returned to the house, Slab had a most tasteful meal prepared
+for them. The menu consisted of two kinds of bread, hoe-cake, and hot
+butter-milk biscuits with honey. It also embraced baked yams with fresh
+butter, fried spring chicken, poached eggs, rich, fresh milk, and
+blackberries and cream.
+
+As Belle-Ann lingered over this repast, she felt that she had not,
+during her absence, tasted anything quite so delicious. Near dusk, Slab
+took up his hybrid banjo and repaired to the witch-elm block, followed
+by the others. There, with the blind hound's aged head in her lap,
+Belle-Ann joined in the chorus of "Kitty Wells." And as the shadows
+stole down and put their arms about them, the day lifted, and the
+thread-like note of the mock-thrush ebbed away from the blossomed sides
+of the mountain. The plaintive callings of the Bob White ceased, and the
+forest birds folded their wings. And another choir of voices awoke to
+cross and re-cross the void of twilight.
+
+The katydids began to purl. A symphony of crickets trilled away in the
+darkling rhododendron thickets. The tree-frogs piped an avalanche of
+pleading notes amid the ruby-throated magnolias. The silvery treble of
+the nightingale floated down from afar, and the hilarious killdeers,
+king of all-night revelers, screamed aloft and flapped their speckled
+wings in the early starlight. And above this, in soughing, alternate
+waves of sound, a titanic rhythm trailed into this medley of wilderness
+voices--the savage, deathless music of the cascade ranting in the
+rock-barbed throat of Hellsfork, dying, swelling, reverberating like the
+barbaric boom of a tom-tom.
+
+That night Belle-Ann occupied her own little crude apartment in the
+four-room cabin. She slept soundly and sweetly in this little wooden
+bed, which Slab had reverently preserved unaltered for her coming. And
+the night air drifted in upon her face, pungent with the scent of pine,
+and the old sweet odors that summoned a hundred memories to vivid life.
+There were the self-same multiplicity of night enunciations,
+consolidated and merged into a soothing litany, harping a pulsing
+consonance that lured the girl's senses away to the fantastic shoals of
+dreamdom. And betimes, the same great, friendly moon that had followed
+her abroad, came now and stood at her window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+THE GHOST-MAN
+
+
+Lem had said little, but upon his honest, pleasing face there was now
+etched the momentous outlines of the most serious, profound problem that
+had ever confronted his tempestuous life. With the sober, solemn
+realization of this vital issue that had come upon him, he found himself
+mentally reaching out for sustenance. Seemingly he stood upon the
+pinnacle of an epochal summit, with all the threads governing his life,
+past and future, dangling limply beneath him. It was the tensest hour of
+his existence.
+
+They sat in the moonshine on the witch-elm block, and the whip-poor-will
+was calling. They came here in the whispering gloaming ere twilight and
+night had parted. They still sat there; the girl talking incessantly.
+Time galloped by unheeded with the flight of an affrighted Pegasus.
+Phantom shadows grew and gesticulated and stretched their wraith-like
+arms out toward them. And the moon slipped over the spur and laved them
+with an effulgent benediction. Lem sat non-committal and stoic.
+
+Belle-Ann's curls bobbed in the moonlight as she tossed them back
+restlessly. For more than an hour she had been pouring into his ears all
+the things that lay in her heart which had been re-cast in a new mould
+of understanding and burnished with ethics of education. The titanic
+moment she had anticipated had arrived. The dawn of the morrow was to
+part them forevermore, or it was to bind their lives together
+irrevocably. He had again begged her to promise to marry him, and this
+was her answer. Her low, dulcet tones rippled on and on. Her little
+hands fluttered appealingly in their flights of emphasis. Her violet
+orbs were starry with the truths that hurried across her lips, and her
+whole being throbbed with the vibrant force of this conquest. He spoke
+for the first time.
+
+"Ef yo' keep on a talkin' thet away, Belle-Ann,--yo'll make me lie t'
+yo'," he predicted dolefully, casting yearning eyes upon her. As yet not
+once had he kissed that red-mouthed, dimpled face. Not yet had he
+clasped that withy, supple form to him. The price now of that treasured
+kiss, and that longed-for embrace, and her priceless love, was his whole
+and complete repudiation of his bloody creed of feudalism.
+
+"I am not afraid of your deceiving me, Lem--you have never lied to me in
+the past, and I'll trust you-all in the future. I mean to lift you up,"
+she went on earnestly,--"to show you a worthy goal that I know is thah
+awaiting your acknowledgment. As I have said over and over, Lem, I do
+not expect you to understand it all now, but I hoped that you would
+believe me, who have gone through it all with its blighting misery. Your
+whole life is now and always will be made furtive and fear-ridden, while
+you cling to this blood-dogma of revenge--always looking for the blood
+of your enemies, and when at last you get that blood and delude yourself
+into the thought that you are satisfied, you find springing out of that
+very act other enemies waiting in your path. It is an endless chain of
+fight and flight and blood that is harrowing. I saw an example of it
+yesterday before my very eyes, because I know you would have killed Sap
+McGill had I not been thah. It is all fundamentally wicked. Oh, Lem! It
+is all hideously wrong. Now that I am rid of that awful sting, I cannot
+and will not link my life to one who harbors these awful things to drag
+us both down.
+
+"Won't you put this life behind you, Lem, and come down where God has
+granted a paradise--a paradise of peace? Down where nature has unfurled
+a grassy, level land and men walk in the open and can see each other's
+faces? Down thah, Lem, where hearts beat uncontaminated beyond the
+maelstrom of feudal hate, and where all men are brothers--down in the
+land of hope--hope that makes a song of life--in the land of hope,
+Lem,--a cloudless, sunshiny fairy world--where dreams come true?
+
+"You said you would love to go to Lexington to my grandfather, but you
+won't leave the mountains until you have killed the revenuer and Sap
+McGill. Is that evidence that you love me, Lem? To-morrow morning I'll
+ride Rajah back alone. I don't believe that you love me, Lem--I can't
+believe it----"
+
+Lem got to his feet. He was very white in the moonlight now. He picked
+up a stick off the ground. He rested the butt of his rifle against the
+block and, placing the muzzle of the gun against his breast, he reached
+down and touched the trigger with the end of the stick before Belle-Ann
+realized what he was up to.
+
+"Belle-Ann, say that I don't love yo' agin an' I'll blow my heart out."
+Gently and quickly she took the stick out of his hand in alarm.
+
+"Lem, there is a way out for you--there is a sustaining power that will
+help you, if you will only have faith," she pleaded. "'Know ye the truth
+and the truth shall make ye free.'"
+
+"But he kilt my old pap,--an' my good old maw, Belle-Ann. I'd alers heer
+their spirits a cryin' ef I went away an' didn't git th' revenuer's
+blood," he protested for the twentieth time. "An' didn't McGill try t'
+kill me jest yisterday?"
+
+"Lem," she said, "I tell you what we'll do. We'll go down to the
+church--we'll go down thah--you and me and Buddy--down thah by the altar
+where your father died. God won't deny you thah. We will offer up a
+little prayer for pap and maw, and you will ask God to show you the
+truth of my words--that it is wrong for you to hang back and sacrifice
+your future for the blood of your enemies. Take my word for it, Lem--God
+will surely lay His hand on those who have harmed you. Will you go,
+Lem--come now--will you go with Belle-Ann?"
+
+For the first time Lem's face lost a measure of its despair. His eyes
+lighted up with the advent of an emollient hope, and a half-smile
+touched his lips.
+
+"Come 'long, Belle-Ann," he agreed, "let's do thet." And a prayer
+mounted in Belle-Ann's breast as she called to Buddy to come along and
+bring a lantern. Then hand in hand they wound their way down the moonlit
+mountain-side toward the deserted church. And up from the girl's heart a
+spa of hope was abubble. The joy of life was again strong upon her.
+There was a song in her soul and the blithesome days of yore were
+rippling in her veins.
+
+The forsaken church stood out big and white, magnified in a pool of
+moonlight, like a runic tomb guarding the memory of a martyr. With a
+ruthless swish, the laurel wall that hemmed the clearing suddenly
+parted, and the next instant the scathed, battered semblance of a
+man-being crawled out into the silver moonshine.
+
+A wound-burnt, sinister shape, half naked. The revengeful way-path rocks
+had bitten into his inflamed knees. The vicious thorns had torn and
+stabbed maledictions into his hands. The clawing underbrush had stripped
+his clothing away, and the poison ivy and skunk-viper had sprung upon
+and spat their gangrene acid against his nakedness. There was misery in
+each lift of knees and hands, as though weighted with ball and chain. In
+his zigzag wake there was a lesion of nauseous mocking horror. This
+thing panted like a spent buffalo, as with popped, blood-rimmed eyes it
+stared at the church.
+
+It was the revenuer come back in the hour of his extremity.
+
+With wabbling head, he focused his blighted face upon the church--a
+shrine all in white beckoning to him, insistently. Foot by foot he
+forged his tortuous way across the open and onward. His corporal being,
+ruined, ravished and wrecked, his derelict spirit was blindly
+upstanding. Excruciatingly and piteously he moved across the sea of wild
+honey clover and foxtail with the slowness of a shore-viewed water
+craft, stationary only while the eye held it, but with a trick to move
+when the gaze is lifted.
+
+When this odious, strange apparition had gained a point midway to the
+church, then it was that a lithe, agile, uncertain shape, a spawn from
+the matrix of the shadowless gulch below, slid up out of the dark,
+halted on the verge of the shades and then as lightly as air sprung its
+haunches upward to a great spruce stump. It was the male panther who
+owned a mate and cubs, and who patrolled the darkling hours with a
+dare-all note in his minor night-squall; who dominated the animal
+kingdom and held in subservient fear all the lesser pantomimic pirates
+of the forest.
+
+At first his eyes widened curiously as they settled upon the audacious
+trespasser in the clearing. Had this thing under his quizzical gaze
+walked upright, he could have understood and would have skulked hastily
+away, but now a quick challenge crowded into his feline breast, as he
+realized that an alien, hairy creature, that stalked on four legs, had
+dared to invade the night that belonged to him and the province that was
+his.
+
+Straightway a keen and malignant resentment seized and traversed his
+bristling spine, and his long tail began to lash the ground menacingly.
+It wagged him into a great fury. As noiselessly as a moccasin slides
+into the water, he dropped from the dark spruce stump into the velvet
+mullein leaves, and skirted the whiteness of the moon. He leaped lightly
+through the space and landed in the shade of the church. With a sudden
+wary flash, he darted forward. Then, boldly and ready, he turned sharply
+and advanced in the forefront of this new enemy that now was his prey.
+Stealth was in his padded paws as he lowered his ermine belly to the
+ground and crept sneakingly to meet the newcomer.
+
+When a mere six feet separated the two, the panther's hairy, spotted
+lips parted thirstily. He choked back the growl of savage exultation
+that welled up in his chest, his yellow eyes all afire with lust. He
+gathered his steel-like thews under him with a mighty tenseness to
+spring. His wagging tail stopped and stiffened. As he made to leave the
+ground, the thing before him jerked its gory head suddenly upward,
+looked, and thrust a laugh in the brute's face.
+
+Such a laugh! The splintering, squawking reiterations of petered-out
+echoes, bubbling up into a mundane night from the precincts of the
+eternally damned. That laugh splashed upon the serene night like the
+plunge of a boulder into a placid pool. It drove the pith out of the
+panther's militant cat-heart. It curdled the will to kill that had
+blazed from the beast's agate eyes. Instantly the brute, dazed with
+terror, wrenched his round head askew, to shut from his tan eyes and
+black ears the sight and the sound of this monstrous, unknown
+antagonist.
+
+The brute's tail went limp as he hurtled obliquely through the air,
+landed in the bull-grass, plunged into the inky shadows and fled away
+from this moonlit spot with its hideous blot of terror, and hurried
+toward the pitchy brakes that hemmed the river, with panic curdling his
+jungle blood.
+
+The maimed, bedraggled hulk careened; then at the end of a panting
+struggle fell over the door block and tumbled heavily against the church
+portal. The dilapidated, weather-scarred door gave way unresistingly to
+him and his bedlam cry as though it had boded this unholy visitation. He
+stopped on the threshold, sprawling half in, half without. The uncouth
+noise of his breathing hissing through a ragged ruin of teeth, cut the
+sepulchral stillness of the church room with the portent of some awful
+prediction. His haggled, bleeding hand stamped its red curse upon the
+door panel. Then, with a mad, mighty will, he lashed his flagging spirit
+to another effort and broke into a pitiable, wabbling, four-legged trot.
+
+When his swollen, bleeding feet disappeared, the church door swung back
+and engulfed the revenuer's racked, gaunt bones within the ostracised
+temple of death. With stark eyes upward and ahead, he stared through the
+dark to the spot where a single lance of moonlight stabbed obliquely
+through the dismantled window, revealing a cross done in blood that lay
+prone athwart the untrodden pulpit floor.
+
+Without, a white virgin mantle of peace and purity enveloped the haunted
+church. The honey clover, foxtail, mullein, and dill-poppies had closed
+over the horrible path-way leading to the church door-block. The panther
+was gone. A seductive south wind rippled across the blossomed clearing
+and a hundred families of unnamed flowers raised their heads and nodded
+to the stars. The far-off, drowsy baying of a hound drifted down from
+the ridge and trailed plaintively into the night. And from somewhere the
+sweet love-tale of the elusive nightingale was told over and over again.
+There was utter papal peace without for several moments. Then suddenly
+this magic spell was startlingly burst asunder with a rising tempo of
+sounds issuing from within the church. It grew into a horrific, guttural
+clash. The noise of contending demons dead-locked. The riotous commotion
+of a thousand struggling, distraught fiends told of some terrible
+enactment inside the church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+THE HAUNTED CHURCH
+
+
+As the trio approached the church, Buddy hung back reluctantly. He did
+not relish this nocturnal invasion of the gospel-house where no human
+foot had trod since the killing of his father. In truth, Lem shared this
+apprehension also, but was valiantly cautious not to betray this
+aversion in Belle-Ann's presence. With this cryptic timidity, both the
+boys marveled at the voluble mirth and bold blithesome advance of the
+girl; not understanding that Belle-Ann's education had burned away all
+barriers of superstition.
+
+The denizens on Hellsfork had long given this lonely, desolate structure
+a wide berth. Many a bold and audacious spirit, knowing no other fear,
+quaked with the thought of entering that dilapidated storm-battered
+sepulchre. Not because a man had been killed therein, but there was a
+ghostly phenomenon connected with that musty, bat-haunted altar,
+uniquely horrible.
+
+That rubric cross had cut its ragged blight into the senses of the
+mountaineers to a degree that forbade all thoughts of approach. There
+was something at once subtle and strange and unspeakably terrifying in
+the remembrance of that red picture, something that inspired them with a
+lasting, superstitious dread.
+
+Indeed, a treasure trove could have reposed upon the dank floor of this
+haunted church within easy sight without fear of molestation. Weird and
+creepy tales were rife outlining amazing visitations here. It was told
+with conviction by some whose ears had heard, and whose eyes had seen,
+that on each moonlight night a screech-owl would flutter to the broken
+window of the church and call. Whereupon the red, ragged picture on the
+altar would stir and move and sit up; then gather itself into human
+semblance and stalk to the window. And old Captain Lutts' ghost would
+commune with the little feathered creature. Then the screech-owl would
+hurtle away, and the phantom would stalk back and lie down, and resolve
+itself again into that fearsome, crimson death-splotch that naught save
+fire could ever obliterate.
+
+Belle-Ann was in the lead when the three reached the door-block of the
+church. Then, with a self-conscious lack of chivalry which inspired him
+with a sudden spurt of courage, Lem stepped in front of her, where he
+stood lighting the lantern, when Buddy, who had halted at the corner of
+the building, suddenly hissed softly and motioned for them to join him.
+Bud stood pointing ominously amid the skeleton limbs of a dead sycamore
+tree. Belle-Ann laughed amusedly.
+
+"Why, Buddy," she reassured, "that's only a pretty, harmless little
+owl."
+
+"But hits a scrutch-owl," frowned the boy, shrinking away.
+
+"Oh, come on, Buddy!--I really believe you are afraid of ghosts,"
+returned Belle-Ann, taking him protectingly by the hand.
+
+Re-enforced by the girl's utter absence of fear, Lem pushed the door
+open, and stepping within led the way, lantern in hand. Upon their
+approach to the altar, the bull-bats flapped their bony wings amongst
+the rafters. There was in the fetid gloom of the place a permeating musk
+of things seemingly not of this earth. Lem hung up the lantern on the
+hook at the end of the dingy rope suspended near the pulpit. The rope,
+which great spiders had converted into a swing, now felt soft and snaky
+beneath his touch. He turned the light up as high as he could without
+smoking and faced Belle-Ann. He saw at a glance that a measure of her
+temerity had vanished.
+
+A smothered exclamation fell from Lem's lips. He pointed through the
+buff halo cast from the lantern. There against the south wall of the
+room some of the benches could be dimly discerned overturned,--others
+twisted and broken and scattered in a mass of wreckage--while one
+balanced perilously on the casement as though a hand had sought to take
+it out through the window.
+
+"Who yo' 'low done thet?" inquired Buddy in a tremulous whisper,
+clinging timorously to Belle-Ann's skirts.
+
+"I don't 'low any human bein' done hit," predicted Lem in faint
+undertones that faltered with a creeping, choking apprehension. A queer
+brain-numbing apathy settled upon them that seemed to deprive them
+suddenly of the use of their tongues and limbs.
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" discredited Belle-Ann bravely. "Some mean boys perhaps."
+
+Disbelieving, the brothers stood rigid and shook their now pale faces in
+denial. Belle-Ann did not fear ghosts, but there was undeniably some
+strange mortal influence circulating the eery atmosphere of this place
+like the proximity of some menacing presence close at hand, but unseen.
+She fought hard to repel this unknown fear that was stealing upon her,
+but, despite her valiant struggle, it was fast seizing upon her nerves
+and permeating her whole being with singular insistency.
+
+With an effort she gathered herself together.
+
+"Now hurry on, boys," she directed briskly in a voice that sounded
+unnaturally furtive and low. "Buddy, you get in here between Lem and
+I--there--that's it. Now, boys, we are going to say a little prayer for
+pap and maw, and you, Lem, remember."
+
+At a slight sound the three impulsively and unconsciously took hold of
+each other and turned blanched faces toward the window opposite the
+altar. At the same instant, a screech-owl closed his wings on the window
+casement and sat immobile, like a creature without life, while a
+slender, livid finger of moonlight crossed its speckled back and,
+continuing on, pointed specifically to the bloody cross athwart the
+altar.
+
+Little Bud faltered weakly and shook like a boy with the ague. His lips
+worked mutely and tried to whisper something, but his tongue cleft,
+paralyzed with a prickly dread that stole over him, and his teeth began
+a forbidding tattoo. He cast an appealing look at Lem; wherefore the
+mere sight of Lem's white face accentuated his own fleeting courage. The
+grim lethargy of this subtle, contagious dread had communicated its
+blight to Lem's senses with equal virulence.
+
+A pall of lethal fear deprived Belle-Ann of words and action. What with
+the awful thick dark, made pitchy beyond the buff circle of the
+flickering lantern; a fetid, curdy, musty, stifling blackness which, she
+now felt instinctively, held screened just there, some hidden horror
+reaching out to wrap its smothering terror about her.
+
+The fan-like hiss of the hybrid bats that blundered aloft, their vicious
+unearthly squeaks, stabbing the dead stillness, added to her cryptic
+dread. Upon a sudden current of vagrant air a handful of fire-flies were
+driven through one of the sundered windows, whereupon they bobbed and
+swayed about evilly against the haunting gloom of the church like
+ghastly corpse candles. Together with the unblinking stare of the
+screech-owl from the moon-touched window casement, all these menacing
+influences combined and laid hold of Belle-Ann's will like overpowering
+hands of living agencies crowding her remorselessly to the verge of
+panic.
+
+She stood rigid, listening with a natant, sickening consciousness that
+something terrible hung at her back. Then, ashamed of her exposition of
+timid indecision and fear, she valiantly strove to disguise with action
+the sudden racking shudder that compassed and rippled over her being,
+like the chill of an icy current.
+
+Belle-Ann summoned all her failing faculties and levied upon her will to
+proceed with the ceremony of the sacred mission that had led them to
+this Godless place. But she only stood fixedly, rigid and helpless,
+growing paler with each succeeding moment, and gazed blankly at Bud and
+Lem alternately. Their nerves were as yielding as jelly strings. Other
+than the silky rustle aloft, punctuated occasionally with the thin
+needle-like anathemas of the bull-bats, there was now not the slightest
+sound within to disrupt the death-hush of this place. Nevertheless, Lem
+craned his neck, edging closer to the other two, and whispered
+portentously:
+
+"Ded yo'-all heer anything?"
+
+"No," returned Belle-Ann faintly and uncertainly.
+
+Buddy could only shake his head. Then sharply and, oddly enough, in
+unison, impelled by a sudden common instinct, the trio wheeled about,
+facing the wrecked benches. What they saw in that instant congealed the
+warm flow in their veins to currents of ice and drove their very breaths
+away.
+
+Three hearts smote their ribs a single whack; then seemingly, melted
+away and sank downward and out of their bodies, leaving a trio of
+lifeless, inanimate mummies, frozen into horrified, stony attitudes. An
+awful thing hung there on the edge of the grommet of light. A blurred,
+half-naked, grisly monster sprawled on its loathsome haunches before
+them,--a thing topped with a blood-mottled, hideous head, made frightful
+by two luridly igneous, horrible eyes. Eyes girded and shot with a
+bloody film bulged fixedly up at them, glaring through the flickering
+orange light. The eyes--the eyes!
+
+Divided by the part in the middle, one half of the wiry hair stuck up,
+the dead white hue of chalk, admitting its stains of red. The other half
+bristled, an ebon black blighted with its share of gore. At once it gave
+the startling impression of separate semi-faces filched from two
+different rawheads and slapped together thus, in smeared, mismated
+makeshift, that was hideous. Had only its fearful Nemesis stayed his
+devil-genius and spared the torrid eyes,--monstrous ember eyes that
+flamed like live coals against the dark,--mad-red eyes that burned and
+sparkled and sputtered up from their dancing depths, emitting and
+vomiting over the brims, a changing luster, blended with all the fevered
+fires of hell--eyes that eroded a nauseous path with their abhorrent
+stare. The accursed thing crouched there as immobile as the owl. A limp,
+blood-oozing tongue protruded from an addled, unspeakable mouth,
+distended and heinous with jagged teeth askew. Girding the besmeared
+forehead at the hispid white and black hair line of this festering
+scourge-scathed visage, just where the scalp separated and curled apart,
+a revolting ribbon of pure skull shone,--a strip of skull drained dry
+and clear and white as polished ivory; shimmering out like the badge of
+a death-head from some grim grot of perdition.
+
+The three tried to flee from the awful, withering presence of this
+nameless thing. They tried vainly to cry out; to vent the horror that
+was upon them, depriving them of all utterance and action.
+
+They only clutched each other nervelessly and stared insanely.
+Thereupon, in an unlooked-for instant before their livid faces, this
+ghastly misshapen thing struggled to its naked feet and lurched past
+them toward the altar, with the faltering wabble of a foundered ox. Up
+across the corner of the pulpit it clambered, and, reeling too near the
+edge, tumbled off the other side and struck the floor with a heavy,
+resounding thud, where, amidst jerky groans that were not human
+enunciations, it panted and floundered and arose once more.
+
+Up again with a mighty torturous effort, the hulk mounted the platform a
+second time, and with head dangling at the end of a limp neck, crawled
+to the ragged cross, etched out with the blood of old Cap Lutts. Here it
+mumbled gutturally and labored crazily to gather up the crimson
+altar-piece into its seared, torn arms. Then again up to its feet it
+reared, and, standing thus with arms upflung, the stillness was
+shattered with frantic echoes of a broken word-spluttering, hell-twisted
+cackle, carrying a faint gleam of coherency and culminating in ravings
+that made the night hideous.
+
+"I say--I say--I say--" gathering stress, louder and louder it shrieked
+until the very air curdled with these eery cries. "I say--you there, you
+there--you God--you God--I say the law's here--the law's here--the law,
+the law, the law I say--hear me?--hiding, hiding?--no, no, no, I have
+never hidden from men--I'll not hide now from my God--I'm here now,
+God--'Thou shalt not kill--thou shalt not kill'--but I done it--I done
+this--these hands done it--see, God? They are wet with this deed--but I
+swear the law drove me to it--the law saddled a hundred offenses to my
+life--but I'm here now, God--I bring these offenses here--I done it--I
+done it--these hands done it--these two blood-stained hands--the law
+made me--I swear it--listen--you can't get me--you can't rend me--you
+starved heathens--stand back--stand back, you dungeon-dogs--stand away
+there, you ratty jail-birds--you can't get at me, ha, ha, ha!--gnaw your
+iron cuffs apart first--bite your cuffs in two--gnaw them until your
+teeth shatter, and your gums flood your felon throats--ha, ha, ha!--Oh,
+my head, my head--Christ, the world's afire--the world's burning
+up--listen--listen----!"
+
+Hereupon the screech-owl awoke to quick animation. With trembling wings
+slightly lifted, it thrust its head through the broken window-pane and
+uttered a scathing arraignment--a long-drawn, graduating, derisive
+titter that raked the ghoulish solitude of the church like
+perdition-music--a mockery medley wafted from a cortege of the doomed.
+
+As the last prickly notes dropped down and trailed like a thread of sin
+back into the owl's speckled breast, the gory raw-head blundered around
+and fixed that mawkish, ghastly hell-mask full upon the girl and two
+boys, whose feet were locked immovably to the floor with terror. Then in
+emulation, seemingly, of the owl's tittering, it belched its awful laugh
+into their faces. Such a laugh--its chilling, unhallowed screech
+launched a petrific measure of untold vocal wickedness, an awesome,
+direful gamut of echoes that gathered volume, scattered and split,
+crossed and recrossed; reverberating through the death-still atmosphere
+like the hysterical chattering of a band of stricken, tortured souls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE FLIGHT
+
+
+Human senses could not withstand such an onslaught. It startled the
+three to instant action. The tide of self-preservation ebbed back into
+their bodies; with one accord they reared their arms upward across their
+faces to ward off the shock of that accursed sound, as though its very
+effluvium scorched its scar into their flesh. There was an utterance of
+mingled gasps. There was a sudden rush of jumbled, panic-stricken
+footsteps. A tumbling, scrapping, frantic confusion. A groan--a half
+scream--a sob and the door banged.
+
+The church was empty, save for the mumbling, croaking, mad lazar.
+
+In getting out Lem had stumbled in the door and fallen heavily over his
+rifle. When he scrambled to his feet again, he beheld Belle-Ann and
+Buddy fleeing across the moonlit clearing. He started to follow, but
+checked himself and stopped short; he stood combating the superstitious
+fear that had dropped into his senses and sapped away his equanimity.
+
+"Gawd'll Moughty," he muttered audibly, "air this ole Cap Lutts' boy
+runnin' away. Not by a dern sight--I'll go back an' finish em." Then he
+hallooed lustily after Buddy.
+
+"Hey, Buddy--Buddy--Buddy--cum back heah--cum back heah, I tell yo'--cum
+back!"
+
+Buddy came back reluctantly, his thin countenance still grim with pallor
+and an inquiring look in his wild eyes.
+
+"Whut ails yo', Lem?" he panted.
+
+Lem regarded him a second with an admonishing stare, forgetful of his
+own conduct.
+
+"I'm ashamed o' yo'," he said.
+
+"Whut, Lem?"
+
+"Whut yo'-all a runnin' fo'--eh?" demanded Lem.
+
+Bud jammed one hand into his pocket, abashed, and cast a fearful glance
+toward the church door.
+
+"Don't yo' know hit's the revenoor?"
+
+"Yes, course I do, Lem--but--but they's a hant in em."
+
+"Hant er no hant, we'uns air agoin' in, an' ef he hain't daid----"
+
+"Yo' darsn't, Lem--no--no," protested Buddy in alarm. "Yo' darsn't kill
+hit, Lem--yo' darsn't kill a hant--th' witches 'll spell-tuk we'uns an'
+foller we'uns alers, alers. Slab says so--Slab knows."
+
+"Well," returned Lem, "leastways we'uns 'll go back an' see."
+
+Whereupon he strode to the church door resolutely and pushed it half
+open. Buddy still hung back undecided.
+
+"Hain't yo' ole Cap Lutts' boy?" rebuked his brother severely. "An'
+hain't that the revenuer?"
+
+"Sho'," agreed Buddy, now plainly embarrassed, and followed with
+determined alacrity. Howbeit, the same ghostly dread hung at Lem's
+elbow, but his mighty will whipped his body into subservience and he
+boldly re-entered the church, and made his way toward the lantern that
+shrouded the altar with its yellow glow. Buddy followed closely and
+tremblingly at his heels.
+
+The soft, irregular, rapid pad of bare feet met their ears, punctuated
+by a prodigious breathing that might have issued from the bellows of a
+blown horse. They caught alternate glimpses of the bestial thing, as its
+lengthy, starved shadow hove around the near corner of the altar and
+struck the far rim of light. It flitted past like a gesticulating, dying
+toad, glued to the tire of a wagon wheel. It was galloping madly in a
+circle--milling around and around and around the platform as if ridden
+and spurred by an incubus, bent on the reward of a trophy hell-cup.
+
+And each time it came round to the dark blood-picture on the floor, it
+cleared this with a mighty leap into the air, as a horse makes a wide,
+dangerous ditch. The rustling wings of the eery creatures amidst the
+rafters aloft were hushed. The lance of moonlight had faded from the
+window casement and the owl was gone. The Lutts boys halted; gripped and
+raised their rifles mechanically for a shot. Each time the tattered
+apparition flashed into the light on its desperate circuit around, their
+fingers would curve spasmodically about the triggers for the pull, but
+each time that opportune fraction of a second eluded them and the
+ghastly spectre sped onward.
+
+The astounding manner in which this careening, wavering scarehead held
+the narrow limits of its course without plunging off the stage was
+acutely awesome, and little short of a phenomenon. Every downward lunge
+was checked as if jerked by an invisible cord. Verily, it seemed to be
+held to its path by the influence of a powerful magnet. As the boys
+stood thus agap, in firing attitude, undoubtedly the subtle agency of a
+deep-seated plenipotent superstition which so thoroughly saturates the
+mountain-born had now risen up and cast its obfuscating shade between
+the quarry and their intent to kill.
+
+With mutual glances they peered at each other irresolutely. At this
+juncture, the pattering of naked feet suddenly ceased. Again they fixed
+their eyes on the pulpit and its gloomed blasphemy. It tottered on the
+brink of the platform a second; inclined perilously forward; started on
+its headlong plunge outward, then miraculously checked its descent and
+straightened. Then, backing away, it paused, stiffened and fell backward
+with the rigidity of a board.
+
+Lem and Buddy, collecting their befuddled senses, made their way
+forward. The hideous mass of bones and blood and rags now lay quite
+still on the altar. Through a short interval the two watched it for
+signs of life. Presently, Lem prodded it with his rifle. It gave way,
+yielding and inert, and now Lem took the lantern down from the hook at
+the rope's end and, advancing dubiously, he held the lantern over the
+awful spectacle and dared a look. That look sufficed. What had once been
+the revenuer lay sprawled athwart the bloody cross--dead.
+
+Outside the church door Lem halted and wiped his face absently. A look
+of deep perturbation was plainly perceptible on his countenance. A
+gulch-scented wind rode the plaintive sobs of the she-panther up from
+the darksome thicket below, and Lem harkened attentively, as though he
+had never heard these faltering, familiar notes before.
+
+"Leastways," he projected presently, "he got part o' what's due him,
+Buddy."
+
+"But he'll cum back, Lem--he will," predicted Bud stoutly. "They's a
+hant in em--he'll cum back sho'--yo' see--hants alers ac's like
+thet--then they sneaks back agin."
+
+Lem had started dejectedly across the clearing and did not appear to
+hear his brother's apprehensions.
+
+"Yo' go ahead, Buddy," advised Lem, "an' catch up with Belle-Ann--I'll
+be 'long directly."
+
+Buddy's thin, colt-like legs struck a trot, and Lem followed slowly up
+the mountain side, deeply absorbed in thought and obviously disgruntled.
+Altogether, the whole untoward events of the night had conspired to
+cheat him out of his revenge. This was the strangest night he had ever
+known, the happenings of which seemingly, derided his own reality. A
+night divided into ecstasy and torture, and above the chaos of his soul,
+the voice of Belle-Ann ever rippled with the monotone and insistency of
+running water.
+
+When finally Lem reached the cabin he found Belle-Ann huddled on the
+horse-block, her face pallid and distressed from the effects of the
+terrible, revolting scene she had witnessed in the church. Buddy sat
+beside her saying things, which she heard vaguely and to which she made
+distrait response.
+
+Lem put his rifle and the lantern down and stood before her.
+
+"I air sorry, Belle-Ann, thet yo'-all had t' see sich a sight," he said
+slowly. "He's daid."
+
+She arose quickly to her feet and looked searchingly into his face.
+
+"You--you--you didn't----"
+
+"No, Belle-Ann--I didin't kill em. We'uns went back after yo'-all left
+an' he were up on th' altar daid."
+
+"Oh--how awful--how terrible it all is! Oh, I wish it were morning--that
+I could ride away from heah! Even a day of this awful life is more than
+I can bear. Are you satisfied now, Lem?" she ended sadly.
+
+"No, I hain't," he returned hotly. "I wus cheated out'n his blood. Pap
+an' maw wanted em t' die at my hands--they ded. Belle-Ann, air yo'
+'lowin' t' go way in th' mornin' an' never cum back?" he finished, with
+a look of despair settling on his features.
+
+"I am going in the morning, Lem," she answered decisively, though a note
+of utter sorrow crept into her gentle tones. "You have had your
+opportunity. You told me Johnse Hatfteld offered you five hundred
+dollars for your interests heah. Surely you could have gone down to
+Blue-grass with my grandpa and taken Buddy and Slab along,
+and--I--I--could then--but you want to stay here and feed your soul on
+blood. Could you ask a more bitter punishment for the revenuer than what
+you saw to-night? I implore for the last time, Lem--put that evil life
+behind you, Lem. Ask God to help you, and take my heart and hand on it
+that He will not forsake you. You will come through as I did. Will you
+try, Lem?" she pleaded softly, with a toss of curls and a tender,
+compelling light in her sweet, sad eyes. "Let me lead you, Lem," she
+whispered.
+
+The boy's face paled suddenly. It was the advent of a terrible upheaval
+coming upon him. Belle-Ann saw and divined his intent.
+
+With no backward word, only a look that embraced an untold, profound
+meaning, he hurried from her, spiritless and disconsolate and
+tumultuous. Her eyes followed him, enthralled. She knew where he was
+bound! She prayed devoutly that the web, traced by destiny, wrapping
+their two lives into a unit, would not now, at this crisis, burst its
+ligatures asunder. She prayed with all the fervent strength of her young
+heart that Lem would come down from Eagle Crown and take her in his
+arms,--take her willing life to him irrevocably, with a new precept
+written in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+HIS ROCK OF AGES
+
+
+But as Lem climbed upward, a withering despair mounted abreast with him,
+like the shadow cast by evil. By the time he had reached the giddy apex
+of the cliff, he was staggering amidst the chaos of a battle with
+himself that was slowly outdoing his soul.
+
+His mind had come, miraculously, to nurture the holy dogma that
+Belle-Ann had brought back to him. He could see its wonderful sequence
+plain in Belle-Ann's beautiful face. In her angelic violet eyes he
+beheld its wholesome, serene pictures. He could hear it, vocal, in the
+anthem-music of her soft, new speech. Her very sweet, divine presence
+irradiated its palpable truths. All that was good in him was calling out
+for her.
+
+But in the under-tide of some indefinable, contending, compelling
+element he was drifting apart. While his mind opened its portals to all
+the logic so earnestly tendered and tutored by Belle-Ann, his
+back-standing, immutable mountain heart fought it off like a
+destroyer,--repelled its invasion with a titanic force that his willing
+energies could not subjugate. The tentacles of his father's creed
+promptly admonished and enmeshed his rebellious heart, protecting its
+odium, cleaving to its tenancy of "eye for an eye and tooth for a
+tooth." Which adjuration only lent impetus to an endless cycle of strife
+and distress, rolling his feverish soul back amidst bones that curse the
+dead years--that warp the souls of men, and bow down hearts that God
+made to beat through life upstanding, radiant with harmony and hope and
+buoyancy.
+
+In the growing vortex of this tumult of mind and heart, Lem stood like
+one distraught, circling the limits of the table rock, caged by empty
+space,--scarce knowing that his feet lifted, oblivious to his
+whereabouts. Through this seething, tangled skein, his thoughts seeped
+for an instant and fled backward. He viewed the past. He saw only two
+sodden graves side by side. His beset pilgrim mind then turned toward
+the future, and groped out into the years to come in a vain quest for
+succor and some element of honest hope.
+
+The boy's thoughts rushed back upon him with a picture that forbade
+contemplation--a barren, dismal prospect--a measure of life that did not
+embrace Belle-Ann. He would choose death, he told himself, rather than
+gain and mislead her. Even had he sought to, he knew he could not
+withstand his own lie to her. She whose limpid, steadfast, child-eyes
+could read every line that crossed his soul--every thought that passed
+his eyes. He knew a lie would sheathe itself in its own being.
+
+In his extremity, he stalked madly about the confines of this
+moon-touched mount. His perturbation waxed to a volcanic upheaval that
+now inflicted a physical pain. To him it was as if these two conflicting
+forces had confiscated his corporal structure for a ravaging melee,
+augmented by two combative rivals struggling in his own heart. His mad
+love for Belle-Ann--his blind adherence and faith in the code-honor of
+his hillman lineage. That there was something amiss in this faith his
+mind could not deny but, oddly enough, his heart hotly rejected it all,
+stirring him to mad, reckless action. Belle-Ann filled up the whole of
+Lem's wild, humble life. Without her the future held no hope. Without
+hope he wanted to die. His vain effort to dislodge the scourge within
+his soul, goaded him to maniacal thoughts.
+
+Then, in an unlooked-for instant, an awful wrong shaped itself to a
+determination. He would hurl his tortured self over the cliff. He told
+himself that he was not fearful of the fall. In proof thereof, he rushed
+to the jagged brink of the ledge and looked down into hazy moonlit space
+and was unafraid.
+
+With a desperate movement he snatched his hat off and cast it down at
+his feet. His toes inched over the abyss in his aberration. He gathered
+a long breath. His knees bent to the leap. His heels raised slowly under
+him; when in this instant a memory dashed upon him, and he straightened
+and stiffened, electrified.
+
+The thought of Caleb Peevy rived into his muddled, benumbed mind. Caleb
+Peevy, who had jumped wilfully off Henhawk's Knob into Hellsfork three
+years since, and had gone to hell, so they said. A check of repugnance
+swept him as he recalled the lasting scorn and contempt of the mountain
+folk, and the epithet of coward--coward that followed Peevy past the
+grave with its two-edged stigma that linked, inseparably, to his memory
+to-night.
+
+Lem drew back, stung with self-shame. A hope drifted back into his
+distraught breast. He looked upward into the astral sky for God's
+guiding star that Maw Lutts had shown to him. All a-quiver, he watched
+for the flambeau of Belle-Ann's pious prophecy: "Know ye the truth and
+the truth shall make ye free!" A divine revelation ebbed across his
+chaotic senses.
+
+With a sudden replenished faith he looked to God, as he recalled the
+despised, loathsome dead man now lying on the altar of the
+church--asleep now, across the crimson picture that his, now dead, hand
+had shaped with the blood of Lem's father. Surely none but God's hand
+had wrought this retribution. Verily, this Omnipotent Being would not
+forsake him now?
+
+He was now sensible to the God-sent monitor that had saved him from
+McGill. He was sensible to the Providential agency that saved him from
+the Judas, Orlick.
+
+With praises, he remembered Belle-Ann's escape from this vampire. Surely
+this self-same God would not deny him now. Lem did not mumble
+disjointedly now. He did not whisper incoherent, aimless pleas.
+
+Now, from the crest of the world, his aching breast heaving, and his
+erring feet firm upon his ancestral Rock of Ages, he lifted his face up
+to the trembling stars, as with outstretched, pleading arms he cried out
+vociferously to God for Him to come to him--called out, in ringing,
+fulsome words that carried afar, for Him to hasten, lest he perish in
+the conflict that made blind agony within him.
+
+And ere his wet, quivering lips had closed, and while still his eyes
+were upward, and his two arms imploring Heaven, the two forces that had,
+like live combatants, met midway of his soul for supremacy, did
+separate.
+
+The white purity of Righteousness had come into his evil heart, and the
+blackness dropped away and out of his life! And all the old poisonous
+venom, festering soul sores and gnawing misery ebbed out of the boy's
+being and left it receptive to the influx of harmony and heart-peace
+that he saw in Belle-Ann and which he so ardently craved.
+
+Panting like a spent man at the end of a long run, Lem now fell down on
+his knees in his copious gratitude.
+
+On his knees, his head on his arm, in a divine lethargy, he rested. With
+prayerful, oft-said words he pondered vaguely upon this miracle. So
+engrossed in his felicitude and deep thanksgiving was he that he did not
+see the gruesome spectacle at his back.
+
+Belle-Ann sat upon the witch-elm block and strained her eager eyes
+upward. Aloft there on Eagle Crown she could see Lem against the
+moon-laved night. Now she could discern his figure full--now his upper
+half. Again his head only would make a blot. Moving--always moving. She
+divined the terrible struggle going on in his breast, in his will to
+renounce the hurtful creed that heredity had written in his blood, and
+she realized that the conflict was all for her own sake. She measured
+the boy's love and honor with ample adoration. He would not come to her
+with a lie on his lips to disguise the heritage of murder coiled in his
+heart.
+
+As Belle-Ann waited and watched tensely, a pulsing anxiety swept her
+heart, like recurring waves gale-driven. Suddenly she leaped with a
+bound from the witch-elm block, her eyes full of a startling picture.
+The moon on the descent had caught Eagle Crown rock in its mystic grip,
+holding it out like a mighty bauble adorning the breast of the mountain.
+
+Lem's full figure, framed within the moon's disk, was etched in magical
+proportions, like the portrayal of a powerful night glass.
+
+Enraptured, she looked and saw Lem on the brink of the cliff, seemingly
+so near that she instinctively stretched out a hand to attract him. As
+she looked she saw him stretch his two arms outward and upward, and she
+understood their pantomimic plea.
+
+The next instant the sound of his voice, faintly audible, reached her
+ear. She heard his inarticulate utterance, as with a fervent cry he
+called out to God, from his dire distraught heart.
+
+Belle-Ann's white bosom heaved and caught a sob of salient joy as she
+darted up the trail toward Eagle Crown. She would fly to his side now.
+Lem needed her now. He needed her, who was a part of his life, there to
+succor him in this the blackest bereft hour of his existence. She knew
+that God had heard his abandoned supplications. She knew that God was
+reaching down to him a staff of righteous strength. She would hurry to
+his side, with the re-enforcement of her own great love while God was
+there helping him.
+
+Belle-Ann darted to the rock-runged ladder that led the jagged, perilous
+way up to Eagle Crown. She climbed and climbed and climbed. Many times
+did she pause for breath. Then she climbed again and turned and twisted
+and clung on and pulled herself upward, always upward, insensible to
+fatigue. At last her eyes reached the level of the great jutting boulder
+and her gaze fell off into moonlit space. She drew her lithe self up
+and, half turning, beheld Lem's recumbent form bowed down beside a dun
+indenture in the table rock. He was unconscious of her presence. There
+was pathos in his crouching, still form.
+
+There was dazed, mute ecstasy in the dark violet of Belle-Ann's eyes
+which never lifted from this penitent figure. She stood, to still her
+pounding heart, and waited for him to feel her nearness, or turn his
+face to her. The satin lustre of her curls was moist and her bosom
+lifted, palpitating with the advent of the new, great joyous thing that
+stood upon the threshold of her life to enter and spread its felicity
+and untold bliss.
+
+All oblivious, Lem was kneeling amidst this new-found grace, and the
+quiet of a peace that cometh only to the righteous. Belle-Ann had
+suffered its pangs. She had reaped its peace. She knew the pathology of
+the pestilent revenge-sore that blights the lives of men. And she
+experienced all that Lem felt.
+
+With her eyes still upon him, Belle-Ann took one quick, short step
+forward. She spoke his name, low and soft and vibrant with adoration.
+
+As though he expected her, he looked up, smiling and tranquil, and his
+every radiant feature told of the triumph that compassed his renovated
+soul, purged now and wholly clean of its vindictive lust.
+
+His apostasy was full and complete. He rose up strong now and bigger and
+taller than she had noted an hour since. And there was plain in his face
+at that instant a certain nobility and greatness.
+
+He stretched his eager, long arms out to her.
+
+"I'll let yo' lead me,--I'll let yo' lead me now, Belle-Ann!" he cried
+out, his happy eyes aglow with emotion and untold, deathless love.
+
+She tossed the curls back from her lovely be-dimpled features, all
+aflush now. With a finger upon her bowed lips she answered:
+
+"Kiss me heah--Lem," and walked into his waiting arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+IN WHICH PROVIDENCE TAKES A HAND
+
+
+He crushed her to him with a passion that bade fair to stop her breath.
+He poured out his kisses upon her lips, and face, and eyes. He kissed
+the little scar that crossed the part in her hair. And there he held her
+for long, lingering minutes, loath to untwine his arms. Her hot breath
+was on his neck, and he surfeited his senses upon the incense of her
+curls.
+
+"We'll all go down to Blue-Grass together now, won't we, Lem?" she said.
+
+"Sho'--I'm done a warrin' now--I'm done fo' always--an', Belle-Ann, my
+darlin'--I want t' git a edication like yo'-all--eh?--I want t' make
+myself fittin' fo' yo'. I sho' will do hit, with Gawd's help--an'
+yore'n. I aimed to ax yo' again to marry me pint-blank--but I don't want
+yo' to jest now--'til I'm fittin'--I air a goin' to study th' books by
+day an' by night--I know I kin learn--I'll do hit er bust--then when
+yore sure I'm fittin'--an' kin talk nice like yo'--an' look
+decent-like--then--then----"
+
+He drew her to him and buried his face in her curls.
+
+"Little Belle-Ann," he muttered, his joy crowding his words, "little
+gal, whut I knowed would come back----"
+
+"Did I not cross my heart, Lem?" she said, and as her lips parted to
+tell to him all that lay in her heart for the future, a swift, blighting
+look of horror dashed into the girl's face, leaving it whiter than
+moon-pallor. A half-screamed, incoherent outcry burst from her lips as
+with outstretched arm she pointed behind him. Responding instantly to
+her alarm, Lem flung himself around.
+
+Together, transfixed and agape, they stared. A startling sight stood in
+front of their eyes--a spectacle that filled the sensitive girl with a
+panting, sickening horror. She stood all a-quiver, her two little hands
+clutching her breast and her violet eyes swimming in terror. For a tense
+long minute they could neither speak nor move.
+
+Then Belle-Ann's one hand shot out and grasped Lem's sleeve imploringly.
+
+"Oh, Lem--Lem!" she cried, "can't we get it out--oh! can't we hurry and
+take it out, Lem?" but even as she talked she knew the hopelessness of
+the intent in her mind.
+
+"I 'low hits too late now, Belle-Ann," returned he, in tones a trifle
+unsteady. "Hit air God's buryin' now," he added, with no trace of venom
+in his tones.
+
+[Illustration: "Hit air God's buryin' now."]
+
+"Oh!--Lem, it's too awful--too terrible to watch and think about,"
+pursued Belle-Ann in half whispers broken with emotion. She dropped her
+lids and placed her hands over her eyes.
+
+The night wind carried an ominous groan. A dully grinding, crepitating
+sound came up to the lofty heights of Eagle Crown.
+
+Even now there was a tremendous gutting upheaval below them; then with a
+dynamitic cough of concussion the entire roof of the church belched
+upward and fell in and a wide black flight of smoke hurried up to the
+high heavens and blotted the scintillant stars. Then a measureless,
+flanged blanket of blood-hued flame followed, propelling still higher
+the ebon clouds above it.
+
+Here the flame turned to orange and split, and dropped back into a
+seething pit, where it gathered another and greater force. Then a
+lance-like turret of pure fire spurted straight upward, struggling and
+twisting and stabbing its lurid path through the pitchy volumes of smoke
+that rolled and plunged and tumbled infernally; filching with edacious
+swirls, great amber flakes of tinder, delivering them up in spiral gusts
+to the whining wilderness wind, which in turn hurtled its meteoric
+salvage, red and alive, out over the rampant waters of Hellsfork.
+
+The clearing was transformed into an oscillating arena of lurid light
+that eclipsed the stars and drove the moon pallid. The front wall
+supporting the belfry was last to go. Its superstructure half devoured,
+the belfry itself clung on fearfully askew, like a man skidded from a
+high cliff, hanging by a single root awaiting his strength to ebb. The
+pitiless flames duelled, raged and fought ferociously over their prey of
+fire-bitten logs that strove vainly to rise, only to be stricken, again
+to fall back, casting groans to the spectral night. They turned and
+stirred and crawled in agony, like the maimed half dead.
+
+Suddenly the sheet of flame scathing the front wall fell back again for
+another assault and, taking it thrice with blasting, mighty tongues,
+took the key-log to the belfry for its own. And as it went the belfry
+trembled and quaked on the threshold of its doom. For a minute it hung
+there like a mortal thing, having eyes to see down into the white-hot
+pit--fearing something there that this grim-hell clasped to its red
+breast, vauntingly and gloatingly. Something more scathing, more
+horrifying, more contaminating than the mere scourge of molten
+annihilation.
+
+The fire gnawed its trembling support away, and the belfry staggered,
+tottered and succumbed.
+
+As it hurtled headlong downward, the bell shrieked out across the
+night,--a throttled, frenzied medley of fear-stricken mad utterances,
+and tumbled over and over, and went screaming into the ghost-man's
+casket of destruction. And roundabout them fluted leaves of flame grew.
+And the fire made flowers that covered them over.
+
+Incessantly the lurid lustre of the embers died down, only to leap
+pulsing up anew, like the rhyming flush of heat lightning playing behind
+pearly clouds. As the dull red flung its cycle outward from the
+vermilion pyre of the doomed church, it caught in bold, startling
+relief, the mask of a human visage. The russet of the dancing, dying
+flames touched this pale, marcid face with a florid, sanguine flush.
+Only his peaked, lupine features were visible against the purple green
+of the laurel. He was there in the beginning, and he meant to stay there
+to the end. He meant to keep his adder-like eyes charm-fixed and unmoved
+upon this death pile, until its face was gray and cold. He meant to see
+that no treacherous, human skeleton pushed up out of the yielding ashes
+and stalked abroad. There was reverence and infinite tenderness in his
+fondling of the rifle Buddy now hugged in his lap.
+
+His dead father's gun. His heritage that naught would part, until the
+epoch, that came to still his little hardened heart, stepped between
+them. As the fire smouldered, thus did the boy's eyes smoulder, while he
+watched audaciously and fixedly; for deep down in his warped, puerile
+soul the curtained joy of revenge was a-sputter. Now his weazened
+countenance broke with a satanic grin, ill to behold, the while he
+mumbled things to himself.
+
+"I 'low th' ol' Scratch ez a pickin' em, an' a spearin' em, an' a
+humpin' em 'roun' down below 'bout now--leastways I'll see his bones
+burn up, I will," he muttered in sibilant, soul-deep glee.
+
+Like a luscious, esculent morsel he rolled the words over and over. The
+sound of these disjointed phrases spelled happiness to his soul.
+
+"I'll see his bones burn--he cyan't cum back ef I burn his bones all
+up--th' ol' Scratch'll have t' keep em, ef I burn his bones up--he'll
+have t' keep em." The jungled hills, a-hush, were ominously empty of
+night voices.
+
+And all the soft-footed creatures of the wild crouched fear-crazed in
+their lairs, and peered tremblingly out at this fire-swept, fearful
+night. A furtive, fleeing wind, ocean-bound, whipped the slatternly dawn
+clouds away from the wan face of a vigilant moon. Its haggard visage
+looked pityingly down upon a boy-heart clasping a rifle to his breast
+like a brother, his dream-dizzied head, pillowed upon the soughing bosom
+of a wilderness world--fast asleep.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+    GOLIATH'S BRIDE
+    THE APOSTLE ON HELLSFORK
+    A GHOST'S VENGEANCE
+    THE REDEMPTION OF ZACK McCOY
+    MR. HARTEM'S SPECULATION
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED DEBT***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 36047.txt or 36047.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/0/4/36047
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/36047.zip b/36047.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c62bde4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36047.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2c42160
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #36047 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36047)