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CHAPTER II

The afternoon was half spent and the sun, making its way toward the purpled ridges of the west, was already casting long shadows athwart the valleys. Along a trail which wound itself in many tortuous twists across forested heights and dipped down to lose itself at intervals in the creek bed of Little Slippery, a mounted traveler rode at a snail-like pace. The horse was a lean brute through whose rusty coat the ribs showed in under-nourished prominence, but it went sure-footedly up and down broken stairways of slimy ledges where tiny waterfalls licked at its fetlocks and along the brinks of chasms where the sand shelved with treacherous looseness.

The rider, a man weather-rusted to a drab monotone, slouched in his saddle with an apathetic droop which was almost stupor, permitting his reins to flap loosely. His face, under an unclean bristle of beard, wore a sleepy sneer and his eyes were bloodshot from white whiskey.

As he rode, unseeing, through the magnificent beauty of the Cumberlands his glance was sluggish and his face emotionless. But at last the horse halted where a spring came with a crystal gush out of the rhododendron thickets, and then Ratler Webb's stupefaction yielded to a semi-wakefulness of interest. He rubbed a shoddy coat-sleeve across his eyes and straightened his stooped shoulders. The old horse had thrust his nose thirstily into the basin with evident eagerness to drink. Yet, after splashing his muzzle about for a moment he refused refreshment and jerked his head up with a snort of disgust. A leering smile parted the man's lips over his yellow and uneven teeth:

"So ye won't partake of hit, old Bag-o'-bones, won't ye?" he inquired ironically. "Ye hain't nobody's brag critter to look at, but I reckon some revenue fellers mought be willin' to pay a master price fer ye. Ye kin stand at ther mouth of a spring-branch an' smell a still-house cl'ar up on hits headwaters, kain't ye?"

For a while Webb suffered the tired horse to stand panting in the creek bed, while his own eyes, lit now with a crafty livening, traveled up the hillside impenetrably masked with verdure, where all was silence. Somewhere up along the watercourse was the mash-vat and coil which had contaminated this basin for his mount's brute fastidiousness: an illicit distillery. This man clad in rusty store clothes was not inspired with a crusading ardor for supporting the law. He lived among men whose community opinion condones certain offenses – and pillories the tale-bearer. But above the ethical bearing of local standards and Federal Statutes, alike, loomed a matter of personal hatred, which powerfully stimulated his curiosity. He raised one hand and thoughtfully stroked his nose – recently broken with workman-like thoroughness and reset with amateurish imperfection.

"Damn thet Bear Cat Stacy," he muttered, as he kicked his weary mount into jogging motion. "I reckon I'll hev my chance at him yit. I'm jest a-waitin' fer hit."

A half-mile further on, he suddenly drew rein and remained in an attitude of alert listening. Then slipping quietly to the ground, he hitched his horse in the concealment of a deep gulch and melted out of sight into the thicket. Soon he sat crouched on his heels, invisible in the tangled laurel. His place of vantage overlooked a foot-path so little traveled as to be hardly discernible, but shortly a figure came into view around a hulking head of rock, and Ratler Webb's smile broadened to a grin of satisfaction. The figure was tall and spare and it stooped as it plodded up the ascent under the weight of a heavy sack upon its shoulders. The observer did not move or make a sound until the other man had been for several minutes out of sight. He was engaged in reflection.

"So, thet's how ther land lays," he ruminated. "Bear Cat Stacy's totin' thet gryste over to Bud Jason's tub-mill on Little Ivy despite ther fact thet thar's numerous bigger mills nigher to his house. Thet sack's full of sprouted corn, and he dasn't turn it in at no reg'lar mill. Them Stacys air jest about blockadin' up thet spring-branch."

He spat at a toad which blinked beadily up at him and then, rising from his cramped posture, he commented, "I hain't plumb dead sartin yet, but I aims ter be afore sun-up ter-morrer."

Bear Cat Stacy might have crossed the ridge that afternoon by a less devious route than the one he followed. In so doing he would have saved much weariness of leg and ache of burdened shoulder, but Ratler Webb's summing up had been correct, and though honest corn may follow the highways, sprouted grain must go by blinder trails.

When he reached the backbone of the heights, he eased the jute sack from his shoulders to the ground and stretched the cramp out of his arms. Sweat dripped from his face and streamed down the brown throat where his coarse shirt stood open. He had carried a dead weight of seventy pounds across a mountain, and must carry back another as heavy.

Now he wiped his forehead with his shirt-sleeve and stood looking away with a sudden distraction of dreaminess. A few more steps would take him again into the steamy swelter of woods where no breath of breeze stirred the still leafage, and even in the open spaces the afternoon was torridly hot. But here he could sweep with his eyes league upon league of a vast panorama where sky and peak mingled in a glory of purple haze. Unaccountably the whole beauty of it smote him with a sense of undefined appreciation and grateful wonderment. The cramp of heart was eased and the groping voices of imagination seemed for the time no longer tortured nightmares of complaint.

There was no one here to censor his fantasies and out of the gray eyes went their veiling sullenness and out of the lips their taut grimness. Into eyes and lips alike came something else – something touched with the zealousness of aspiration.

"Hit's right over thar!" he murmured aloud but in a voice low pitched and caressing of tone. "I've got ter get me money enough ter buy thet farm offen Kinnard Towers."

He was looking down upon a point far below him where through a cleared space flashed the shimmer of flowing water, and where in a small pocket of acreage, the bottom ground rolled in gracious amenability to the plow and harrow.

Again he nodded, and since he was quite alone he laughed aloud.

"She 'lows thet's ther place whar she wants ter live at," he added to himself, "an' I aims ter satisfy her."

So after all some of his day-dreams were tangible!

He realized that he ought to be going on, yet he lingered and after a few moments he spoke again, confiding his secrets to the open woods and the arching skies – his only confidants.

"Blossom 'lowed yestiddy she was a-goin' over ter Aunt Jane Colby's this mornin'. 'Pears like she ought ter be passin' back by hyar about this time."

Cupping his hands at his lips, he sent out a long whoop, but before he did that he took the precaution of concealing his sack of sprouted grain under a ledge. Then he bent listening for an answer – but without reward, and disappointment mantled in his gray eyes as he dropped to the age-corroded rock and sat with his hands clasped about his updrawn knees.

It was very still there, except for the industrious hammering of a "peckerwood" on a decayed tree trunk, and the young mountaineer sat almost as motionless as his pedestal.

Then without warning a lilting peal of laughter sounded at his back and Turner came to his feet. As he wheeled he saw Blossom Fulkerson standing there above him and her eyes were dancing with the mischievous delight of having stalked him undiscovered.

"It's a right happy thing fer you, Turner Stacy, that I didn't aim ter kill ye," she informed him with mock solemnity. "I've heered ye brag thet no feller hereabouts could slip up on ye in the woods, unbeknownst."

"I wasn't studyin' erbout nobody slippin' up on me. Blossom," he answered calmly. "I hain't got no cause ter be a-hidin' out from nobody."

She was standing with the waxen green of the laurel breaking into pink flower-foam at her back and through the oak and poplar branches showed scraps of blue sky – the blue of June.

A catch came into Turner's voice and he said somewhat huskily, "When they christened ye Blossom they didn't misname ye none."

Blossom, he thought, was like a wild-rose growing among sun-flowers. When the evening star came up luminous and dewy-fresh over the darkening peaks, while twilight still lingered at the edges of the world, he always thought of her.

But the charm was not all in his own eye: not all the magic endowment of first love. The mountain preacher's daughter had escaped those slovenly habits of backwoods life that inevitably coarsen. Her beauty had slender strength and flower freshness.

Now she stood holding with one hand to the gnarled branch of a dogwood sapling. A blue sunbonnet falling back from her head left the abundance of her hair bared to the light so that it shimmered between brown and gold.

She was perhaps sixteen and her heavily lashed eyes were brownish amber and just now full of a mirthful sparkle.

"Ye seemed ter be studyin' about somethin' almighty hard," she insisted teasingly. "I thought for a minute that mebbe ye'd done growed thar."

Turner Stacy smiled again as he looked at her. In his eyes was unveiled and honest worship.

"I was a'studyin' about you, Blossom. I don't know no way ter do that save almighty hard. Didn't ye hear me whoop?"

The girl's head nodded.

"Why didn't ye answer me?"

"I aimed ter slip up on ye, if I could, Turner, but I didn't low it would be so plumb easy. – You made believe that yore ears could hear the grass a-growin'."

The youth took a sudden step toward her and stood close, so close that her breath touched his face fragrantly as she looked up with a witching mockery in her eyes. His heart fluttered with the clamor of impulse to seize her in his arms, but his half-lifted hands dropped to his sides.

He was not quite twenty-one and she was only sixteen, and the code of the mountains is strict with the simplicity of the pioneer. A woman gives her lips in betrothal or, giving them lightly, drops to the caste of a light woman.

So the boy drew back with a resolute jerk of his head.

"I was a-studyin' erbout some day, Blossom," he said, "when thar's a-goin' ter be a dwellin'-house down thar. Not a house of warped timbers whar the hawgs scratch their backs under the floors – but a real house. Mebby by thet day an' time thar'll be a highway men kin travel without torment." As he paused, at a loss for power of architectural enlargement, the girl sighed.

"Then I reckon ye don't hardly 'low ter raise thet house in my lifetime, Turner," she teased. "I'll most likely be too old ter visit ye thar afore a highway gits built."

But he shook his head. "I aims ter speed up ther comin' of sich things," he announced with the splendid effrontery of youth. "Hit hain't been so long since ther fust wagon crossed Cedar Mountain. We're liable to see balloons comin' afore we die."

"Aunt Jane Colby was tellin' me about that first wagon to-day at dinner," Blossom assented. "She says one old man asked folks whether it was true or whether he was fitified. He said: 'What manner of contrivance air thet? Hit's got four wheels an' one pair's bigger then t'other pair, an' two of 'em goes round faster then t'other two an' the Lord A'mighty only knows how hit manages ter keep up with hitself.'"

They both laughed with young condescension for the old-fashioned and then Turner went on, haltingly by reason of callow diffidence.

"Ef thet house couldn't be reared in time fer you ter come to hit, Blossom – hit wouldn't be no manner of use ter me a-tall."

"Does ye aim ter make me a present of a house?" she challenged and again the provocative allurement of her swept him so that the smooth sinews of his arms tightened as if with physical effort.

"I means thet someday – when I've done something worth doin' an' when ye're a leetle bit older yoreself, Blossom, you're agoin' ter marry me, an' we're goin' ter dwell thar – together."

The girl's cheeks reddened furiously and for a moment she made no response, then she declared with a stout self-assertion designed to mask her confusion, "I reckon I'll hev somethin' ter say about thet."

"Ye'll have everything ter say about hit, Blossom, but" – there was a purposeful ring in his voice that hinted at ultimate victory – "but some day I aims ter persuade ye ter say, 'yes.'"

Her cheeks were brightly pink and she pretended to be engrossed in the demeanor of a squirrel that chattered quarrelsomely at them from a nearby poplar. Turner Stacy dropped his voice until it was very soft.

"I kin bide my time an' wait twell ye're ready, Blossom, but if ye don't never say hit, I don't hardly see how I kin go on livin'."

"I'm right glad ef ye likes me, Turner," she demurely assured him. "We've growed up together an' ef ye was to go away somewhar's an' leave me, I reckon I'd nigh die of lonesomeness."

Distrust of effusiveness was bred in his bone. Laconic utterance was his heritage, and now that his heart demanded expression and his eyes kindled with the dreamer's fire, he stood struggling against the fettering of his tongue. Then abruptly, tumultuously he burst out, talking fast.

"I hain't got ther gift of speech, Blossom; I only knows thet hit hain't enough ter jest have ye miss me ef I went away. I knows thet when ye stands thar with ther sun on yore hair hit would be springtime fer me, even ef thar war snow on ther hillsides an' ice in ther creek. I knows thet I'm standin' hyar on solid rock. Yore paw says these-hyar hills were old when ther Alps hadn't riz up yit outen ther waters, but when I looks at ye, Blossom, this mountain's shakin' under me … an' yore face is ther only thing thet's steady afore my eyes."

He broke off with something like a choke in his throat and Blossom was trembling a little under that first impact of new emotion that comes with the waking of the senses. Then she remembered the stories of his escapades and her eyes clouded. Her hand fell flutteringly on his arm.

"If – if ye cares thet much about me, Turner, I wish – I don't aim ter nag ye – but I wish ye'd promise me thet ye won't give men cause ter say ye drinks too much."

Turner's brow contracted and his lips stiffened. The defensive mask which seemed sullen because it was his idea of impassiveness set itself again, but he nodded.

"Thet's a fair thing," he said slowly at last. "Drinkin' hain't hardly a thing a gal kin understand noways. I hain't jest a common drunkard, Blossom. Thar's times though when I feels es ef I war a-livin' in a jail-house – an' seekin' ter git free. Thar's su'thin' in me – I don't know jest what – thet's always fightin'. These hyar hills with their ign'rance an' dirt an' poverty seems ter be on top of me 'stid of underneath me. Thet's when I drinks too much. Fer a little spell I seems ter dream I'm free."

A few minutes later the girl started down the "yon" side of the wooded slope, going with a light step and humming a ballade that had come across the sea with the beginnings of America, and the boy looked after her with a passionate tenderness that was far from stoical.

If most of his dreams were intangible and misty, this, his greatest and brightest dream, was at least clear and vivid.

When he could no longer see the flash of her blue dress between the interlacing branches he turned, and drawing his sack of sprouted corn out of its hiding place, hefted it to his shoulders. He would have to hurry now to finish his task and get back by dusk.

CHAPTER III

Old man Bud Jason stood at the door of his tub-mill, leaning on the long hickory staff which he always carried. He stood gauntly tall even now that his once-broad shoulders sagged and his mane of hair was white, and from his lips came a querulous mumbling as though he were awaiting some one tardy of arrival. At last, though, he gave a grunt of relief when the thicket far above him stirred and the figure of Bear Cat Stacy appeared, bending under his load of grist.

He turned then into the shack and drew out a sack of meal from the bottom of a pile, and as he finished this task a shadow fell across the door. Turner Stacy let his burden fall and availed himself of the opportunity to drop into a sitting posture on the step of the shanty, resting his back against a post. His broad chest heaved and a profound sigh of relief broke from his panting lips. The old miller stood regarding him for a little while without words, then broke into volcanic utterance:

"Hell's banjer! May God Almighty holp a country whar a young pa'r of shoulders like your'n don't find no worthier use than man-powerin' good corn acrost ther ridges ter turn hit inter bad licker."

Turner Stacy glanced up with mild surprise for the sentiment.

"I hain't nuver heered ye cavil with a man's license ter use his own corn as he sees fit, afore, Bud," was his casual reply, and the white-bearded one wagged his head and laughed tremulously after the fashion of the old.

"I reckon ye don't mistrust me none, Bear Cat, even ef I does hit now, but here of late I've cogitated a heap whilst I've been a-settin' hyar listenin' ter ther creak of that old mill. Seems almost like ther wheel was a-lamentin' over hits job. Thar bein' sich a sight of wickedness in ther community whar my grand-children hes got ter be reared up is a powerful solemn thing fer me ter study over, an' I've jes erbout concluded thet whilst ther whiskey-makin' goes on ther killin's an gin'ral wickedness won't hardly diminish none."

Furrows of dubious thought etched themselves on the young man's forehead.

"Ef ye feels thet-a-way, Bud, why does yer consent ter grind corn fer blockaders?" he demanded, and the reply was prompt:

"I don't grind hit only fer a few men thet I'm beholden to." Pausing a moment, he became more specific. "Yore paw stood over my body onct when I'd done been shot outen my saddle, an' fought off numerous enemies single-handed, thereby savin' me from death in ther creekbed. I couldn't hardly deny him ther use of my mill even ef his corn hes got sprouts in ther grain two inches long, now, could I?"

The boy looked abstractedly away, then suddenly blurted out: "I disgusts blockadin', too, Bud, but pap 'lows hit's ther only way ter mek a livin' hyarabouts."

"Lots of folks argues hit out in like fashion, but I don't hold with 'em." The speaker rapped the boards with his long staff and spoke with conviction. "What these mountings needs air a mite of l'arnin' an' a leetle common sense an' a heap of good roads. Ef prosperity ever comes ter these hills, sonny, hit'll come along a highway – an' so long as stills don't thrive none along highways, hit looks mightily like a sorry chance." After a thoughtful pause he added, "Hit won't never change, so long es hits only furriners thet aims ter alter hit. Revenuers kain't do nothin'. Damn thar skunk hides anyhow! They're our mortal enemies." The old man drew himself up as if he were seeing a vision and his eyes held an almost fanatical gleam. "But mark down my words! Some day thar'll rise up a mountain man – a man thet hain't never met up with fear an thet's as steadfast as ther hills he sprung from. Thet man will change hit all, like ther sun changes fog. I wisht I mout live ter see thet day."

"Hit'll tek a powerful towerin' man ter bring sich things ter pass," mused the listener and the oracle declared vehemently:

"Hit teks a powerful towerin' man ter lead any fight ter victory, whether hit's a-guidin' ther Children of Israel outen thar bondage or our benighted children outen thars."

Suddenly the miller laid a trembling hand on the boy's arm and demanded in a hushed voice: "Why shouldn't hit be you, Bear Cat? Folks says ye bears a charmed life, thet thar hain't enough lead in ther mountings ter kill ye. I heered Kinnard Towers say with my own ears, thet hit war a God's blessin' ther feud ended afore ye got yore growth – an' Kinnard don't fear many. When a man thet's hardly nothin' but a saplin' of a boy bears a repute like thet – hit must denote thet thar's power in him beyond ther common!"

The boy stood silent for a moment and slowly his brow drew into a black scowl.

"I reckon, Bud, one reason air this," he said bitterly, "thet I'm accounted ter be a drunkard my own self an' like as not, one sich reason es thet air plenty."

Turner glanced up to the bristling ridge which he must climb. Already the west was kindling into a flare of richness and the skyline hills were dyed with ashy purple.

"I've done over-tarried," he said abruptly, as he lifted his sack from the floor, but his face wore a glow which was not altogether from the sinking sun. "I reckon I'd better be on my way – but I hain't denyin' thet I've done hed thoughts like your'n myself, Bud."

But young Stacy had not gone far when that sense of intensified woodcraft which Blossom had derided caused him to halt dead in his tracks.

The sound that had first arrested him had been nothing more than a laugh, but, in it, he had recognized a quality that bespoke derisive hostility and a thickness that indicated drink.

He had left the place empty except for Old Bud Jason and no one could have reached it, unannounced by normal sounds, so soon unless the approach had been achieved by stealth.

Bear Cat Stacy put down his sack and worked his way back, holding the concealment of rock and laurel; guarding each footfall against the betrayal of a broken twig – and, as yet, denied a view of the tub-mill. But his cars were open and doing duty for his eyes.

"Wa'al," came the miller's voice in a wrathful tremolo, "what business brings ye hyar es ef ye war aimin' ter lay-way somebody? Folks gin'rally comes hither upstandin' – an' open."

This time the voice of the new arrival was sneeringly truculent:

"Does they come thet-a-way when they fotches in sprouted corn thet they dastn't take elsewhere?"

Bear Cat stiffened as he recognized the voice of Ratler Webb, whom he had not met since their encounter in which a nose had been broken. He knew that in the breast of this man, hitherto unchallenged as neighborhood bully, an ugly and dangerous grudge was festering.

Now it seemed that the old miller, because of friendship for the Stacys was to be heckled, and Bear Cat's wrath boiled. He heard Bud Jason inquiring in tones no longer querulous but firmly indignant:

"Is thet all ye come fer? Ter blackguard me?"

Ratler answered in a voice savoring more of highwayman's coercion than request.

"I was jest a-funnin' with ye, Old Bud, but I'd be mighty obleeged ter ye fer a leetle dram of licker. My bottle's nigh empty an' I've got a far way ter travel yit."

Turner Stacy had now arrived at a point from which he could see around the hulking shoulder of sandstone and the picture which met his eye was not reassuring.

The miller stood barring the door to his shack and the visitor, inflamed of eye, a little unsteady on his feet, confronted him with a swagger of lawless daredeviltry.

"I hain't got no licker. I don't never use hit," replied Jason curtly. "So ef thet's all thet brought ye hyar, ye've already got yore answer an' ye mout es well be farin' on."

Webb's leer darkened to malignity and his voice came in a snarl.

"Ye hain't hardly got no tolerance fer drinkin', hes ye, Bud? Albeit ye hain't none too sanctified ter grind up all ther sprouted corn thet other fellers fotches in ter ye."

The old fellow was alone and unarmed save for his hickory staff, but he was vested with that authority which stiffens a man, standing on his own threshold and facing an insolent trespasser. His manner was choleric and crisp in its note of command.

"I don't aim ter waste no time cavilin' with a drunken carouser. I bids ye ter leave my place. Begone!"

But the traveler, inflamed with the venom of the drunken bully, lurched forward, whipping a revolver from its sagging pocket. With an oath he rammed the muzzle close against the pit of the other's stomach.

Bud's level eyes did not falter. He gripped his useless hickory as if it had been a lictor's staff of unchallengeable office. Perhaps that steady moment saved his life, for before his assailant's flood of obscene vilification had reached its period, Ratler Webb leaped back – interrupted. He changed front, wheeling to protect his back against the logs of the rude wall and thrusting his pistol before him, while his jaw sagged abruptly in dismay.

Bear Cat stood facing him, ten yards distant, and his right hand was thrust into his opened shirt, under the armpit, where the mountain man carries his holster. That the position of the hand was a bluff, covering an unarmed helplessness, Ratler Webb did not know.

"Air ye follerin' revenuin' these days, Ratler?" inquired Stacy in a voice of such velvet softness that the other responded only with an incoherent snarl. "Because ef ye air, numerous folks hyarabouts will be right glad ter find out who it is that's informin' on 'em."

"Damn ye! Keep thet hand whar hit's at!" ordered the aggressor violently and like the cornered rat he had become doubly dangerous. He had set out only to torture a defenseless victim, and now it seemed a question of killing or being killed, so he loaded his voice with truculence as he went on.

"Ef ye seeks ter draw hit out or come a step frontwards, so help me Almighty God I'll kill ye in yore tracks!"

Turner Stacy smiled. Upon his ability to do so with a semblance of quiet contempt he was staking everything.

"Shoot whenever ye gits ready, Ratler," he challenged. "But don't do hit onless ye're expectin' ter die, too. When this trigger-work commences, I aims ter git ye."

"Move a hand or a foot then, an' see – " The voice was desperately high pitched and nasal now, almost falsetto, but through its threat Bear Cat recognized an undercurrent of sudden terror. The desperado remembered that his horse stood hitched a quarter of a mile away. His right boot sole had been freshly patched and left a clearly identifying mark in the mud. He had prepared no alibi in advance, and within a few hours after Turner fell scores of his kinsmen would be baying on the trail.

"Shoot!" taunted Bear Cat Stacy. "Why don't ye shoot?" – and then with an effrontery which dazed his antagonist, he deliberately moved several steps forward – halting nearer the pistol's muzzle.

"I don't aim ter kill ye onless I has ter," stormed Webb with weakening assurance. "Halt! I'm givin' ye fa'r warnin'. Hit's self-deefense ef ye crowds me."

Stacy spoke again, standing once more motionless.

"Ye couldn't shoot thet pistol at me ef I walked in on ye with my hands over my head. My time hain't come yit ter die, because ther's things I was born ter do – an' God Almighty aims ter hev me live till I've done 'em. He don't aim ter hev me hurt by no coward like you, I reckon. Ye couldn't shoot any man noways whilst his eyes was lookin' full at ye. Ye has need ter lay hid in ther la'rel afore ye kin pull yore trigger finger. I dares ye to shoot!"

The white-bearded miller stood motionless, too, measuring all the chances. For a moment he wondered whether it would be possible to strike up the armed hand with his long staff, but he wisely repressed the impulse. This after all was a new sort of combat, a duel of wills rather than of weapons. He knew that Bear Cat Stacy was unarmed because he had so recently seen the sweat-drenched shirt clinging close to the arched chest.

Ratler Webb's hand no longer trembled with the uncertainty of tipsiness. His eyes were no longer obfuscated and muddled with whiskey fumes. He had reverted to the feral instincts of desperation – and was suddenly sobered.

He gripped his out-thrust pistol in both hands for greater surety and half-crouched with knees bent under him, ready either to spring or brace himself against attack. His eyes, gleaming with blood-passion, traveled shiftily so that he could keep watch on both his possible adversaries.

The other and younger man stood upright, but his muscles, too, were poised and balanced with all nicety of readiness and his eyes were measuring the distance between: gauging sundry odds of life and death.

For a moment more the tableau held in silence. Both the miller and the boy could hear the labored, almost gasping breath of the man with the pistol and both knew that the mean temper of his heart's metal was weakening.

Then when a squirrel barked from the timber, Ratler Webb started violently and above the stubble of dirty beard, sweat drops began to ooze on his face.

Why didn't Bear Cat Stacy say something? Why didn't somebody move? If he fired now he must kill both men or leave a witness to blab deadly information close on the heels of his flight! In his heart welled a rising tide of panic.

Turner knew by instinct that every moment he could hold Ratler there with his pistol leveled, was for the desperado, a moment of weakening resolve and nerve-breaking suspense. But he also knew another thing. When the strain of that waiting snapped Ratler would either run or shoot. Mountain annals hold more instances of the latter decision that the former, but that was the chance to be taken.

Webb carried a notched gun. He had forced many fights in his day, but in all of them there had been the swift tonic of action and little time to think. Now he dared not lower his weapon in surrender – and he was afraid to fire. He felt that his lips were growing dry and thickening. He thrust out his tongue to lick them, and its red tip gave, to his ugly features, a strange grotesqueness.

Under the brown of wind and sun and the red of liquor-flush his face paled perceptibly. Then it grew greenish yellow with a sick clamminess of dread.

At last with a discernible quaver in his voice he broke the unendurable silence, and his words came brokenly and disjointed:

"I didn't aim ter force no quarrel on ye, Bear Cat… Ef ye plumb compels me ter do hit, I've got ter kill ye, but I hain't a-hankerin' none fer ther task."

"Thet's a lie, too. Ye come hyar a-seekin' of evidence because ye're harborin' a grudge erginst me an' ye dastn't satisfy hit no other way."