The Call of the Cumberlands Part 6

Samson leaped violently forward. With one hand, he roughly seized his cousin's shoulder, and wheeled him about.

"Shet up!" he commanded. "What d.a.m.n fool stuff hev ye been tellin'

Sally?"

For an instant, the two clansmen stood fronting each other. Samson's face was set and wrathful. Tamarack's was surly and snarling. "Hain't I got a license ter tell Sally the news?" he demanded.

"n.o.body hain't got no license," retorted the younger man in the quiet of cold anger, "ter tell Sally nothin' thet'll fret her."

"She air bound ter know, hit all pretty soon. Them dawgs----"

"Didn't I tell ye ter shet up?" Samson clenched his fists, and took a step forward. "Ef ye opens yore mouth again, I'm a-goin' ter smash hit.

Now, git!"

Tamarack Spicer's face blackened, and his teeth showed. His right hand swept to his left arm-pit. Outwardly he seemed weaponless, but Samson knew that concealed beneath the hickory shirt was a holster, worn mountain fashion.

"What air ye a-reachin' atter, Tam'rack?" he inquired, his lips twisting in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Thet's my business."

"Well, get hit out--or git out yeself, afore I throws ye offen the clift."

Sally showed no symptoms of alarm. Her confidence in her hero was absolute. The boy lifted his hand, and pointed off down the path.

Slowly and with incoherent muttering, Spicer took himself away. Then only did Sally rise. She came over, and laid a hand on Samson's shoulder. In her blue eyes, the tears were welling.

"Samson," she whispered, "ef they're atter ye, come ter my house. I kin hide ye out. Why didn't ye tell me Jesse Purvy'd done been shot?"

"Hit tain't nothin' ter fret about, Sally," he a.s.sured her. He spoke awkwardly, for he had been trained to regard emotion as unmanly. "Thar hain't no danger."

She gazed searchingly into his eyes, and then, with a short sob, threw her arms around him, and buried her face on his shoulder.

"Ef anything happens ter ye, Samson," she said, brokenly, "hit'll jest kill me. I couldn't live withouten ye, Samson. I jest couldn't do hit!"

The boy took her in his arms, and pressed her close. His eyes were gazing off over her bent head, and his lips twitched. He drew his features into a scowl, because that was the only expression with which he could safeguard his feelings. His voice was husky.

"I reckon, Sally," he said, "I couldn't live withouten you, neither."

The party of men who had started at morning from Jesse Purvy's store had spent a hard day. The roads followed creek-beds, crossing and recrossing waterways in a fashion that gave the bloodhounds a hundred baffling difficulties. Often, their noses lost the trail, which had at first been so surely taken. Often, they circled and whined, and halted in perplexity, but each time they came to a point where, at the end, one of them again raised his muzzle skyward, and gave voice.

Toward evening, they were working up Misery along a course less broken. The party halted for a moment's rest, and, as the bottle was pa.s.sed, the man from Lexington, who had brought the dogs and stayed to conduct the chase, put a question:

"What do you call this creek?"

"Hit's Misery."

"Does anybody live on Misery that--er--that you might suspect?"

The Hollmans laughed.

"This creek is settled with Souths thicker'n hops."

The Lexington man looked up. He knew what the name of South meant to a Hollman.

"Is there any special South, who might have a particular grudge?"

"The Souths don't need no partic'lar grudge, but thar's young Samson South. He's a wildcat."

"He lives this way?"

"These dogs air a-makin' a bee-line fer his house." Jim Hollman was speaking. Then he added: "I've done been told that Samson denies doin'

the shootin', an' claims he kin prove an alibi."

The Lexington man lighted his pipe, and poured a drink of red whiskey into a flask cup.

"He'd be apt to say that," he commented, coolly. "These dogs haven't any prejudice in the matter. I'll stake my life on their telling the truth."

An hour later, the group halted again. The master of hounds mopped his forehead.

"Are we still going toward Samson South's house?" he inquired.

"We're about a quarter from hit now, an' we hain't never varied from the straight road."

"Will they be apt to give us trouble?"

Jim Hollman smiled.

"I hain't never heered of no South submittin' ter arrest by a Hollman."

The trailers examined their firearms, and loosened their holster- flaps. The dogs went forward at a trot.

CHAPTER VII

From time to time that day, neighbors had ridden up to Spicer South's stile, and drawn rein for gossip. These men brought bulletins as to the progress of the hounds, and near sundown, as a postscript to their information, a volley of gunshot signals sounded from a mountain top.

No word was spoken, but in common accord the kinsmen rose from their chairs, and drifted toward their leaning rifles.

"They're a-comin' hyar," said the head of the house, curtly. "Samson ought ter be home. Whar's Tam'-rack?"

No one had noticed his absence until that moment, nor was he to be found. A few minutes later, Samson's figure swung into sight, and his uncle met him at the fence.

"Samson, I've done asked ye all the questions I'm a-goin' ter ask ye,"

he said, "but them dawgs is makin' fer this house. They've jest been sighted a mile below."

Samson nodded.

"Now"--Spicer South's face hardened--"I owns down thar ter the road.