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BOB TYLER AND OLD JIM QUARREL
"Hit looks like hit's true," sighed the faded "Lily" to her daughter. "I 'low I'll stop after meetin' next Sabbath an' ask Lou Tyler f'r her wrapper pattern. Her an' me war good friends oncet. " Slow tears filled her eyes. Feuds are hardest on the women who marry into them. The zest of hatred is lacking; only the duty. of it is left. The girl sniffed scornfully.
"Hit's mighty lucky f'r that thar. ornery, wuthless Bill that th' feud's done over," she remarked, with a toss of her head toward where the subject of her remarks sprawled lazily on the bench by the fire. "Bringin' his precious hide home after the shootin's done finished, like a licked houn' dawg!"
She sprang to her feet and snatched her rifle down from the wall, with an angry flirt of her curls. "Goin' after squerrels, mammy," and she was gone. The bushes snapped in the wake of her impetuous course. The cowardice of her brother, who had hidden in the city while the feud was at its fiercest, nagged her on like a snapping cur at the heels of her thoughts. She did not notice her direction until she plunged into the
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clearing where Jim Tyler and his two sons bent over their whisky-still. At the sound of her approach, the three men whirled, hands on guns. Ever in the mind of the law-breakers lurks the thought of the law. It is a more potent punishment than conscience, for it is ever-present and imminent, not to be laid aside, waking or sleeping. It is as tho the ghost of a murdered man should haunt the slayer before he commits his crime. But now the bushes framed nothing more terrifying than Betty's piquant face, her blue eyes thunderous above the rifle-butt as she caught sight of her lover and Old Jim.
"Needn't draw this time, boys!" laughed the father, contemptuously. "We-uns haint got nawthin' t' fear from th' Hurf gang. They-all's afeard o' they shadder, they-all is! Tell Bob we haint 'lowin' t' hurt him, gal."
"Tell him yoreself, if y'u aint afeard!" flashed the girl. "Big talk, little do! 'Pears like y'u jumped f'r yore guns mighty lively jest now!"
"Betty! Betty! Honey gal!"
"Shet up, Bob Tyler — yore's bad as th' rest! As f'r y'u, y'u whitehaired ol' scou'drel, I'm layin' t'