Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1914-Jan 1915)

38 MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE show y'u whether y'u got nawthin' t' fear fr'm a Hurf some o' these days!" Bob's face quivered with the angry sting of her words, but the old mountaineer's hide was tough. He laughed loudly as the slight figure crashed out of sight, and turned back to the still. "Better lug us 'nother sack o' corn, boys," was all he said, coolly. Half an hour later Bob returned alone. The rough sack, balanced on one shoulder, cast a shadow over his handsome young face. "Her 'n' pap couldn't never hit it off," he muttered, discouragedly. "She'm a wild-cat, and he'm a b'ar." He parted the bushes, then started back in surprise. "Lawsy, if thar haint her again — runnin' like 01' Nick was after her!" A sudden dread, like a chilly hand, seized him. The bag of corn fell in "a shower of gold to the ground. He stood paralyzed, hardly daring to turn his eyes toward the still. "When at last he did, the woods rang to his despair. "Pap, pap! Why war it y'u that done hit, Betty gal?" Beside the prone figure lay her rifle, a silent witness. The man stumbled to his knees with the uncouth groans of a suffering animal and felt of the silent heart. Betty ! His pretty little sweetheart ! 'Twas pap's houndin' had maddened her. He thought of her warm, dimpling face; the soft weight of her in his arms; the shy wonder of her kiss. The man on the ground there had given him life, but the slip of a girl whose rifle lay under his hand had given him love, and the taste of joy, and the knowledge that he was a man and a human being. Suddenly he snatched a scrap of paper from his pocket. A broken bit of pencil lay on the ground. With icy fingers and the sweat of agony stiffening on them, he scrawled a few 'words upon it and pinned it to the sprawling coatsleeve. Then, sick and shaking, he seized the rifle and stumbled away. The woods were fearsome to him, pitiless, unfeeling. He ran until he was breathless and spent ; then, dropping down in a clump of bracken, lay very still, trying to control the shaking of his limbs. The sick sky whirled dizzily above him. As tho from some inner recess in his brain, a bell sounded, faintly tolling — tolling. Suddenly he sat up, listening. "Hit's th' 'larm bell," he muttered. ' ' They-all is gatherin ' ! Maw 's done ringin' th' 'larm bell f'r th' Tylers t' ride!" Far behind, in the half-lighted Hurf cabin, Betty and her brother Bill faced each other above a pistol held unsteadily on the girl's hot palm. "Y'u-all— done— hit!" The man cringed from her awful eyes; his weak face was streaked with wet fear. "He — he 'lowed he wouldn't strike hands with a coward," whined Bill. "He— he done laugh at me, Bet. I couldn't stan' hit t' see his ol' face a-laughin'. I didn't aim t' kill him." "Y'u fool! Dont y'u know hit '11 start up th' feud agin? My Gawd, hit sliant! Lemme go, y'u redhanded, white-livered coward, y'u!" "What y'u 'lowin' t' do — give me up?" The man laughed triumphantly. "Betty, y'u-all cant do hit! Hit's th' law o' th' mountains t' stand by yure kin ! ' ' She staggered back from him, white, breathless, at bay. Yes, he was right. It was the law of the mountains ; stronger than love or hate or fear. Beaten, she turned in the doorway. "I reckon I'll find Bob Tyler an' try t' stop th' shootin'," she said colorlessly. But in her stricken face he read his warrant of safety and let her go unhindered, laughing hysterically, with his head in his guilty hands. In the clearing the two clans were gathered in battle array. The hate that no pact can erase, no oath enchain, glowered in a score of sullen faces. But before a shot was fired, a