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WAIT ! DONT SHOOT ! READ THIS ! ' ' SHE CRIED DESPERATELY
slender figure broke into the ring, waving a scrap of paper on high. To stop the terrible slaughter of the instant was Betty's only thought, yet the paper scorched her fingers and her heart,
' ' Wait ! Dont shoot ! Read this ! ' ' she cried desperately. "Th' wind done tuk it yender. It must 'a' been pinned t' ol' man Tyler's coat."
The grim mountaineers, abating not a jot or tittle of their purpose, gathered about her and read the message aloud. It was a confession of murder signed by Bob Tyler.
Betty watched their faces change, watched them turn away, mount their horses and set off down the mountain road in half-hearted pursuit of the patricide. Then, with wild tears and writhings, she flung herself down upon the moss, beating the hard earth with frenzied fingers. She had followed the law of the mountains and saved her brother; but she had broken the law of God, which bids a woman cleave only to the man she loves for better or worse as long as they both shall live.
The days of the coming month dragged heavy-footed, until one
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morning, suddenly it was autumn, and the mountains were a pyre of gold and crimson flames. The girl in the doorway of the Hurf cabin drew in the spiced air in long breaths that were sighs. Autumn! And Bob and she had planned that before the frost yellowed the cornfield they would be married. Was not the little cabin almost furnished, yonder in the hollow, with the rain and rotting leaves falling thru the roof and the wind banging the door to and fro all night long!
'■ 'Pears like I got a tech o' siaticy," her mother's voice complained behind her, in a patient, dreary whine. "I wist I could git ovah t' Lou Tyler's. She done makes a tea outer roots that's powerful good f'r siaticy "
A lump rose in the girl's throat. Was life this, then? Empty cabins, broken hopes, aches and pains?
A sound on the rocky path up the hillside broke the gray thread of her thoughts. A group of men a-horseback, carrying sinister guns across their saddle pommels, drove into the yard and dismounted. The hindermost figure caught the girl's eye.
"Bill, what air y'u hyar f'r?" she