"They"re over there in the woods across the river NOW and they want me to give him up to them. They say they have the sheriff with them and they want him for shooting a man on Leatherwood Creek, day before yesterday."
"It"s all a lie," burst out old Judd. "They want to kill him."
"Of course--and I was going to take him up to the county jail right away for safe-keeping."
"D"ye mean to say you"d throw that boy into jail and then fight them Falins to pertect him?" the old man asked slowly and incredulously. Hale pointed to a two-store building through his window.
"If you get in the back part of that store at a window, you can see whether I will or not. I can summon you to help, and if a fight comes up you can do your share from the window."
The old man"s eyes lighted up like a leaping flame.
"Will you let Dave out and give him a Winchester and help us fight "em?"
he said eagerly. "We three can whip "em all."
"No," said Hale shortly. "I"d try to keep both sides from fighting, and I"d arrest Dave or you as quickly as I would a Falin."
The average mountaineer has little conception of duty in the abstract, but old Judd belonged to the better cla.s.s--and there are many of them--that does. He looked into Hale"s eyes long and steadily.
"All right."
Macfarlan came in hurriedly and stopped short--seeing the hatted, bearded giant.
"This is Mr. Tolliver--an uncle of Dave"s--Judd Tolliver," said Hale.
"Go ahead."
"I"ve got everything fixed--but I couldn"t get but five of the fellows--two of the Berkley boys. They wouldn"t let me tell Bob."
"All right. Can I summon Mr. Tolliver here?"
"Yes," said Macfarlan doubtfully, "but you know---"
"He won"t be seen," interrupted Hale, understandingly. "He"ll be at a window in the back of that store and he won"t take part unless a fight begins, and if it does, we"ll need him."
An hour later Devil Judd Tolliver was in the store Hale pointed out and peering cautiously around the edge of an open window at the wooden gate of the ramshackle calaboose. Several Falins were there--led by young Buck, whom Hale recognized as the red-headed youth at the head of the tearing hors.e.m.e.n who had swept by him that late afternoon when he was coming back from his first trip to Lonesome Cove. The old man gritted his teeth as he looked and he put one of his huge pistols on a table within easy reach and kept the other clenched in his right fist. From down the street came five hors.e.m.e.n, led by John Hale. Every man carried a double-barrelled shotgun, and the old man smiled and his respect for Hale rose higher, high as it already was, for n.o.body--mountaineer or not--has love for a hostile shotgun. The Falins, armed only with pistols, drew near.
"Keep back!" he heard Hale say calmly, and they stopped--young Buck alone going on.
"We want that feller," said young Buck.
"Well, you don"t get him," said Hale quietly. "He"s our prisoner. Keep back!" he repeated, motioning with the barrel of his shotgun--and young Buck moved backward to his own men, The old man saw Hale and another man--the sergeant--go inside the heavy gate of the stockade. He saw a boy in a cap, with a pistol in one hand and a strapped set of books in the other, come running up to the men with the shotguns and he heard one of them say angrily:
"I told you not to come."
"I know you did," said the boy imperturbably.
"You go on to school," said another of the men, but the boy with the cap shook his head and dropped his books to the ground. The big gate opened just then and out came Hale and the sergeant, and between them young Dave--his eyes blinking in the sunlight.
"d.a.m.n ye," he heard Dave say to Hale. "I"ll get even with you fer this some day"--and then the prisoner"s eyes caught the horses and shotguns and turned to the group of Falins and he shrank back utterly dazed.
There was a movement among the Falins and Devil Judd caught up his other pistol and with a grim smile got ready. Young Buck had turned to his crowd:
"Men," he said, "you know I never back down"--Devil Judd knew that, too, and he was amazed by the words that followed-"an" if you say so, we"ll have him or die; but we ain"t in our own state now. They"ve got the law and the shotguns on us, an" I reckon we"d better go slow."
The rest seemed quite willing to go slow, and, as they put their pistols up, Devil Judd laughed in his beard. Hale put young Dave on a horse and the little shotgun cavalcade quietly moved away toward the county-seat.
The crestfallen Falins dispersed the other way after they had taken a parting shot at the Hon. Samuel Budd, who, too, had a pistol in his hand. Young Buck looked long at him--and then he laughed:
"You, too, Sam Budd," he said. "We folks"ll rickollect this on election day." The Hon. Sam deigned no answer.
And up in the store Devil Judd lighted his pipe and sat down to think out the strange code of ethics that governed that police-guard. Hale had told him to wait there, and it was almost noon before the boy with the cap came to tell him that the Falins had all left town. The old man looked at him kindly.
"Air you the little feller whut fit fer June?"
"Not yet," said Bob; "but it"s coming."
"Well, you"ll whoop him."
"I"ll do my best."
"Whar is she?"
"She"s waiting for you over at the boarding-house."
"Does she know about this trouble?"
"Not a thing; she thinks you"ve come to take her home." The old man made no answer, and Bob led him back toward Hale"s office. June was waiting at the gate, and the boy, lifting his cap, pa.s.sed on. June"s eyes were dark with anxiety.
"You come to take me home, dad?"
"I been thinkin" "bout it," he said, with a doubtful shake of his head.
June took him upstairs to her room and pointed out the old water-wheel through the window and her new clothes (she had put on her old homespun again when she heard he was in town), and the old man shook his head.
"I"m afeerd "bout all these fixin"s--you won"t never be satisfied agin in Lonesome Cove."
"Why, dad," she said reprovingly. "Jack says I can go over whenever I please, as soon as the weather gits warmer and the roads gits good."
"I don"t know," said the old man, still shaking his head.
All through dinner she was worried. Devil Judd hardly ate anything, so embarra.s.sed was he by the presence of so many "furriners" and by the white cloth and table-ware, and so fearful was he that he would be guilty of some breach of manners. Resolutely he refused b.u.t.ter, and at the third urging by Mrs. Crane he said firmly, but with a shrewd twinkle in his eye:
"No, thank ye. I never eats b.u.t.ter in town. I"ve kept store myself," and he was no little pleased with the laugh that went around the table. The fact was he was generally pleased with June"s environment and, after dinner, he stopped teasing June.
"No, honey, I ain"t goin" to take you away. I want ye to stay right where ye air. Be a good girl now and do whatever Jack Hale tells ye and tell that boy with all that hair to come over and see me." June grew almost tearful with grat.i.tude, for never had he called her "honey"
before that she could remember, and never had he talked so much to her, nor with so much kindness.
"Air ye comin" over soon?"
"Mighty soon, dad."