OCR Text |
Show I The Red Lock Tale 1 3 I of the I I By DAVID ANDERSON p 1 m Author of "The Blue Moon" F IdtWOOCtS M Copyright by The Rnbbs-Merrlll Co. ' ' 3 li -i a finger toward them, dropped her hand to the revolver at her belt and looked around at the 'woodsman. He caught the challenge In her eye, grinned and hodded. With a quickness and skill that showed her mastery of the weapon, she plucked the revolver from its holster, hol-ster, raised it and fired. The first bullet bul-let cut a twig close to a walnut, the second brought one down. Every horse there had been trained to stand under gun-fire. Eex merely pointed his ears sharply forward and stood to his tracks, but, even with such a firm saddle under him, the preacher flinched so at ,the first shot that he almost lost his balance. The second brought an effusive exclamation exclama-tion from him. The slow eyes of the woodsman livened. "Good !" he cried. "Ther' ain't another an-other girl In the Flatwoods can do that." With a little wisp of a smile In her eyes she glanced around at him, and turned to the preacher. "Now, Mr. Hopkins, you can try y'ur new six-gun." The preacher almost set up a breeze in the little valley with the gesticulations gesticula-tions of his expressive hands ; made a heavy draft on his ample stock of effusive ef-fusive exclamations, and finally fumbled fum-bled the ivory-handled six-gun out of its holster. He committed the blunder of cocking cock-ing It with both thumbs a bit of overacting over-acting that did not escape the man backing Graylock In apparent stolid-ness. stolid-ness. After a deal of coaching from Texie, the preacher poked the revolver forward for-ward and pulled the trigger. There was nothing to indicate that the bullet bul-let even came near the target. He threw his head back and exploded his raucous laugh. Rex had stood firm under the shot ; he shied at the laugh. The preacher brought the horse back alongside of Brownie and fired again the bullet smacked somewhere yards back from the Eagle Hollow road the uncanny hovel that the woodsman had gazed down upon from the top of the bluff that morning while watching the swallows dart in and out of Its ruined chimney. "That place Is enough to give one the creeps," was the preacher's comment com-ment as he reined In Rex . beside Brownie. The girl turned In her saddle and sat for some time looking the place over the gate now long unused, Its hinges black with rust ; the rank weeds and sprouts growing close up to the sagging door; the single small front window now yellow with clay that the rains had washed from between be-tween the logs ; the rude clapboards of the roof warped, loosened, displaced dis-placed the crumbling remnants .of what had once been a home, now desolate des-olate and forsaken under its somber canopy of trees. "It's the cabin of dead Henry Spencer," Spen-cer," she said, "where he murdered his wife and infant daughter with 'Is ax one bitter cold night when was drunk, and then wandered out and froze t' death In the snow." "I've heard the story from your ah brother and so this Is the place?" "This Is the place." "But not all the story " He glanced around at her quizzically. quiz-zically. "No, not all" she spoke slowly ; her words half a question "they say he comes back." The preacher's teeth gleamed white through his heavily bearded lips ; his sarcastic exclamation point of a laugh jarred the silence of the placid valley. "Why, Miss Texie, this is the Nineteenth Nine-teenth century, not the Fourteenth." "Yes," in red embarrassment "but that's what they say." He looked around at her again, with that same half-cynical expression that came so easily to his face, as he gathered gath-ered up the reins. With the mountain girl's hurried warning still fresh In his mind, the woodsman glanced covertly about him as they rode on something he had been constantly doing since first entering en-tering the hollow. As he did so, the uncanny cabin happened to come again under his eyes. A sight met them that for the Instant shook even his Iron composure a face at the window win-dow was peering at them through the clay-smudged pane. The face ducked out of sight, and, without so much as a flick of the bridle rein precisely as If he had seen nothing at all the woodsman rode on. He glanced at the preacher, ' but apparently ap-parently he had not seen the face. If he had he gave no sign. CHAPTER XIV The Scrape of a Match. While grooming Graylock In his stall that evening Jack Warhdpe thought of the face that had appeared for its startling instant at the smudged window win-dow of Henry Spencer's unhallowed cabin. As a matter of fact, he had been thinking of It ever since riding out of the jaws of the hollow. He hung up the curry comb and stepped to the barn door. The sun glared red through a slit In the cloud-bank, cloud-bank, and still cleared the trees on the distant foothills by a yard enough for the purpose he contemplated. A moment later he was climbing the rough path that led to the uplands. Pausing, to search critically the woods In every direction, he then stole away toward the Ill-reputed cabin of the dead woodchopper. The sun just edged the tree-tops when he came opposite the place. Down in the bottom of the hollow the shadows lay heavy, but the light still touched the uncanny hovel squatted against the hillside. Stealing through the bushes and brambles, he crept up to the place under un-der cover of the fallen oak, with Its festoons of wild cucumber vines. Near the corner most densely hidden by the vines a chink had dropped out from between the logs, leaving a narrow crevice. Shading his eyes, he peepe within. The cabin was empty. Hugging the wall closely, he crep, around to the sagging door; softly pushed it open. Ills eyes lifted at what he saw an old box on end near what had once been the fireplace, an empty whisky bottle on the box, with a lamp standing beside it ready to light; a blanket ready to hang over the smudged window. The dusty floor was covered with tracks man tracks one man's. Stepping Step-ping so as carefully to set his feet in the tracks, he entered the cabin and closed the door. (TO BE CONTINUED.) CHAPTER XIII Continued. 17 "How picturesquely that cabin nestles nes-tles there In the pocket of the hills." "A man named Belden, and his sister, sis-ter, lives there," the girl said, following the direction of his upraised arm. "They're Kentucky mountain folks that jlst moved In they say the sister's quite pretty." The preacher seemed to be studying the place, with Its wild wealth of nature na-ture about it, his eyes straying at length from tlhe cabin to Its tumbled setting of cli(fs and down along the opposite bluffs, mantled with half-sprung half-sprung leaves, abloom with haw and dogwood and wild apple, until, as he twisted around In the saddle, the whole beautiful panorama of the narrow nar-row valley had passed In review before be-fore him back to the winding road by which they had entered. As the girl followed his roving eyes, a black dead limb at the top of Eagle Oak, towering high above the quickening quicken-ing foliage, came into view. She raised her arm and pointed up and away to the lofty landmark. "That's where the big gray eagle's be'n comln' every summer sence white men first come t' the Flatwoods, I guess. Look jist over the top o' that scrub poplar, stlckln' up ag'nst that white cloud." "I see it!" the man of books exclaimed, ex-claimed, the simple gesture of pointing point-ing out to the distant landmark revealing re-vealing the native grace that might still have been his but for the stooped and studious air that life had Imposed upon him. "It stands out against the fluffy whiteness plain as a flagstaff." "Nobody in the Flatwoods would think of harmin' " She stopped, with a low exclamation, for the woodsman had suddenly straightened In his saddle and had Jerked his hand toward the cabin squatting against the bluffs up the hollow. hol-low. The others followed the motion of his hand and sat staring. Loge Bel den's sister had appeared from behind the cabin and was running toward them. She had nearly reached I the bushes that fringed what might be I called the front of the yard, when Bel- den appeared in the open door. He threw up his hand and called out a word or two, which did not quite carry to the three riders. The mountain girl stopped and hesitated hesi-tated ; turned and went slowly back. Belden stood aside ; she entered the door; Belden closed It. Jack was watching the preacher. He saw his quick grip on the bridle rein ; saw him stiffen In the saddle and glance uneasily about. "Astonishing! Quite extraordinary!" escaped him as the tense brief drama closed. ''Mercy !" Texie exclaimed, "I never knowed she was crazy." "She ain't," the woodsman muttered. mut-tered. ,' The preacher glanced around at him ; threw up his head and exploded his blarey laugh. It was a queer moment for a laugh, and a queer laugh for the moment. "Not bad philosophy, that," he said. "People are not always as crazy as they act." That the preacher was acting, the woodsman fully believed, but the acting act-ing was just a shade overdone a circumstance cir-cumstance that could hardly escape such a man as Jack Warhope, particularly particu-larly after the chance clues that had first set his suspicions going. Why he was acting and what part, the woodsman woods-man was not missing any chances to find out. The three riders sat for some time looking toward the cabin in the pocket, pock-et, Texie and the preacher discussing the astonishing drama that had flared up for its tense moment in the elbow of the hills. But the drama evidently had but one act, and that act was closed. It seemed to the woodsman, as he covertly covert-ly watched the preacher, lolling with overdone awkwardness In his saddle, that he showed just a shade of relief that it was closed. The sun, a red warrior on the homeward home-ward trail, had journeyed far down the paling fastnesses of the sky ; had ducked behind a huge cloud bank piled like a breastworks across the west. Presently, finding a loop-hole In the turreted cumuli, he glnred back at the pursuing shadows; launched a shaft that fell spent nnd quivering upon Eagle run and shivered into glittering splinters upon the riffle. Glum at the mlssped shaft, the red warrior took his eye from th loophole; loop-hole; drew farther back behind the massed fortifications; unstrung his bow. The pursuing shadows stole down the bluffs; dulled the water; dimmed the woods ; waked the breeze and shook the wild apple twigs till the white blossoms snowed the grass -symbol of the hopes of men, that bloom, promise fruit, die. The girl noticed the shadows. Her eyes left the cabin; glanced up and down the opposite bluff, where, under the brow of the wooded escarpment, objects were already beginning to dim. The girl's roving glance stopped at a black walnut tree ten or fifteen yards away, where some frost-blasted walnuts of the season befo-e still tlung to a blighted limb. She swept "It's the Cabin of Dead Henry Spencer," Spen-cer," She Said. against the opposite bluff, but apparently appar-ently did not even fan a walnut. He studied the revolver a moment, fixed his spectacles tighter on his nose, and settled seriously, to the task; held the weapon In both hands, and aimed a long time result the same. Then the girl threw up her revolver and fired again. The bullet cut a nick In the rotted outer hull of a walnut, and she turned to the woodsman.. "Now, .Jack, it's your turn." "Aw, I couldn't hit one of 'em." "Come on," she coaxed, "I ain't seen y'u shoot none since let's see 'way b'fore corn plantln'." He looked at her curiously, and shifted In his saddle. The preacher had half turned and watched him narrowly. nar-rowly. Suddenly the revolver leaped from the woodsman's side and darted about over the blighted limb. Three shots rang out ; three walnuts flew Into fragments frag-ments and crumbled down upon the leaves. The preacher had straightened In the saddle and sat watching the wonderful won-derful marksmanship with an eye that suddenly kindled to flint and flame; but as the third walnut shattered to dust and crumbs, the stoop came back to his shoulders, the air of tired studi-ousness studi-ousness to his face. The girl turned to t'.ie woodsman, her fine eyes alive. "You could 'a' got three more!" The light In the brown eyes kindled a response in the gray; a slow smile crawled across his bold features. "It's ag'in the law o' woods f be caught with an empty gun," he said, with a seriousness that set her wondering, won-dering, as he felt for the powder flask and bullets in his pouch. In the dusk of the evening, as they rode back to the village, the girl stopped her horse In front of the old rabln. deserted and gloomy, that squatted against the side-hill a few |