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Show :: A I The Red I Lock ;. !! A Tale of the Flatwoods . "" " "" l' By DAVID ANDERSON jj Author of a" " The Bin Moon" yy '" BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB b" b"b"b"b"b"bDB Copyright by The Bobbs-Merrill Co. CHAPTER XII Continued. 1 6 In the driveway down the yard the girl handed Brownie's rein to her father fa-ther and ran into the house. When she returned a moment later, she uad on a short riding skirt, and was buckling buck-ling around her waist as she walked the holster of a small and very fancy revolver. The preacher allowed bis eyes to stray over the trim figure and rest on the weapon. "A present from Jack," the girl answered to his look, at the same time dropping her ringers to the neat holster "he trapped mink t' git the coney." "Do they girls, I mean carry suc'i things iu the Flatwoods?" "Sometimes y'u see, Jack and I ride t'gether, and shoot target s' much " "Why, I have one of those things." "Have y'u bring it along and we'll shoot target." The preacher banded Ilex's bridle rein to her and hurried into the house. The old banker, grinning toward his daughter at the eccantric dominie's mincing step, suddenly seemed to remember re-member something, tapped the breast pocket of his faded coat; drew out the formidable letter addressed to Jack Wnrhope and handed it to the girl, with the request that she deliver It at the first bandy opportunity. Wondering, the girl looked at the letter and put It away in her blouse, just as the preacher returned carrying carry-ing in one hand the very dependable-looking dependable-looking Ivory-handled six-gun that had thudded against the bottom of the skiff on the day of the seining trip. In the other band he held a very serviceable service-able holster, with Its pouch for powder flask, bullets and caps hanging from the belt. "I bought them just before setting out on my journey for the West." he explained. The girl took the beautiful weapon, fully loaded and freshly capped, and looked at it admiringly, while the old banker bent over her shoulder. "W'y, this gun's he'n shot a lot," she said, lifting the hammer a trifle and slowly revolving the cylinder. The preacher dropped a quick look at the weapon. "Gun," he repeated, with a mite of hesitation that escaped the others "is that what you call them? The man who sold It to me called it a revolver. I do wonder If he sold me a secondhand second-hand one." The old banker laughed raspy raucous. rau-cous. "Cheated a-plenty, parson. This Dolly Varden cannon o' your'n has seen service, 'r I ain't no judge of six-guns." six-guns." "Do you mean 'that It will not shoof?" the preacher asked in anxious tones. "Lord, no!" the banker returned "It would drop a man In 'is tracks, hut they cheated y'u if they sold it to y'u f'r new." Texle handed the weapon back to Its owner, lie thrust it awkwardly Into the holster and stood fumbling the belt, wrong side out. around his waist. The girl laughed, showed him how to buckle it on under the somber frock coat, and sprang to the saddle, with an ease and grace that lifted his spertncled eyes. After two or three unsuccessful attempts at-tempts he finally succeeded In scrambling scram-bling to Kcx's hack and followed tier down the drive, where the old banker nlready bad the gate open. Just through the gate the girl fell suddenly thoughtful. "Walt I'll be buck In a minute," she said and touching Brownie with the whip, dashed away up the Itiver road. A moment later tinder the big elm by the barn-lot gate at the War-hope War-hope homestead, she drew rein While Brownie stood prancing, still a mite resentful at the touch of the whip the firl's bead lifted, her throat ami Hps tightened, and the clear call of it king cardinal made the great elm musical. A big man with a niigiity spread of shoulder, at work In the cattle pens, lifted his bead and listened. Next moment mo-ment .lack Warhope appeared around the corner of a shed, vaulted the fence nnd came striding down the barn lot. "Texle! W'y" He opened the gate nnd came out ito the road. The girl smiled unnn Ym furiously; fumbled In her blouse; drew out the letter In the formidable manlla envelope and handed It to I him. He took it ; guzed at It, and then looked up at the girl. " 'Not to be opened until his twenty-first twenty-first blrrhduy,' " he read "what d' y'u s'pose Pup Simon's up to now?" "That's what 1 be'n wonderln'," was the thoughtful answer, "but I reckon we'll huve f wait till till " "Six more days," he finished, as the girl tightened the reins and pulled Brownie's nmuth up from the grass. "How 'd y'u like t' go ridin'?" "Me?" The dimples flushed at him. "Mr. Hopkins wants t' go." "Hopkins?" He .shrugged his great shoulders and glanced down the road where the preacher sat on his horse awkwardly in front of the red-roofed cottage. "Jack " He turned back to her; waited for her to go on. "Be nice to 'im. He knows s' much, and he was good t' pore Ken " He bent his head in respect for the minor note. The soft purr of the elm twigs came out faintly clear on the drowsy day; the girl sat drawing the cracker of the riding whip up and down between the stirrup and the toe of her shapely small shoe. "Texie " He had looked up; the girl turned her eyes toward him. "Don't let this man git no holt on y'u. He ain't no man f'r you. His ways ain't our ways " The girl lifted her face and laughed a trifle uneasily. "Jack, you're ahv'ys so serious. Hurry up and git Graylock." "How d' y'u know I'm goin'?" "Aiu't y'u?" He smoothed the mane on Brownie's neck ; half turned toward the gate. "I am if he is." "Bring y'ur r'volver we're go'ln' t' target shoot." He v, heeled back, for the first time he seemed to notice the holster at her waist. "I 'low I will," he muttered. CHAPTER XIII A Face at the Smudged Window. Aunt Liza happened to have "drapped a stitch" In her knitting and had stepped to the window the better to see WP I IP "W'y, This Gun's Be'n Shot a Lot," She Said. to "pick It up" when the three riders came up the Eagle Hollow road She looked up carelessly from her tedious task, but grew instantly nttentlve with the first glance. "Come 'ere, Nick ain't that Big Jack an' Texle an' the new parson?" "Well. I'll be dern'd," grunted the old man. coming to the window and looking out, his pipe poised between bis lingers "what d' y'u think o' that?'' "What I tblnk's a-plenty." the primly prim-ly positive old woman snorted, "out gallantin' around like that, with two beaux a-tralpsin' after 'er an' that preacher In the Flatwoods bar'ly long enough f git 'Is chair warm. I use'n t' think right smart o' Texle, but I cayn't swaller no sicb carry'n s on as she's a-bavin' with the new parson. He ain't never be'n reg'lar Installed, nohow, an' If he keeps on like this, 'e won't lie. "Texie Colin may live f rue the day she draps a tine lad like Big Jn-k an' takes up with a teetotal furriner, Jist "b'cayse e happens t' be gallantin' an' full o' p'laver." "Aw. I dunno," the old man Interrupted, Inter-rupted, turning away from the window as the three riders disappeared behind a bend in the road a little above the house, "jist b'cayse she happens f go out ridin' with 'im. hit ain't no sh-n site's a-go!n t take up with 'Im." "That's jist your way." Aunt retorted, still standing at tlip window and fussing with the snarled knitting. "Hlw'ys tryin' t' snioothen things over f'r everybody. Did you look how e I set 'Is boss, 'longside o' Big Jack? huh I wonder the second best hogs In the Flu'.woods would put up with slch rid In'. I knowed that preacher wouldn't do t' tie to the minute 'e lit. Hain't no sense in a preacher beln' that good-lookln', nohow now there's the business of It, I-Jeemlny." Aunt Liza's grim lips twisted Into an acid silence. She bent again over the "dripped stitch"; "picked It up" at last and came back to her rocking chair. The old man, doubtless glad to rest after his long tramp In the woods that morning, sr.t with his pipe -dangling between his fingers and tapping his chair, his head bent forward, pondering ponder-ing the three-angled drama the eternal eter-nal triangle at that moment being staged within the narrow valley. The click of the busy knitting needles, the muffled tapping of the pipe, fell at length Into a sort of rhythm, which, with the tick of the dull-faced clock on the mantel-shelf, seemed to enhance the silence rather than disturb it, and to bring out tne peace and repose of the room. Meanwhile, the three riders leisurely leisure-ly followed the eccentric windings of the Eagle Hollow road. Seen through the tangle of vine and bush and tree in teasing glimpses on their left, the erratic little stream that inflicted on the road its many turnings, sparkled by In the sunlight. On their right. across a picturesque rail fence, rose the wooded bluffs that led to the uplands up-lands of the Warhope homestead. Cleared only to the width "f a wagon, so narrow that the bordering bushes son-times raked their stirrups, the road itself was a thing to 1: vite the wood fairies. It lay for the most part in checkered shade, the feet of the horses playing almost constantly among a delicate tracery of leaf and branch and stem, flung down by the sun In dancing patches upon the grassy gras-sy track. The great trees of the bluffs reached their giant arms over It and hovered It In grateful shade, while cliff and scar unwound their successive succes-sive pictures as the three rode aiong. More than a mile up the hollow the road passed under the far-flung branches of an Immense oak, towering so high above its fellows that the preacher reined in Bex and exclaimed: "Grand 1 Magnificent! Surely Its fellow fel-low is not to be found In the forest I" "Eagle Oak," the girl observed, reining rein-ing up Brownie by the side of the taller horse, "the king of the Flat-woods." Flat-woods." "It b'longs to the homestead," she went on. "The line runs right along here at the base of the bluff that's the line-fence there.. Black Rock and Eagle Oak, they're both on the homestead. home-stead. Jack's father had the original patent, 'r whatever they call it, rnaae out t' his gran'father, and signed by General Andrew Jackson himself. They say " The woodsman fidgeted In his saddle; sad-dle; glanced around at her from under un-der the edges of his eyes. She caught the look and paused. "Ah, it must be fine to have such a holding as that," the preacher commented. com-mented. "I confess to some such longings long-ings myself, sometimes." The remark not seeming to call for an answer, the girl merely shook the reins on Brownie's neck and they rode on out from the shade of the great oak ; up the narrow ribbon of road, with the picturesquely broken valley unfolding un-folding its wonders; the preacher constantly con-stantly reminded of something he had seen in the Alps, or elsewhere in his travels, nnd overflowing with effusive exclamations punctuated with a laugh so loud and" blarey that It fairly made his horse shy. The preacher's laugh was the most strikingly odd expression of his strikingly strik-ingly odd personality a sort of hand-forged hand-forged laugh that did not seem tc come Into existence naturally; a ktnri of sarcastic exclamation point thnt exploded ex-ploded at untimely and most unexpected unex-pected intervals in his conversation. As they passed the spot where the sadly winsome face of the mountain girl had flared forth from the copse that morning and he had picked up Uncle Nick's trail. Jack Warhope, sitting sit-ting his horse as only a man trained to the saddle can and riding for the most part In silence, darted a quick look into the bushes a luok that quite es caped the others. The one girl and the two men a combination com-bination of Infinite possibilities had reached the point where the road left the hollow and picked Its way through the broken passes of the bluffs to the uplands, when the preacher stopped his horse and sat gazing up and across the narrow valley. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |