They were looking into each other's face. The boy with incredulous, wondering eyes, reflecting a heart full to the brim with adoration; she, palpitating, her dimples aflush, her bosom lifting, her delicious red mouth ajar. And in the exquisite domains of those azure-tinted orbs lay the lucid litany of a wondrous, beautiful parable. Those two violet-stained eyes were misty with the text of a miracle that nestled in her heart, the tendrils of which she meant to train with care around the boy's mountain soul. In wordless, panting silence they studied each other's happy face for a long minute.

"I knew that was you-all up thah on Eagle Crown. Were you-all looking for me, Lem?" she questioned in a half-whisper, predicating an affection that had its inception back in the child days of yore.

"I was up thah a lookin' fo' yo', Belle-Ann--th' same's I bin a lookin'

every hour since yo'-all went away," he a.s.sured her, dropping her hands and with a movement to take her into his arms and kiss her bowed, smiling mouth.

Belle-Ann quickly threw back, with a tolerant ripple of mirth, thwarting his intent with the guise of a half-coquettish, half-mischievous challenge. But her purpose in this denial was tenfold deeper than girlish byplay. Her motive was infinitely more profound than to tantalize. She meant to withhold that priceless first kiss as a leverage to undo that which she had done. She meant to hold that first embrace as a reward for the reversal of the G.o.dless compact, the tenure of which she had long since penitently recanted.

Nevertheless, Lem was quick to divine the import of her act. He fell back a pace, abashed and crestfallen.

"Thet's so," he said sorrowfully, "I hain't kilt th' revenuer yet, Belle-Ann--but I 'low I tried hard enough, Belle-Ann,--Johnse Hatfield shot em through th' haid three weeks back--but all we ever found o' him wus a hat, an' a rifle, an' a barrel o' blood--he must hev jest flopped his arms an' flew up in th' sky--daid er alive--he hain't on h.e.l.lsfork--he----"

Here Buddy rushed up, perspiring and breathing hard. He seized the girl's hand and hung on with a tenacity that bade fair to inc.u.mber her forevermore. The boy was too full to speak. His lips only trembled as he gazed up at her. When with endearing terms she pressed his thin little form to her and kissed him, the tears welled up and obscured his hard little eyes. Although these were tributes of joy from his stormy, suspicious heart, it was the first signs of tears any one had seen him manifest since old Cap Lutts had lain white and still, amid the flowers on G.o.d's acre. Then while Buddy fondled and admired the salient, superb horse with his fire-rimmed eyes and slender legs, the other two sat down on a rectangular stone, all coated in liverwort, upon which they had lolled many times in days agone. And here they communed with happy, hurried words.

"But Lem," Belle-Ann was saying, "you are all dressed up--but for your beautiful locks, you look really citified--perhaps you-all was on your way to visit some young lady--am I right?--come now,"--she laughed coyly.

"Belle-Ann, ef yo' had come 'bout half hour later--yo' wouldn't a found me--I wus jest a startin' out on my way below t' look fo' yo', Belle-Ann.--I wus 'lowin' t' scour th' whole earth fo' yo'--I told Buddy an' Slab thet I'd never come back till I seed yore face jest onct, anyways--I wus goin' t' spend th' balance of my life lookin' fo' yo', Belle-Ann."

"Lem--didn't I cross my heart that day and pledge you that I'd come back?"

"Yes--but I wus afeerd thet somethin' had happened t' yo'-all, Belle-Ann,--then I togged myself up an' fixed to go below--then I thought I'd go up on th' Crown an' take a last look at the spot where I saw yo' last a wavin' at me, and pretty soon I seed somethin'--an'--an'--Gawd'll Moughty--thah yo' wus a wavin' right at me--then I sho' did make time a gettin' down off'n thah--an' as I run down th' trail--thet ornery Sap McGill jumped out an' tried t'

shoot----"

With a fear-fraught half-scream, Belle-Ann had bounded to her feet.

"Sap McGill--McGill, here?" she cried out incredulously. Her bosom heaved with excitement, and her eyes were wide and starry with a sudden new-born terror. "Oh!--don't tell me that McGill is up heah--on this side of h.e.l.lsfork!"

Then it was, with bated breath and hurried, fear-laden words, that she implored Lem to hide somewhere. When she finished, all the blithesome, pulsing happiness that had dwelt in her beautiful face a few moments previously had vanished.

Lem got quickly to his feet and stood eyeing her bloodless countenance in a trance of blank incomprehension.

"Tell me--tell me quick, where is McGill now?" she panted, her hat dropping from her nerveless hands and falling at her feet.

"Why--Belle-Ann--I left em a layin' on his back up at th' loop."

"Did you kill him?"

"Naw--I didn't hev time--I wanted t' meet yo'-all--I left Buddy a guardin' em."

There was pitiable, livid dread in her face now. Her pathetic mouth dropped woefully. She stood, with fingers interlocked helplessly, in the grip of a seething apprehension. Buddy, who did not understand the real cause of Belle-Ann's distress, stood with two clinched fists, and a look of awful destruction aglow in his eyes.

"Didn't I say yo' oughter kilt em--didn't I tell yo'?" he cried in piping, admonishing tones. Lem had not moved a muscle, though the girl's whiteness was communicated to his mask-like visage. Now he frowned upon Buddy.

"What ded yo' leave em fer?" he said.

"McGill will kill you, Lem," muttered the girl, beside herself with the violence of this sudden new fear that overpowered her. "If he isn't dead now--I know that he is lurking along the trail to kill you, Lem!--Oh, it's awful!--It's so disheartening to live such lives--what can we do?--I--I----" With her hands to her face she burst into sudden tears, precluding all speech.

Just as suddenly was Lem Lutts electrified with a quick determination.

He grabbed Buddy's rifle.

"I'll trail em down ef he's gone, Belle-Ann--I'll sho' kill em now."

With a swift movement Belle-Ann clutched Lem's sleeve tenaciously to detain and dissuade him. But his eyes shone with a maniacal fire as he jerked away from her and ran back up the trail with strides that carried him far ahead of the nervous horse that had taken affright and had bolted and was now galloping up the rock-strewn path in Lem's wake. Deaf to Belle-Ann's appealing voice urging him to come back, Lem only yelled back over his shoulder:

"I'll sho' kill em now!"

The horse soon swerved off from the trail and plunged down toward the valley amidst the brush, with Buddy in pursuit. Belle-Ann ran now along after Lem as swiftly as her trembling, weak limbs would carry her.

When Lem Lutts reached the loop he halted, struck dumb with the spectacle before his gaze. McGill lay just as he had left him more than an hour before. Apparently he had not moved a finger.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE DOWNFALL OF SAP McGILL

Thinking McGill dead, Lem made one step forward and stopped, attracted by a strange, quivering movement; then he beheld the rattlesnake coiled up on Sap's breast. Then a sudden revelation dawned upon Lem Lutts. He felt instinctively that Sap was not dead, although he could not have been whiter and more inert had he been so.

To make certain Lem cautiously shrank back, and taking care not to make the slightest sound, he worked his way around to the opposite side and gained a position where he could see McGill's face. Like a shadow he stepped out from behind a boulder and looked at Sap.

What he saw almost caused him to laugh outright. Sap was far from being dead. He was wholly conscious and wholly alive, but ludicrously quiet.

His eyes were popping out of his head. They told that he would beg for his life if he dared so much as to speak. He hardly dared breathe. Great tears of terror were oozing out of his forehead and trickling in copious streams down across his death-like features. The only risk the dullard could take to express his agony was to roll his eyes.

The rattlesnake's head was focused less than twelve inches from his chin, and he knew well that upon the slightest tremor of his body the rattler would stab him in the throat. He knew well that the lightning of the heavens could not emulate the fatal quickness and rapidity of that snake's poisonous blow. For well on to two hours McGill had suffered the agonies of a thousand h.e.l.ls. Lem now spoke to him.

When Lem's words reached McGill's ears, his only sign of comprehension was an added bulge transmitted to his rolling eyes. Standing motionless and in even tones, to avoid startling the rattler, Lem said:

"Well--so yo' got t' yore jest end at last, didn't yo'--egg-dog?

Belle-Ann is a comin' up the trail in a short spell--an' I air a goin'

t' kill yo' 'fore she gits heah, which is a mighty short spell t' live I 'low--so ef a skunk like yo'-all knows a prayer, why now's yore time to think hit--but I advise yo' not t' git up on yore knees er stir roun'

much." Here Lem chuckled tauntingly and gleefully.

"Say--air thet a tame snake yo'-all got thah--eh? Ac's like he wus some kin to yo'-all--say, 'fore y'o go away--just glance yore mind over all th' pesky, onery divilmint yore folks has been a doin' fo' twenty years.

'Member th' day yore old pap shot my dad under th' truce flag thet my maw held up, 'cause we'uns wanted t' have peace--but yore old pap didn't git away, did he?--he was kindy slow-like. Say--yo' know a feller in these mountains named Johnse Hatfield--eh? Did yo'-all ever hern tell on em--eh? Ha-ha-ha! Hit wus a good dance, wusn't hit? Pears like Johnse sort a put a crimp in yore folks down at Junction City thet night--eh?

Say--yo' ugly groun'-dawg--I hain't a killin' yo' exactly fo' all thet--I air only aimin' t' kill yo' onct fer thet--but I air goin' t'

kill yo' twict fo' shootin' a boy--yo' shot a little boy, dedn't yo'--eh? Yo' shot my boy brother twict an' tried t' kill em--didn't yo'--eh? Now I air goin' t' blow yore brains out----"

With his last taunts a dull rush of red rage overspread Lem's countenance, as with a quick, decisive movement he jerked his rifle to his shoulder and fell upon one knee. A groan of despair escaped McGill's bloodless lips now, and the rattlesnake instantly made that fatal loop at the narrow of its neck. Evidently Sap preferred a bullet in the head to a stab in the throat from the yellow monster that was flashing its p.r.o.nged tongue in his face.

"Now I'll show Belle-Ann whut ugly brains yo'-all got," muttered Lem, sighting along the glistening gun barrel.

A piercing shriek of horror rent the air. Belle-Ann was not a hundred feet away. A vivid terror stood in her eyes. She struggled for breath to thwart the tragedy that filled that instant.

"For G.o.d's sake--oh!--for my sake--don't shoot--Lem--Lem--Lem!" she screamed out, terrified, in begging, forbidding, distraught utterances, and collapsed in the path.

But Lem, unheeding, quickly pressed the trigger. There was a pungent crack. The rifle spat out a long, slender tongue of flame. A ragged wisp of blue-white smoke spread out, separated and floated languidly upward.

There was an acrid odor of burnt powder in the air. Across the tenseness of that long, awful moment the soft trill of a catbird grated like the harsh blasphemy of a parrot. The gentle barking of a squirrel impinged like a nerve-shattering noise.