"No," said Hale quickly.

"Well, they air, an' all of 'em are going West--Uncle Judd, Loretty and June, and all our kinfolks. You didn't know that?"

"No," repeated Hale.

"Well, they hain't closed all the trades yit," he said, "an' they mought not go mebbe afore spring. The Falins say they air done now. Uncle Judd don't believe 'em, but I do, an' I'm thinkin' I won't go. I've got a leetle money, an' I want to know if I can't buy back Uncle Judd's house an' a leetle ground around it. Our folks is tired o' fightin' and I couldn't live on t'other side of the mountain, after they air gone, an'

keep as healthy as on this side--so I thought I'd see if I couldn't buy back June's old home, mebbe, an' live thar."

Hale watched him keenly, wondering what his game was--and he went on: "I know the house an' land ain't wuth much to your company, an' as the coal-vein has petered out, I reckon they might not axe much fer it." It was all out now, and he stopped without looking at Hale. "I ain't axin'

any favours, leastwise not o' you, an' I thought my share o' Mam's farm mought be enough to git me the house an' some o' the land."

"You mean to live there, yourself?"

"Yes."

"Alone?" Dave frowned.

"I reckon that's my business."

"So it is--excuse me." Hale lighted his pipe and the mountaineer waited--he was a little sullen now.

"Well, the company has parted with the land." Dave started.

"Sold it?"

"In a way--yes."

"Well, would you mind tellin' me who bought it--maybe I can git it from him."

"It's mine now," said Hale quietly.

"YOURN!" The mountaineer looked incredulous and then he let loose a scornful laugh.

"YOU goin' to live thar?"

"Maybe."

"Alone?"

"That's my business." The mountaineer's face darkened and his fingers began to twitch.

"Well, if you're talkin' 'bout June, hit's MY business. Hit always has been and hit always will be."

"Well, if I was talking about June, I wouldn't consult you."

"No, but I'd consult you like h.e.l.l."

"I wish you had the chance," said Hale coolly; "but I wasn't talking about June." Again Dave laughed harshly, and for a moment his angry eyes rested on the quiet mill-pond. He went backward suddenly.

"You went over thar in Lonesome with your high notions an' your slick tongue, an' you took June away from me. But she wusn't good enough fer you THEN--so you filled her up with yo' fool notions an' sent her away to git her po' little head filled with furrin' ways, so she could be fitten to marry you. You took her away from her daddy, her family, her kinfolks and her home, an' you took her away from me; an' now she's been over thar eatin' her heart out just as she et it out over here when she fust left home. An' in the end she got so highfalutin that SHE wouldn't marry YOU." He laughed again and Hale winced under the laugh and the lashing words. "An' I know you air eatin' yo' heart out, too, because you can't git June, an' I'm hopin' you'll suffer the torment o' h.e.l.l as long as you live. G.o.d, she hates ye now! To think o' your knowin' the world and women and books"--he spoke with vindictive and insulting slowness--"You bein' such a--fool!"

"That may all be true, but I think you can talk better outside that gate." The mountaineer, deceived by Hale's calm voice, sprang to his feet in a fury, but he was too late. Hale's hand was on the b.u.t.t of his revolver, his blue eyes were glittering and a dangerous smile was at his lips. Silently he sat and silently he pointed his other hand at the gate. Dave laughed:

"D'ye think I'd fight you hyeh? If you killed me, you'd be elected County Jedge; if I killed you, what chance would I have o' gittin' away?

I'd swing fer it." He was outside the gate now and unhitching his horse.

He started to turn the beasts but Hale stopped him.

"Get on from this side, please."

With one foot in the stirrup, Dave turned savagely: "Why don't you go up in the Gap with me now an' fight it out like a man?"

"I don't trust you."

"I'll git ye over in the mountains some day."

"I've no doubt you will, if you have the chance from the bush." Hale was getting roused now.

"Look here," he said suddenly, "you've been threatening me for a long time now. I've never had any feeling against you. I've never done anything to you that I hadn't to do. But you've gone a little too far now and I'm tired. If you can't get over your grudge against me, suppose we go across the river outside the town-limits, put our guns down and fight it out--fist and skull."

"I'm your man," said Dave eagerly. Looking across the street Hale saw two men on the porch.

"Come on!" he said. The two men were Budd and the new town-sergeant.

"Sam," he said "this gentleman and I are going across the river to have a little friendly bout, and I wish you'd come along--and you, too, Bill, to see that Dave here gets fair play."

The sergeant spoke to Dave. "You don't need n.o.body to see that you git fair play with them two--but I'll go 'long just the same." Hardly a word was said as the four walked across the bridge and toward a thicket to the right. Neither Budd nor the sergeant asked the nature of the trouble, for either could have guessed what it was. Dave tied his horse and, like Hale, stripped off his coat. The sergeant took charge of Dave's pistol and Budd of Hale's.

"All you've got to do is to keep him away from you," said Budd. "If he gets his hands on you--you're gone. You know how they fight rough-and-tumble."

Hale nodded--he knew all that himself, and when he looked at Dave's st.u.r.dy neck, and gigantic shoulders, he knew further that if the mountaineer got him in his grasp he would have to gasp "enough" in a hurry, or be saved by Budd from being throttled to death.

"Are you ready?" Again Hale nodded.

"Go ahead, Dave," growled the sergeant, for the job was not to his liking. Dave did not plunge toward Hale, as the three others expected.

On the contrary, he a.s.sumed the conventional att.i.tude of the boxer and advanced warily, using his head as a diagnostician for Hale's points--and Hale remembered suddenly that Dave had been away at school for a year. Dave knew something of the game and the Hon. Sam straightway was anxious, when the mountaineer ducked and swung his left Budd's heart thumped and he almost shrank himself from the terrific sweep of the big fist.

"G.o.d!" he muttered, for had the fist caught Hale's head it must, it seemed, have crushed it like an egg-sh.e.l.l. Hale coolly withdrew his head not more than an inch, it seemed to Budd's practised eye, and jabbed his right with a lightning uppercut into Dave's jaw, that made the mountaineer reel backward with a grunt of rage and pain, and when he followed it up with a swing of his left on Dave's right eye and another terrific jolt with his right on the left jaw, and Budd saw the crazy rage in the mountaineer's face, he felt easy. In that rage Dave forgot his science as the Hon. Sam expected, and with a bellow he started at Hale like a cave-dweller to bite, tear, and throttle, but the lithe figure before him swayed this way and that like a shadow, and with every side-step a fist crushed on the mountaineer's nose, chin or jaw, until, blinded with blood and fury, Dave staggered aside toward the sergeant with the cry of a madman:

"Gimme my gun! I'll kill him! Gimme my gun!" And when the sergeant sprang forward and caught the mountaineer, he dropped weeping with rage and shame to the ground.

"You two just go back to town," said the sergeant. "I'll take keer of him. Quick!" and he shook his head as Hale advanced. "He ain't goin' to shake hands with you."

The two turned back across the bridge and Hale went on to Budd's office to do what he was setting out to do when young Dave came. There he had the lawyer make out a deed in which the cabin in Lonesome Cove and the acres about it were conveyed in fee simple to June--her heirs and a.s.signs forever; but the girl must not know until, Hale said, "her father dies, or I die, or she marries." When he came out the sergeant was pa.s.sing the door.

"Ain't no use fightin' with one o' them fellers thataway," he said, shaking his head. "If he whoops you, he'll crow over you as long as he lives, and if you whoop him, he'll kill ye the fust chance he gets.

You'll have to watch that feller as long as you live--'specially when he's drinking. He'll remember that lickin' and want revenge fer it till the grave. One of you has got to die some day--sh.o.r.e."

And the sergeant was right. Dave was going through the Gap at that moment, cursing, swaying like a drunken man, firing his pistol and shouting his revenge to the echoing gray walls that took up his cries and sent them shrieking on the wind up every dark ravine. All the way up the mountain he was cursing. Under the gentle voice of the big Pine he was cursing still, and when his lips stopped, his heart was beating curses as he dropped down the other side of the mountain.