Part 13 (1/2)

”They're jest a'seekin' ter git ye thar an' hang ye out of hand, Asa.

Tell 'em all ter go everlastin'ly ter h.e.l.l! Ye kin hide out hyar in ther mountains an' five hundred soldiers couldn't never run ye down. Ye kin cross over inter Virginny an' go wharsoever ye likes--but ef ye suffers yoreself ter be took, they'll hang ye outen pure disgust fer ther hills!”

Yes, thought Victor McCalloway, that was just about what would happen.

The boy whom he had been educating to a new viewpoint had, at a stride, gone back to all the primitive sources of his nature, yet he spoke the truth. Then the voice of Asa Gregory sounded again with a measured evenness.

”What does ye think, Mr. McCalloway? I was thar on thet day. I kin hide out hyar an' resist arrest, like ther boy says, an' I mis...o...b..s ef I could git any lavish of justice down thar.”

”I doubt it gravely, sir,” snorted McCalloway. ”By Gad, I doubt it most gravely.”

”An' yit,” went on the other voice slowly, somewhat heavily, ”ef I did foller thet course hit mout mean a heap of bloodshed, I reckon. Hit'd be mightily like admittin' them charges they're amakin' too.” He paused a moment, then rose abruptly from his chair. ”I come ter ask counsel,” he said, ”but afore I come my mind was already done made up. I'm agoin'

over ter Marlin Town termorrer mornin' an' I'm agoin' ter surrender ter Bev. Jett, ther High Sheriff.”

”Don't ye never do hit, Asa,” shouted the boy. ”Don't ye never do hit!”

but McCalloway had risen and in his eyes gleamed an enthusiastic light.

”It's a thing I couldn't have advised, Mr. Gregory,” he said, in a shaken voice. ”It's a thing that may lead--G.o.d knows where--and yet it's the only decent thing to do.”

CHAPTER XI

At the edge of Marlin Town stood the bungalow of the coal company's superintendent, and in its living-room, on either side of a doc.u.ment-littered table, sat two men. One of them, silvered of temple and somewhat portly of stature, leaned back with the tranquillity of complete relaxation after his day's work. His face wore the urbanity of well-being and prosperity, but the man across from him leaned forward with an att.i.tude of nervous tension.

To Larry Masters there was something nettling in the very repose with which his visitor from Louisville crossed his stout and well-tailored legs. This feeling manifested itself in the jerky quickness of hand with which the mine superintendent poured whiskey into his gla.s.s and hissed soda after it from the syphon.

”Won't you fill up, Tom,” he invited shortly. ”The entertainment I can offer you is limited enough--but at least we have the peg at our disposal.”

”Thank you--no more.” Colonel Wallifarro spoke with a pleasingly modulated voice, trained into effectiveness by years of jury elocution.

”I've had my evening's allowance, except for a night-cap.”

Masters rose abruptly from his chair. He tossed down half the contents of his gla.s.s and paced the floor with a restless stride, gnawing at his close-cropped and sandy moustache. His tall, well-knit figure moved with a certain athletic vitality, and his florid face was tanned like a pig-skin saddle-skirt. But his brow was corrugated in a frown of discontent, and his pale blue eyes were almost truculent.

”By Gad, Tom,” he flared out with choleric impetuosity, ”you can put more righteous rebuke into a polite refusal of liquor than most men could crowd into a whole d.a.m.ned temperance lecture. I dare say, however, you're quite right. Life spells something for you. It's worth conserving. You've got a.s.sured position, an adoring family, money, success, hosts of friends. You'd be a blithering fool, I grant you, to waste yourself in indulgence, but I'm not so ideally situated. I 'take the cash and let the credit go.'”

”Yet you have, ahead of you, some ten or twelve years more of life than I can reasonably expect,” was the quiet response. ”You still have youth--or youth's fulfilment--early middle-age.”

”And a jolly lot that means to me,” retorted Masters, with acerbity. ”I live here among illiterates, working for a corporation on a salary pared to the bone. At the time of life when one ought to be at the top of one's abilities, I'm the most pathetic human thing under G.o.d's arching sky--a man who started out with big promise--and fell by the wayside.

Heaven help the man who fires and falls back--and if he can retrieve a bit of temporary solace from that poor subst.i.tute”--he jerked a forefinger toward the bottle--”then I say for Heaven's sake let him poison himself comfortably and welcome.”

Colonel Wallifarro studied the darkened scowl of his companion for a moment before he replied, and when he spoke his own manner retained its imperturbability.

”I didn't offer gratuitous criticism, Larry,” he suggested. ”I merely declined another toddy.”

”You know my case, Tom”--the younger of the two caught him up quickly; ”you know that no younger son ever came out from England with fairer expectations of succeeding on his own. I've been neither the fool nor the s.h.i.+rk--and yet--” A shrug of disgust finished the sentence.

Colonel Wallifarro studied his cigar ash without rejoinder, and when Larry Masters failed to draw a return fire of argument, he sat for a minute or two glumly silent. Then, as his thoughts coursed back into other years, a slow light kindled in his eyes, as if for a dead dream.

”You were always sceptical about Middlesboro, even when others were full of faith--but why?” he demanded. ”To you, with your Bluegra.s.s ideas of fat acres, these hills must always be the ragged fringes of things, a meagre land without a future. It was only that you lacked imagination.”

The speaker swept torrentially on with as much of argumentative warmth as though he had not just confessed himself ruined by reason of his own former confidence.