Part 50 (2/2)

”Ye hain't no native-born man hyar, Thornton, albeit ye've done sought ter run ther country like some old-time king or lord beyond ther water.... Ye hain't nuthin' but a trespa.s.sin' furriner, nohow--an' we don't love no tyrant. This roof-tree hain't yourn by no better right then ther nest thet ther cuckoo steals from ther bird thet built hit....”

Again he paused, then, added with a sneer:

”We don't even grant ye owners.h.i.+p of thet old walnuck tree--but we aims ter loan hit ter ye long enough ter hang on.” He halted and looked about the place, then with cheap theatricism demanded:

”Who accuses this man? Let him stand ter ther front.”

Three or four dark figures moved unhurriedly toward the centre of the circle, but one who had not been rehea.r.s.ed in his part stepped with a more eager haste to the fore, and that one was Bas Rowlett.

”I don't know es I've rightly got no license ter speak up--amongst men that I kain't _ree_cognize,” he made hypocritical declaration, ”but yit, I kain't hardly hold my peace, because ye come in good season fer me--an' saved my life.”

After a momentary pause, as if waiting for permission to be heard, he went on:

”This man thet I saved from death one time when somebody sought ter kill him laywayed me an hour or so back, an' atter he'd done disarmed an'

maltreated me, he fotched me home hyar ter insult me some more in front of his woman--afore he kilt me in cold blood.... He done them things because I wouldn't censure an' disgust you men thet calls yoreself ther riders.”

Parish Thornton smiled derisively as he listened to that indictment, then he capped it with an ironic amendment.

”We all knows ye're ther true leader of this murder-gang, Bas--ye don't need ter be bashful erbout speakin' out yore mind ter yore own slaves.”

Rowlett wheeled, his swarthy face burning to its high cheekbones with a flush that spread and dyed his bull-like neck.

”All right, then,” he barked out, at last casting aside all subterfuge.

”Ef they h'arkens ter what I says I'll tell 'em ter string ye up, hyar an' now, ter thet thar same tree you an' yore woman sots sich store by!

I'll tell 'em ter teach Virginny meddlers what hit costs ter come trespa.s.sin' in Kaintuck.” He was breathing thickly with the excited reaction from his recent terror and despair.

”Men,” he bellowed, almost jubilantly, ”don't waste no time--ther gallows tree stands ready. Hit's right thar by ther front porch.”

Dorothy had listened in a stunned silence. Her face was parchment-pale but she was hardly able yet to grasp the sudden turn of events to irremediable tragedy.

The irrevocable meaning of the thing she had feared in her dreams seemed too vast to comprehend when it drew near her, and she had not clearly realized that minutes now--and few of them--stood between her husband and his death. Her scornful eyes had been dwelling on the one figure she had recognized: the figure of Sim Squires, whom it had never occurred to her to distrust.

But when several night-riders pushed her brusquely from her place beside her man, and drew his hands together at his back and began whipping cords about his unresisting wrists, the horror broke on her in its ghastly fullness and nearness.

The stress they laid on the mention of the tree had brought her out of the coma of her dazed condition into an acute agony of reality.

There was a fiendish symbolism in their intent.... The man they called a usurper must die on the very tree that gave their home its significance, and no other instrument of vengeance would satisfy them. The old bitterness had begun generations ago when the renegade who ”painted his face and went to the Indians” had sought to destroy it, and happiness with it. Now his descendant was renewing the warfare on the spot where it had begun, and the tree was again the centre of the drama.

Dorothy Thornton thought that her heart would burst with the terrific pressure of her despair and helplessness.

Then her knees weakened and she would have fallen had she not reeled back against the corner of the mantel, and a low, heart-broken moan came, long drawn, from her lips.

There was nothing to be done--yet every moment before death was a moment of life, and submission meant death. In the woman's eyes blazed an unappeasable hunger for battle, and as they met those of her husband they flashed the unspoken exhortation: ”Don't submit ... die fighting!”

It was the old dogma of mountain ferocity, but Parish Thornton knew its futility and shook his head. Then he answered her silent incitement in words:

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