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"I heered thet Tam'rack was in the jail-house, an' somebody hed ter go ter Hixon. So, of course, I knowed hit would be you." Lescott stayed on a week after that simply in deference to Samson's insistence. To leave at once might savor of flight under fire, but when the week was out the painter turned his horse's head toward town, and his train swept him back to the Bluegrass and the East.
His right hand swept to his left arm-pit. Outwardly he seemed weaponless, but Samson knew that concealed beneath the hickory shirt was a holster, worn mountain fashion. "What air ye a-reachin' atter, Tam'rack?" he inquired, his lips twisting in amusement. "Thet's my business." "Well, get hit out or git out yeself, afore I throws ye offen the clift." Sally showed no symptoms of alarm.
"I've been layin' off ter tell ye somethin', Tam'rack." "Cut her loose." "I laid over in Hixon last week, an' some fellers that used ter know my mother's folks took me down in the cellar of Hollman's store, an' give me some licker." "What of hit?" "They was talkin' 'bout you." "What did they say?"
The mountaineer started, and cast an apprehensive glance about him. The girl laughed, with a deeply bitter note, then she went on: "Oh, you can't see him, Tam'rack. Ye mout hunt all night, but wharever I be, Samson's thar, too. I hain't nothin' but a part of Samson an' I'm mighty nigh ter killin' ye this minute he'd do hit, I reckon." "Come on now, Sally," urged the man, ingratiatingly.
"As man to man," he said, "I pledge you my word that no one shall take him except by process of law. I'm not working for the Hollmans, or the Purvys. I know their breed," For a space, old South looked into the soldier's eyes, and the soldier looked back. "I'll take yore handshake on thet bargain," said the mountaineer, gravely. "Tam'rack," he added, in a voice of finality, "ye've got ter go."
Sally waited, holding her breath, until the sound was repeated. "Who is hit?" she demanded in a low voice. "Hit's me Tam'rack!" came the reply, very low and cautious, and somewhat shamefaced. "What does ye want?" "Let me in, Sally," whined the kinsman, desperately. "They're atter me. They won't think to come hyar." Sally had not seen her cousin since Samson had forbidden his coming to the house.
"Yes, I'm Samson's gal, an' I hain't a-goin' ter kill ye this time, Tam'rack, unlessen ye makes me do hit. But, ef ever ye crosses that stile out thar ag'in, so help me God, this gun air goin' ter shoot." Tamarack licked his lips. They had grown dry. He had groveled before a girl but he was to be spared. That was the essential thing. "I promises," he said, and turned, much sobered, to the door.
It was Samson's rifle. With a sudden cry of restored confidence and a dangerous up-leaping of light in her eyes, she seized and cocked it. The girl stepped forward, and held the weapon finger on trigger, close to her cousin's chest. "Ye lies, Tam'rack," she said, in a very low and steady voice a voice that could not be mistaken, a voice relentlessly resolute and purposeful.
"I'll surely come, when the weather gets warmer," Nan called after Toby as the old man dogtrotted down the bank of the river. But he did not answer and was quickly out of sight. But Margaret Llewellen declared she would not go with her! "It's nasty in the Tam'rack swamp; and there's frogs and, and snakes. Ketch me! And as fur goin' ter see Tobe and his old woman, huh! They're both as ugly as sin."
Whose father was it as planted and I had his own word fer it all these 'ere tam'rack trees, and dug the well by the south door? And seen the lady of the house herself, mind yer, go out 'tween them stone posts fer the last time and darker than pitch it was, too on her way that night she went to meet Henry " At this point the old man was seized by a fit of coughing.
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