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Not a Falin or a Tolliver even reached for a weapon, and the fact was the subtle tribute that ignorance pays intelligence when the latter is forced to deadly weapons as a last resort; for ignorance faced now belching shot-guns and was commanded by rifles on every side. Old Judd was trapped and the Falins were stunned. Old Buck Falin turned his eyes down the line of his men with one warning glance.
Would he tell how he had killed one Falin in the presence of the latter's wife at a wild bee tree; how he had killed a sheriff by dropping to the ground when the sheriff fired, in this way dodging the bullet and then shooting the officer from where he lay supposedly dead; how he had thrown another Falin out of the Court House window and broken his neck the Falin was drunk, Rufe always said, and fell out; why, when he was constable, he had killed another because, Rufe said, he resisted arrest; how and where he had killed Red-necked Johnson, who was found out in the woods?
Across Black Mountain old Dave Tolliver and old Buck Falin had got well of their wounds by this time, and though each swore to have vengeance against the other as soon as he was able to handle a Winchester, both factions seemed waiting for that time to come.
He had arrested a Falin, whose companions straightway took him from custody and set him free. Straightway the constable threw his pistol and badge of office to the ground. "I've fit an' I've hollered fer help," he shouted, almost crying with rage, "an' I've fit agin. Now this town can go to hell": and he picked up his pistol but left his symbol of law and order in the dust.
"There's bowels in the man's body!" cried Mike, "and it isn't the likes of him that has no falin'. Ye don't know what it is to be a father, or ye'd groan in spirit to see a child of yer own in the grip of fiery divils like them same. Isn't he a pratty man, and wouldn't I be sorrowful to hear that he had come to har-r-m?
"What's your name?" The sheriff looked sharply at him for the effect of his answer. "Jim Falin." And Hale looked sharply back at him. He was one of the Falins who long, long ago had gone to the Gap for young Dave Tolliver, and now the Falin grinned at Hale. "I know you all right." No wonder the Falin chuckled at this Heaven-born chance to get a Tolliver into trouble.
The old man's eyes lighted up like a leaping flame. "Will you let Dave out and give him a Winchester and help us fight 'em?" he said eagerly. "We three can whip 'em all." "No," said Hale shortly. "I'd try to keep both sides from fighting, and I'd arrest Dave or you as quickly as I would a Falin."
"So, me hearties, ye'll have to take the will for the dade, an' this little lidden messenger, avic, to show as how we aren't onmindful av ye, sure, an' that there's no ill falin' atwane us!" Yes, we had made every preparation.
"I've heard of him." "Most everybody in these mountains has. He's the feller that's always causin' trouble. Him and Joe Falin agreed to go West last fall to end the war. Joe was killed out thar, and now Rufe claims Joe don't count now an' he's got the right to come back. Soon's he comes back, things git frolicksome agin. He swore he wouldn't go back unless another Falin goes too.
Loretta alone was missing. She was on her way with young Buck Falin to the railroad on the other side of the mountains. Between them not a living soul disturbed the dead stillness of Lonesome Cove. All winter the cabin in Lonesome Cove slept through rain and sleet and snow, and no foot passed its threshold. Winter broke, floods came and warm sunshine.
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