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Updated: May 21, 2025
To him, June was kinder than ever, because she understood him better and because she was sorry for the hunted, hounded life he led, not knowing, when on his trips to see her or to do some service for her father, he might be picked off by some Falin from the bushes.
All he had heard had been in Hale's favour, except from young Dave Tolliver, the Red Fox or from any Falin of the crowd, which Hale had prevented from capturing Dave. Their statements bothered him especially the Red Fox's evil hints and insinuations about Hale's purposes one day at the mill.
"You're a purty set o' fools, ain't you? I want you all to stop this damned foolishness. Now when I give the word I want you, Jim Falin and Rufe Tolliver thar, to drap yer guns." Already Rufe was grinning like a devil over the absurdity of the situation. "Now!" said the judge, and the two guns were dropped. "Put 'em in yo' pockets." They did. "Drap!"
Within half an hour the Falin came back with the news that there were no signs that the fugitive had yet come in. "No use surrounding the house now," he said, "he might see one of us first when he comes in an' git away. We'll do that atter daylight."
And then why had he been so suspicious and fearful when Hale told him that night that he had seen him talking with a Falin in town the Court day before, and had he disclosed the whereabouts of Rufe Tolliver and guided the guard to his hiding-place simply for the reward? He had not yet come to claim it, and his indifference to money was notorious through the hills.
This Tolliver was covered by another Falin and in so many flashes of lightning the eight men in front of him were covering each other every man afraid to be the first to shoot, since he knew that the flash of his own pistol meant instantaneous death for him. As Hale shrank back, he pushed against somebody who thrust him aside. It was the judge: "Why don't somebody shoot?" he asked sarcastically.
When court opened, the rain ceased, the sun came out and Hale made his way through the crowd to the battered temple of justice. On one corner of the square he could see the chief store of the town marked "Buck Falin General Merchandise," and the big man in the door with the bushy redhead, he guessed, was the leader of the Falin clan.
Uncle Billy's old-maid sister, who lived on Devil's Fork, had been cooking for him at home since the last taking to bed of June's step-mother. Bub had "growed up" like a hickory sapling. Her cousin Loretta hadn't married, and some folks allowed she'd run away some day yet with young Buck Falin.
I saw him talking to one of the Falins in town to-day, behind the barn, when I went to get my horse." "You seed him a-talkin' to a Falin AFORE the trouble come up?" the girl asked slowly and with such significance that Hale turned to look at her. He felt straightway that he ought not to have said that, and the day was to come when he would remember it to his cost.
In spite of window and port-hole the air was close and heavy with the smell of tobacco and the sweat of men. Here and there in the crowd was a red Falin, but not a Tolliver was in sight, and Rufe Tolliver sat alone.
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