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All morning they waited silently and patiently, and now the fatal noon was hardly an hour away and not a Falin nor a Tolliver had been seen. Every Falin had been disarmed of his Winchester as he came in, and as yet no Tolliver had entered the town, for wily old Judd had learned of Hale's tactics and had stayed outside the town for his own keen purpose.
That purpose was no less firm in the heart of Hale, and he turned away from the grave, sick with the trick that Fate had lost no time in playing him; for he was a Falin now in the eyes of both factions and an enemy even to June. The weeks dragged slowly along, and June sank slowly toward the depths with every fresh realization of the trap of circumstance into which she had fallen.
A Falin was on trial and the grizzled judge was speaking angrily: "This is the third time you've had this trial postponed because you hain't got no lawyer. I ain't goin' to put it off. Have you got you a lawyer now?" "Yes, jedge," said the defendant. "Well, whar is he?" "Over thar on the jury." The judge looked at the man on the jury. "Well, I reckon you better leave him whar he is.
Wirt Falin agreed, and that's how they made peace to-day. Now Rufe says he won't go at all truce or no truce. My wife in thar is a Tolliver, but both sides comes to me and I keeps peace with both of 'em." No doubt he did, Hale thought, keep peace or mischief with or against anybody with that face of his.
It was so still that it seemed impossible that a tragedy could be imminent, and yet, while he was trying to take the conditions in, one of the quarrelling men Bad Rufe Tolliver whipped out his revolver and before he could level it, a Falin struck the muzzle of a pistol into his back. Another Tolliver flashed his weapon on the Falin.
There were no women in sight, but eight armed men were in front of the door and two of them, a red Falin and a black Tolliver Bad Rufe it was were quarrelling. In every doorway stood a man cautiously looking on, and in a hotel window he saw a woman's frightened face.
With his passing, law and order had become supreme. Neither Tolliver nor Falin came on the Virginia side for mischief, and the desperadoes of two sister States, whose skirts are stitched together with pine and pin-oak along the crest of the Cumberland, confined their deviltries with great care to places long distant from the Gap.
"All right," said Hale; "I'll take your word for it and I'll let him out, if you say so, but " "Right now," thundered old Judd. "Do you know that young Buck Falin and a dozen of his gang are over here after him?" The old man looked stunned. "Whut now?" "They're over there in the woods across the river NOW and they want me to give him up to them.
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