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Hale had had a frank talk with old Judd and the old man agreed that the two had best be married at once and live at the Gap until things were quieter in the mountains, though the old man still clung to his resolution to go West for good when he was done with the Falins. At such a time, then, June was coming home. Hale was beyond Black Mountain when her letter reached him.
Always the talk was of the feud. The killing of this Tolliver and of that long ago was rehearsed over and over; all the wrongs the family had suffered at the hands of the Falins were retold, and in spite of herself June felt the old hatred of her childhood reawakening against them so fiercely that she was startled: and she knew that if she were a man she would be as ready now to take up a Winchester against the Falins as though she had known no other life.
By and by, as old Judd began to mend, overtures of peace came, singularly enough, from the Falins, and while the old man snorted with contemptuous disbelief at them as a pretence to throw him off his guard, Dave began actually to believe that they were sincere, and straightway forged a plan of his own, even if the Tollivers did persist in going West.
Some years since the old man had retired from the leadership, because he was tired of fighting or because he had quarrelled with his brother Dave and his foster-brother, Bad Rufe known as the terror of the Tollivers or from some unknown reason, and in consequence there had been peace for a long time the Falins fearing that Devil Judd would be led into the feud again, the Tollivers wary of starting hostilities without his aid.
I hope you're satisfied that hit hain't him 'stid o' yo' daddy thar." "Are you going to the Gap for a doctor?" "I reckon I can't leave Bub here alone agin all the Falins not even to git a doctor or to carry a love-message fer you." "Then I'll go myself." A thick protest came from the bed, and then an appeal that might have come from a child. "Don't leave me, Juny."
"A gang o' those Falins," said the storekeeper, "they come over lookin' for young Dave Tolliver. They didn't find him, so they thought they'd have some fun"; and he pointed to the hotel sign which was punctuated with pistol-bullet periods. Hale's eyes flashed once but he said nothing.
John Hale had done a great work, but the limit of his activities was that State line and the Falins, ever threatening that they would not leave a Tolliver alive, could carry out those threats and Hale not be able to lift a hand. It was his helplessness that was making him writhe now.
If the Tollivers try to take that man in there, and one of you Falins draws a pistol, those guns there" waving his hand toward the jail windows "will be turned loose on YOU, WE'LL FIGHT YOU BOTH!" The last words shot like bullets through his gritted teeth, then the flash of his eyes was gone, his face was calm, and as though the whole matter had been settled beyond possible interruption, he finished quietly: "The condemned man wishes to make a confession and to say good-by.
Almost at the same time the crowd fell back the other way up the street, there was the hurried tramping of feet and on came the Tollivers, headed by giant Judd, all armed with Winchesters for old Judd had sent his guns in ahead and as the crowd swept like water into any channel of alley or doorway that was open to it, Hale saw the yard emptied of everybody but the line of Falins against the wall and the Tollivers in a body but ten yards in front of them.
"Them Falins have got kinsfolks to burn on the Virginia side and they'd fight me tooth and toenail for this a hundred years hence!" He puffed his pipe, but Hale said nothing. "Yes, sir," he added cheerily, "we're in for a hell of a merry time NOW. The mountaineer hates as long as he remembers and he never forgets."
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