Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 29, 2025
She might be going to her death. Was death then so great a thing? Was it as great as her love? "If I were afraid now," she told herself quietly, "I should know that I do not love Wayne as other women have loved other men. Then I should not deserve to live to love him weakly." From here she could not see MacKelvey, Hume and the others. She knew that by this time they would have crossed the bridge.
I should have spoken then, I should have told MacKelvey, your father, every one. But I hated to, I hated the thought of it, of having people know that Arthur had committed suicide, of having men talk of it. I thought that there would be investigations, of course, but that they would die down. I knew that no man would be accused; it was my secret. I would keep it for Arthur's sake."
MacKelvey was sheriff, it was his duty, and it was his habit, to bring some man to book for every crime committed in the county. It was quite possible that the sheriff had been playing a waiting game throughout the year, and that he was waiting for this man to come back as he must do soon or late.
"They're all the same," Sledge Hume was laughing as he turned and waited a moment for MacKelvey to come up with him. "I never saw a woman yet who wasn't willing to tackle the impossible in a flash and then go to pieces with hysterics in the middle of the job."
"That's the way you serve a warrant, is it? You are going to let the man get away if he wants to, and he has shown us already how he feels about that! You are going to let him slip down to Mexico or work up to the Canadian line." "Easy, Mr. Hume," said MacKelvey slowly. "I've been sheriff in this county for seventeen years.
Hume's anger broke out into a wordy fury. He shook his fist at her prostrate body and cursed. But he did not sneer. There was too deep a wonder in his heart. He knew, they all knew, what it meant to have done what she had done. And MacKelvey, a hard man robbed by her of his prey, took off his hat and lifted her gently and said simply, and in full reverence: "By God!"
If, at this late hour, he went to the sheriff and told the truth, what would be the result? Would it sound like the truth to MacKelvey? To Martin Leland? The summer sped by like one long golden day under its rare blue sky; yet always upon the horizon was that single black cloud.
He did not know the woods here, he lost ground in going about a rocky pile of earth, and MacKelvey caught sight of him. "Hume!" came the big voice. "Hold on!" "Hold on!" It was as though the world, filled with shouting voices, was calling behind him. Like an undertone through it the cool laughter of a woman.
Already, with close to ten miles ahead of him, with Hume still a quarter of a mile to the fore, Wayne Shandon's face had turned white, his shirt was slowly turning red. The bullet from the heavy calibre revolver MacKelvey used had struck in the shoulder. "He's swerved out of his course," was MacKelvey's next thought. "He is losing ground right now.
Hume, that you're not the man to do it!" Hume lifted his shoulders for answer and kicked viciously at the andirons on the hearth. "So you let him get clean away?" demanded Martin, flinging himself into his chair at the table and glowering at MacKelvey. "Why didn't you follow him up?" "Because I wasn't a fool.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking