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A half-dozen times he managed to slip over for a few words with Alice Marcum a bit of explanation of a coming event, or a comment upon the fine points of a completed one, until unconsciously the girl's interest centred upon the dashing figure to an extent that she found herself following his every movement, straining forward when his supremacy hung in the balance, keenly disappointed when another wrested the honours from him, and jubilantly exultant at his victories.
"But they ain't be'n no lynchin' done. 'Cause the boys will turn the prisoner over to me an' I'll hustle him acrost to the N. P. an' let him get out of the country." Alice Marcum leaped to her feet: "Oh, are you telling me the truth? How do I know you're not going to lynch him? I told him I'd stay with him and see him through!"
"She rid through us to find out how many of us wasn't dead drunk," said Steve Marcum, still watching the girl as she rode on, toward the woods; "'n' I'm a-thinkin' they'll be down on us purty soon now, 'n' I reckon we'll have to run fer it. Look thar boys!" The girl had stopped at the edge of the woods; facing the town, she waved her bonnet high above her head.
"Just order your hounds to jerk on that rope and I'll show you whether or not I am afraid to die. But let me tell you this, you damned murderer! If any harm comes to that girl to Miss Marcum may the curse of God follow every last one of you till you are damned in a fiery hell! You will kill me now, but you won't be rid of me. I'll haunt you every one to your graves.
With a flashing cross-fire from eye to eye, the two passed, each with his thumb on the hammer of his Winchester. The groups on the court-house steps stopped talking as he rode by, and turned to look at him. He saw none of his own friends, and he went on at a gallop to Rufe Stetson's store. His uncle was not in sight. Steve Marcum and old Sam Day stood in the porch, and inside a woman was crying.
But Steve Marcum, going to search for Isom's body next day, gave old Gabe another theory. He told the miller how Daddy Marcum had called Isom a coward, and Steve said the boy had gone ahead to prove he was no coward. "He had mighty leetle call to prove it to me. Think o' his takin' ole Brayton all by hisself!" he said, with a look at the yellow, heaving Cumberland.
A groaning curse was growled from the window as the girl drew near, and she knew it came from a wounded Marcum who had lately come back from the West to avenge his brother's death. "Why don't you go over to see your neighbor?"
Across the room he could hear Steve telling the three new-comers, with an occasional curse, about Crump's blind, and how he knew that old Brayton was hiring Crump. "Old Steve's meaner 'n Eli," he said to himself, and a flame of the old hate surged up from the fire of temptation in his heart. Steve Marcum was his best friend; Steve had shielded him.
Despite herself the girl shuddered nervously, and ignoring Endicott's proffer of assistance, scrambled to the ground and hastened toward her coach. A young lady who possessed in a high degree a very wholesome love of adventure, Alice Marcum coupled with it a very unwholesome habit of acting on impulse.
To his right Rome saw Steve Marcum speed like a shadow up through a little open space, but he feared to move, for several Lewallens had recognized him, and were watching him alone. He could not even fire; at the least exposure there was a chorus of bullets about his ears. In a moment they began to come obliquely from each side-the Lewallens were getting around him.
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