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Updated: June 24, 2025
June hesitated and Rufe leaned one elbow on the table, and the light in his eyes beat with fierce intensity into the girl's eyes into which came a curious frightened look that Hale remembered the same look she had shown long ago when Rufe's name was mentioned in the old miller's cabin, and when going up the river road she had put her childish trust in him to see that her bad uncle bothered her no more.
Isom lay on his bed within the circle of light, and his face in the brilliant glow was white, and his eyes shone feverishly. "Rome," he said, excitedly, "Uncle Rufe's hyeh, 'n' they laywayed him, 'n' " He paused abruptly. His mother came in, and at her call the mountaineers trooped through the covered porch, and sat down to supper in the kitchen.
What was he afraid of? There were admittedly brown bears and Californian lions on the mountain; and a grizzly visited Rufe's poultry yard not long before, to the unspeakable alarm of Caliban, who dashed out to chastise the intruder, and found himself, by moonlight, face to face with such a tartar.
His horse was lame but he must go on: so he hired a "yaller" mule from the landlord, and when the beast was brought around, he overheard two men talking at the end of the porch. "You don't mean to say they've made peace?" "Yes, Rufe's going away agin and they shuk hands all of 'em." The other laughed. "Rufe ain't gone yit!" The Cumberland River was rain-swollen.
Rufe shook his head with angry impatience, and Hale, thinking he had some communication to make, ignored his refusal to answer. "I hear that a fellow can't blow a whistle or holler, or shoot off his pistol in this town without gittin' arrested." "That's true why?" Rufe's black eyes gleamed vindictively. "Nothin'," he said, and he turned to his horse.
He got Jim, but ole Jas has got him, 'n' thar's his cross thar yit! Whar's yo' gun, Rome? Shame on ye, boy!" The wild-eyed old woman was before him. She had divined Rufe's purpose, and was already at his side, with Rome's Winchester in one hand and a clasp-knife in the other. Every man was on his feet; the door was open, and the boy Isom was at the threshold, his eyes blazing from his white face.
Dave grunted and Rufe's voice came again: "Ain't no danger, I reckon, of her tellin' on me?" "No," said her father gruffly, and the door banged. No, thought June, she wouldn't, even without her father's trust, though she loathed the man, and he was the only thing on earth of which she was afraid that was the miracle of it and June wondered.
"Now release him!" said Dolores quietly, and Rufe was left standing alone, his hands tied, but his feet unfettered. He glared around as if he saw a slim chance yet for life; the hope died the next moment, for Dolores signed to the men at the rope, they began hauling, and the terror leaped into Rufe's eyes afresh.
Very well, we propose to prove that now," and then she had heard her name called. The proof that was to send Rufe Tolliver to the scaffold was to come from her that was why she was there. Her lips opened and Rufe's eyes, like a snake's, caught her own again and held them. "He said he was going over to the Gap "
It had been a certain mitigation of his trouble that, thanks to his mother's caution, the children at home knew nothing of the disgrace that had fallen upon him, and that there, at least, the atmosphere was untainted with suspicion. The next moment he was impressed by the singularity of Rufe's mention of the missing grant and its place of concealment.
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