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So that, as the summer came on, matters between the Falins and the Tollivers were worse than they had been for years and everybody knew that, with old Judd at the head of his clan again, the fight would be fought to the finish. At the Gap, one institution only had suffered in spirit not at all and that was the Volunteer Police Guard.
"That was over a game o' cards. One o' the Howards had been winnin', an' Jim Turner, with a pistol, forced him to give back the money he had won. That affair raged a long time. The Logan-Tolliver feud in Rowan County was over an election fo' sheriff. The Logans elected their candidate, an' so the Tollivers killed one o' the Logans at the polls and wounded three others."
I know a good many people, suh, in Norfolk the Goodriches, the Tollivers, and the Crabtrees, suh, but I never had the pleasure of meeting yo' friend, Colonel Hunter. I am happy to say, suh, that I am going back to Virginia to-night, after having spent a week in yo' city with my wife and three daughters.
He knew that there would be no attempt at rescue until Rufe was led to the scaffold, and he knew that neither Falins nor Tollivers would come in a band, so the incoming tide found on the outskirts of the town and along every road boyish policemen who halted and disarmed every man who carried a weapon in sight, for thus John Hale would have against the pistols of the factions his own Winchesters and repeating shot-guns.
Every happening the old man learned through the Red Fox, who, with his huge pistols, was one of the men who escorted Rufe to and from Court House and jail a volunteer, Hale supposed, because he hated Rufe; and, as the Tollivers supposed, so that he could keep them advised of everything that went on, which he did with secrecy and his own peculiar faith.
He experienced no difficulty whatever in finding out all about the Tollivers inside of twenty minutes after his arrival. They were the last members of a shiftless, indolent family who had lived on the edge of Millville for twenty years. When the father and mother died the family broke up.
This was the terror among the Tollivers Bad Rufe, come back from the West to take part in the feud.
He had heard of the feud that had been going on between the red Falins and the black Tollivers for a quarter of a century, and this was Devil Judd, who had earned his nickname when he was the leader of his clan by his terrible strength, his marksmanship, his cunning and his courage.
What had come about was quite natural and ordinary: the Tollivers were anxious to get further away from the scene of their recent crime, to a safer and more obscure haunt than the open camp in the woods. They dared not take the journey in the day time, as they did not wish to be seen by anyone and Bart coming along, they had caught at the idea of sending him on with the wagon and its load.
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.
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