Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
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.
I'll keep the Falins under guard until you reach the Kentucky line, so that they can't waylay you." If old Judd heard, he gave no sign. He was looking down at the face of his foster-brother his shoulder drooped, his great frame shrunken, and his iron face beaten and helpless. Again Hale spoke: "I'm sorry for all this. I'm even sorry that your man was not a better shot."
"Them mean Falins!" she said contemptuously, and somehow the mere fact that Hale had been even for the moment antagonistic to the other faction seemed to put him in the girl's mind at once on her side, and straightway she talked freely of the feud.
And all the time her hero-worship of Hale went on, fed by the talk of the boardinghouse, her fellow pupils and of the town at large and it fairly thrilled her to know that to the Falins he was now a Tolliver himself.
In that silence and as silently as the silence itself issued swiftly from the line of guards twelve youngsters with Winchesters, repeating shot-guns, and in a minute six were facing the Falins and six facing the Tollivers, each with his shot-gun at his hip. At the head of them stood Hale, his face a pale image, as hard as though cut from stone, his head bare, and his hand and his hip weaponless.
"What's your name?" The sheriff looked sharply at him for the effect of his answer. "Jim Falin." And Hale looked sharply back at him. He was one of the Falins who long, long ago had gone to the Gap for young Dave Tolliver, and now the Falin grinned at Hale. "I know you all right." No wonder the Falin chuckled at this Heaven-born chance to get a Tolliver into trouble.
Not a Falin or a Tolliver even reached for a weapon, and the fact was the subtle tribute that ignorance pays intelligence when the latter is forced to deadly weapons as a last resort; for ignorance faced now belching shot-guns and was commanded by rifles on every side. Old Judd was trapped and the Falins were stunned. Old Buck Falin turned his eyes down the line of his men with one warning glance.
His voice rose clear, steady, commanding: "The law has come here and it has come to stay." "The Falins are here to get revenge on you Tollivers, if you attack us. I know that. But" he wheeled on the Falins "understand! We don't want your help!
Outside Hale still waited, and as his eyes turned from the Tollivers to the Falins, seven of the faces among them came back to him with startling distinctness, and his mind went back to the opening trouble in the county-seat over the Kentucky line, years before when eight men held one another at the points of their pistols. One face was missing, and that face belonged to Rufe Tolliver.
"Yes," he retorted savagely at last, "an' I kept the Falins from killin' HIM," and he stalked away, leaving June blanched and wondering. It was true. Only an hour before, as Hale turned up the mountain that very afternoon at the mouth of Lonesome Cove, young Dave had called to him from the bushes and stepped into the road. "You air goin' to court Monday?" he said. "Yes," said Hale.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking