Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 11, 1925 — page 105: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

FLIGHT TO Spent, air ye?”’ he demanded furiously. ‘* Wa’al why shouldn’t ye be spent? What else air ye good fer? I hain’t wearied yic. Albeit ye’re fiddlin’ like a fish, I aims ter hev more of hit since I kain’t git me nothin’ better. Go on an’ fiddle till I bids ye stop, ye damn moon-calf!”’ But Cas arose and laid down his instru- ment. “Ym done fer ternight, Lesher,” he insisted. Skidmore was rocking drunkenly before him. It looked as if he would fall, and Cas hoped he would, but he kept his feet. While from the waist down he seemed incapable of codrdination, his right hand, with a strange precision, made a gesture that brought it out before his chest armed, with its finger nursing a pistol trigger. The voice leaped and quavered with the maniac’s uncensored violence. ° “Don’t ye know what ye air, Cas Har- ley?” it demanded. “ Ye’re my nigger slave. Ye’re my white nigger. Goon an’ fiddle, white nigger, till I tires of listenin’ at ye!” Young Harley looked down the muzzle of the pistol, then he sank into his chair, and with sweat on his forehead and stealing down in cold drops under his armpits, he scraped his bow on the strings while murder ate at his heart. Lesher, too, sprawled again in his seat. Never before had the session been so interminably long. The night had worn itself out and dawn was graying the east when, from Skidmore’s relaxed hand, the revolver slid to the floor. Weakly, grop- ingly, Lesher gained his feet and staggered weavingly to the bed. Upen it he threw himself, while his lips, stirring thickly, shaped the words “ Whi- nigger!”’ Cas Harley was insane now. The night had eaten with a corrosive madness into his brain and terror had made him a lunatic with the single thought of killing his persecutor. He arose deliberately from his chair and looked at the unconscious figure on. the bed. Although he was a teetotaller, he poured himself a tin cup brimful of the ee = ie hom and gulped it down like water. “> Kz ——~ =, ale os De rae te SS ae ———— FP Ma ee o ~ ea pet ae = ee = — THE HILLS. Og 2 ee ee ee ey en eee ei ee ga + —y = et Ree = —— ~ — = as = ; _ = Sahay FS —— en SS 259 Slowly a smile spread across his face. He retrieved the weapon that his torturer — had dropped. The fire, which he had re- cently replenished at the profane command of his master, had taken a fresh lease of life and leaped into carmine brilliance. The room was light-flooded. With the revolver, in his hand, Cas Har- ley walked over to the bed. He thrust the muzzle against the breast of the man who lay stupefied. He jabbed the man’s ribs. ‘“ Wake up, damn ye,” he shouted wildly. “ White nigger, am 1?” The man in the bed grunted stupidly as Cas pressed the trigger. The house was filled with a crashing noise and a little stench floated about the room, the stench of saltpeter. Exhausted, drunk and crazed, Cas Har- ley did not at once think of flight. He went callously back to the bed he had been used to occupying and dropped sleepily down on it. But in an hour he was awake again, and a cold realization was chilling him to the marrow. On the other bed sprawled a dead man; a dead man whose death half the country would, rouse itself to avenge. He was the slayer, and he was a Murrell. The short-lived satisfaction of vengeance oozed out of him. He faced a desperate future. He would be hunted down and killed like a scurrying rabbit, or hanged by the neck, till dead. Those were the alternatives—the only ~ alternatives unless— He stopped and mopped his clammy forehead. \.He was a Murrell. Wade knew he was a traitor, but Wade had never yet surrendered a Murrell to Skidmore vengeance without a battle. He could pretend that he shot in self-defense. He could flee for sanctuary, and for a time at least, unless all clan traditions were violated, he would be harbored. If the war broke out afresh, as it un- doubtedly would, his own afiairs would be merged and lost in its composite furies. Yes, the one thing to do was to fle Wade Murrell and demand the clan’s right- \ iit . : ee ful protection for one of its number, ea Z