Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

FLIGHT TO ‘“ Those are pretty different finishes,” she hazarded, ‘“‘ to predict for one and the same man.” ‘“ Thet’s why he’s quare,” was the prompt response, given with a sagely nodded head. ‘“‘ Wade, he was jest a mid-grown boy when ther Murrell-Skidmore war was goin’ on full-blasted—but I reckon thar’s more’n ‘ne Skidmore in hell right now, thet wouldn’t be thar yit, save only fer meetin’ up with Wade. Come on a fight, be hit with rifle-guns or jest fist an’ skull, Wade, he’s in ther dead center of ther ruction. Come thar’s a big meetin’ with a shoutin’ of hallelujahs an’ a tempest of ther Holy Sperit—Wade, he’s thar, too. He’s a mighty man in prayer or battle—either one—an’ thet’s God’s truth.” _“ He’s a quiet enough looking man,” observed Cynthia Meade indifferently. It seemed to her that this was the rustic spirit of boasting about petty neighborhood heroes. She remembered an old vaudeville song entitled “ He’s a devil in his own home town ”——but this paragon of warfare and piety didn’t even have a home town. He hailed from the tall timbers. “La, yes,” went on the older woman, “an’ gin’rally a quiet-spoke man, too. They norates thet ther madder he gits ther quieter he gits—an’ when he gits plumb still like, hit’s right heedful ter tread soft. Thar’s a long scar that runs acrost one temple up close ter his hat brim. A Skid- more bullet breshed along thar when Wade, he was still a boy—but land’s sakes, I’m a strayin’! Thet hain’t what I started out ter tell ye erbout nohow. Ef so be ye’re goin’ to dwell over thar along with ther Murrels, jest watch thet thar scar—an’ when hit turns kinderly white-—don’t con- trary him no further.” ) The girl raised a hand which on yester- day had been fastidiously manicured, and masked a little yawn. ‘Tm afraid I don’t get much kick out of hearing what a dangerous man Mr. Murrell is,’ she said indifferently. “I watch my step with all men, as far as that goes, and I usually see to it that they watch their step with me.” The old wife laughed almost silently. “Wa'al, (m jest a counsellin’ ye be- THE HILLS. 905 times,” she reminded her guest. “ Thar’s one thing as sartain es God’s own word. So long es a woman’s trustin’ herself ter Wade, nobody else hain’t ergoin’ ter harm her.” When the two wayfarers were taking their departure, the household of Tom Ike Quillen stood with them in full quota by the stile. The children, no longer affrighted, raised thin voices and the puppy yapped. The city bred young woman could not guess that these same people might have refused her entertainment altogether but for the passport of Wade Murrell’s com- panionship. She did not understand that the mountain code withholds its ready hos- pitality for one reason which it considers valid, or that to their eyes she was a painted woman wearing the outward trappings of sin and as such more fittingly to be stoned than fed. | But she had come vouched for, and as the two started away, riding double on the mile, the whole-tribe waved and shouted the farewells of established friendship. Cynthia was sitting sidewise on a gunny- sack folded into a sort of cushion over the saddle-bags behind her escort, and though the greasy food and the unclean tins of the dinner table had almost sickened her, the hearty fueling of the provender had started her out again with something like renewed spirits. Even her eyes could begin to see some- thing of the grandeur of the hills beyond the squalid details of hovel habitation. A sense of brooding immensities somehow stole into her realization and made her gasp. From a twisting road at the peak of a ridge she found her eye swinging out over a radius that seemed to spread illimitable space and color before her. Clouds appeared to move on a level with themselves and eagles on spread wings to float beneath them. The man had fallen into a silence which remained unbreakable, and when she asked questions his answers were in clipped monosyllables. Always they seemed boring into more mystifying solitudes, and from backbones of lofty divides they dropped down watersheds into creek beds, where the ripple whispered through corridors all but shut in by chok- GOMIIGIOO S CO