Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 27, 1925 — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

FLIGHT TO woman, whose coming had brought storm, and the man, whose son had stoned her. ~ “This is my show,” the girl made vehe- ment declayation again, her words coming with the rush of a. cascade. ‘ This trouble I came out here to tell you men that Ill go away. You can carry that message back with you. “Nobody warned me before I started that a woman couldn’t come into your Ken- tucky mountains without being mobbed and stirring up a bunch of murders. I thought you welcomed innocent strangers. Well, I know better now. “ Wade Murrell treated me decently, and because of that you talk of throwing him overboard—you're firing out the one man amongst you who can think of other people ahead of himself; and out there in the bushes some low-lived dog is taking pot- shots at him while he stands here in the moonlight talking to supposed friends! All right, I'll get out!” She broke off abruptly from the pas- sionate utterance which had leaped almost without conscious volition from her lips, and stood there hot-eyed and panting with her breast defiantly presented to the ambushed hill. Fear had gone utterly out of her and only a scathing indignation remained. It was Enoch who spoke next, and he did not speak to her. ‘Edge back thar inter ther shadder, Wade,” he ordered. “ Covey, you keep be- twixt him an’ ther hillside whilst he goes.” Enoch Wade's pistol, too, lay ready in his hand, and while he talked his eyes were searching the woods, but he himself did not stir from his place in the brightness of the moon. Wade Murrell had not heeded the com- mand to retreat. He was seeking to shove Cynthia gently aside with his left hand as his right, armed with its pistol, came up, but Enoch spoke again urgently, swiftly. “To what I bids ye, Wade,” he entreated. ‘Git in ther shadder. Don’t suffer yore heedlessness ter peril us all. We kain’t handily desert ye—an’ ther man thet shot woman.” As if he, too, were waking out of a trance, THE HILLS. STi Wade Murrell uttered 2 low ejaculation of self-reproach and swept: the girl backward, with a single gesture of his free arm, into the shadow, then less hurriedly he followed her. It was not the thought that he had started because of me, and I’m no quitter. , been fired on that seemed now to claim the taut focusing of his attention as he stood there, like a man paralyzed, in the full of the dangerous light. It is doubtful whether any fully realized thought of the physical danger had emerged in his mind from a welter of other matters that engaged it. His standing stock-still had been calculated— until the reminder came that others were sharing his peril. Even now, when both Cynthia and him- self were invisible, those two other figures still remained exposed. Enoch Wade gave back deliberately, but strangely enough Covey Small seemed to be seeking the strongest light and to be standing unnatur- ally straight with his face uplifted to catch the silver effulgence, and his features were turned direct toward the laurel from which had come the echo-rousing jet of flame. It was only a matter of moments, and the blue-black slope did not speak again, nor did any weapon here by the house speak back in retort. Then from behind the closed door of the dog run came Aunt Erie’s voice, muted but Self-possessed. “Slip along in ther shadder,” she directed, “I'll open ther back door fer ye. Is airy person hurted?” To Cynthia, the few moments that had been so compact with events had also been - full of mystery. Something bad been going on in the minds of these three men which she had not fathomed—something that had caused Ware Murrell, the consummate woodsman, to d like a wooden Indian instead of taking instant cover—some -hing which had impelled Covey Small to act as if he were deliberately and rather hopefully courting death. In those few instants, too, she had had time to catch back something of her own mental balance. Perhaps she had only made more trouble by intruding on that scene— thet shoot, he hain’t above slayin’ a and her appearance had been Valkyrielike when she had been cautioned above all to maintain a quiet and maidenly demeanor, Co An C NOO SS Co