Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 27, 1925 — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

STZ Perhaps,” she said, “one thing at a tine is enough. Right here on Little Flinty the situation is grave. Perhaps we had better leave the other ends loose until these ends are caught up and knotted.” Cynthia had been able to leave her ped to come out to the kitchen for supper that night, and there across the table she had seen Wade Murrell for the first time since her sight had wavered into giddiness, then darkness, in the schoolhouse. Then, he had been a figure of whirling fury, bloodied, tattered and heaving of chest. Now, in corduroys and boots laced to the knees, in a hickory shirt open at the throat, but clean from the wash, he ap- peared a different man. His eyes met hers steadily, and his inquiries were perfunctorily considerate. Yet in her presence he was embarrassed, as if after such an experience he had no sure standards of conduct to guide his bearing or to point his eti- quette. When she had tried to eat and had suc- ceeded only indifferently well, the girl felt that after all she was not yet ready to Jeave her bed for long, and with a mur- mured apology she arose. It seemed to her that both Aunt Erie and her son were re- lieved. It was almost as if these two were waiting for something to happen and pre- ferred to be alone. Perhaps it had not been only a sense of diffidence that had given to the man’s face that air of abstrac- tion as he sat at his meal. Perhaps some graver preoccupation had been back of his silence. At times she had felt that both the mother and the son had paused with their cups or their forks half raised, as if tensely listening. Although it was not yet quite dark, the heavy door stood closed an lamp was lighted. Cynthia’s quick eyes had not missed the fact that against the wall, within the sweep of Wade’s arm, leaned a rifle—and that on its metal surfaces showed fresh oil. Over the whole place had been an air of organized readiness, although no spoken word had referred to it, and now as she stood up to go to her own room again she fancied the other two felt reliefi—as if the ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. decks were being cleared of non-combatants —as if they were left the more nici bees for action. In such a country, she told herself, and at such a time, danger came creeping with the night shadows, and here danger was being discounted with preparation. Cynthia saw that some one had closed her own shutters, and her heart ached almost as much as her bruises—it ached with a weight of foreboding. She could not see the stars now, but she could hear the whippoorwills and the frogs down along the creek bed—and as she had crossed the dog run she had seen that the young moon was riding in transparently clear skies. She threw herself on her bed—and since she was alone here and beyond the need of maintaining a front of maidenly decorum, she lighted a cigarette. Until two days ago she had been an‘ incessant smoker. For a time her mind flashed back to old haunts and old experiences; to the life that had been so ruthlessly cut short—to the man who had died. Then she started at the sound of a deep toned greeting from outdoors. “Hello, thar, hit’s Enoch Wade out hyar,” sting out the voice. “ Kin I come in?” Almost instantly Murrell answered, but his response did not come from the kitchen where Cynthia had left him. Quick in her intuitive processes of stabbing at facts, the girl guessed what had happened. She had had her first hint of the coming of any visitor when she heard that uplifted voice, but Wade Murrell’s quick senses had doubt- less caught earlier and more distant wam- ings. Now he replied from the dog run, where doubtless he had been waiting in the blue-black shadow, as invisible as a ghost. “Who's with ye, Enoch?” he challenged, and Enoch’s answer came _ promptly: “ Hit’s jest me an’ Covey Small.” Covey Small. Cynthia caught that last name with a wild flutter of fear at her heart. The surname was that of the young giant who had urged the mob on to her attack. Probably this was the father or the brother of the hulking bully she had seen this moming hitching his wounded way out of GOMIGDOOo C SS Co