Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1914-09-22
CONFLICT OF laws
D. GEORGE roxnALL.

hidu stoou " tilt tOp OF hui-
row mountain path, balancing a rifle
in his hands and watching intently
the windings Of the path far below
as each bend was in turn dotted by
group of ascending horsemen.
| On his left the hill dropped down,
almost sheer, for thousand feet.
On his right the sloping summit
ran away from the path in fairly
even and open ground, but some fifty
feet below a high bluff raised itself
above the general contour of the
mountain and lowered over the path
so that from there to a hundred and
fifty feet farther down, where it fell
away, the passage of more than one
man at time was impossible
The man counted the horsemen as
they assembled. One, two, three,
four
He stopped abruptly, pushed his
hair from his eyes, and peered anew
down the mountain. Then a curse Of
mingled anger and perplexity burst
from his lips, and his face took on
on interest that at least redeemed it
from its previous dull lifelessness.
The fifth rider was a woman.
r 1t needed no mental keenness to
decide her identity. There was only
one possibility.
It'was the daughter of the man he
had shot down as the result of count
less insults; the climax of thou
sand interferences that had made life
a misery. 1t was his wife.
The flash of rage and surprise that
had first illuminated his face passed
in a moment and left it dull and
half-dazed. Somehow this upset all
his inbred notions of life-notions
that were too latent, too much the
product of breeding to be called the
cries.
In his primitive mountain world it |
was almost a law of nature that the !
woman went with the man through |
trouble, poverty, quarrels, even muir
der. The mating instinct was their
first, their almost irreyocable law.
Besides, he had felt that with her.
at least, he was justified in the act.
True, the man he had killed was
her father, but with what .untiring
spite he had come between them,
borne tales, sowed insinuations. With
what persistence he had sneered at
their natural though rarely known
fondness for each other, and their
joint pride in their toddling boy.
Killing their poor trife of essential
happiness, he had deserved death
hundred times.
And now his wife, his woman, was
joining his pursuers to hunt him
down. Grimly he resolved that she
should be the only one left to make
The arrest, and he stepped back be- =
hind huge boulder that command
ID a view of the bluff-threatened
oath. 5
He chose this spot in preference to
me nearer the bluff because it gave I
lim the advantage of the. superior
'ange of his weapon over their old
fashioned revolvers. He examined /
he magazine of his rifle and snapped G
[ into place.
BY this time he was lost to all {
sense of responsibility. Human life I
lad ceased to mean anything to him
save as it was embodied in his own q
form. He cast his eyes down the 9
almost impossible path.
cts cinch," said he, cruel with Z
But his heart beat faster, and his c
fingers trembled in their grasp upon
the rifle as the party rounded the last
curve and dismounted, preparatory
to trying that slender road to death. II
Then, as if from knife-stab, his
heart almost stopped beating, a para
lying sense of tragedy gripped and
almost blinded him. L
Like revelation he saw the whole
plan of attack, and in the same Sec
ond he realized that it must be sue
oessful, at least in breaking down his
impregnable defense
For in the arms Of his wife was
his tOddlinp sOn-the only lifa that