Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-09-24

passion.
AS they talked, sitting on the stile,
Sally held the rife across her knees.
Except for their own voices and the
soft chorus of night sounds. the hills
were wrapped in silence-a silence as
soft as velvet. Suddenly, in a pause,
there came to the girls ears the crack
ing Of a twig in the woods. With the
old, instructive training of the noun
tains she leaped noiselessly down, and
for an instant stood listening with
intent ears. Then, in a low, tense
whisper, as she thrust the gun into
the mans hands, she cautioned:
cit out of sight. Maybe they've
done found out we've come back
maybe they're trailin' vel"
With an instant shock she remem-
bered what mission had brought him
back, and what vas his peril; and he,
too, for whom the happiness of the
moment had swallowed up other
things, came back to a recognition Of
facts. Dropping into the old wood
craft, he melted out of sight into the
shadow, thrusting the girl behind him,
and crouched against the fence, throw
ing the rifle forward, and peering into
the shadows. AS he stood there, bal
ancing the gun once more in his
hands, old instincts began to stir. old
battle hunger to rise, and old realiza-
tions of primitive things to assault
him. Then, when they had waited
with bated breath until they were both
treasured, he rose and swung the
stock to his shoulder several times.
With something like a sigh of con-
tentment, he said, half to himself:
"Hit feels mighty natural ter throw
this old rife-gun up. l reckon maybe
l kin still shoot hit"
81 learned some things down there
at school, Samson" said the girl, slow
ly, "andI wish-I wish you didn't have
to use this"
Jim Asberry is dead" said the mar
gravely.
Eyes," she echoed, Jim Asberry's
dead" She stopped there. Yet, her
sign completed the sentence as though
she had added, "but he was only one of
several. Your vow went farther"
After a moments pause, Samson
added:
Jesse Purvy's dead"
The girl drew back, with a fright
ened gasp. She knew what this meant,
or thought she did.
"Jesse Purvy!" she repeated. "Oh,
Samson, did ye-?" She broke off, and
covered her face with her hands.
mo, Sally" he told her. II didn't
have to-" He recited the days occur
rences, and they sat together on the
stile, until the moon had sunk to the
ridge top.
= = = =
Capt. Sidney Callomb, who had been
dispatched in command of a militia
company to quell the trouble in the
mountains, should have been a soldier
by profession. All his enthusiasms
were martial. His precision was mill
tary. His cool eye had a note of COM
mand which made itself obeyed. He
had a rare gift of handling men, which
made them ready to execute the i'm
possible. But the elder Callomb had
trained his son to succeed him at the
head of a railroad system, and the
young man had philosophically under
taken to, satisfy his military ambitions
with State Guard shoulder straps.
The deepest sorrow and mortifca-
ton he had ever known was that which
came to him when Tamarack Spicer,
his prisoner of wal and a man who had
been surrendered on the strength of
his personal guaranty, had been as
s~assinated before his eyes. In some
fashion, he must make amends. He
realized, too, and it ranked deeply,
that his men were not being genuinely
used to serve the state, but as instru-
ments of the Hollmans, and he had
seen enough to distrust the Hollmans.
Here, in Hixon, he was seeing things
from only n angle. He meant to
learn something more impartial.
Besides being on duty as an officer
of militia, Callomb was a Kentuckian.
interested in the problems of his CON-
monwealth, and, when he went back.
he knew that his cousin, who occupied
the executive mansion at Frankfort.
would be interested in his suggestions.
The governor had asked him to report
his impressions, and he meant to. af-
ter Analysing them.
So, smarting under his impotency,
Captain Callomb came out of his tent
one morning, and strolled across the
curved bridge to the town proper. He
knew that the grand jury was conven-
ing, and he meant to sit as a spectator
in the courthouse and study proceed
ings when they were instructed.
But before he reached the court
house, where for a half-hour yet the
cupola bell would not clang out its
summons to veniremen and witnesses,
he found fresh fuel for his wrath.
He was not a popular man. with