Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-07-09

way they filled with Apprehension.
Her militant love would have turned
to hate for Samson, should he have
proved recreant to the mission of re-
prisal in which he was biding his time,
yet the coming of the day when the
truce must end haunted her thoughts.
She came close, and her voice sank
with her sinking heart.
what air hit ?" she tensely demand
ed. what air hit, Samson? What
fer hev We fetched yer gun ter the
f1eld?"
The boy laughed. "Oh, hit amt
nothin' pertic1er," he treasured. Hit
hain't nothin' fer a gal ter fret herself
erbout, only / kinder suspicious
strangers jest now"
"Air the truce busted?" She put the
question in a tense, deep-breathed
whisper, and the boy replied casually,
almost indifferently.
mo. Sally, hit hain't jest ter say
busted. but pears like hits right
smart cracked. l reckon, though" he
added in half-disgust, "nothin' won't
come of hit"
Somewhat treasured, she bethought
herself again of her mission.
This here furriner hain't got no
harm in him, Samson" she pleaded.
HE pears ter be more like a gal than
a man. He's real puny. He's got
white skin and a bow of ribbon on
his neck-an' he paints ~pictchers."
The boys face had been hardening
with contempt as the description adj
vanced, but at the last words a glow
came to his eyes, and he demanded
almost breathlessly:
Paints pictchers? How do ye know
that?"
81 seer 'em. He was p~aintin' III
when he feH often the rock and busted
his arm. It's shore es beautiful es-"
she broke off, then added with a sud
den peal of laughter-ses er FLETCHER"
The young man slipped down from
the fence, and reached for the rife.
The hoe he left where it stood.
"I1l git the nag" he announced
briefly, and swung off without further
parley toward the curling spiral of
smoke that marked a cabin a quarter
of a mile below. Ten minutes later
his bare feet swung against the ribs
of a gray mule and his rife lay bal
anced across the u~nsaddled withers.
| Sally sat mountain fashion behind
him, facing straight to the side.
So they came along the creek bed
and into the sight of the man who
still sat propped against the messy
rock. AS Lescott looked up he closed
the case of his watch and put it back
into his pocket with a smile.
"Snappy work, that!" he called out.
"Just thirty-three minutes. / didn't
believe it could be done
Samson's face was masklike, but
as he surveyed the foreigner, only the
~ingrained dictates of the country's
hospitable code kept put of his eyes
a CLEAN of scorn for this frail mem
Der of a sex which should be stalwart.
'Howdy?" he said. Then he added
suspiciously: What mout yer bust
ness be in these parts, stranger?"
Lescott gave the Odyssey of his wan
derings, since he had rented a mule
at Hixon and ridden through the coun-
try, sketching where the mood prompt
ed and sleeping wherever he found a
hospitable roof at the coming of the
evening.
I'VE come from over on Cripple
shin?" The boy flashed the question
with a sudden hardening of the voice,
and, when he was afirmatively ans
swered, his eyes contracted and bored
s%earchingly into the strangers face.
"Where'd we put up last night?"
Red Bill Hollman's house, at the
mouth of Meeting House fork; do you
know the placer"
Samson's reply was curt.
81 knows hit all right"
There was a moments pause
rather an awkward pause. Lescott'e
mind began piecing together frag-
ments of conversation he had heard,
until he had assembled a sort of men,
tai jigsaw puzzle.
The South Hollman feud had been
mentioned by the more laxative of
his informers, and carefully tabooed
by Understandable among them his
host of last night. 1t now dawned on
him that he was crossing the boun-
dairy and coming as the late guest of
a Holman to ask the hospitality of a
South.
II didn't know whose house it was"
he fastened to explain, until / was
b~enighted and asked for lodging. They
were very kind to me. I'd never seen
them before. I'm a stranger here
abouts."
Samson only nodded. If the explana-
ton failed to satisfy him, it at least
seemed to do so.
Il reckon ye'd better let me holp
We up on tibet old mule" he said;
hits a-comin' on ter be night"
With the mountaineer's aid, Lescott
| a1o m horo6 ocfrido fho mount fhou ho