Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-09-24
We offhe
CUMBER[ANDS
~ CHARLES NEVILLE BUCN
with ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PH 1S1E rs


ing in the smokehouse and the pep
pers, tobacco and herbs strung high
against the rafters.
Now Samson South stood looking
down, uninterrupted, on what had been
Aaron Hollis as it lay motionless at
his feet. There was a powder-burned
hole in the butternut shirt, and only
a slender thread of blood trickled into
the ~dirt-grimed cracks between the
planks. The body was twisted side
wise, In one of those grotesque atti-
tudes with which a sudden summons
so frequently robs the greatest phe-
men of all it's rightful dignity.
The sun was gliding the roadside
clods and furnishing the green's of the
treetops. The breeze was harping
sleepily among the branches, and sew
eral geese stalked pompously along
the creeks edge. On the top of the
stockade a gray squirrel, sole witness
to the tragedy, rose on his launches,
fiirted his brush, and then, in a sud-
den leap of alarm, disappeared.
Samson turned to the darkened door
way. Inside was emptiness, except for
the other body, which had crumpled
forward and face down across the
counter. A glance showed that Jesse
Purvy would no more fight back the
coming of death. He was quite un-
armed. Behind his spent body ranged
shelves of general merchandise.
Boxes of sardines and cans of peaches
were lined in homely array above him.
His lifeless hand rested as though
flung out in an oratorical gesture on a
bolt of blue calico.
Samson paused only for a momen-
tary survey. His score was clean. He
would not again have to agonize over
the dilemma Of old ethics and new.
Tomorrow the word would spread like
wildire along Misery and C~rippleshin
that Samson South was back and that
his coming had been signalized by
these two deaths. The fact that he
was responsible for only one-and that
in self-defense-would not matter.
They would prefer to believe that he
had invaded the store and killed Purvy
and that Hollis had fallen in his mas
ter's defense at the threshold. Sam
son went out, still meeting no one, and
continued his journey.
Dusk was falling when he hitched
his horse in a elump of timber, and,
lifting his s~addlebags, began climbing
tt a cabin that sat back in a thicketed
cove. He was now we'll within South
territory and the need of masquerade
had ended.
The cabin had not for years been oc-
cupied. Its rooftree was leaning
askew under rotting shingles. The
doorstep was Uncovered, and the
stones of the hearth were broken. But
it lay we'll hidden and would serve his
purposes.
Shortly, a candle fickered inside,
before a small hand mirror. Scissors
and safety razor were for a while
busy. The man who entered In i'm
peccable clothes emerged fifteen min
utes later-transformed- There ap-
peared under the rising June crescent
a smooth-faced native, clad in stained
store clothes, with rough wooden socks
showing at his brogan tops, and a
battered felt hat drawn over his face.
No one who had known the Samson
South of four years ago would fail to
recognize him now. And the strang-
est part, he told himself, was that he
felt the old Samson. He 20 longer
doubted his courage. He had come
home, and his conscience was once
more clear. F..
The mountain roads and the noun
tain sides themselves we're sweetly
silent. Moon mist engulfed the flats
in a lake of dreams, and, as the livery
stable horse halted to pant at the top
OF the final ridge, he could see below
him his destination.
The smaller knobs rose like little
islands out of the vapor, and yonder.
catching the moonlight like scraps of
gray paper. were two roofs-that of
his uncle's house and that of the
Widow Miller.
At a point where a hand bridge
crossed the skirting creek, the boy
~dismounted. Ahead of him lay the
stile where he had said good-by to
Sally. The place was dark, and the
chimney smokeless, but, Is he came
nearer, holding the shadows of the
trees, he saw one silver of light at the
bottom of a solid shutter; the shutter
of Sally's room. Yet, for a while, Sam
son stopped there, looking and max
ing no sound. He stood at his Rubi-
con-and behind him lay all the gilt
ter and culture of that other world, a
world that had been good to him.
That was to Samson South n Of
those pregnant and portentous mo
ments with which life sometimes
punctuates its turning points. At such
times all the set and solidifed strata
that go into the building Of a mans
uaflIro NOV ha unlicensed ond roar.