The Green Forest tribune., 1915-03-12

 Then he added, with consolidating soft ness: We've been friends long while. Let's talk this thing over be- | fore we fall out"
 Thar haint nothin' to talk over," stormed Aaron. We're jest tryin' ter kill timc till the boys gifts hyar, and | then reckon ye lows ter have me kilt | like yer've had me kill them others | Hit aint no use. I've done sent lem away. When they gifts back hyar, either you'll be in hell, or I'll be on my | way outen the mountings."
 Samson stood rigid. Here was the confession of one murderer. with no denial from the other. The truce was off. Why should he wait? Cataracts seemed to thunder in his brain, and yet he stood there, his hand in his coat pocket, clutching the grip of maga- zine pistol. Samson South the old, and Samson South the new were writhlng in the life-and-death grapple of two codes Then, before decision came, he heard a sharp report inside, and the heavy fall of body to the floor.
 A wildly excited figure came plung- ing through the door, and Samson's left hand swept out and seized it's shoulder in a sudden wise grip.
 Do you know me?" he inquired, as the mountaineer pulled away and crouched back with startled surprise and vicious frenzy.
 | No, damn ye! Git outen my road!' Aaron thrust his cooked rife close against the strangers face. From ! it's muzzle came the acrid stench or freshly burned powder. "Git outen my road afore l kills vel"
 | My name is Samson South"
 Before the astounded finger on the trigger could be crooked, Samson's pistol spoke from the pocket, and, as though in echo, the rifle blazed, little too late and shade too high, over his head. as the dead mans arms went up.
 Except for those two reports there was no sound. Samson stood still, an | ticipating an uproar of alarm. Now he should doubtless have to pay with his life for both the deaths, which would inevitably and logically be at tributed to his agency. But, strangely enough, no clamor arose. The shot in- side had been untitled, and those out | side, broken by the intervening store, did not arouse the house. Purvy's bodyguard had been sent away by Hol- lis on a false alarm Only the women folks" and children remained indoors. and they were drowning with piano any sounds that might have come from without.
 Now Samson South stood looking down, uninterrupted, on what had been | Aaron Hollis as it lay motionless at his feet. There was powder burned hole in the butternut shirt, and only a slender thread of blood trickled into the dirt-grimed cracks between the | blanks.
 l 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 glance showed that Jesse Purvy would no more fight back the l armed
 Samson paused only for 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 wildfire along Misery and Crippleshin 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 elf-defense-would not matter They would prefer to believe that he 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 clump of timber, and, lifting his saddlebags began climbing to a cabin that sat back in a thicketed cove. He was now well within South | territory and the need of masquerade had ended
 The cabin had not for years been oc- cupied It's rooftree was leaning askew under rotting shingles The doorstep was ivy-covered. and the stones of the hearth were broken. But it lay we'll hidden and would serve his purposes.
 Shortly, candle f1ickered inside. before small hand mirror. Scissors and safety razor were for while busy. The man who entered in inn peccable clothes emerged fifteen min utes later-transformed There ap- | peared under the rising June crescent smooth-faced native, clad in stained store clothes, with rough woolen 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.
 | At a point where hand bridge | crossed the skirting creek, the boy | dismounted Ahead of Tim lay the