The Delta independent., 1915-09-17
CHAPTER XVII.

Before the mountain roads were
mired with the coming of the rains,
and while the air held it's sparkle of
autumnal usefulness, Samson South
| wrote to Wilford Horton that if he
| still meant to come to the hills for his
inspection of coal End timber the time
| was ripe. Soon men would appear
bearing transit and chain, drawing a
line which a railroad was to follow to
| Misery and across it to the heart OF
untouched forests and coalfields. With
that wave of innovation would come
the spectators. Besides, Samson's
| fingers were itching to be out in the
hills with a palette and sheaf of
brushes in the society of George Les
cott
For a while after the battle at Hixon
the county had lain in a torpid paraly-
sis of dread. Many illiterate feudists
on each side remembered the directing
and exposed figure of Samson South
seen through eddies of gun smoke, and
believed him immune from death.
With Purvy Goad and HOLMAN the vic
tim of his own hand, the backbone OF
the murder syndicate was broken. Its
| heart udu CedSeu W Dedl. hOSC Iloll
man survivors who bore the potentiali-
ties for leadership had not only signed
pledges of peace, but were afraid to
break them; and the triumphant
Souths, instead of vaunting their vic
tory, had subscribed to the doctrine OF
order and declared the war over
Souths who broke the law were as
speedily arrested as Hollmans. Their
boys were drilling as militiamen and
wonder of wonders the
sons of the enemy to join them. OF
course. these things changed gradual.
ly, but the beginnings of them were
most noticeable In the first few
months, just as a newly painted ano
renovated house is more conspicuous
than one that has long been respecta
BILE.
| Hollman's Mammoth Department
Store passed into new hands, and traf
ficked only in merchandise, and the
town was open to the men and women
of Misery as well as those of Cripple
| shin.
These things Samson had explained
| in his letters to the Lescotts and Hob
ton. Men from down below could still
find trouble in the wink of an eye, by
seeking it. for under all transformation
the nature cr the individual remained
much the same; but, without seeking
! to give offense, they could ride as Sc
curely through the hills as through the
streets of a policed city-and meet
reader hospitality.
And, when these things were dis
/ ~ nranarQd In
cross the Mason-and-Dixon line and
visit the Cumberlands, Adrienne
promptly and definitely announced
that she would accompany her brother
No argument was effective to dissuade
her, and after all, Lescott, who had
been there, saw no good reason why
she should not go with him.
At Hixon, they found that receptive
air of serenity which made the history
of less than three months ago seem
paradoxical and Enthusiastically unreal.
| Only about the courthouse square
where numerous small holes in frame
walls told of fusillades, and in the In
terror of the building itself where the
woodwork was SCARED and torn, and
the plaster freshly patched, did they
find grimly reminiscent evidence.
Samson had not met them at the
town. because he wished their first i'm
pressions of his people to reach them
uninfiuenced by his escort. 1t was
form of the mountain pride-an hon
est resolve to soften nothing, and make
no apologies. But they found arrange
ments made for horses and saddlebags.
and the girl discovered that for her
had been provided mount as evenly
gated as any in her own stables.
When she and her two companions
came out to the hotel porch to start,
they found guide waiting. who said
he was instructed to take them as far
as the ridge, where the sheriff himself
would be waiting, and the cavalcade
struck into the hills. Men at whose
houses they paused to ask dipper of
water, or to make an inquiry, gravely
advised that they had better light and
stay all night" In the coloring for
ests, squirrels scampered and scurried
out of sight, and here and there on the
tall slopes they saw shy-looking chill
dren regarding them with inquisitive
eyes.
The guide led them silently, gazing
in frank amazement, though with defer
entail politeness. at this girl in cord
uroys. who rode cross-saddle, and rode
so well. Yet, 1t was evident that he
would have preferred talking had not
difIidence restrained him. He was a
young man and rather handsome in
shaggy, unkempt way. Across one
cheek ran a long scar still red, and
I'll f,t1 ,1a inta1lt-