The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1921-11-25

He cleared MS thu oat, spat
two fingers at the fire. and turned to
the judge.
Gentlemen O. the jury" growled
the ruling Ball, "have We reached a
verdictT"
1--WE have, yore honor" very prompt.
ly answered the Torrey who was fore
man. "And we ha' found the pris'ner
guilty o. the wust kind o. coldbloOded,
premeditated mudder In the fist de-
gree, yore honor"
Old Ball leveled a knotty foreinger
toward Bill Dale.
"Fo' the KILN o. my son Adam"
he pronounced sentence, "you shT
hang by the neck ontel dead, from a
limb O. this here warnut tree, by gon-
MES, at sunrise In the mornin'."
Although he had we'll known what
the sentence would be, Dale went sud
denly aShen. TSen he took a firm
grip on himself and began TO reason.
He could not hope, he decided, that
the Morelands and the Littlefords
would find him before the sun rose.
They would miss him, of course, and
they would suspect foul play and look
for him; but finding him in that wild
erneSs-it was impossible. 1t became
plain TO him that he would have to
save himself If he were saved. He
believed his best chance lay In his
proving that he was anything but a
coward; the worst m%ountaineer, he
knew, admired q brave man.
So he turned slightly toward the
self-appointed judge and asked calm
ly:
us there anything really game
about your"
"Shore, by gonnies!" quickly. "Tm
all game. I'm the Teller at showed
wildcats how to fight. What about
it?"
"Tll see If you're all game" Dale
said, and he smiled when he spoke.
"Tll make you this proposition: I'll
fight any ten Of you, two at a time,
with five minutes rest between fights
If l whip them all l go free, and If
l don't whip them all / hang immedl-
ately. All parties to be b~arehanded,
no guns and no knives. Are you that
gameT"
Ordinarily, 1t would have been a
thing well nigh impossible to do, much
as Dale knew OF the pugilistic art,
great as was his strength and endur-
ance. But now most of those about
Dale were drunk and therefore weak
ened, and he believed he had a chance
if cid Ball accepted.
But Judge Ball didn't accept. Doubt
fight with Dale.
The CANT be no fghtin' in cote"
he said. "You sh1l hang by the neck
ontel dead, at sunrise in the mornin'."
There was a humble Of approval
from the others. Doubtless they, too,
remembered that the young man whom
they held a captive had once whipped
Black Adam Ball, the mOuntaineer
Goliath, with his bare hands. They
did not have the one good trait that
Dale had hoped they possessed; while
they must have admired him for his
courage, they we're afraid to fight him
without weapons. Dale recalled the
fact that the Balls were not originally
hillfolk, but ~lOwlanders who had taken
to the mountains In order to avoid
being forced to fight during the Civil
war, a people without a principle
The Cherokee TOrreys, Of course, were
even worse.
kitty, kitty, kitty!" Walt Turner
called tauntingly again. "He walked
into the trap like a pore little kitty y
A plowline of half-inch cotton rope
was produced, and the condemned
man was securely bound, standing on
his feet and facing outward, to the
big walnut. Desperate as was his
case, Dale couldn't help being q trile
amused at that part Of 1t. 1t was