American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1922-08-31
CHATTER X

themselves upon their feet. The ten
sion had broken at last. Her emotion
had been curbed too long. It broke
from her in a food.
She seized his hands, and he started
at their ouch. Don't you under
stand?" she cried. "You-you-you
are Folger's son. You are the boy
that crept out-under this very tree
to find him dead. All my life Elmira
and 1 have prayed for you to come.
And what are o going to dot"
Her face was drawn in the white
light of the moon. For an instant he
seemed dazed.
"Do?" he repeated. 81 don't know
what Tn going to do"
You don't!' she cried, in infinite
scOrn. Are you just clay7 Aren't
you a man? Haven't you got arms to
strike with and eyes to see along a
rifle barrel? Are you a coward-and
a weakling; one of your mothers
blood, to run away2 Haven't you any
thing to avenge? I thought you were
a mountain man-tEat all your years
in cities couldn't take that quality
away from you'll Haven't you any
answer?'
He looked up, a strange light grow
ing or his face. you mean-kiIl-
lng?"
"What else? To kill-never to stop
killing-one after another, until they
are gone! Till Simon Turner and the
whole Turner clan have paid the debts
they owe"
pr,oo -ooo{1o5 &c % 4ro- H.
Turner? Did o say Turnerr" he
asked hoarsely.
Eyes. That's the clans name. L
thought you knew"
Bruce understood now his unpr0-
voked attack on the little boy when
he had been taken from the orphan
age on trial. The boy had been named
Turner, and the nam had been enough
to recall a great and terrible hatred
that he had learned in earliest baby
hood. The name now recalled 1t again;
the truth stood clear at last. II was
the key to all the mystery of his life;
it stirred him more than all of Linda's
words. In an instant all the tragedy
of his babyhood was recalled-the
hushed talk between his parents, the
oaths, the flames in their eyes, and
finally the body he had found lying
so still beneath the pines. 1t was
always the Turner'S, the dread name
, that had filled his baby days with
/, horror. He hadn't understood then.
, 1t had been blind hatred-hatred with
Out understanding or self-analysis.
AS she watched, his mountain blood
, mounted to the ~ascendency. A strange
: transformation came over him. The
g~entleness that he had acquired In his
. years of city life began to fall away
p from him. The mountains were claiHA-
ing him again.
n His voice was cold and hard when
he spoke.
. "Then you and 1 are no relation
whatever .s u-sl a4ShyS
"None." 'HS9~l&&
! but we fight the same nSht now
: Eyes. Until we both wtn-or both
die" =
= Before he could speak again, {
- strange answer came out Of the dark
ness. mot two Of you" a croakfnl
old voice told him. 1t rose, shrill AM
cracked, from the shadows beyond
q the fire. They turned, and the moon
y light showed a bent old figure hob
- bling toward them.
~ It was old Elmira, her zane tapping
along in front of her; and something
-, that caught the moonlight lay In tn,
~ hollow of her left arm. Her eyes still
glowed under the grizzled brows.
"Not two, but three" she corrected
=. in the hollow voice of uncountet
nS years. In the magic of the moOnligh
it seemed quite fitting to both of theK
that she should have come. She wa
one of the triumvirate; they wondere
why they had not missed her befOr,
a. 1t was farther than she had wake
in years, but her spirit had kept he
v up.
She put the glittering object tina
- she carried into Bruce's hands. ]
was a riie-a repeating ~breech-loade
of a famous make and a model O
thirty years before. 1t was such
rifle as lives in legend, with sights a
fine as a razor edge and an accurac
as great as light itself. Loving hand
had polished it and kept 1t in perfe(
condition.
70 Matthew FOlger's rifle" the oil
a. woman explained, "for Matthew Fo
- gers son."
And that is how Bruce Folger n
nj turned 70 the land Of his birth-a
most men do, unless death cheat
them frst-and how he made a paC
% to pay old debts of death.
or (To BE CoNTINUED)