The Call of the Cumberlands

"Ridin' over ter Misery?" inquired Asberry.

"'Lowed I mout as well."

"Mind ef I rides with ye es fur es Jesse's place?"

"Plumb glad ter have company," drawled Tamarack, They chatted of many things, and traveled slowly, but, when they came

to those narrows where they could not ride stirrup to stirrup, each

jockeyed for the rear position, and the man who found himself forced

into the lead turned in his saddle and talked back over his shoulder,

with wary, though seemingly careless, eyes. Each knew the other was

bent on his murder.

At Purvy's gate, Asberry waved farewell, and turned in. Tamarack rode

on, but shortly he hitched his horse in the concealment of a hollow,

walled with huge rocks, and disappeared into the laurel.

He began climbing, in a crouched position, bringing each foot down

noiselessly, and pausing often to listen. Jim Asberry had not been

outwardly armed when he left Spicer. But, soon, the brakeman's

delicately attuned ears caught a sound that made him lie flat in the

lee of a great log, where he was masked in clumps of flowering

rhododendron. Presently, Asberry passed him, also walking cautiously,

but hurriedly, and cradling a Winchester rifle in the hollow of his

arm. Then, Tamarack knew that Asberry was taking this cut to head him

off, and waylay him in the gorge a mile away by road but a short

distance only over the hill. Spicer held his heavy revolver cocked in

his hand, but it was too near the Purvy house to risk a shot. He waited

a moment, and then, rising, went on noiselessly with a snarling grin,

stalking the man who was stalking him.

Asberry found a place at the foot of a huge pine where the undergrowth

would cloak him. Twenty yards below ran the creek-bed road, returning

from its long horseshoe deviation. When he had taken his position, his

faded butternut clothing matched the earth as inconspicuously as a

quail matches dead leaves, and he settled himself to wait. Slowly and

with infinite caution, his intended victim stole down, guarding each

step, until he was in short and certain range, but, instead of being at

the front, he came from the back. He, also, lay flat on his stomach,

and raised the already cocked pistol. He steadied it in a two-handed

grip against a tree trunk, and trained it with deliberate care on a

point to the left of the other man's spine just below the shoulder

blades.

Then, he pulled the trigger! He did not go down to inspect his work.

It was not necessary. The instantaneous fashion with which the head of

the ambuscader settled forward on its face told him all he wanted to

know. He slipped back to his horse, mounted and rode fast to the house

of Spicer South, demanding asylum.