The Call of the Cumberlands

Samson stood rigid. Here was the confession of one murderer, with no

denial from the other. The truce was of. 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 a magazine pistol. Samson South the

old, and Samson South the new, were writhing in the life-and-death

grapple of two codes. Then, before decision came, he heard a sharp

report inside, and the heavy fall of a body to the floor.

A wildly excited figure came plunging through the door, and Samson's

left hand swept out, and seized its shoulder in a sudden vise 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 cocked rifle close

against the stranger's face. From its muzzle came the acrid stench of

freshly burned powder. "Git outen my road afore I kills ye!"

"My name is Samson South."

Before the astounded finger on the rifle trigger could be crooked,

Samson's pistol spoke from the pocket, and, as though in echo, the

rifle blazed, a little too late and a shade too high, over his head, as

the dead man's arms went up.