"Why don't you leave the mountains?" strangers had asked; and to each
of them Purvy had replied with a shrug of his shoulders and a short
laugh: "This is where I belong."
But the years of strain were telling on Jesse Purvy. The robust, full-
blooded face was showing deep lines; his flesh was growing flaccid; his
glance tinged with quick apprehension. He told his intimates that he
realized "they'd get him," yet he sought to prolong his term of escape.
The creek purled peacefully by the stile; the apple and peach trees
blossomed and bore fruit at their appointed time, but the householder,
when he walked between his back door and the back door of the store,
hugged his stockade, and hurried his steps.
Yesterday morning, Jesse Purvy had risen early as usual, and, after a
satisfying breakfast, had gone to his store to arrange for the day's
business. One or two of his henchmen, seeming loafers, but in reality a
bodyguard, were lounging within call. A married daughter was chatting
with her father while her young baby played among the barrels and
cracker boxes.
The daughter went to a rear window, and gazed up at the mountain. The
cloudless skies were still in hiding behind a curtain of mist. The
woman was idly watching the vanishing fog wraiths, and her father came
over to her side. Then, the baby cried, and she stepped back. Purvy
himself remained at the window. It was a thing he did not often do. It
left him exposed, but the most cautiously guarded life has its moments
of relaxed vigilance. He stood there possibly thirty seconds, then a
sharp fusillade of clear reports barked out and was shattered by the
hills into a long reverberation. With a hand clasped to his chest,
Purvy turned, walked to the middle of the floor, and fell.
The henchmen rushed to the open sash. They leaped out, and plunged up
the mountain, tempting the assassin's fire, but the assassin was
satisfied. The mountain was again as quiet as it had been at dawn. Its
impenetrable mask of green was blank and unresponsive. Somewhere in the
cool of the dewy treetops a squirrel barked. Here and there, the birds
saluted the sparkle and freshness of June. Inside, at the middle of the
store, Jesse Purvy shifted his head against his daughter's knee, and
said, as one stating an expected event: "Well, they've got me."
An ordinary mountaineer would have been carried home to die in the
darkness of a dirty and windowless shack. The long-suffering star of
Jesse Purvy ordained otherwise. He might go under or he might once more
beat his way back and out of the quicksands of death. At all events, he
would fight for life to the last gasp.