The Call of the Cumberlands

"Why didn't ye axe him," growled the kinsman of the man who had been

shot, "whar the other feller's at?"

"What other fellow?" echoed the Lexington man.

Jim Hollman's voice rose truculently, and his words drifted, as he

meant them to, across to the ears of the clansmen who stood in the yard

of Spicer South.

"Them dawgs of your'n come up Misery a-hellin'. They hain't never

turned aside, an', onless they're plumb ornery no-'count curs thet

don't know their business, they come for some reason. They seemed

mighty interested in gittin' hyar. Axe them fellers in thar who's been

hyar thet hain't hyar now? Who is ther feller thet got out afore we

come hyar."

At this veiled charge of deceit, the faces of the Souths again

blackened, and the men near the door of the house drifted in to drift

presently out again, swinging discarded Winchesters at their sides. It

seemed that, after all, the incident was not closed. The man from

Lexington, finding himself face to face with a new difficulty, turned

and argued in a low voice with the Hollman leader. But Jim Hollman,

whose eyes were fixed on Samson, refused to talk in a modulated tone,

and he shouted his reply: "I hain't got nothin' ter whisper about," he proclaimed. "Go axe 'em

who hit war thet got away from hyar."

Old Spicer South stood leaning on his fence, and his rugged

countenance stiffened. He started to speak, but Samson rose from the

stile, and said, in a composed voice: "Let me talk ter this feller, Unc' Spicer." The old man nodded, and

Samson beckoned to the owner of the dogs.

"We hain't got nothin' ter say ter them fellers with ye," he

announced, briefly. "We hain't axin' 'em no questions, an' we hain't

answerin' none. Ye done come hyar with dawgs, an' we hain't stopped ye.

We've done answered all the questions them dawgs hes axed. We done

treated you an' yore houn's plumb friendly. Es fer them other men, we

hain't got nothin' ter say ter 'em. They done come hyar because they

hoped they could git me in trouble. They done failed. Thet road belongs

ter the county. They got a license ter travel hit, but this strip right

hyar hain't ther healthiest section they kin find. I reckon ye'd better

advise 'em ter move on."

The Lexington man went back. For a minute or two, Jim Hollman sat

scowling down in indecision from his saddle. Then, he admitted to

himself that he had done all he could do without becoming the

aggressor. For the moment, he was beaten. He looked up, and from the

road one of the hounds raised its voice and gave cry. That baying

afforded an excuse for leaving, and Jim Hollman seized upon it.