Mam' Linda

ARSON DWIGHT remained two days in the vicinity of his farm waiting gloomily for the discovery and arrest of Pete Warren, his sole hope being that at the last grewsome moment he...

IFTEEN minutes later a spectral group in all truth filed out through the rear door of the store and paused for further orders in the shadow of the wall of the adjoining bank bui...

HE wide avenue which ran north and south and cut the town of Darley into halves held the best and oldest residences. One side of the street caught the full rays of the morning s...

HE young men pretended to be deeply absorbed over their work when the stalwart officer loomed up in the doorway, his broad-brimmed hat well back on his head, the flush of intoxi...

HEN Carson reached the front door of Blackburn's store about nine o'clock that evening, he found it closed. For a moment he stood under the Crude wooden shed that roofed the sid...

HAT afternoon Keith Gordon went to Warren's to tell Helen of Carson's plan for the removal of Pete. She received him in the big parlor, and he found her seated at one of the wid...

HE following night was a cloudless, moonlit one, and restlessly and heart-sore Helen walked the upper floor of the veranda, her eyes constantly bent on the street leading past D...

WEEK went by. Helen Warren had been sitting that warm afternoon in the big bay-window of the parlor. A cooling breeze fanned the old lace curtains inward, bringing the perfume o...

NE morning, three days later, Pole Baker slouched down the street from the wagon-yard and went into Garner & Dwight's office, finding Garner at his desk. The mountaineer looked...

HILE these things were being enacted, Sanders, who had taken supper at Warren's, and Helen sat on the front veranda in the moonlight. Scarcely any other topic than Mam' Linda's...

LOCAL institution in which “the gang” was more or less interested was known as the “Darley Club.” It occupied the entire upper floor of a considerable building on the main stree...

IS breakfast over, Pete shouldered his grubbing-hoe, an implement shaped like an adze, and made his way through the dewy undergrowth of the wood to an open field an eighth of a...

HE big, square court-room was filled to overflowing when at the last moment Carson and Garner arrived. Just inside the door they found old Dwight standing, his battered silk hat...

F the audience was surprised at what next happened, what may be said of the astounded candidate when he saw the powerful form of Mrs. Parsons rise from her seat near him and cal...

IGGIN was no insignificant opponent; he held weapons as powerful as fire applied to inflammable material. The papers were filled with accounts of race rioting in all parts of th...

T the corner of the street Helen encountered Sanders, who was waiting for her. At the sight of him standing on the edge of the sidewalk, impatiently tapping the toe of his neatl...

EAVING Carson Dwight, Wade Tingle, and Bob Smith chatting about the ball in the den the next morning, Garner went to the office, bit off a chew of tobacco, and plunged into work...

ALF an hour later Helen, waiting at the front gate, saw a horse and buggy turn the corner down the street. She recognized it as belonging to Keith Gordon. Indeed, Keith was driv...

HE young men in Carson Dwight's set had an odd sort of lounging-place. It was Keith Gordon's room above his father's bank in an old building which had withstood the shot and she...

N the rear of the long store, at a round table under a hanging-lamp with a tin shade, four young men sat playing poker. The floor of that portion of the room was raised several...

EITH GORDON and Tingle motioned to Garner, and the three stepped out on the sidewalk leaving Blackburn and the candidate together. The street was quite deserted. Only a few of t...

Helen anticipated, the young ladies of the town, her most intimate friends and former school-mates, came in a body that afternoon to see her. The reception formally opened in th...

FTER an almost sleepless night, spent for the greater part in despondent reflections over his failure in the things to which he had directed his hopes and energies, Carson rose...

NE morning, a week later, Pole Baker slouched down the street from the wagon-yard, and, peering into the law-office of Garner & Dwight, he stood undecided on the deserted street...

N his office in one corner of his great grain and cotton warehouse, at a dusty, littered desk before a murky, cobweb-bed window, Garner found old Dwight, his lap full of telegra...

WIGHT reached Darley the following evening shortly after dusk, and rode straight through the central portion of the town and past his office. All day long he had debated with hi...

N Carson Dwight's farm, as the place was not particularly well kept, the negro hands lived in dismantled log-cabins scattered here and there about the fields, or in the edge of...

“I've set my heart on putting this thing through,” he said; “and while it looks kind of shaky, I haven't lost all hope yet. Of course, your reckless remarks about the White Caps...

HAT morning at the usual hour the store-keepers opened their dingy houses in the main street and placed along the narrow brick sidewalks the dusty, stock-worn samples of their w...

HE Warren homestead was in a turmoil of excitement over Helen's return. The ex-slaves of the family for miles around had assembled to celebrate the occasion in quite the ante-be...

T was after dark when he finally reached Springtown and rode through the quiet little street to the only hotel in the village kept by a certain Tom Wyman, whom Dwight knew. Dism...

EHIND the dashing bays the newcomer drove down to Warren's. On the seat beside him sat a negro boy sent from the livery-stable to hold the horses. Sanders was dressed in the hei...

S the prisoner's counsel, Carson had no difficulty in seeing him. At the outer door of the red brick structure, with its slate roof and dormer windows, Dwight met Burt Barrett,...

ARSON was slightly weakened by the loss of blood and the unusual tax on his strength, and yet, wearing a strip of sticking-plaster as the only sign of his wound, he was at the o...

ESPITE the news Pole Baker had brought to town regarding the disposition of the mountaineers to let justice take its formal trend in the case of the negro already arrested, as t...

T was just at the break of day the following morning. Major Warren, who had not retired until late the night before in his perturbed state of mind over the calamity which hovere...

It was no “walk-over” for Carson. Wiggin seemed only more desperately spurred on by every exposition of his underhand chicanery. He died hard. He fought with his nose in the mir...

IMMEDIATELY on parting with Carson, Helen went down to Linda's cottage. Lewis was leaning over the little, low fence talking to a negro, who walked on as she drew near.

“I wasn't taken in till they had done all the work,” Helen smiled. “I was only an honorary addition, elected more to keep my mouth shut than for any other service I could perform.”

N his escape from the sheriff and his deputy, Pete Warren ran with the speed of a deer-hound through the near-by woods. Thinking his pursuers were close behind him, he did not s...

ALF an hour later Garner came in. He walked about the room, a half smile on his face, sniffing the air as if with unctuous delight, casting now and then an amused glance at his...

“You think we made a mistake in that, then?” Carson said. “Well, the pressure was simply too strong, and I had to give way under it. But why do you think it was a bad move?”

|NE beautiful morning near the first of June, as Carson was strolling on the upper veranda at home, waiting for the breakfast-bell, Keith Gordon came by on his horse on his way...

HE next morning when Garner reached the office, he found Carson surrounded by “the gang,” Blackburn was just leaving, his mild eyes fixed gloomily on the sidewalk, and Wade Ting...

EN minutes later, while they still sat on the veranda waiting for Carson's return, they saw Dr. Stone, the Dwights' family physician, alight from his horse at the hitching-post...

T was the day following the burial of the body of Dan Willis. Old man Purdy, whom Carson had gone to see, was at Dilk's cross-roads store with a basket of fresh eggs, which he h...

WO weeks went by. Great changes had come over the temper of the insurgent mountain people. They had gradually come to accept the rescue of Pete Warren as a chance bit of real ju...