Part 6

“Yes, I 'lowed I'd swore off from shootin'-scrapes,” he mused; “but I shore have to git in this un. I'd never look Sally an' the childern in the face ag'in ef I was to stand still an' let that dead-shot kill the best friend me an' them ever had. No, Poley, old boy, you've got to enlist this mornin', an' thar hain't no two ways about it. I'd take a drink on it, but a feller's aim ain't wuth a dang when he sees double.”

His attention was suddenly attracted to Floyd, who had left his stool and was putting a revolver into the pocket of his sack-coat. Pole shoved his own cautiously back into his pocket and went to his friend's side.

“What you goin' to do now?” he asked.

“I have just thought of something that ought to be attended to,” was the young merchant's answer. “Is Mel Jones still down there?”

“Yes, I see 'im now through the left-hand window,” said Pole. “Do you want to speak to 'im?”

“Yes.” Floyd moved in the direction indicated, and Pole wonderingly followed. Outside on the pavement, at the corner of the store, Jones stood talking to a group of eager listeners. He stopped when he saw Floyd and looked in the opposite direction, but in a calm voice the young merchant called him.

“Mel, may I see you a minute?”

“Certainly.” The face of the gaunt farmer fell as he came forward, his eyes shifting uneasily.

“I got a message from Jeff Wade just now,” said Floyd.

“Oh, did you?--is that so?” the fellow exclaimed.

“Yes, he says he has a private matter to settle with me, and says he'll be here at the store at twelve. Now, as you see, Mel, there are a good many people standing around--women and children--and somebody might get hurt or frightened. You know where Price's spring is, down behind the old brick-yard?”

“Oh yes, I know where it is, Floyd.”

“Well, you will do me a favor if you will ride out to Wade's and tell him I'll meet him there. He could reach it without coming through town, and we'd escape a lot of prying people who would only be in the way.”

“That's a good idea,” said Jones, his strong face lighting up. “Yes, I'll go tell 'im. I'm glad to see that you are a man o' backbone, Floyd. Some 'lowed that you'd throw up the sponge an' leave fer parts unknown, but Jeff's got to tackle the rale stuff. I kin see that, Floyd. Minnie's raised a lots o' devilment, an' my wife says she don't blame you one bit, but Jeff cayn't be expected to see it through a woman's eyes. I wish you was goin' to meet a man that wasn't sech a dead-shot. I seed Jeff knock a squirrel out of a high tree with his six-shooter that three men had missed with rifles.”

“I'll try to take care of myself, Mel. But you'd better hurry up and get to him before he starts to town.”

“Oh, I'll git 'im all right,” said the farmer, and he went out to the hitching-rack, mounted his horse, and galloped away.

The group Jones had been talking to now drew near.

“It's all off, boys!” Pole said, with one of his inscrutable laughs. “Explanations an' apologies has been exchanged--no gore to-day. Big mistake, anyway, all round. Big, big blunder.”

This version soon spread, and a sigh of relief went up from all sides. Fifteen minutes passed. Pole was standing in the front-door of the store, cautiously watching Floyd, who had gone back to his desk to write a letter. Suddenly the farmer missed him from his place.

“He's tryin' to give me the slip,” Pole said. “He's gone out at the back-door and has made fer the spring. Well, he kin _think_ he's throwed old Pole off, but he hain't by a jugful. I know now which road Jeff Wade will come by, an' I'll see 'im fust ur no prayers hain't answered.”

He went out to the hitching-rack, mounted, and, waving his hand to the few bystanders who were eying him curiously, he rode away, his long legs swinging back and forth from the flanks of his horse. A quarter of a mile outside of the village he came to a portion of the road leading to Jeff Wade's house that was densely shaded, and there he drew rein and dismounted.

“Thar hain't no other way fer 'im to come,” he said, “an' I'm his meat or he is mine--that is, unless the dem fool kin be fetched to reason.”

VIII

THERE was a quilting-party at Porter's that day. Cynthia had invited some of her friends to help her, and the quilt, a big square of colored scraps, more or less artistically arranged in stars, crescents, and floral wreaths, occupied the centre of the sitting-room. It was stitched to a frame made of four smooth wooden bars which were held together at the corners by pegs driven into gimlet-holes and which rested on the backs of four chairs. The workers sat on two sides of it, and stitched with upward and downward strokes, towards the centre, the quilt being rolled up as the work progressed.

Hattie Mayhew was there, and Kitty Welborn, and two or three others. As usual, they were teasing Cynthia about the young preacher.

“I know he's dead in love,” laughed Kitty Welborn. “He really can't keep from looking at her during preaching. I noticed it particularly one Sunday not long ago, and told Matt Digby that I'd be sure to get religion if a man bored it into me with big, sad eyes like his.”

“I certainly would go up to the mourners' bench every time he called for repentant sinners,” said Hattie Mayhew. “I went up once while he was exhorting, and he didn't even take my hand. He turned me over to Sister Perdue, that snaggletoothed old maid who always passes the wine at sacrament, and that done me.”

Cynthia said nothing, but she smiled good-naturedly as she rose from her chair and went to the side of the quilt near the crudely screened fireplace to see that the work was rolled evenly on the frame. While thus engaged, her father came into the room, vigorously fanning himself with his old slouch hat. The girls knew he had been to the village, and all asked eagerly if he had brought them any letters.

“No, I clean forgot to go to the office,” he made slow answer, as he threw himself into a big armchair with a raw-hide bottom near a window on the shaded side of the house.

“Why, father,” his daughter chided him, “you promised the girls faithfully to call at the office. I think that was very neglectful of you when you knew they would be here to dinner.”

“And he usually has a good memory,” spoke up Mrs. Porter, appearing in the door-way leading to the dining-room and kitchen. She was rolling flakes of dough from her lank hands, and glanced at her husband reprovingly. “Nathan, what _did_ you go and do that way for, when you knew Cynthia was trying to make her friends pass a pleasant day?”

“Well, I clean forgot it,” Porter said, quite undisturbed. “To tell you the truth, thar was so much excitement on all hands, with this un runnin' in with fresh news, an' another sayin' that maybe it was all a false alarm, that the post-office plumb slipped out o' my head. Huh! I hain't thought post-office once sense I left here. I don't know whether I could 'a' got waited on, anyway, fer the postmaster hisse'f was runnin' round outside like a chicken with its head chopped off. Besides, I tell you, gals, I made up my mind to hit the grit. I never was much of a hand to want to see wholesale bloodshed. Moreover, I've heard of many a spectator a-gittin' shot in the arms an' legs or some vital spot. No, I sorter thought I'd come on. Mandy, have you seed anything o' my fly-flap? When company's here you an' Cynthia jest try yoreselves on seein' how many things you kin stuff in cracks an' out-o'-way places. I'm gittin' sick an' tired o'--”

“Nathan, what's going on in town?” broke in Mrs. Porter. “What are you talking about?”

“I don't know what's goin' on _now_,” Porter drawled out, as he slapped at a fly on his bald pate with an angry hand. “I say I don't know what's goin' on right at this minute, but I know what was jest gittin' ready to go on when I skipped. I reckon the coroner's goin' on with the inquest ef he ain't afeared of an ambush. Jeff Wade--” Porter suddenly bethought himself of something, and he rose, passed through the composite and palpable stare of the whole room, and went to the clock on the mantel-piece and opened it. “Thar!” he said, impatiently. “I wonder what hole you-uns have stuck my chawin'-tobacco in. I put it in the corner of this clock, right under the turpentine-bottle.”

“There's your fool tobacco,” Mrs. Porter exclaimed, running forward and taking the dark plug from beneath the clock. “Fill your mouth with it, maybe it will unlock your jaw. What is the trouble at Springtown?”

“I was jest startin' to tell you,” said Porter, diving into his capacious trousers-pocket for his knife, and slowly opening the blade with his long thumb-nail. “You see, Jeff Wade has at last got wind o' all that gab about Minnie an' Nelson Floyd, an' he sent a war-cry by Pole Baker on hoss-back as fast as Pole could clip it to tell Floyd to arm an' be ready at exactly twelve o'clock, sharp.”

“I knew it would come,” said Mrs. Porter, a combination of finality and resignation in her harsh voice. “I knew Jeff Wade wasn't going to allow that to go on.” She was looking at her daughter, who, white and wide-eyed, stood motionless behind Hattie Mayhew's chair. For a moment no one spoke, though instinctively the general glance went to Cynthia, who, feeling it, turned to the window looking out upon the porch, and stood with her back to the room. Mrs. Porter broke the silence, her words directed to her daughter.

“Jeff Wade will kill that man if he was fool enough to wait and meet him. Do you think Floyd waited, Nathan?”

“No, he didn't wait,” was Porter's answer. “The plucky chap went 'im one better. He sent word by Mel Jones to Wade that it would be indecent to have a rumpus like that in town on a Saturday, when so many women an' childem was settin' round in bullet-range, an' so if it was agreeable he'd ruther have it in the open place at Price's Spring. Mel passed me as he was goin' to Jeff with that word. It's nearly one o'clock now, an' it's my candid opinion publicly expressed that Nelson Floyd has gone to meet a higher power. I didn't want to be hauled up at court as a witness, an' so, as I say, I hit the grit. I've been tied up in other folks's matters before this, an' the court don't allow enough fer witness-fees to tempt me to set an' listen to them long-winded lawyers talk fer a whole week on a stretch.”

“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Hattie Mayhew. “I'm right sorry for him. He was so handsome and sweet-natured. He had faults and bad ones, if what folks say is true, but they may have been due to the hard life he had when he was a child. I must say I have always been sorry for him; he had the saddest look about the eyes of any human being I ever saw.”

“And he knew how to use his eyes, too,” was the sting Mrs. Porter added to this charitable comment, while her sharp gaze still rested on her daughter.

There was a sound at the window. Cynthia, with unsteady hands, was trying to raise the sash. She finally succeeded in doing this, and in placing the wooden prop under it. There was a steely look in her eyes and her features were rigidly set, her face pale.

“It's very warm in here,” they heard her say. “There isn't a bit of draught in this room. It's that hot cook-stove. Mother, I will--I--”

She turned and walked from the room. Mrs. Porter sighed, as she nodded knowingly and looked after the departing form.

“Did you notice her face, girls?” she asked. “It was as white as death itself. She looked as if she was about to faint. It's all this talk about Floyd. Well, they _were_ sort of friends. I tried to get her to stop receiving his attentions, but she thought she knew better. Well, he has got his deserts, I reckon.”

“And all on account of that silly Minnie Wade,” cried Kitty Welborn, “when you know, as well as I do, Mrs. Porter, that Thad Pelham--” The speaker glanced at Nathan Porter, and paused.

“Oh, you needn't let up on yore hen-cackle on my account,” that blunt worthy made haste to say. “I'll go out an' look at my new hogs. You gals are out fer a day o' pleasure, an' I wouldn't interfere with the workin' of yore jaws fer a purty.”

Mrs. Porter didn't remain to hear Kitty Welborn finish her observation, but followed her daughter. In the dining-room, adjoining, an old woman sat at a window. She was dressed in dingy black calico, her snowy hair brushed smoothly down over a white, deeply wrinkled brow, and was fanning herself feebly with a turkey-feather fan. She had Mrs. Porter's features and thinness of frames.

“Mother,” Mrs. Porter said, pausing before her, “didn't Cynthia come in here just now?”

“Yes, she did,” replied the old woman, sharply. “She _did_. And I just want to know, Mandy, what you all have been saying to her in there. I want to know, I say.”

“We haven't been saying anything to her, as I know of,” said the farmer's wife, in slow, studious surprise.

“I know you have--I say, I know you _have!_” The withered hand holding the fan quivered in excitement. “I know you have; I can always tell when that poor child is worried. I heard a little of it, too, but not all. I heard them mention Hillhouse's name. I tell you, I am not going to sit still and let a whole pack of addle-pated women tease as good a girl as Cynthia is plumb to death.”

“I don't think they were troubling her,” Mrs. Porter said, her face drawn in thought, her mind elsewhere.

“I know they _were!_” the old woman insisted. “She may have hidden it in there before you all, but when she came in here just now she stopped right near me and looked me full in the face, and never since she was a little baby have I seen such an odd look in her eyes. She was about to cry. She saw me looking at her, and she come up behind me and laid her face down against my neck. She quivered all over, and then she said, 'Oh, granny! oh, granny!' and then she straightened up and went right out at that door into the yard. I tell you, it's got to let up. She sha'n't have the life devilled out of her. If she don't want to marry that preacher, she don't have to. As for me, I'd rather have married any sort of man on earth when I was young than a long-legged, straight-faced preacher.”

“You say she went out in the yard?” said Mrs. Porter, absently. “I wonder what she went out there for.”

Mrs. Porter went to the door and looked out. There was a clothes-line stretched between two apple-trees near by, and Cynthia stood at it taking down a table-cloth. She turned with it in her arms and came to her mother.

“I just remembered,” she said, “that there isn't a clean cloth for the table. Mother, the iron is hot on the stove. You go back to the girls and I'll smooth this out and set the table.”

The eyes of the two met. Mrs. Porter took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “I'll go back to the company, but I've got something to say, and then I'm done for good. I want to say that I'm glad a daughter of mine has got the proper pride and spunk you have. I see you are not going to make a goose of yourself before visitors, and I'm proud of you. You are the right sort--especially after he's acted in the scandalous way he has, and--and laid you, even as good a girl as you, liable to be talked about for keeping company with him.”

The girl's eyes sank. Something seemed to rise and struggle up within her, for her breast heaved and her shoulders quivered convulsively.

“I'll fix the cloth,” she said, in a low, forced voice, “and then I'll set the table and call you.”

“All right.” Mrs. Porter was turning away. “I'll try to keep them entertained till you come back.”

IX

BENEATH a big oak Pole stood holding his bridle-rein and waiting, his earnest gaze on the long road leading to Jeff Wade's farm. Suddenly he descried a cloud of dust far ahead, and chuckled.

“He's certainly on time,” he mused. “He must 'a' had his hoss already hitched out in the thicket. Mel made good time, too. The dern scamp wants to see bloodshed. Mel's that sort. By gum! that hain't Wade; it's Mel hisse'f, an' he's certainly layin' the lash to his animal.”

In a gallop, Jones bore down on him, riding as recklessly as a cowboy, his broad hat in one hand, a heavy switch in the other. He drew rein when he recognized Baker.

“Did you deliver that message?” Pole questioned.

“Oh yes, I finally got him alone; his wife seems to suspicion some'n, and she stuck to 'im like a leech. She's a jealous woman, Pole, an' I don't know but what she kinder thought Jeff was up to some o' his old shines. She's in a family-way, an' a little more cranky than common. He was a sorter tough nut before he married, you know, an' a man like that will do to watch.”

“Well, what did he say?” Pole asked, as indifferently as his impatience would allow.

“Why, he said, 'All hunkeydory.' The spring plan ketched him jest right. He said that _one_ thing--o' bloodyin' up the main street in town--had bothered him more than anything else. He admired it in Floyd, too. Jeff said: 'By gum! fer a town dude, that feller's got more backbone than I expected.. He's a foe wuth meetin', an' I reckon killin' 'im won't be sech a terrible disgrace as I was afeard it mought be.'”

“But whar are you headin' fer in sech a rush?” Pole asked.

Jones laughed slyly as he put his hat carefully on his shaggy head and pressed the broad brims up on the sides and to a point in front. “Why, Pole,” he answered, “to tell you the truth, I am headed fer that thar spring. I'm goin' to acknowledge to you that, as long as I've lived in this world, I hain't never been on hand at a shootin'-scrape. Mighty nigh every man I know has seed oodlin's of 'em, but my luck's been agin me. I was too young to be in the war, an' about the most excitin' thing I ever attended was a chicken-fight, and so I determined to see this through. I know a big rock jest above the spring, and I'm a-goin' to git thar in plenty o' time. You let me git kivered all but my eyes, an' I'll run the resk o' gettin' hit from thar up. Whar _you_ makin' fer, Pole?”

“Me? Oh, I'm on the way home, Mel. I seed the biggest rattlesnake run across this road jest now I ever laid eyes on. I got down to settle his hash, but I didn't have anything to hit 'im with, an' I'm done stompin' on them fellers sence Tobe Baker, my cousin, over at Hillbend, got bliffed in the knee-j'int.”

“Well, so long,” Jones laughed. “I'll hunt rattlesnakes some other time. Are you plumb shore you hain't got the jimmies ag'in, Pole? Take my advice an' don't tell anybody about seein' snakes; it sets folks to thinkin'. Why, I seed you once in broad daylight when you swore black spiders was playin' sweepstakes on yore shirt-front.”

“So long, Mel,” Pole smiled. He made a fair pretence at getting ready to mount as Jones galloped away in a cloud of dust. The rider was scarcely out of sight when a pair of fine black horses drawing a buggy came into view. The vehicle contained Captain Duncan and his daughter Evelyn. She was a delicate, rather pretty girl of nineteen or twenty, and she nodded haughtily to Pole as her father stopped his horses.

“You are sure that thing's off, are you, Baker?” the planter said, with a genial smile.

“Oh yes, captain.” Pole had his eyes on the young lady and had taken off his hat, and stood awkwardly swinging it against the baggy knees of his rough trousers.

“Well, I'm very glad,” Duncan said. “I heard you'd told some of the crowd back at the store that it had been settled, but I didn't know whether the report was reliable or not.”

Pole's glance shifted between plain truth and Evelyn Duncan's refined face for a moment, and then he nodded. “Oh yes, it was all a mistake, captain. Reports get out, you know; and nothin' hain't as bad as gossip is after it's crawled through a hundred mouths an' over a hundred envious tongues.”

“Well, I'm glad, as I say,” the planter said, and he jerked his reins and spoke to his horses.

As he whirled away, Pole growled. “Derned ef I hain't a-makin' a regular sign-post out o' myself,” he mused, “an' lyin' to beat the Dutch. Ef that blasted fool don't hurry on purty soon I'll--but thar he is now, comin' on with a swoop. His hoss is about to run from under 'im, his dem legs is so long. Now, looky' here, Pole Baker, Esquire, hog-thief an' liar, you are up agin about the most serious proposition you ever tackled, an' ef you don't mind what you are about you'll have cold feet inside o' ten minutes by the clock. You've set in to carry this thing through or die in the attempt, an' time's precious. The fust thing is to stop the blamed whelp; you cayn't reason with a man that's flyin' through the air like he's shot out of a gun, an' Jeff Wade's a-goin' to be the devil to halt. He's got the smell o' blood, an' that works on a mad man jest like it does on a bloodhound--he's a-goin' to run some'n down. The only thing in God's world that'll stop a man in that fix is to insult 'im, an' I reckon I'll have that to do in this case.”

Jeff Wade was riding rapidly. Just before he reached Pole he drew out his big, silver, open-faced watch and looked at it. He wore no coat and had on a gray flannel-shirt, open at the neck. Round his waist he wore a wide leather belt, from which, on his right side, protruded the glittering butt of a revolver of unusual size and length of barrel. Suddenly Pole led his own horse round until the animal stood directly across the narrow road, rendering it impossible for the approaching rider to pass at the speed he was going.

“Hold on thar, Jeff!” Pole held up his hand. “Whar away? The mail-hack hain't in yet. I've jest left town.”

“I hain't goin' after no mail!” Wade said, his lips tight, a fixed stare in his big, earnest eyes. “I'm headed fer Price's Spring. I'm goin' to put a few holes in that thar Nelson Floyd, ef I git the drap on him 'fore he does on me.”

“Huh!” Pole ejaculated; “no, you hain't a-goin' to see him, nuther--that is, not till me'n you've had a talk, Jeff Wade. You seem in a hurry, but thar's a matter betwixt me an' you that's got to be attended to.”

“What the hell d' you mean?” Wade demanded, a stare of irritated astonishment dawning in his eyes.

“Why, I mean that Nelson Floyd is a friend o' mine, an' he ain't a-goin' to be shot down like a dog by a man that could hit a nickel a hundred yards away nine times out o' ten. You an' me's face to face, an' I reckon chances 'ud be somewhar about equal. I hain't a brag shot, but I could hit a pouch as big as yourn is, at close range, about as easy as you could me.”

“You--you--by God! do you mean to take this matter up?”

Jeff Wade slid off his horse and stood facing Pole.

“Yes, I do, Jeff--that is, unless you'll listen to common-sense. That's what I'm here fer. I'm a-goin' to stuff reason into you ef I have to make a hole to put it in at. You are a-goin' entirely too fast to live in an enlightened Christian age, an' I'm here to call a halt. I've got some things to tell you. They are a-goin' to hurt like pullin' eye-teeth, an' you may draw yore gun before I'm through, but I'm goin' to make a try at it.”

“What the hell do you--”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on, Jeff!” Pole raised a warning hand. “Keep that paw off'n that cannon in yore belt or thar'll be a war right here before you hear my proclamation of the terms we kin both live under. Jeff, I am yore neighbor an' friend I love you mighty nigh like a brother, but I'm here to tell you that, with all yore grit an' good qualities, you are makin' a bellowin' jackass o' yourself. An' ef I let you put through yore present plans, you'll weep in repentance fer it till you are let down in yore soggy grave. Thar's two sides to every question, an' you are lookin' only at yore side o' this un. You cayn't tell how sorry I am about havin' to take this step. I've been a friend to yore entire family--to yore brothers, an' yore old daddy, when he was alive. I mighty nigh swore a lie down in Atlanta to keep _him_ out o' limbo, when he was arrested fer moon-shinin'.”

“I know all that!” growled Wade; “but, damn it, you--”