The Prodigal Judge

“This--” the speaker was judge Price; “this is the place for me: They are a warm-hearted people, sir; a prosperous people, and a patriotic people with an unstinted love of count...

“PRICE,” began Mahaffy. They were back in Raleigh in the room the judge called his office, and this was Mahaffy's first opportunity to ease his mind on the subject of the duel,...

Murrell had ridden out of the hills some hours back. He now faced the flashing splendors of a June sunset, but along the eastern horizon the mountains rose against a somber sky....

The judge's and Mr. Mahaffy's celebration of the former's rehabilitated credit had occupied the shank of the evening, the small hours of the night, and that part of the succeedi...

The judge's faith in the reasonableness of mankind having received a staggering blow, there began a somewhat furtive existence for himself, for Solomon Mahaffy, and for the boy....

“How dare you stop my carriage?” cried Betty, with a very genuine anger which for the moment dominated all her other emotions. She struggled to her feet, but Slosson put out a h...

In that bare upper room they had shared, the judge, crushed and broken, watched beside the bed on which the dead man lay; unconscious of the flight of time he sat with his head...

The Quintards had not prospered on the barren lands of the pine woods whither they had emigrated to escape the malaria of the low coast, but this no longer mattered, for the las...

Hannibal had devoted himself loyally to the judge's glorification, and Betty heard all about the letter, the snuffing of the candles and the reward of five thousand dollars. It...

“Hannibal!” the judge's voice and manner were rather stern. “Hannibal, a man rode by here last night on a big bay horse. He said he was looking for a boy about ten years old--a...

The raft drifted on into the day's heat; and when at last Yancy awoke, it was to find Henry and Keppel seated beside him, each solacing him with a small moist hand, while they r...

On that day Hannibal was haunted by the memory of what he had heard and seen at Slosson's tavern. More than this, there was his terrible sense of loss, and the grief he could no...

Norton had ridden down to Belle Plain ostensibly to view certain of those improvements that went so far toward embittering Tom Ware's existence. Gossip had it that he kept the r...

The sheriff had brought the judge's supper. He reported that the crowd was dispersing, and that on the whole public sentiment was not particularly hostile; indeed, he went so fa...

Charley Norton's good offices did not end when he had furnished judge Price with a house, for Betty required of him that he should supply that gentleman with legal business as w...

“Now, Tom,” said Betty, with a bustling little air of excitement as she rose from the breakfast table that first morning at Belle Plain, “I am ready if you are. I want you to sh...

In the deep peace that rested like a benediction on the pine-clad slopes of Scratch Hill the boy Hannibal followed at Yancy's heels as that gentleman pursued the not arduous rou...

It WAS a point with Mr. Ware to see just as little as possible of Betty. He had no taste for what he called female chatter. A sane interest in the price of cotton or pork he con...

But Mr. Yancy was only at the beginning of his trouble. Three days later there appeared on the borders of Scratch Hill a lank gentleman armed with a rifle, while the butts of tw...

Tom Ware was seated alone over his breakfast. He had left his bed as the pale morning light crept across the great fields that were alike his pride and his despair--what was the...

There was the patter of small feet beyond Betty's door, and little Steve, who looked more like a nice fat black Cupid than anything else, rapped softly; at the same time he effe...

Betty Malroy had ridden into the squire's yard during the progress of the trial and when Yancy and Hannibal came from the house she beckoned the Scratch Hiller to her. She was a...

That would unquestionably have been the end of Bob Yancy when he was shot out into the muddy waters of the Elk River, had not Mr. Richard Keppel Cavendish, variously known as Lo...

At about the same hour that the judge was hurling threats and insults at Colonel Fentress, three men were waiting ten miles away at the head of the bayou which served to isolate...

The news of Charley Norton's murder spread quickly over the county. For two or three days bands of armed men scoured the woods and roads, and then this activity quite unproducti...

That afternoon Judge Price walked out to Belle Plain. Solomon Mahaffy had known that this was a civility Betty Malroy could by no means escape. He had been conscious of the judg...

After he had parted with Solomon Mahaffy the judge applied himself diligently to shaping that miracle-working document which he was preparing as an offset to whatever risk he ra...

Bruce Carrington came of a westward-looking race. From the low coast where they had first settled, those of his name had followed the rivers to their headwaters. The headwaters...

Mr. Yancy awoke from a long dreamless sleep; heavy-lidded, his eyes slid open. For a moment he struggled with the odds and ends of memory, then he recalled the fight at the tave...

It had been with no little reluctance that Solomon Mahaffy accompanied Yancy and Cavendish to Belle Plain; he would have preferred to remain in Raleigh in attendance upon judge...

Betty stood under a dripping umbrella in the midst of a drenching downpour, her boxes and trunks forming a neat pyramid of respectable size beside her. She was somewhat perturbe...

The judge had not forgotten his ghost, the ghost he had seen in Mr. Saul's office that day he went to the court-house on business for Charley Norton. Working or idling--principa...

It was not strange that a number of gentlemen in and about Raleigh yielded to an overmastering impulse to visit newer lands, nor was it strange that the initial steps looking to...

Captain Murrell had established himself at Balaam's Cross Roads. He was supposed to be interested in the purchase of a plantation, and in company with Crenshaw visited the numer...

Yancy and Cavendish threw themselves on the sweeps and worked the raft clear of the keel boat, then the turbulent current seized the smaller craft and whirled it away into the n...

Some time later the judge was aware of a step on the path beyond his door, and glancing up, saw the tall figure of a man pause on his threshold. A whispered curse slipped from b...